Chapter 10
By intimidation and conquest, the Roman Republic had established its dominion over the Mediterranean world. Thus, it furthered the consolidation that began with Alexander the Great and continued under the Hellenistic monarchies. In less than a century and a half since the outbreak of the First Punic War, Rome had passed from city-state to empire. Zama (202 b.c.e.), Cynoscephalae (197 b.c.e.), Magnesia (190 b.c.e.), and Pydna (168 b.c.e.) mark Rome’s triumphs on three continents. The Romans commanded obedience from many peoples. Vast streams of gold, silver, slaves, and other booty or tribute flowed into Roman hands. Roman cultural life became much more varied and sophisticated. At the same time, world conquest and expansion had begun to work revolutionary effects upon the economic, social, political, and ethical life of the Roman People. Those changes set the stage for the destruction of the Republic itself.
The impact of war and overseas expansion on small farmers
The material and human losses suffered in the Second Punic War and subsequent wars of conquest were enormous. The prevailing view has been that those losses and the importation of cheap overseas grain, a great influx of slaves, and the rise of large, slave-worked villa estates had a disastrous result: they devastated the ranks of the small farmers who served in Roman and allied armies. New research paints a very different picture and explains the ultimate impoverishment of many small landholders by 133 b.c.e. in a surprisingly different way. First of all, large numbers of slaves were already in the rural labor force by 264 b.c.e. (p. 116). Even many of the relatively modest landowners in the third census class appear to have owned at least one slave by the time of the Second Punic War. At that time, the senate required each member of this class to supply one slave to row in the navy. Men in the first and second classes had to supply more. The large numbers of slaves taken in the wars of the early second century b.c.e. probably did not much more than make up for the ones who had died or disappeared during the Second Punic War or who were freed for loyal service to Rome in the war.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the growth of large, slave-worked villa estates in the second century b.c.e. was both more limited and older than once thought. The trend toward such estates had already started in southern Etruria, northern Latium, and Campania during the third century b.c.e. It continued in the second century b.c.e., but the great growth was in the first century b.c.e. Moreover, these estates are often misnamed latifundia (sing. latifundium). That term came into use only in the first century c.e. It seems to refer to the practice of creating far-flung holdings that were too big to use slave labor efficiently and relied more on tenant farmers, coloni (sing. colonus).
The devastation of southern Italy in the Second Punic War was significant. Also, large tracts of public land (ager publicus) in that region were acquired through confiscations aimed at punishing those who had sided with Hannibal. This situation did encourage the growth of estates that specialized in stock-raising in areas like Apulia to provide meat for the growing Roman market. Nevertheless, small farmers survived in the region, too.
In the North, particularly in Cisalpine Gaul, the Romans also acquired huge tracts of ager publicus. Small allotments of public land were distributed to over 200,000 settlers and colonists from 201 to ca. 180 b.c.e. One of the reasons why such distributions ceased after ca. 180 is that it was hard to find new settlers. Many people preferred to find new opportunities in the booming economies of growing cities like Puteoli, Pompeii, Ostia, and especially Rome. According to one estimate, an average of 7000 freeborn citizens migrated from the countryside to Rome alone each year during the last two centuries b.c.e. That number was necessary to make up for the large excess of deaths over births in the urban population and still have enough left over for a net growth rate.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Rome’s wars from 200 to 133 b.c.e. took a significant toll in deaths from the Roman and Italian population, primarily from families of small and medium-sized farmers. Solid statistics are lacking, but extrapolations from ancient casualty figures, the size of Roman armies in this period, and mortality rates from comparable premodern populations allow scholars to make reasonable deductions. A good recent estimate places the excess deaths of young men from military service over those from natural mortality between ca. 279,000 and 320,000. Still, the population grew enough to keep up the steady migration to the cities. At the same time, except during unpopular wars in Spain toward the end of this period, Roman recruiters seem to have had little difficulty in finding assidui, men who owned enough property to qualify for service in the legions.
