Lucca Conference
| Gaius Julius Caesar | |
|---|---|
| Marcus Licinius Crassus | |
| Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus | |
| Roman Government | Political institutions |
| Social classes | Patrician, Senatorial class, Equestrian class, Plebeian, Freedman |
| The first triumvirate catalyzed the end of the Roman Republic. | |
At the Luca Conference, in 56 BC, (named for the town of Luca — modern Lucca — in Cisalpine Gaul) Caesar met with his political partners, Pompey and Crassus. Rome was in turmoil. Clodius' populist campaigns had been undermining relations between Crassus and Pompey, and neither Crassus nor Pompey were comfortable with the glory Caesar was winning in his Gallic campaign. By 56 BC, the bonds between the three men were fraying.
Caesar first invited Crassus, then Pompey, to a meeting in the northern Italian town of Luca, the southernmost city in Caesar's province of Cisalpine Gaul, to rethink their joint political strategy. The meeting renewed their political alliance known as the First Triumvirate. They agreed that Pompey and Crassus would again stand for the consulship in 55 BC. Once elected, they would extend Caesar's command in Gaul by five years. At the end of their joint consular year, Crassus would get the influential and lucrative governorship of Syria, to use as a base for a grand campaign to conquer Parthia. Pompey would keep Hispania in absentia.
Plutarch described the meeting:
Plutarch, Caesar 21
Caesar himself, after settling matters in Gaul, again spent the winter in the regions along the Po, carrying out his plans at Rome. For not only did the candidates for office there enjoy his assistance, and win their elections by corrupting the people with money from him, and do everything which was likely to enhance his power, 5 but also most of the men of highest rank and greatest influence came to see him at Luca, including Pompey, Crassus, Appius the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos the proconsul of Spain, so that there were a hundred and twenty •lictors in the place and more than two hundred senators. They held a council and settled matters on the following basis. Pompey and Crassus were to be elected consuls for the ensuing year, and Caesar was to have money voted him, besides another five years in his provincial command. This seemed very strange to men of understanding. For those who were getting so much money from Caesar urged the senate to give him money as if he had none, nay rather, they forced it to do so, though it groaned over its own decrees. Cato, indeed, was not there, for he had purposely been sent out of the way on a mission to Cyprus, and Favonius, who was an ardent follower of Cato, finding himself unable to accomplish anything by his opposition, bounded out of doors and clamoured to the populace. But no one gave heed to him, for some were in awe of Pompey and Crassus, and most wanted to please Caesar, lived in hopes of his favours, and so kept quiet.
...
Wikipedia