Right and a Left by the words 'Optimates' and 'Populares' could in fact be older than the days of Sulla,
for the programmes and methods of the Gracchi gave shape to such a division. But it was Sulla's
legislation that made explicit the dominance of the Senate that had developed in the third and second
centuries B.C. and started to be seriously challenged in the middle of the second. It was, in essence,
Sulla's view of the proper balance of the constitution that became the bulwark of the Optimates. And it
was the struggle over the modification of his laws, principally in 70, that gave definition to the popularis
ratio.
In speaking of Optimates and Populares we are speaking of ideological labels, not of organized political
parties. Indeed 'popularis', as applied to people, normally refers to leading politicians with a certain
political style, not to leaders and followers, and usually to a succession of such leaders, not a group
working together. A popularis was a politician who used and defended the powers of the popular
assemblies and the popular office of tribune as a counterweight to senatorial authority and/or
championed such economic measures as land distribution, debt cancellation, and subsidized corn.
In the years immediately following the resurrection of the tribunate some ambitious men held the office
and sponsored legislation that the establishment regarded as a threat. Gabinius even threatened to re-
enact the most notorious act of Tiberius Gracchus (above, pp. 411 f.) and depose his colleague from
office rather than accept his veto. The kind of left-wing image affected by the tribune Rullus in 63 who,
according to Cicero, grew his hair long and took to wearing dirty old clothes and a farouche expression;
the self-advertisement of his colleague Labienus who put a statue of his uncle, the martyred tribune
Saturninus, on the rostra-these were only to be expected of young men on the make; they might yet end
as stalwart supporters of the Senate. For there is no warrant to assume sincerity, or even consistency, in
the conduct of Roman politicians. Indeed the prime example of ambiguity and opportunism was the
restorer of the tribunate himself.
Pompey
Though he had inherited from his father some connection with Marius' ally Cinna, Pompey raised an
army of his father's clients in Picenum and joined Sulla on his return from the East. For his ruthlessness
in destroying Sulla's enemies in Sicily and Africa he acquired the nickname 'teenage butcher'; for his
selfish ambition he earned the distrust of his own side. From the dictator, who had treated him as an
exception to his own rules and allowed him to command legions when he had not held public office,
Pompey extorted a triumph. After being cut out of Sulla's will for supporting Lepidus, he then
suppressed Lepidus' rebellion and used his troops to extort the Spanish command from the Senate. In
Spain he managed to steal the limelight from Metellus Pius, who was already making headway against
the rebel general Sertorius, and then returned to Italy to do the same to Crassus. After dealing with some
fugitives from the rising led by the gladiator Spartacus, Pompey wrote to the Senate that Crassus had
conquered the slaves, but that he himself had extirpated the war.
Pompey had nothing to lose by a shake-up of the Sullan system. He had made too many enemies to fit
comfortably into Optimate politics: only the presence of his army in Italy had secured him senatorial