Final Exam Help

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ROME 2

Back to business…When Rome became a geographic empire, it acquired a whole new set of problems.

1. Government—After the Punic Wars, the question became how to govern an area so large. Rome’s Republic was only designed to run a city. How do you make a government designed to run a city run an empire that stretches all across and around the Mediterranean Sea?

Well, Rome really fell down on the job. Where it had given citizenship to many of those Italian peoples it conquered, it gave ally status to many of those away from Rome or even “province” status to them (in other words, Rome ruled them as conquered peoples— which, of course, they were). And instead of extending the Republic itself, Rome ruled its provinces through provincial governors. Many of these governors were far more interested in lining their own

pockets than in ruling well. And, the Senate back in Rome was far more interested in lining its pockets as well. As Rome expanded, the Senate controlled the Army, finances, foreign affairs, and new territories and nobles there gained even more wealth and power. And, they pressed for more. Many of the provinces were denied citizenship and yet were pressed for more and more taxes. Practice of Tax Farming grew up (The Senate auctioned off the right to collect taxes in the provinces and allowed tax collectors to keep whatever taxes they collected beyond what was actually due. The image we get is off tax collectors shaking people down for money. In theory the provincials were supposed to pay less in taxes than citizens, but it didn’t work out that way in practice).

So, what actually happens is that Rome creates by its

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treatment of the people in the provinces a DISLOYAL

GROUP OF SUBJECTS.

2. Citizen-Soldiers—Rome depended upon its landholding citizenry to serve in the military. But as the Roman Empire grew larger, these citizen-soldiers had to be away from home for longer and longer periods of time. And, when they couldn’t get home, they couldn’t tend to their business—they couldn’t plant or harvest their fields or see to it that the crops got sold at market. So, these guys who were compelled to

serve in Rome’s military had to hire people to work their farms while they were away, rely upon slaves to do the work in their absence, or expect their wives to pick up the slack. The result was disaster. Many hired hands took the opportunity of a man’s absence to steal, sell all the tools and flee, and slaves tended to slack off in their master’s absence. Women might have been willing to work hard, but on the farm they already had too much of their own work to do—getting water, weaving cloth, storing and preparing food, and caring

for children.

So the result was disaster. Many of these citizen- soldiers returned from serving Rome to find their own affairs in a mess. Farms were wasting, taxes could not be paid. For some who had been away years, wives had turned to prostitution in order to support themselves and children had starved to death.

A good example of this was an important general named Regulus. While he was off fighting for Rome, his hired hand sold all of his farming equipment and his livestock. Because Regulus was important, the Roman Senate helped him to recover his losses, but normally no help forthcoming.

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Most citizen-soldiers who returned to find their lives a

mess had little recourse. If they still owned their land, they could sell it to wealthy nobles who bought up land to create huge estates called Latifundia (“spacious farm”). (Sometimes if a senator or aristocrat acquired farms all around a farm that didn’t default on taxes, they would simply take that far too as part of their latifundia—they stepped on the backs of ordinary Romans and of veterans to get richer). If they had nothing left they would move penniless to the cities where they hoped to get a job or to get on the dole

(free grain or porridge and cheap wine given out daily by the government to prevent starvation). The Roman Government set up a dole system for those who couldn’t get jobs or had lost their livelihood.

Once they had lost their land, these guys were no longer eligible for military service, so that was not an avenue of revenue open to them. Many of them took the dole and earned a bit extra by selling their vote.

This was the human cost of imperialism. Empire destroyed the personal lives of the citizens of Rome. This created at least the potential for DISLOYAL CITIZENS in Rome.

3. Values Changed as Rome became an Empire. Wealth

replaced character as the main value of the Romans. People started to care more about their personal finances than about Rome and they cared more about whether they prospered than whether Rome was well- governed. You especially see this with senators and aristocrats who opted for war because they hoped to profit or who took other people’s land away. From the beginning of the Republic, Rome had land laws restricting the amount of land any one person could own so that wealth disparity would never grow too great. After the 1

st Punic War, rich Romans simply quit

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paying attention to these laws, gobbling up as much

land and amassing as much wealth as they could. One of the worst problems to strike Rome in the wake of empire was DISLOYAL LEADERS, the growth of a class of Romans who cared more for self than for state.