The view that the number of assidui was actually declining hinges on arguments that the minimum amount of land necessary for being an assiduus was progressively lowered during this period. These arguments are based on figures used to show that the monetary value of the minimum amount of land required progressively declined. It is not clear, however, in what chronological order these figures should be arranged. Even if they should be arranged progressively lower, they might not reflect a reduction in the amount of land required. They might reflect only the rising value of Rome’s bronze coinage in periods when the amount of bronze for making coins was scarce because of wartime shortages. They might also reflect the falling value of land after large-scale Roman confiscations of land in Italy.
More important, except in times of extreme crisis, as in the Second Punic War after Cannae, the Romans drafted primarily young unmarried men ranging in age from seventeen to mid-twenties. These young men usually represented surplus rural labor. Their removal for extended periods of military service did not mean undue hardship for their birth families. For one thing, families did not have to grow food for those heavy-eating young men. Moreover, the pay that soldiers received and the bonuses and shares of booty awarded by victorious commanders were an economic benefit to their families.
Also, men usually did not marry until their late twenties or early thirties (p. 56). Military service in their earlier years did not take men away from wives and young families who would have needed their labor most. Many men would have finished their expected military service before they were ready to marry and start families of their own. Experienced soldiers who did marry before they had finished active military service were less likely to be killed in battle than their younger unmarried comrades. They would have been stationed as principes or triarii in the second and third lines of heavy infantry (pp. 111–12). The principes fought only after the younger velites and hastati had already weakened the enemy. The triarii were less likely to have to fight at all, and they made up only about 15 percent of the total infantry force.
Although it would have been cold comfort to those who lost loved ones, the deaths of largely unmarried young men in Rome’s wars actually had a beneficial economic effect on the class of small farmers as a whole. Any remaining siblings would have inherited more family property. They then would have been better able to support themselves or to attract well-off spouses than they would have otherwise. Thus, newly formed families would have had more land at their disposal. Similarly, if the death of a soldier ultimately left a family with no direct heir, its land would pass to relatives. Their land would thereby have been increased to their benefit. Overall, ca. 300,000 extra male deaths because of wars meant that small family farms were less likely to be subdivided into units too small to support new families. Also, competition for access to public land to supplement small private holdings would have been less intense. As a result, the ability of Italy’s small farmers to support themselves and their families improved and encouraged them to have bigger families.
In the period from 200 to 125 b.c.e., the number of freeborn citizens living in Rome seems to have increased by ca. 100,000. The census figures for freeborn men had increased by ca. 181,000 at the end of that period. Despite declines in some parts of Italy, the rural population as a whole was reproducing at a rate high enough to sustain losses incurred in war, supply a steady stream of migrants to Rome, and still show a significant growth in its own ranks. By the end of this period, however, such growth began to have negative consequences for small holders. The rural population had grown to the point where many small holdings were being subdivided into unacceptably small parcels. Also, enough ager publicus was no longer available in the face of increased demand to provide families with the extra land that they would have needed to produce enough to feed themselves. Therefore, they had to find other strategies than subsistence farming to survive. The emerging money economy encouraged some to grow high-value, labor-intensive crops on small plots near urban markets, or to earn wages as seasonal workers from larger landowners, or to seek economic opportunities as laborers or independent craftsmen in the growing cities.
Coinage and the monetization of the economy
The wars from 264 to 133 b.c.e. were responsible for creating Rome’s system of coinage and monetizing the economy of Italy. Rome needed to pay the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who served in these wars. The booty, indemnities, tribute, and mines acquired during imperial expansion provided the metals that ultimately permitted the creation of a stable silver and bronze coinage. Millions of silver and bronze coins of small size and modest value were paid to Roman and allied soldiers from throughout Italy. Thus, coins useful for everyday transactions came into wide circulation. They rapidly spread the use of money among the general populace. So also did the great sums spent on building projects and public works. This construction boom was fueled by the huge surpluses over and above military expenses that flowed into the Roman treasury and the hands of victorious generals.
