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The Late Republic – Crises and Civil Wars a Society Falls Apart in Italy

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The Late Republic – Crises and Civil Wars a Society Falls Apart in Italy The Late Republic – Crises and Civil Wars A Society Falls Apart In Italy, much had changed after Rome rose to a world power. In the long wars, many peasants and their sons had died. Others had not been able to properly cultivate their farms for years. More and more small farmers left the countryside. In their place, many large farms arose, because large landowners had bought up the land of indebted peasants, forcibly driven some farmers out, and laid claim to large portions of state-owned land for themselves. Their standard of living rose, because they specialized themselves in certain products. They grew wine-grapes and olives on a grand scale, or reorganized themselves toward livestock. Around the cities, there were large landowners who obtained high profits by raising poultry and fish. Such large landowners usually owned several farms, which were managed by administrators, while they themselves pursued political business in Rome. On their estates, slaves worked, who were obtained either as prisoners of war or on the slave markets. According to careful analysis, in the time between 200 B.C. and 150 B.C., approximately 250,000 prisoners of war were brought to Italy as slaves. In the following 100 years, more than 500,000 slaves – mainly from Asia Minor – came to Rome. Especially the small farmers suffered in this situation. Earlier, they had gotten for themselves additional income as daily workers on the estates, but now they were needed there, at most, only for harvest. So many had to give up their farms, and moved with their families to Rome. But there, no better future awaited them, because many slaves were already also active in the crafts and merchant shops. The large landowners were, on the one hand, senators, and on the other hand, members of a newly formed social class of rich farmers, the equites. With world domination, the Roman state had to take on new tasks: in the provinces, levies and sharecrops had to be collected; the large armies had to be provided with groceries and supplies, and finally there were also many mines, quarries, and mineral deposits, which were to be exploited in the state’s service. Senators could not take on such tasks. They fell, therefore, to the rich farmers, who in this way obtained enormous profits. Thereby, they often got more new land in Italy. Thus they became, as equites, a financially strong group in the republic. But also Senators profited from the provinces. As officers and representatives, they had many chances to enrich themselves personally. Many afforded themselves a luxurious lifestyle. In the provinces, they appeared like kings, and some of them found it difficult, to take their places in Rome in the senate again. Rome: The Late Republic – Crises and Civil Wars – page 1 A political career had become expensive. Because the offices promised such a large profit, the candidates engaged in expensive campaigns. They organized expensive games for the masses of those citizens eligible to vote, and provided them with grain as well, which they imported from Africa or Sicily. If the senators had paid attention, prior to world domination, so that there would be equality in their ranks, then now they tried to overtrump each other by means of a lifestyle lived to be displayed. Against the exploitation of the provinces and claims of some individuals, Marcus Porcius Cato (234 B.C. to 149 B.C.) reminded people about the old Roman values and traditions. In many speeches, he called people to modesty and humility. The development into a world empire brought three big dangers: first, the senatorial class’s unity began to disintegrate. Secondly, social tensions between the large landowners and the former small farmers, who had been driven from their land, appeared. In Rome, the number of dissatisfied “proletariats” took on dangerous size. They were called “proletariats” because they owned no property aside from their offspring, their proles. And thirdly, it became more and more difficult for the Romans to enlist enough soldiers, because the small farmer class, from whom the soldiers recruited, became ever smaller. The Attempted Reforms of the Gracchus Brothers A young man named Tiberius Gracchus seized the initiative for change; he came from one of the most highly regarded and richest families in Rome. In 134 B.C., he successful competed for the “people’s tribune” office. He had observed with horror, on a trip through Etruria, how abandoned the land lay, and determined that almost only slaves were to be found on the fields. Supported by a small circle of reform-minded senators, Tiberius decreed that each person would be allowed to possess only, at most, around a thousand acres of state-owned land. The land freed up by this decree was to be distributed among the landless peasants. In this way, the problem of recruiting soldiers