4. Huge number of slaves—in the process of becoming

an empire, Rome created an enormous class of slaves. After the third Punic War, the size of the Roman slave population expanded to millions of people. About 1.5 million. And this created several other problems. For

those farmers who had been displaced from their land, there were no agricultural jobs because slaves began to fill these. Also, treated very badly by the Romans, slaves were prone to revolt, although, as I’ve mentioned, revolt meant certain death.

Probably the most famous slave revolt in Roman history is the revolt of Spartacus in 73 BC. Spartacus was actually probably a freeborn Thracian, and some sources indicate

that he had served in the Roman military (maybe an auxiliary unit?). But he may have deserted the Army, been captured, and been sold into slavery and sent to the gladiatorial school at in Capua. Gladiatorial schools were very, very harsh. Because the end product is supposed to be a professional killer—a gladiator. Conditions were bad and ultimately Spartacus and about 70 or 80 other gladiators decided to escape (the ancient records say they used “kitchen implements” to break free—I don’t know what this means, but I always picture wooden spoons and pots and pans!).

Once on the outside, the gladiators had access to the wagons of real weapons. Other slaves began to join Spartacus and despite Spartacus’s efforts to restrain them, this group of slaves started looting and plundering the countryside. Spartacus ended up attracting about

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120,000 bound for freedom. They were trying to fight

their way out of Rome, not trying to reform or overturn the Roman government really (Well, it depends which historian you believe—some of the ancient writers like Appian and Florus claim Spartacus just wanted out of Rome and to be free again, but others suggest he wanted to overthrow the Roman government and become something like a king). But the numbers were astounding and Rome had a difficult time putting the revolt down. Spartacus and his slaves wiped out several Roman legions sent against them and Rome even had to recall its Army

from Spain to take care of the problem. Eventually, Roman legions under Crassus and Pompey did defeat Spartacus and his slaves, the last 6000 of them being crucified all along the Appian way between Rome and Capua, but the horror of such a huge slave revolt was not easily forgotten and slaves if anything were held under even tighter control than before. Rome had a huge class of DISLOYAL SLAVES and their very existence threatened both the physical and economic security of Rome. (Wealthy men used slaves to farm their lands. This

meant that small farmers couldn’t compete, displaced farmers could not find jobs, and the state had to pick up the tab by providing the dole. And, all the while many of these rich citizens had tax breaks—in Rome it was small farmers who funded the state).

5. The Rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The

Punic Wars led to an increasing disparity in wealth—a chasm between rich and poor. And, the class of poor Romans grew even as the wealth of rich Romans mushroomed. Who will pay the taxes? How will poor Romans survive? What will the end game be? This situation is bad for any society.

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Well, over time, these problems got so bad that reforms

were needed not only within the provinces, but within Rome itself. And so various reformers tried to force changes. 133 BC Tiberius Gracchus was selected Tribune (Assembly of Tribes). Though he himself was elite (his father had been consul and his mother was from the patrician line of Scipio) he saw the troubles of the poorer classes so he tried to help them (or, as some less charitable contemporaries noted, he could gain more power by using the masses). Basically what he wanted to do was restore

limits on the amount of land senators/Romans could own and use for themselves and he wanted to move landless people to the lands he confiscated from Senators having more than their allotted amount and also to some of the public lands that had been acquired during the Punic Wars. This had several effects. It moved people back into eligibility for military service (because now they had land) and it gave them an economic boost. But probably the biggest effect it had was to really make those Senators with large estates very angry. And in the end it became a

contest of wills, the Senate refusing to finance Tiberius’s plans and Tiberius in retaliation vetoing Senate laws and claiming the use of newly conquered territories which the Senators viewed as their own. Tiberius was not above breaking the law to get what he wanted. He ran for a second tribuneship (not legal—only once and only one year). In the end, wealthy Senators were so unhappy that a group of them along with their supporters (clients) and the Pontifex Maximus (the chief priest of Rome) simply clubbed him and 300 of his supporters to death and then threw their bodies into the Tiber River (this denied the men a proper burial—criminals’ bodies were disposed of in this way). Think about this—300 Roman citizens were put to death in Rome without due process—their murders were outside the law! What is the implication here? When the Romans established the Republic, it was set up so that no

