Autour d'un cas de foedus avorté: Rome et les Crétois, en 70-69 av. J.-C.

The fragment of Diodorus of Sicily, 40.1.1-2, mentions that after the death of the invader of Crete, Marcus Antonius (pr. 74), who had concluded peace with the Cretans – and who's surname 'Creticus' was not mokery as Modern scholars have long believed – the Cretan koinon sent in 70 B.C., year of the first consulate of Pompey, an embassy to Rome. The diplomatic negotiation almost led to a senatus consultum proclaiming the Cretans «friends and allies of the Empire», but the senatorial resolution was invalidated following the action of a tribune of the plebs. This was a case of an aborted foedus iniquum. A second senatus consultum in the opposite direction gave Quintus Metellus (cos. 69) the occasion to engage his campain against Crete and to be also surnamed 'Creticus'. Corroborated by a number of other scattered indications, this historic fact of the aborted foedus permits to reconstruct the complex fresco of the Roman-Cretan relations before the provincialization of the island and shows the intense influence of the Cretan issue on the internal political struggle of Rome, generating a durable opposition between Pompey and Metellus, who received the support of his clan.