REFORMERS & REVOLUTION
These two brothers attempted to reform Roman land ownership and defend the interests of poorer citizens before both were killed in political violence.
Who were Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus?
This Roman general rose to fame during the Jugurthine War and the defeat of the Cimbrii was eventually elected consul an unprecedented seven times.
Who was Gaius Marius?
This enslaved Thracian gladiator led Rome’s greatest slave rebellion beginning in 73 BCE.
Who was Spartacus?
These three enormously powerful Romans formed the unofficial political alliance known as the First Triumvirate.
Who were Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus?
Caesar conquered this enormous region of western Europe during campaigns from 58–50 BCE.
What is Gaul?
These enormous estates owned by wealthy Romans increasingly replaced the small farms of ordinary citizens.
What were latifundia?
Marius helped expand recruitment of these Romans into the army, strengthening soldiers’ dependence on their generals for rewards and land.
Who were landless citizens?
Spartacus and roughly seventy companions escaped from a gladiator school in this Italian city.
What is Capua?
This member of the First Triumvirate was Rome’s richest man and had previously crushed the revolt of Spartacus.
Who was Marcus Licinius Crassus?
This Gallic leader united many tribes against Caesar during the final major resistance to Roman conquest.
Who was Vercingetorix?
This Gracchi brother proposed redistributing public land to poorer Romans before being killed in 133 BCE.
Who was Tiberius Gracchus?
This Roman general became the first to march his own legions against Rome in 88 BCE.
Who was Sulla?
This enormously wealthy Roman commander was finally given responsibility for crushing Spartacus’s rebellion.
Who was Marcus Licinius Crassus?
Caesar strengthened his alliance with Pompey by arranging Pompey’s marriage to this woman.
Who was Julia, Caesar’s daughter?
In this 52 BCE battle in this Gallic town, Caesar trapped and captured Vercingetorix after a prolonged and desperate double siege.
What was Alesia?
The murder of the Gracchi helped establish this increasingly dangerous method for settling political disagreements in the late Republic.
What is political violence?
Sulla used these published lists to legally condemn political enemies to death and confiscate their property.
What were the proscriptions?
Crassus used this brutal punishment method to discipline his troops during the Servile Wars, in which 1 in every ten men in the unit was beaten to death by their comrades.
What was decimation?
This famous Roman statesman, lawyer, and orator became one of the Senate’s leading defenders of the Republic and a major political opponent of Caesar’s growing power.
Who was Cicero?
Caesar’s decision to cross this river with his army began open civil war against Pompey and the Senate.
What is the Rubicon?
This conservative senator and relative of Tiberius Gracchus led the group that killed Tiberius and his supporters in 133 BCE.
Who was Scipio Nasica?
This Hellenistic king of Pontus became famous for experimenting with poisons and ordered the massacre of tens of thousands of Romans and Italians in the Asiatic Vespers.
Who was Mithridates VI?
Spartacus paid this unsavory lot to transport his slave army to Sicily. They took his payment and sailed away without providing the ships, trapping his forces on the Italian peninsula. The same lot who later captured Caesar!
Who were the Cilician pirates?
This conservative faction in the Roman Senate opposed Caesar and other populares, defending traditional senatorial authority against politicians who appealed directly to the people.
Who were the Optimates?
After a rapid victory in Asia Minor, Caesar summarized his triumph with the famous words “Veni, vidi, vici”—meaning this.
What is “I came, I saw, I conquered”?