Initially, the strains of the First and Second Punic wars caused a complete collapse of Rome’s coinage around 212 b.c.e. A new system then emerged. The bronze as was reduced to two ounces, one-sixth (sextans) of a Roman pound. The didrachm, which had come to be called a “tenner,” denarius (pl. denarii), because it was worth ten asses, was gradually reduced in weight to an official standard of seventy-two to a pound and sometimes as many as eighty. A half a denarius was a “fiver,” quinarius (pl. quinarii), and a quarter of a denarius was a “half-again,” sestertius (pl. sestertii), abbreviated HS. By 200 b.c.e., the as was down to only one ounce, and the quinarius and sestertius had disappeared. The sestertius, however, remained an abstract notion of value. In fact, like the dollar in the modern United States, it became the Republic’s principal unit of account. In 187, the denarius was lightened so that eighty-four equaled a pound of silver. That kept new denarii equal in weight and intrinsic value to the millions of worn ones then in circulation. In 141 b.c.e., the bronze asses in circulation had become so worn that the value of the denarius was recalculated to equal sixteen asses. Four asses were now reckoned as a notional sestertius, and four notional sestertii equaled a denarius. Large sums were sometimes expressed in terms of talents. One talent equaled 6000 denarii or 24,000 sestertii. To give some idea of what these monetary units were worth, a denarius was about the average daily wage of a hired laborer.
The growth of trade, cities, industry, and commerce
Rome’s conquests and its political domination of the Mediterranean increasingly gave efficient slave-worked estates in Italy access to overseas markets. As early as 167 b.c.e., Italian wine and oil were exported to Delos and other places in the Greek East. The chief market for Italian farm products, however, was western and northern Europe. In Gaul, a six-gallon jug of wine cost as much as a slave. Exporting wine to Gaul must have been a very lucrative business, and it began surprisingly early. The remains of a Greek ship, which sank probably around 230 b.c.e., have been discovered among a group of islands south of Marseilles. It was laden with Campanian tableware and about 10,000 large jars of wine. Some of it was Greek, but most was red Latian produced on the Sabine hills.
In Italy, abundant supplies of grain came from overseas. They made possible the concentration of people in large urban centers with access to water transport, particularly Rome. Land once used to grow grain within short distances from the city now could be used to produce a great variety of higher-value items to be sold for cash in the increasingly monetized urban markets. Both villa estates and smaller farms could supply these markets with wine, olives, fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers, young meat animals, poultry, eggs, and cheese. Money from the sale of these products then could be used to purchase goods and services produced by the urban population.
Growth of the urban economy
Although agriculture always dominated the ancient economy, the rapid growth of Rome and other urban centers in Italy greatly expanded opportunities in small service businesses, handcrafts, and trades: wine bars, fast-food shops, butcher shops, barbershops, fulling and dyeing shops, bakeries, pottery making, metalworking, shoemaking, furniture making, carting, and the building trades. The construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, sewers, temples and other public buildings, large private homes, apartment blocks (insulae), warehouses, and baths provided bigger opportunities for investors, builders, and suppliers. The manufacturing of bricks, roof tiles, and fine pottery became big business on rural estates near urban markets. Supplying timber, firewood, charcoal, and quarried stone was very profitable. So were shipbuilding; shipping; and the supplying of crates, baskets, and large clay amphorae as shipping containers.
Tax farming and other public contracts
Even more lucrative were public contracts for farming (collecting) taxes, supplying the legions, working state-owned mines, and building publicly financed projects. Companies formed to obtain and execute public contracts were unique in Roman business because they were allowed to incorporate as continuous legal entities. In order to raise working capital, the principal partners, socii, offered shares, partes, to the public. The company would then submit a bid to the censors for the right to farm a particular tax or carry out a particular project. In the case of farming the taxes, the highest bidder won. The profit would be the difference between what the company paid and the actual yield of the taxes collected. In the case of other contracts, the profit would be the difference between what the state paid the company and its actual costs. The work itself was beneath the dignity of the investors. It was left to slaves, freedmen, and laborers supervised by a hired manager, magister.