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one man could ever rule in his own interest as a tyrant

again. But, the larger philosophy underpinning the Republic was that no man should be above the law. For the Romans, the law was supreme. The Romans loved the law. 123 BC Tiberius’s brother Gaius Gracchus became Tribune 9 years after his brother’s death at age 30. He reaffirmed his brother’s old land laws, reduced senatorial control of military/provincial governors, and used bribery in order to get legislation enacted that would use public funds to buy grain to be sold cheaply to the poor. Think of what

the Gracchus Brothers are trying to do—to address those problems: Make the government serve the state, address the problem of displaced citizen-farmers, end the financial stress placed on the state by the dole. By Gaius’ time, most people were willing to let these reforms go. Like Tiberius, Gaius was willing to break the law to accomplish his ends— he ran for and was elected to a second consulship. The Senate did nothing. But, Gaius wanted to go a step further, to get rid of provincial disloyalty—he proposed granting citizenship to some of those provincials. No Roman, rich or

poor, wanted this. Tensions came to a head when Gaius came to the Senate to argue for some of his reforms and in a scuffle the servant of one of the consuls, Maximus, was killed. In retribution, Maximus led a mob against Gaius and 3000 of his supporters. These were killed on the Aventine Hill (Remus’s Hill). Gaius died, but rather than allow Maximus to kill him, he had his personal slave stab him to death. 3000 Romans murdered in Rome. The problem for Rome after all of this was that the reforms meant to take care of other problems had created a far larger problem—one that cost Rome its stability. For the first time really in Roman history, VIOLENCE replaced LAW as the primary tool of Roman politics. Remember, going back even to the foundation of the Republic and overthrow of the monarchy, Romans had recognized the need to follow the law. But the murders of the Gracchus

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brothers signaled a real change where Violence and not Law

would be the primary tool of Roman politics. And as far as the Republic was concerned things really went from bad to worse. (Stop and Explain EMPIRE as geographic/political reality) (Geographic empire simply means a place becomes huge, with one place ruling other places. Rome becomes this first. The city of Rome dominated and ruled over other cities.

Later, though, Rome would become and empire politically— instead of being run by an elective body, the Roman Empire would be ruled by an emperor, or essentially a king.) In 105 BC, A man named Gaius Marius tried to follow in the footsteps of the Gracchus brothers and help the poor of Rome (in part to further his own political career). He served as consul 6 times (not legal), and commanded Rome’s African Legions. Rather than levying a draft to fill the ranks, he called for volunteers—citizens without land were welcome

as were non-citizens! This was a distinct shift in Roman policy where soldiers always had to be landowners and citizens. Marius (Julius Caesar’s uncle) saw this as a reform, but was it good for Rome? It did help solve some problems. Those landless veterans could find gainful employment and get off the dole. (the state did pay a small stipend to soldiers out of which they had to purchase their clothing, food, weapons, etc.), but soldiers in a winning army stood to gain much more. Under Roman law, the spoils really did belong to the victor—the commander of a victorious army owned what he took (except land). And a smart victorious commander shared that booty with his soldiers to keep them happy. So, allowing landless men to serve meant that the state would

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spend less on welfare and reap more in taxes (sales tax;

land tax) and would have more troops. And, allowing non- citizens to serve in exchange for citizenship could help turn disloyal subjects into loyal citizens (Rome actually had the most lenient citizenship policy in the ancient world—even former slaves could aspire to citizenship and new citizens came in on an equal foot with native-born in most respects).

Gaius Marius

But, these reforms were very bad for Rome. Because in practice what happened is it created a new kind of Roman soldier, one who was not loyal to Rome and its institutions, but rather to the general who could provide him with status and wealth. Soldiers became more loyal to their leaders than to Rome.

And what’s the danger of that? (could overthrow the government and set up a tyranny). Well, Marius did become a very powerful general with troops loyal to him because he was the one paying them. For a while, everything looked okay, though. Marius got old and

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retired to his farm and new men rose to be consuls and

praetors. But, in the 70s BC, one of Marius’s rivals Lucius Sulla (an optimate who hated the populares) became consul and the Senate chose Sulla to lead an army against a rich Greek king named Mithradates in the east. Jealous, Marius returned to Rome and insisted that he should be named commander instead. The Senate wouldn’t budge and so Marius got one of the tribunes to hold a plebiscite and in the vote the people said Marius should fight Mithradates.