was also solved. The idea of this law was political dynamite. The large landowners defended themselves against it and presented the following reasoning: one could no longer distinguish between their private land and the state-owned land they used; besides, they had spent a lot of money and work on that land and its cultivation. – Pretenses or cogent arguments? In any case, Tiberius Gracchus didn’t let himself be impressed by them, and brought the decree immediately to the people, without seeking prior consultation in Rome: The Late Republic – Crises and Civil Wars – page 2 the senate, as was customary. Thereby, the people’s tribune removed himself from the senate’s influence, and tried, with the people’s support, to make policies on his own power against the senate. From Tiberius’s viewpoint, this was the only chance for effective land reform. But the Plebeian Assembly, the concilium plebis, took an unexpected course: the co-tribune Octavius, paid by the senate’s majority, used his veto against the land law. Tiberius held on to his reforms anyway. He requested his colleague’s removal, because he had used his office against the people’s interests by his veto. Octavius was declared removed from office, the land law approved. This was an unconstitutional, and almost revolutionary, action, because the Plebeian Assembly did not have such authority. The senate feared that it might lose its central role in the state. While Tiberius was campaigning for the tribune’s office in the coming year, in order to protect himself from an indictment, the senate dissolved the Plebeian Assembly. Tiberius and his many followers were killed. The first attempt at reform ended in political murder. The consequence was that the political leading class split into two groups. On the one side were the populares, who wanted to make reforms with the people’s tribune and Plebeian Assembly. In opposition, the opimates formed. They represented the interests of [land] owners, allowed no [further] limits on the senate’s power, and opposed every reform intent. Ten years after the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, his brother Gaius took up once again the politics of reform. He, too, implemented a land reform, but attempted also to improve the living situations of the Plebeians in the city of Rome. The state was supposed to ensure stable grain prices, because in bad harvest years, grain was unaffordable for the poor. In addition, Gaius wanted to oppose corruption in the provinces by making the equites into judges over the senatorial governors. Simultaneously, he could play the equites against the senators. For two year, Gaius had the people’s approval. But when a tribune, employed by the senate, suggested a still more favorable distribution of the land, the people abandoned him. The senate moved decisively against Gaius: most of his supporters were killed, over three thousand of them being executed. He ordered one of his slaves to kill him. Rome: The Late Republic – Crises and Civil Wars – page 3 A thorough agricultural reform was no longer possible for the future. The nobility remained split henceforward, and violence had become a means of political conflict. The Military Reforms of Marius In the following years, the situation in Rome was largely determined by foreign policy dangers: in 111 B.C., a war began in northern Africa, and beginning in 113 B.C., the Germanic tribe of the Cimbri and Teutones threatened the empire’s northern border. They had already defeated many Roman military units. In this situation, Marius obtained, in 107 B.C., despite senatorial objections, the office of consulate. He was the son of an equite, had worked his way up in wartime service, and made no secret of his suspicion of the nobility’s educated members, who in his eyes were, however, cowardly and indecisive. Decisively, he implemented his military reforms: • Against tradition, he accepted volunteers from among the Proletariats into his army. They received payments and supplies. • The army’s organization was improved. At the cost of the state, all soldiers obtained the same types of weapons. For the time after their retirement from military service, Marius promised them a piece of land. That was old age security for veterans. What was the significance of these changes? The Gracchus brothers had attempted to preserve the old citizen’s army by recreating farmsteads. Now, those with no land became soldiers, who had no interest in defending their own land. Out of the previous citizen’s army arose a career army, which was bound closely to its commanding officer. Thereby arose the danger, that the army no longer would fight for the republic, but rather only for its commanding officer, from whom it awaited pay and the spoils of war. Who could rule out the possibility that a powerful officer, to whom the soldiers were devoted, would not one day use the army as a weapon for his own political interests in Rome? It remained to be seen, whence one should take the land for the support of the veterans.
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