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Triumvir
Caesar
Triumvir or tresvir: member of a college of three members. The expression is mostly used to describe
the First triumvirate (60 BCE; Pompey the Great, Crassus, and Julius Caesar) and Second Triumvirate (43
BCE; Marc Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian).
A triumviratus is literally a college of three men. In the ancient Roman republic, there were several
boards of tresviri. For example
tresviri agro dando divided newly conquered land among farmers;
tresviri capitales were responsible for the jail and prisoners;
tresviri coloniae deducendae founded new towns (coloniae);
tresviri epulones took care of the dinners that were sometimes served to the gods (lectisternia);
tresviri mensarii were responsible for public finances;
tresviri monetales minted coins;
tresviri (without specification) usually refers to the officials that recruited new soldiers.
The best known triumvirates, however, were less official: the First and Second Triumvirates were private
agreements between Roman politicians, directed against the Senate and the People. (The Second
triumvirate was later officially recognized.)
First Triumvirate
The Roman historian Titus Livy (59 BCE - 17 CE) described the First Triumvirate as 'a conspiracy against
the state by its three leading citizens', and this was exactly what it was. The three conspirators were
general Pompey, who had defeated the Cilician pirates, conquered the declining Seleucid Empire and
subdued Judaea, but discovered that the Senate would not ratify his organization of the Near East;
Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest men in Rome and the conqueror of Spartacus, but also a man whose
senatorial career was not as brilliant as he would like;
and his ally, the popular politician Julius Caesar, who had been elected consul for the year 59, but knew
he would encounter a lot of opposition from conservative senators.
Crassus
Although triumviratus was an official term, the First Triumvirate was a private agreement. Its members
did not have a positive agenda, but simply wanted to bypass the Senate and agreed to help each other.
The deal was cemented by intermarriage: Pompey married Caesar's daughter Julia (it seems to have
been a happy marriage); Caesar married Calpurnia, whose father Piso was a close friend of Crassus. As
consul Caesar saw to the swift ratification of Pompey's oriental acts; an agrarian law passed the Senate,
distributing land among the urban poor and Pompey's soldiers; and Crassus received a financial
agreement that was beneficial to his allies, the Roman knights.
Caesar, who went on to conquer Gaul, soon eclipsed his fellow-triumvirs, who controlled Rome. In 56,
Caesar convinced them to continue the cooperation, but they demanded armies of their own. Pompey
received Hispania and Crassus Syria, including a war against the Parthian empire. Two years later, Julia
died, and in 53, Crassus was defeated and killed by his enemies. This was the end of the collaboration,
and although Caesar and Pompey tried to prevent civil war, it was bound to come.