Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 54 BC) - Cilicia Command, 53-51 BC

Cilicia Command, 53-51 BC

He was Governor of Cilicia for a biennium after his consulate, a disaster for the region, not least because his younger brother Caius (pr.56) held the Asia province command for the three years 55-52, or possibly the quadriennium 55-51, so that Appius and his brother controlled most of Anatolia together for at least one year of overlap and perhaps two.
His predecessor Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther was a good and honest administrator, and his successor Cicero one of the best in Roman history. But the intervening Claudian command was disorderly, harsh and corrupt. His correspondence with Cicero as the latter approached to succeed him exhibits many signs of the severe disruption, perhaps approaching horror at times, through which the country had passed under Appius' command. Cicero was certainly shocked by what he found, and by the bizarre manner in which Appius avoided him and eventually left the province for home without meeting his successor. The impression is that Cicero had caught a predator in the act of devouring a carcass raw.

On his way home Appius stopped at Athens once more, renewing his interest in the Eleusinian Mysteries and began preparations for restoring the gate of the Lesser Propylaea in Eleusis, a project later completed, according to the instructions in his testament, by his chief heirs Pulcher Claudius and Rex Marcius.