Was this legal? No, only the Senate can choose the commander. It was too late, though. Sulla had already drafted his army. So, Sulla went to the Senate to ask them to declare Marius an outlaw. But, he didn’t go alone. For the first time in Roman history, a commander brought an armed army into the sanctum (sacred city of Rome). Sulla marched his army to the Senate and the Senate had no choice but to declare

Marius an outlaw as Sulla demanded. (The Romans couldn’t do anything. They simply stood on the top of their houses cursing at the troops and showering them with small rocks). Satisfied, Sulla left to fight Mithradates in the east. But, he left Marius behind and alive. Marius gathered together his own army—one cobbled together of slaves and ex-gladiators and poor rabble—and marched it into the streets of Rome. And he demanded that the Senate declare Sulla an outlaw, which it did. Marius then had his political enemies put to death (including the remaining consul). Who knows what might have happened, but Marius then died. He was old! When Sulla returned in 81 BC, he found Rome in a mess. So he marched his army in again and declared himself dictator.

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It’s ironic—Rome was a mess because Sulla marched his

army into Rome and now he is declaring himself dictator to fix that very mess. And none of this is legal! Who elects dictators and for how long? But, Sulla took over and in the 3 years he ruled Rome he executed 1000s of Roman citizens. It was sort of a witch hunt where informers were rewarded, but sometimes informers turned in people just because they didn’t like someone or for personal reasons. Sulla butchered so many of his political rivals that no one felt safe. Plutarch records

that a young senator even pleaded with Sulla: “We are not asking you to pardon those whom you have decided to kill; all we ask is that you free from suspense those whom you have decided not to kill.” Sulla really polluted the Republic and government became more corrupt under him than it had ever been before. Sulla, though, saw himself as a reformer. He restored age limits for elected officials, reimposed a limit on how many

times a man could hold a magistracy (twice in 10 years), expanded the Senate to include some of the equestrians (a notch below the senatorial clas), and tried to get rid of the power of the public—he abolished the plebiscites leaving tribunes without much power. And then he retired and went back to his farm where he died a year later. Sulla’s epithet is very telling—and very Roman: “No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” Sulla’s rule set the stage for more ambitious Romans to try and rule Rome. In fact, Pompey the Great asked the question, “If Sulla could do it, why can’t I?” Pompey is really the hero of the late republic. There were lines he would not cross. But, another man was on the rise who would not shy

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away from gaining power through any means—Julius

Caesar. Julius Caesar was actually alive during Sulla’s rule. At one point, Sulla ordered that Caesar divorce his wife, a woman named Cornelia, and when Caesar refused, Sulla ordered that Caesar be executed. But, he fled and eventually was pardoned. Sulla regretted the pardon saying, “In Caesar there are many Mariuses.”

Julius Caesar

Caesar came to be one of the most spectacular figures of the

Roman Republic. He was popular, intelligent, attractive, and by all accounts good looking. In fact, when he was young he was sent on a diplomatic mission to acquire ships from the king of Bithynia and the rumor was that he had succeeded by agreeing to sleep with the homosexual king (Nicomedes) he was dealing with.

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Throughout his political career, Caesar served in various positions, as Tribune, Senator, Aedile, and Praetor. But of course, he is more famous for his later activities. In 60 BC Caesar formed an alliance, called the “Three headed monster” by contemporaries, which we call the First Triumvirate. The members of this group were Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. Basically they promised to support each other politically to get their agendas passed and to

further their own interests and power. Caesar wanted an overseas command to get rich from conquest. Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, wanted the Senate to reduce the tax obligations in places where his clients had bid too high for the right to tax. Pompey wanted land for his veterans. But it didn’t last. They did accomplish many of their goals, but through illegal means often, and they didn’t get along that well. Remember, these were ambitious Romans. They don’t really want to share. Eventually, Crassus decided to get the one thing he lacked—military reputation by fighting

