Cicero’s Proconsulship in Cilicia: The Foreign Policy Aspect

Abstract

The correspondence of Marcus Tullius Cicero during his term as proconsul of Cilicia provides an opportunity to better understand the complexities of governing Roman provinces during the crisis of the Republic, and above all to assess Rome’s ability to counter external threats. However, the genre of this source has strongly shaped the historiographical tradition, which has come to reflect the view of the events held by the author of most of the letters. Thus, works by modern scholars commonly justify and show full support for the proconsul’s actions. Those isolated studies that try to look critically at Cicero’s efforts during his proconsulship negatively assess the measures taken to counter the Parthian threat but identify the Roman proconsul himself as the culprit for their failure. In our view, Cicero’s correspondence allows us, at least in part, to consider the problem of the Roman provinces in the East as a whole, leaving aside the figure of one particular governor. It can be said with a high degree of confidence that the system of Roman provincial government during the late Republic did not meet the requirements of effective frontier defense in the East. The appointment of governors (proconsuls and propraetors) depended on too many random factors (as did the election of consuls and praetors) for professional managers and military men to always hold these key positions. Cicero’s example is the most striking, but obviously not unique. The elite’s focus on domestic politics automatically made foreign policy tasks secondary. Further, the governors had only limited resources, suitable for localized policing operations but inadequate even against a large-scale plunder raid, not to mention a major invasion. The allies, for many decades protecting the Roman borders with their troops and territories, now for the most part lost even the ability to control their own possessions. Traditional reliance on allied monarchs not only deprived the Romans of military support, but also led to misinformation about the situation at the border. The center’s quick response to instability on the periphery was hampered not only by slow communications, but also by the lack of a clear decision-making mechanism in Rome. Ironically, the Republic was saved by the absence of a real adversary in the East.