power, and after conceding sovranty to the assembly of the People was able to frustrate its exercise. The two consuls remain

the habit of observing that nobody should be called rich who was not able to maintain an army on his income. 2 Crassus shou

yed Sulla’s system but left the nobiles nominally in power. They were able to repel and crush the attempt of the patrician d

rs of Carthage and of Spain, belonged only to the past. They had been able to show only one consul in the preceding generati

over to their side the power and prestige of Pompeius. They would be able to deal with Pompeius later. It might not come to

or to the State. During the previous three years Caesar had not been able to influence the consular elections to much effec

Dictator Sulla) had been prosecuted in the courts, but rescued by the able defence of an eloquent lawyer to whom he had lent

r high finance against Caesar. 1 The financier Atticus will have been able to forecast events with some accuracy and face th

, against her sister and the ministers of the Ptolemaic Court; and an able adventurer, Mithridates of Pergamum, raised an ar

policy of his city or influence a whole region of Italy3 he might be able , like the Roman noble, to levy a private army fro

rned upon the Caesarian consul. Marcus Antonius was one of the most able of Caesar’s young men. A nobilis, born of an illu

ht surrender his provincial command, that Brutus and Cassius would be able to return to Roman political life. 4 NotesPage=

ice. 1 Nothing came of it for the moment: at need, he would always be able to purchase one or other of the ten members of th

d no talent for slow intrigue, no taste for postponed revenge. Though able beyond expectation as a politician, he now became

r 86), was an astute politician above, p. 19. In politics the son was able to enjoy support from Pompeius and Caesar, as wit

’ PageBook=>134 of the Antonian consular Q. Fufius Calenus, an able politician. 1 Pansa, however, encouraged Octavian

r and to praise him, he will put up with servitude. ’3 But Cicero was able to hold out against Caesar. Though in the Senate

(summer, 43 B.C.). PageBook=>148 virtus (without always being able to prevail against posterity or the moral standar

Octavianus. Hirtius and Pansa, at the head of armies, might have been able to arrest hostilities after the defeat of Antoniu

llentia. Brutus fell into the trap and turned westwards. Antonius was able to enter Gallia Narbonensis unmolested. He reache

ed bounty, for Octavianus the consulate. The latter request they were able to support with a wealth of historical precedents

ore eminent, through family connexions and social influence, had been able to evade proscription, such as the father of Brut

blican victory by protecting the mother of Brutus. 4 Atticus was also able to save the knight L. Julius NotesPage=>192

of Varro, wealthy landowners, cf. above, p. 31. 4 In 45 B.C. he was able to provide Caesar with six thousand muraenae for

minant at Rome. In December of the year 44 B.C. the Senate had been able to count only seventeen ex-consuls, the majority

ttle. They commanded both the Ionian Sea and the Aegean. If they were able to prolong the campaign into the winter months, t

,4 succumbed with good will but did not surrender. The Queen, who was able to demonstrate her loyalty to the Caesarian party

izen? No enemy in Italy, Marsian or Etruscan, no foreign foe had been able to destroy Rome. Her own strength and her own son

firm enough governing his provinces were the most prominent and most able members of that party, the consulars Pollio, Plan

ge. It waned with the years and absence in the East. Octavianus was able to win over more and more of the leading senators

Antonius. Again, Republicans in the company of Sex. Pompeius might be able to influence Antonius or Lepidus: they had done s

ontinued, an ancient line of the aristocracy of Lucania. 4 These were able or unscrupulous military men, the first of new fa

latian Amyntas (formerly secretary to King Deiotarus) and Polemo, the able son of Zeno of Laodicea, received kingdoms. Other

cate the Queen of Egypt he would have to depose her. Yet he was quite able to repel her insistent attempts to augment her ki

t a legally valid marriage with a foreign woman. PageBook=>281 able to retain all his partisans or prevent their adhe

tified a Catilinarian venture and armed treason against a consul, was able to invoke the plea of a ‘higher legality’. Agains

to the legions to stand in battle against their kinsmen. He might be able to employ sea-power with a mastery that neither P

let alone understood in full significance. Being consul (and perhaps able to invoke tribunician power)1 Octavianus possesse

ions for land and security would be recognized, the soldiers had been able to baffle politicians, disarm generals and avert

he wealthy in the Principate of Augustus. None the less, Isidorus was able to bequeath sixty million sesterces in ready cash

the People as their ideal. The Romans, who distrusted democracy, were able to thwart the exercise of popular sovranty throug

dangerous only if they had armies and even then they would hardly be able to induce the soldiers to march against their pat

owing of the Princeps. Of his allies among the young nobiles the most able , the most eminent and the most highly prized were

ticians were gross and scandalous. When the elder Balbus died, he was able to bequeath to the populace of Rome a sum as larg

and system of a city state was clumsy, wasteful and calamitous. Many able men lacking birth, protection or desperate ambiti

ent, ‘auctores publici consilii’. But that government had seldom been able to present a united front in a political emergenc

ears they were growing old or had disappeared: a new constellation of able and distinguished consulars was available for the

discover fields to spread his personal influence. No governor now was able to enlist whole communities and wide regions in h

cegerent departed from the East twelve years before. In the meantime, able men had governed Syria the veteran Titius, not he

whim of either party. Few indeed of the great ladies would have been able or eager to claim, like Cornelia, the epitaph i

e line of a Callimachus than was contemporary history. Propertius was able to recount ancient legends and religious observan

eir enemies. 3 Augustus did not forget his friends and allies: he was able to preserve from justice a certain Castricius who

d them all by heart. 7 But Cassius did not go unscathed. This man, an able and vigorous orator of obscure origin, resembling

ion and despotism. 6 His works were condemned and burnt. Augustus was able to prevent his domination from being stamped as t

nsian faction comes to power. New men had ever been pressing forward, able , wealthy or insinuating, devoted to the governmen