Gaius julius caesar strabo
Cinna decided to try and assassinate Pompey Strabo and his son (the future Pompey the Great), and managed to win over Pompey junior's tent mate Lucius Terentius. Octavius summoned one of those armies, under Pompey Strabo, to Rome, but after his arrival Stabo camped outside the city, and for some time it wasn't clear whose side he would take. In some areas the Social War was still smouldering away, and some of the armies raised for that conflict were still intact. Octavius and Cinna didn't have the only armies in Italy. He also had the support of a number of other aristocrats, amongst them Marius the Younger and the able Quintus Sertorius. He was able to win over this army, and combined with his Italian troops this gave him a powerful force. Instead he began to raise an army from the Italian towns near Rome, and then won over an army that was at Capua (perhaps engaged in the ongoing siege of Nola, which had fallen to the Samnites during the Social War and was still in their hands). The Senate declared that Cinna could be deposed as consul, and selected Lucius Merule, the priest of Jupiter, as his replacement.Ĭinna didn't take his defeat lying down. Cinna attempted to save his position by offering freedom to any slaves who joined him, but this failed.
Octavius gathered a mob of his own, attacked Cinna's supports and drove them out of the city. On the day of the vote Cinna's supporters dominated the forum, and rioted after the tribunes vetoed the law. Even so Octavius was able to gain the support of the old voters, and some of the tribunes of the plebs. In theory this would have allowed the numerous Italians to swamp the existing Roman voters, but in practice very few Italians would have been able to come to Rome to vote in person.
Cinna put forward a law to distribute the new voters in the existing voting tribes. The new citizens had been allocated to eight new voting tribes, which would always be called to give their results last, meaning that their votes would rarely ever count. Sulla was either confident enough in the security of his reforms to ignore this or worried about his own safety, and set off for the east.Ĭinna's next act was to try and gain support from the new Italian citizens, who had been granted citizenship as a result of the Social War. At about the same time Sulla's fellow consul from 88 BC, Quintus Pompeius, was murdered while attempting to take command of Pompey Strabo's army, which was still in the field after the Social War. Cinna took a stone to the Capitol, and prayed that if he did not maintain his goodwill towards Sulla then he would be cast out of the city, just as the stone was thrown from his hand.Īs soon as his own term as consul began in 87 BC Cinna broke this promise and appointed Virginius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, to impeach Sulla for his actions. Cinna was a known opponent of Sulla, and in an attempt to make sure that his reforms would survive once he was in the east, Sulla made the new consul-elect take an oath to support his policies. His own candidates were defeated, and instead Cinna and Gnaeus Octavius were elected. Sulla saw himself as representing the legitimate government of Rome, and so despite his military victory he allowed the elections for 87 BC to go ahead as normal. He may also have introduced a number of reforms, although these might also be dated to the aftermath of his second civil war. Sulla undid Sulpicius's laws, and regained his command. Sulla refused to accept his defeat, and convinced his army at Nola to march on Rome and take control of the city ( battle of the Esquiline Forum, 88 BC). Sulla's attempts to stop this failed and he was forced to flee from the mob. The elderly Gaius Marius also wanted the command, and he allied with Sulpicius, one of the tribunes of the plebs, to get Sulla's command transferred to him. In 88 BC Sulla was serving as consul, and had been given command of the war against Mithridates VI of Pontus ( First Mithridatic War). Livy mentions him as a commander against the Marsians alongside Metellus Pius, probably in 88 BC.
#Gaius julius caesar strabo pro
He is mentioned in Cicero's Pro Fonteio, where he is included in a list of men of Praetorian rank who commanded during the Social War. We know very little about Cinna before his bid for the consulship in 87 BC. Lucius Cornelius Cinna (d.84 BC) was a leader of the opposition to Sulla, and helped overthrow Sulla's supporters after Sulla's first march on Rome, but was killed just before Sulla returned to Italy at the start of Sulla's Second Civil War.