the Parthians. He was killed at Carrhae. That left just Caesar and Pompey, who had a falling out. As part of the alliance, Pompey had married Caesar’s daughter Julia, but she died in childbirth and Pompey refused another marriage alliance. So, by the 50s BC Pompey was in Rome and Caesar was in Gaul and with no Crassus to balance them out Caesar and Pompey engaged in a deadly game of tug of war for power. By 49 BC, political rivals made it clear to Caesar that he could not return to Rome as a private citizen without being prosecuted (Under Roman law an officeholder could not be prosecuted—so Caesar wanted to remain in office forever so he could not be prosecuted for any of his crimes). So, when the Roman Senate ordered Caesar to return to Rome and leave his army behind, Caesar made a fateful decision to take his army with him. He crossed the Rubicon in

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January 49 BC, triggering an automatic civil war.

Caesar allegedly said, “The die is cast.” (I want to pause here for just a moment. Oftentimes, it seems like a no-brainer that Caesar took his army to Rome. But, didn’t he have other options? Caesar could have crossed the Rubicon alone and gone to face trial. But, he also could have just turned back around and gone back to Gaul with his army. His army was loyal—they would have followed Caesar anywhere. Why didn’t Caesar just go become king of Gaul? I think this is an important illustration

of what it meant to be Roman. I think Caesar could have had power and wealth outside of Rome, but it wouldn’t have meant anything without being Roman. As much as Caesar might have turned on the Republic, he still wanted to be Roman. Taken in that context, Caesar’s only choice was to cross with his army—to seek power in and from the state he loved.) By 46 BC, after a lot of warfare and a little dabbling with Cleopatra (sources say she had herself smuggled to him

naked in a rug—she bore a son Caesarian) Caesar managed to take control of the Roman government, ruling as an autocrat. He would announce his decisions to the Senate and they would pass them without a debate or vote. In other words, even though Rome still technically had a Republic, Caesar was in reality ruling as a king without the title. By 44 BC, the Senate had named Caesar dictator perpetuus or dictator for life. They didn’t really have a choice. He was the puppeteer pulling all the strings. Now that doesn’t mean Caesar did only bad things. Some of what Caesar did as dictator was good for Rome, and especially for ordinary Romans. And ordinary Romans adored him. He strengthened Rome by granting citizenship to all provincials—meaning they have a reason to be loyal to

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Rome now, he gave public lands to veterans in return for

their service—again strengthening ties to Rome, and he gave grain to the poor. He was responsible for the creation of the Julian calendar, the basis for our calendar today. But, under Caesar, the Republic disappeared. The Senate became only advisory. People really had no voice in government because the institutions set up to give them a voice were all controlled by one man, by Julius Caesar. And, remember when I talked about Rome getting rid of its

absolute monarchy in the very beginning, I said they would never trust a monarch again? Well, Julius Caesar was too close to a king for comfort. And you have to think beyond the immediate situation to the implications it could have. If they let Caesar rule because he was doing some good things for Rome, what precedent does that establish? What’s going to happen once Caesar dies? And in the end, what will happen to the quality of leadership and ability of people to change things they don’t like? Freedom v.

Security, a big issue even today. How much are you willing to give up for safety and in the end will it make you any safer? At any rate, the Senators, even some of Caesar’s closest friends, perceived that if Caesar lived, Rome, the spirit of Rome would die (or perhaps they perceived that their own power would die?). March 15, 44BC—the Ides of March—Senators attacked Caesar in the Senate with daggers, killing him. His friend Brutus was among them—the Shakespearian line, “Et Tu Bruti?” The question is, should the senators have put Caesar to death or should they have just let him rule? Was the Republic already dead? Did Rome need a Caesar to prevent

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it from being pulled apart by other ambitious Romans and

civil wars? Caesar had heard rumors he was in danger, and he refused a bodyguard, but he still didn’t plan to die quite so soon. And so he left as heir his 18 year old nephew, Octavian. Octavian is an interesting character. No one really thought that in a scramble for power Octavian would come out on top. He was short, had bad teeth, and was not very healthy. His body was covered in spots and his chest and belly had many birthmarks. He just didn’t look like a Roman ruler.

