One of the major themes of the late Roman Republic, especially in its post-Gracchan phases, was the conflict between the formal institutions of state power (the Senate, the regularly-elected magistrates) and the emergence of ever more powerful individuals who were able ot stand successfully outside the sphere of formally delegated state powers. Gaius Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla 'the Lucky' were latere seen as two of the major formative figures in this history of the rapidly changing configurations of ower in the later Roman Republic. In terms of their ability to claim power and authority at the head of the Roman state, however, both of these men were 'success stories.' By contrast, it would be instructive to consider a less successful man caught up in this same process: a a man who, compared to them, would be judged a 'failure' -- one who did not succeed in asserting the legitimacy of his power in the state as a whole. Such an unfortunate man was Quintus Sertorius. His adult life spanned the critical decades of the Italian War and its aftermath. Unlike Sulla, he was not so 'Lucky'. He ended his life a loser, murdered in the far western, remote region of Spain.
Questions: Other than the actual events involved in Sertorius' rise to power, can you see thematic pattens in the way in which he acquired power? To what extent were his powers concentrated in his personal skills and resources, and to what extent were they derived from legitimate government institutions? Why was he apparently less successful in entrenching his power at the center than, say, Marius and Sulla? What does his career tell us about the nature of power in the Roman state in the critical decades of the 80s and 70s -- what generalizations can you make about the functioning of power given the behavior of a 'less successful' man like Sertorius? Was he, do you think, more or less typical? And typical of what?
Discussion and Questions Copyright 1998-2000, Prof. Brent D. Shaw.