Pompey Appointed Sole Consul: The Republic at Breaking Point
The Roman senate made Pompey sole consul in 52 BC, an office that by definition had two holders. The Republic had spent the previous three years unable to hold an election. Rival gangs run by Clodius and Milo fought in the streets, candidates bribed on a scale that emptied the credit markets, and the consular elections for 53 were held in July of that year. The crisis broke in January 52 when Clodius was killed in a brawl on the Appian Way and his supporters cremated him in the senate house, burning it down. The senate then had to choose between anarchy and a dictator, and Cato — of all people — proposed a formula that avoided the word: Pompey to be consul without a colleague, which preserved the appearance of the constitution while giving him a dictator's authority. He restored order with troops in the city, passed laws against bribery and violence with retrospective effect, and had Milo convicted in a trial where Cicero was too intimidated by the soldiers to deliver the speech he had prepared. He then took a colleague for the last five months, his new father-in-law. The consulship is the point at which Pompey moved from Caesar's ally to the senate's instrument. Julia, his wife and Caesar's daughter, had died in 54 and Crassus at Carrhae in 53, and the arrangement that had held the Republic together was gone. Caesar crossed the Rubicon three years later. The formula is also the clearest sign of what had happened to the constitution. To avoid appointing a dictator the senate invented an office with a dictator's powers and a consul's name, and every participant knew exactly what they were doing.
- Year: 52 BCE
- Category: Political
