Social War (91-88 BC): Rome's Italian Allies Revolt

The Social War (91-88 BC) was a war between the Roman Republic and many of its Italian allies, the socii, who rebelled because they were denied Roman citizenship. The rebels formed their own state, called Italia, and fought Rome’s armies to a standstill before Rome conceded. By the end of the war, Roman citizenship had been extended to almost all of Italy south of the River Po, transforming Rome from a city-state into the capital of a unified Italian nation.

Background: allies without a vote

Rome had controlled peninsular Italy since the early 3rd century BC through a network of treaties. Communities such as the Marsi, Samnites and Etruscans kept local self-government but had to supply troops for Rome’s wars. By the 2nd century BC the allies often provided more than half of the soldiers in Roman armies.

They shared in the risks of Rome’s conquests far more than in the rewards. Without citizenship they could not vote, could not stand for office in Rome and lacked legal protection against Roman magistrates. Roman land laws, such as those of the Gracchi reforms, could also threaten land the allies occupied.

Proposals to give them citizenship were made in 125 BC by Marcus Fulvius Flaccus and in 122 BC by Gaius Gracchus, but both failed. In 95 BC a law expelled Italians who had illegally registered as citizens, deepening resentment.

Drusus and the outbreak (91 BC)

In 91 BC the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus, son of Gaius Gracchus’s opponent, put forward a broad programme, including land distribution, changes to the courts and full citizenship for the allies. He had close links with Italian leaders such as Quintus Poppaedius Silo of the Marsi.

Drusus’s laws were annulled, and in the autumn of 91 BC he was stabbed to death at his house by an unknown assassin. With their last hope of peaceful change gone, the allies prepared for war.

The revolt broke out at Asculum in Picenum, where the people killed a Roman magistrate, the proconsul Quintus Servilius, his legate and the Romans in the town. The rebellion spread quickly through the central and southern Apennines.

The rebel state of Italia

The rebels were mainly peoples of central and southern Italy: the Marsi, Paeligni, Vestini, Marrucini, Picentes and Frentani in the north, and the Samnites, Hirpini, Lucanians and others in the south. Most Latin colonies, the Greek cities, and at first the Etruscans and Umbrians stayed loyal to Rome.

The rebels set up a federal state with its capital at Corfinium, in the Apennines east of Rome, renamed Italia. It had a senate of 500 members, two consuls and twelve praetors, closely modelled on Roman government. Poppaedius Silo led the northern group and the Samnite Gaius Papius Mutilus the southern.

Italia struck its own silver coins, some inscribed in Oscan, the language of the Samnites, as Víteliú, meaning Italy. A famous design shows the Italian bull goring the Roman she-wolf.

The course of the war

The rebels were experienced soldiers, trained and equipped in the Roman way, which made the war unusually hard. In 90 BC the consul Publius Rutilius Lupus was killed in an ambush near the River Tolenus, and Roman armies suffered several defeats. Gaius Marius, serving as a legate, won some successes in the north.

The other consul of 90 BC, Lucius Julius Caesar, campaigned in the south with mixed results. Fearing that the revolt would spread to Etruria and Umbria, he passed the lex Julia late in the year, granting citizenship to Latins and allies who had not rebelled.

In 89 BC the tide turned. The consul Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great, captured Asculum after a long siege. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, as a legate, campaigned in Campania and Samnium, taking Aeclanum and the Samnite town of Bovianum. The consul Lucius Porcius Cato was killed in battle against the Marsi.

By 88 BC most resistance had ended. Poppaedius Silo was killed in battle, though some Samnites held out and joined the later civil wars.

Citizenship laws

Rome won the war partly through legislation. Besides the lex Julia of 90 BC, the lex Plautia Papiria of 89 BC offered citizenship to individuals from allied communities who were living in Italy and registered with a praetor in Rome within 60 days. A lex Pompeia of 89 BC gave Latin rights to communities north of the Po.

How the new citizens should vote became a fierce political issue. At first they were enrolled in a limited number of the 35 voting tribes, reducing their influence. Proposals to spread them across all tribes helped spark the crisis that led to Sulla’s March on Rome in 88 BC.

Key people

Marcus Livius Drusus (died 91 BC) came from one of Rome’s most powerful families. His aim seems to have been to strengthen the Senate by winning over the equites and the allies at once, but his programme offended almost every group in Rome. His murder was never solved.

Quintus Poppaedius Silo, leader of the Marsi, was a friend of Drusus and the most important rebel general. Ancient writers credit him with victories over Roman armies in 90 BC. He died in battle in 88 BC.

Gaius Papius Mutilus, a Samnite, commanded the southern rebels and struck coins in his own name as embratur, the Oscan form of the Latin imperator. He survived the war but was later proscribed by Sulla and, according to the summary of Livy, took his own life around 80 BC.

Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, consul in 89 BC, captured Asculum and punished its people harshly. His young son, the future Pompey the Great, served on his staff, as did the young Cicero.

Legacy: the making of Roman Italy

After the war, Italian towns were reorganised as municipia, self-governing communities of Roman citizens. Local languages such as Oscan, Umbrian and Etruscan gradually gave way to Latin over the following century, and Italian elites began to enter the Roman Senate in large numbers.

The war also gave political meaning to the name Italy. The rebels’ choice of Italia for their state was later recalled by historians of Italian unification, and under Augustus Italy became a privileged heartland, distinct from the provinces.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 125 BC: Marcus Fulvius Flaccus proposes citizenship for the allies; the plan fails.
• 95 BC: A law expels Italians falsely claiming citizenship.
• 91 BC, autumn: Marcus Livius Drusus is assassinated; revolt breaks out at Asculum.
• 90 BC, June: The consul Rutilius Lupus is killed at the River Tolenus.
• 90 BC: The lex Julia grants citizenship to loyal allies.
• 89 BC: The lex Plautia Papiria; Pompeius Strabo takes Asculum; Sulla campaigns in Samnium.
• 88 BC: The main fighting ends after the death of Poppaedius Silo.

Why it matters

The Social War made Italy, for the first time, a single body of Roman citizens. It also trained a generation of commanders, including Marius, Sulla and Pompeius Strabo, and left Rome full of armed men and bitter divisions. Within a year Roman armies were fighting each other, and the struggles over the new citizens fed the civil wars that followed.