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THE FINEST IN RECORDED LITERATURE The HISTOR Y Of ROME IV The Revolution

Table of Contents & Maps The History of Rome , Book Four, covers a troubled era stretching from the middle of the 2nd century B.C. through the first few decades of the 1st century B.C., a time span which begins with the final destruction of Carthage and ends with the death of Sulla. It is an eighty-year tale of woe and bitterness, with few heroes...... As Rome passed the mid-century mark in the 2nd century B.C., she found herself in a slowly unwinding spiral of political, moral, spiritual, and financial decay. The greatest generation , which had defeated Hannibal and brought the Mediterranean under Roman control, had now passed away. Old Cato was one of the very last to go in 149 B.C. But, hardly a Roman name of any note comes down to us during the next generation. The noble Roman was no longer to be found declaiming in the senate or strolling about the forum. The once feared Roman army had become incompetent and cowardly. The Roman public had become accustomed to news of shattering defeats at the hands of Spanish and Celtic armies, and of battles in which Romans had thrown down their arms and fled. The endless provincial wars in the east and west sapped the wealth, energy and spirit of the Roman citizenry, and young men had begun to avoid military service in preference to the pleasure of town life. And, of the once invincible Roman navy, not a single trireme was left afloat......

The cover art, based on the model at The Museum of Roman Civilization, Rome, Italy, represents a view of Rome and the Capitoline Hill with the Temple of Jupiter as it burned in 83 B.C. The photograph of Theodor Mommsen was taken by Giacomo Brogil, Florence, Italy.

2 ...... Meanwhile, the capitalists, taking advantage of earlier Roman military successes, had brought tens of thousands of slaves into Italy from all over the Mediterranean. They then used borrowed money to import cheap and abundant Egyptian grain, pushing the price of domestic grain so low it bankrupted small citizen farmers of Latium and elsewhere on the peninsula. Seizing this opportunity, the venal speculators bought up newly available farmland using their connections with a conniving, shadowy banking elite, and driving the yeoman farmer - backbone of the old Roman army - off the land. Debts began to crush tens of thousands of citizens. Emerging from this situation, the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus boldly demanded social and political change. But, both paid for their attempts at reform with their lives. An aristocratic oligarchy then clamped down and ruled with ruthless determination, until the rise of Gaius Marius ushered in an era of unspeakable violence and outright revolution...... With Rome’s overseas possessions falling away or in chaos, and her Italian allies in open revolt, it would seem that the Roman Republic, her dependencies, and her overseas possessions must disintegrate. Gaius Marius stabilized the military situation and lead a democratic faction back to power, only to plunge the Italian peninsula into civil war. But, the man of the hour proved to be Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and it was only by his courage and ability that the situation was saved. However, as Sulla and his army entered Rome in 83 B.C., the five hundred year old Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill – consecrated in 509 B.C. at the birth of the Republic – burned to the ground...an ominous portent. d

3 BOOK FOUR ...... The Revolution

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Subject Countries Down to the Times of the Gracchi Chapter 2 The Reform Movement and Tiberius Gracchus Chapter 3 The Revolution and Gaius Gracchus Chapter 4 The Rule of the Restoration Chapter 5 The Peoples of the North Chapter 6 The Attempt of Marius at Revolution and the Attempt of Drusus at Reform Chapter 7 The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician Revolution Chapter 8 The East and King Mithradates Chapter 9 Cinna and Sulla Chapter 10 The Sullan Constitution Chapter 11 The Commonwealth and Its Economy Chapter 12 Nationality, Religion, and Education Chapter 13 Literature and Art d

4 BOOK FOUR ...... The Revolution

Maps

1. Territory under the control of the Roman Republic by the beginning of the First Century B.C.

2. Wars in Africa, Gaul, and Spain in the Second Century B.C.

3. Roman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean Kingdoms to the beginning of the First Century B.C.

4. The Great Rebellion of the Italian Allies in the First Century B.C. d

5 ......

Territory under the control of the Roman Republic by the beginning of the First Century B.C.

d 6 ......

Wars in Africa, Gaul, and Spain in the Second Century B.C.

d 7 ......

Roman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean Kingdoms to the beginning of the First Century B.C.

d 8 ......

The Great Rebellion of the Italian Allies in the First Century B.C.

d 9 The Mosaic of the Doves is from a 2nd century B.C. original, attributed to Sosos. Provenance: Tivoli, Hadrian’s Villa. It is now at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Italy.

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