Octavian (with some re-touching, I presume)

But, Octavian had a very tough personality. He was willing to be ruthless if need be. So when Caesar died, Octavian did enter the scramble for

power. And he joined in a mutual support group called the 2

nd Triumvirate—made up of Octavian, Mark Anthony

(before people hated him for dumping J Lo), and Lepidus. These three sort of carved up the Roman Empire among themselves. Mark Anthony took the East (Greece and

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Egypt); Lepidus took the West (Iberia); and Octavian took

Italy and Rome itself. But problems arose between them. While Octavian was not faithful to his own wife, Livia, he had a very strict sense of morality (in fact he exiled two of his daughters for immorality—sexual). And he hated Mark Anthony for shacking up with Cleopatra. When Anthony divorced his wife, Octavia (Octavian’s sister!), for Cleopatra and changed his will so that Cleopatra’s children would inherit everything when he died, Octavian was outraged. Octavian read

Anthony’s will in public and asserted that it could not be the will of a true Roman. So the Senate, which was by now under Octavian’s control, declared war on Anthony. (Lepidus by now had withdrawn from the fray—Octavian got very angry with Lepidus and forced him out of the alliance— that is a testament to the power wielded by Caesar’s young nephew in a very short time). In 31 BC, Octavian fought Anthony for Egypt—which had been only loosely under Roman control, still being ruled by

the descendants of Ptolemy—and in the end, Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide, giving Octavian a victory as well as making the very rich Egypt a direct Roman Province (actually, it was Octavian’s personal province). Octavian then put to death Cleopatra’s son by Caesar, Caesarion, his step brother since Caesar had adopted him. (Where did Anthony and Cleopatra’s children go? Weirdly, Octavia raised them! The Romans wanted to deify Octavia when she died. She was considered so good.) Octavian was undisputedly in control of Rome. But, Octavian remembered how things had turned out for Caesar when he looked too much like a king. And, more clever and learning from Caesar’s mistakes, Octavian decided to not look like a king even though he was in reality in control.

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In a symbolic ceremony, he surrendered all of his power to

the Senate in 27 BC. And he called himself “princeps” or first among equals. His title, though, given by the Senate, was Augustus, an archaic word for “revered.” Octavian ruled as a dictator, but left senators enough room for their own ambitions. He maintained the forms of the Roman Republic. And, he lived in a spacious house on Palatine Hill, rather than in a palace. And so people didn’t realize he was the puppeteer. And as a result, he ruled for a long time and died a natural death. And, he reorganized the

Roman Empire, setting off an era of peace within Rome—an end to the civil wars that had plagued it. He died when he was 76 years old in 14 AD. 30BC is considered the date that the Roman Empire begins because for all practical purposes Octavian was an emperor. And from then on until its decline and fall, Rome would be ruled by emperors, with only the facade of a republic.

We are not going to talk about all of the Roman emperors. There were many of them. Some were good like Octavian and some were very bad like Caligula and Nero. After Octavian—Tiberius (adopted son, had to divorce wife he loved on Octavian’s orders, built aqueduct system), Julian Emperor—Caligula (made his horse consul, was insane and brutal and was murdered), Claudius (scholarly, conquered Britain, d. 54 AD when his wife probably poisoned him), Nero (fire—did he start it? Fiddled. Committed suicide). Then military emperors. But, the key point of this is, Octavian ruled wisely and well. He put in place policies and traditions that would carry the empire another 200 years. He set off 200 years of peace (the Roman Peace—the Pax Romana) One of my favorite stories is that Augustus was walking through the streets on

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Rome, hurrying on his way somewhere and an old woman

stopped him to say she needed to talk to him about something. Octavian told her he didn’t have time, but the old lady insisted, “If you don’t have time to listen to those you mean to rule, you don’t have time to be emperor.” So, he stopped and listened. And, until the reign of Diocletian almost 300 years later all Roman citizens had the right to an audience with the emperor. But, what was the legal process for getting a new emperor when an old one died? There was no legal way—Rome was a

republic. And what way did Romans have of getting rid of bad emperors? There was no legal way. And, so the stage was set for trouble from the first emperor forward. Rome would be at the mercy of emperors and the fate of Rome would depend upon the personal characteristics (both strengths and failings) of a single man.