e theatre--now (687)
restored to them by decree of the people. On the whole, without
abruptly breaking with the democracy, they again drew closer
to the government. The very relations of the senate to Crassus
and his clients point in this direction; but a better understanding
between the senate and the moneyed aristocracy seems to have been
chiefly brought about by the fact, that in 686 the senate withdrew
from Lucius Lucullus the ablest of the senatorial officers,
at the instance of the capitalists whom he had sorely annoyed,
the dministration of the province of Asia so important
for their purposes.(8)

The Events in the East, and Their Reaction on Rome

But while the factions of the capital were indulging in their
wonted mutual quarrels, which they were never able to bring
to any proper decision, events in the east followed their fatal course,
as we have already described; and it was these events that brought
the dilatory course of the politics of the capital to a crisis.
The war both by land and by sea had there taken a most unfavourable
turn. In the beginning of 687 the Pontic army of the Romans
was destroyed, and their Armenian army was utterly breaking up
on its retreat; all their conquests were lost, the sea was exclusively
in the power of the pirates, and the price of grain in Italy
was thereby so raised that they were afraid of an actual famine.
No doubt, as we saw, the faults of the generals, especially
the utter incapacity of the admiral Marcus Antonius and the temerity
of the otherwise able Lucius Lucullus, were in part the occasion
of these calamities; no doubt also the democracy had by its
revolutionary agitations materially contributed to the breaking up
of the Armenian army. But of course the government was now held
cumulatively responsible for all the mischief which itself
and others had occasioned, and the indignant hungry multitude
desired only an opportunity to settle accounts with the senate.

Reappearance of Pompeius

It was a decisive crisis. The oligarchy, though degraded
and disarmed, was not yet overthrown, for the management of public
affairs was still in the hands of the senate; but it would fall,
if its opponents should appropriate to themselves that management,
and more especially the superintendence of military affairs;
and now this was possible. If proposals for another and better
management of the war by land and sea were now submitted to the comitia,
the senate was obviousl