First Triumvirate

Explain the formation, activities and breakdown of the First Triumvirate.

60 BC = amicitia/alliance between Pompey, Crassus and Caesar.
Caesar recognized that he needed both of them if he were to gain his ambition of consulship for 59BC, and acting as a buffer between the three of them, he reconciled Pompey and Crassus who did not have great relations; after Pompey stole the glory and received a triumph after defeating Mithridates. “Even though Pompey and Crassus were at odds with each other.. Caesar worked on them- & everyone else – so skillfully that he won their support.” (Dio Cassius)
All three had received rejection from the senate: Caesar was declined consulship in 60BC, Pompey wanted his eastern settlement ratified ‘en bloc’ and to settle some land for his veterans, Crassus wanted to obtain a revision for the contract for collecting taxes in Asia, which would bring him greater profit. “By uncompromising refusal to meet the demands of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar, the Senate naturally drove them into each others arms.” (Scullard)
Caesar also tried to get the veteran states-man, scholar, lawyer and writer Cicero into the partnership, but Cicero refused, claiming that the formation of such a group was “disgraceful and uniformly odious to all sorts and classes and ages of men” and that it would inevitably lead to a revolution.

Caesar knew that he would continue to receive opposition from the Senate so he gained the consulship for 59BC through the Populares assembly; his partner was Bibulus, a member of the Optimates. Caesar immediately put his promises into force as well as his own legislation. Pompey’s eastern settlement was ratified through the Vatinian Law and Crassus also was rewarded with a measure which remitted 1/3 of their contract to the Asian tax collectors.
The Agrarian Law, which was to distribute state owned land in Italy among the poor and, significantly, to Pompey’s veterans, was proposed but this was greatly opposed by Bibulus, and the...