Pompey's Organization of Transalpina

POMPEY'S ORGANIZATION of Transalpina has not received the attention it deserves, although it is only after his settlement there that separate administration of the region is clearly attested.' Earlier intimations of Roman control, or influence, tend to fall into one of those informal categories so admirably described by Professor Badian under the general heading of clientela.2 A major obstacle to the proper recognition of Pompey's role in Transalpina has been the widely held assumption that the province had been rather well organized for a good many years before Pompey's arrival there in 77, and that nothing much needed to be done.3 That obstacle has been greatly reduced by Badian's vigorous objection to the traditional view that it was Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 122) who first organized the province in about 120.4 He points out that regular procedures for organizing a province, culminating in the formulation of a lex provinciae, were, by then, well established and are well attested elsewhere, but that there is no trace of them in connection with Domitius in Transalpina. Badian goes on to argue that, for the rest of the second century, Rome's interest in the region was restricted to the protection of lines of communication between Italy and Spain which, for the most part, was entrusted to a few small garrisons stationed at strategic locations along the route. A more important commitment, but for the same limited purpose, was the foundation of the citizen colony of Narbo Martius in 118.5

Political science · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Studies and Legal History

• When Did Pompey the Great Engage in his imitatio Alexandri

  Open Access•Kamil Kopij•Studies in Ancient Art and…•2018

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