The emergence of the Roman politically interventionist legion in 88 BC : an integrated theory
Date
2014
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Pollock, Antony James
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The conventional explanation, ancient and modern, for the emergence for the first time of the politically interventionist legion in the Roman Republic's history outside the southern Italian city of Nola in 88 BC, rests primarily on the idea that soldiers intervened in politics because of pecuniary self-interest: that is, what they could materially gain from the arrangement. According to this perspective, a mercenary spirit had infected the late-republican citizen-militia which was subsequently exploited by insurrectionist generals such as L. Cornelius Sulla. This was largely possible because C. Marius in 107 BC abolished the traditional timocratic underpinnings of republican military service by allowing the previously-ineligible poor into the army, making pecuniary self-interest the dominant motivation for service in late-republican armies. In isolation and out of context, however, this is an unsatisfactory explanation for intervention. Soldiers had always expected to profit from war: this was a factor in 88 BC, but it was not the new, critical ingredient of late-republican military service that led to large-scale political intervention. Marius' 107 BC recruitment reform did not change the demographic makeup of the army, and the poor had always been represented in service in large numbers without this previously leading to insurrectionist or mercenary armies that were a danger to the state. Instead, Sulla's soldiers intervened for a range of other factors. A process of desensitisation to the risk of fighting fellow citizens, the citizen-militia's tradition of insubordination in political cause and as a forum for the redress of personal grievance, and the pernicious influence of contemporary endemic violence on Roman political discourse - along with the desire to profit from war - all played their part in persuading the army to support Sulla's sedition. In the background, too, was confusion among Sulla's soldiers over who legitimately represented the state. This confusion allowed Sulla to reinforce his credentials to legitimacy, reinforcing the soldiers' decision to help him. There was thus no single economic motive dominating the explanation for intervention. Rather, all these factors acted in unison, and on that day outside Nola in 88 BC, together they proved decisive. For the Republic, it meant that the emergence of the politically interventionist legion, and its subsequent persistent presence in late-republican political dynamics, was all but inevitable.
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