political

Alliance with Pompey and Crassus; First Consulship

Date

-60

Part of

political

In 60–59 BCE, Caesar allied with Pompey and Crassus to secure his election as consul for 59. The pact married military fame, money, and ambition in one arrangement. Rome got grain laws and land for veterans; Caesar got a runway to provincial command.

What Happened

Rome in 60 BCE buzzed with calculations. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus returned from the East with laurels and legions’ loyalty; Marcus Licinius Crassus controlled credit like a rivergate; Caesar, fresh from Spain, had energy and need [4][18]. The three struck an agreement—unofficial, potent. Each would advance the others’ interests in the assemblies and the Senate.

As consul in 59 BCE, Caesar set the plan in motion. He pushed legislation for Pompey’s veterans—land distributions that stabilized men who had marched under eastern suns. He mediated financial matters in Crassus’s favor. And he secured for himself a long proconsular command after his term, a crucial leap from Forum speeches to field command [4][18].

The deal reshaped daily Rome. On the Forum’s flagstones, crowds pressed close to hear votes announced, while in the Curia Hostilia senatorial voices rose and clattered like shield rims when startled by Caesar’s measures. The alliance did not eliminate opposition; it overwhelmed it with coordinated pressure. Though later ages would call it the “First Triumvirate,” the ancients recognized it simply as power shared among three giants—with Caesar rapidly increasing his share [4][18].

The consulship itself was noisy. Lictors in scarlet-dyed sashes cleared paths; tribunes threatened vetoes; pamphlets circulated in the Subura’s narrow lanes. Yet beneath the raucous surface was precision. Caesar’s eye was on the provinces to the north—Transalpine Gaul and Illyricum—where a proconsul with multiple legions could expand Roman reach and his own fortune [18].

By year’s end, the pact had delivered. Caesar left office with statutes passed, veterans placated, and a provincial command in hand that would last beyond the usual annual term. Pompey and Crassus had gained, too, but not as much as they thought. The next act would take place on colder ground, far from the Forum’s marble.

On the morning he donned civilian white again, the future proconsul already saw maps, rivers, and roads—not benches, speeches, and votes. He had converted the consulship into a bridge north.

Why This Matters

The alliance solved immediate problems—Pompey’s settlements, Crassus’s interests, Caesar’s need for a long command—and created a political bloc that could dictate terms in Rome. It also incited resistance among optimates who saw in Caesar an operator without patience for senatorial consensus [4][18].

The episode exemplifies “Military Success as Political Capital” in reverse: political power was used to secure the military platform that would generate the capital. Without Pompey’s and Crassus’s support, Caesar’s route to a multi-year proconsulship would have been narrower [18].

In the larger story, this pact set the fuse. Gaul would provide Caesar with gold and veterans; the Senate would later attempt to force him to disarm; civil war would loom once the bloc fractured. The consulship was not a climax. It was ignition.

Historians see here how informal agreements could override formal structures in the late Republic. The price of such pacts was paid later in legions, not lictors.