ABSTRACT
The joint consulship of Pompey and Crassus in 70 BC may have undone important features of Sulla’s constitution, but it had not diminished the thirst for power on the part of optimates. The senate as an organ of government was, of course, immeasurably weakened not just by the events of 70 BC, but also by its inability during the 70s BC to take up the opportunity that Sulla had tried to give it; by 70 BC, many of the threats to its supremacy that Sulla had set out to neutralise were once again evident.
