I. THE REVOLT OF LEPIDUS, 78–77 B.C.

Catulus and Lepidus quarrelled again as they left Sulla’s funeral, and Lepidus soon stepped up his agitation. He promised to rescind Sulla’s acts, to recall those who had been driven into exile and to restore their lands to those who had been dispossessed to make way for Sulla’s veterans. He may also have succeeded in passing a law reviving distributions of cheap corn. Another issue promptly raised and constantly debated in the years that followed was the tribunate. It seems, though the text of Licinianus is uncertain, that the tribunes of 78 asked the consuls to restore the tribunician power, but that Lepidus was the first to refuse and surprisingly convinced a majority of those present that such a measure would serve no useful purpose. If so, then he later changed his mind and championed the tribunate, allegedly in the interests of concord.

These squabbles may have been enough to inspire the consul Catulus to introduce his law against public violence, though it may equally have been a response to the more serious disturbances that soon arose. The simmering discontent created by Sulla’s expropriations in many parts of the Italian countryside boiled over in one of the worst-hit areas, Etruria. The Sullan colonists at Faesulae were attacked by men who had lost their land and in some cases their citizen rights as well. The Senate was sufficiently alarmed to send both consuls to suppress the rising. What happened next is obscure, but Lepidus seems to have put himself at the head of the insurgents and clashed with Catulus, who was prepared to use force to resist him. But instead of giving Catulus firm backing the Senate imposed an oath to keep the peace on both consuls and, to placate Lepidus and get him out of Italy, took the dangerous step of assigning him Transalpine Gaul, perhaps with Cisalpina too, since we find that the latter province was occupied in 77 by Lepidus’ legate M. Iunius Brutus. No doubt many senators could not face the prospect of another civil war that might culminate in another capture of Rome and the loss of their newly restored authority. But then, feeling that it had humoured Lepidus enough, the Senate summoned him to Rome to hold the consular elections.