Naturally, there was a temptation for tax farmers to squeeze the taxpayers as much as they could and for other contractors to cut corners to increase profits. Some contractors committed outright fraud. One notorious case occurred during the Second Punic War when shippers had government insurance on ships and cargoes for supplying the army. One company loaded bogus cargoes on unseaworthy ships and made an insurance claim when they sank (Livy, Book 25.3).
Strengths and weaknesses of Roman business
The most highly developed areas of Roman business were financial operations. The huge influx of wealth turned Rome into the banking and moneylending center of the Mediterranean. Roman bankers became very sophisticated. Individuals could keep open accounts and use bankers’ orders or letters of credit. In that way, payments could easily be made by bookkeeping entries. Coins, the only form of cash, would have been cumbersome and risky in large transactions.
Well-organized partnerships of investors often made loans to shipowners to finance their cargoes. More frequent and more profitable were loans to provincial taxpayers and whole cities that were hard pressed to pay their taxes or tribute. The official rate on such loans was usually limited to 12 percent; the actual rate could reach 24 or even 48 percent. Indeed, whole kingdoms sometimes became indebted to Roman moneylenders at these rates as client kings endeavored to pay for the support that secured their thrones.
By modern standards, the techniques of Roman business and manufacturing remained underdeveloped. The goal of many businessmen was not to reinvest their profits in ways to improve their productivity but in estates and villas. They wanted to live the lives of gentlemen on their rents and agricultural income. Some aspired to use their wealth and the leisure that it afforded to pursue public careers in their local communities. Others even tried to obtain senatorial office at Rome for themselves or their sons. Business was only a means to acquire land and the social status and political power that it conferred.
Social change and discontent
Rome’s wars of conquest and accompanying economic changes had major social consequences for both Romans and non-Romans in the third and second centuries b.c.e. Some people and groups benefited; many became discontented. Roman society became more complex as it was divided into more clearly identifiable classes with different needs and interests.
The provincials and other overseas people
Many inhabitants of the western provinces bitterly resented their loss of independence, the payment of taxes and tribute to Rome, and the depredations of corrupt Roman officials and financiers. Roman imperialism made life particularly difficult for the Greeks and other people of the Hellenistic East. Between 201 and 136 b.c.e., Greece, Egypt, Syria, and other parts of the Near East may have lost as much as 20–25 percent of their population. Houses fell into decay; large tracts of land lay fallow or were turned into pasture for want of labor. From 210 to 160 b.c.e., wages remained low. The prices of food, rent, and other necessities rose. In times of crop failure, food prices skyrocketed. Prices finally went down again because of the lack of buying power but not before the people had undergone intense suffering.
Still, there were those who benefited. Romans had always maintained control over conquered and allied people by supporting the power of local rulers and elites who were willing to cooperate in upholding Rome’s interests. Cooperative foreign rulers and elites were able to maintain their wealth and power at the expense of others in their communities. In Roman social terms, they became clients of powerful Roman senators. Those senators tried to make sure that Rome looked after their foreign clients’ interests. In return, the clients could provide valuable financial and even military support to Rome and the powerful senators who backed them.
The Italian allies
During the second century b.c.e., the Italian allies found their status more and more burdensome as Rome expanded overseas. Spending long years in wars overseas did not produce the same rewards for them as for Rome. First, Roman commanders began to give allied troops smaller shares of captured booty. Second, the indemnities and tribute imposed upon the conquered went to Rome alone. Roman commanders also imposed harsher discipline on allied soldiers. As Roman leaders became more and more secure at home and grew accustomed to dominance abroad, they became more high-handed in their treatment of their allies in Italy. At the least, they demanded free accommodations and entertainment when they traveled through allied territory. At the worst, they interfered in the allies’ domestic affairs. For example, in 186 b.c.e., they tried to suppress the worship of Bacchus among the allies in southern Italy through the use of criminal trials and executions of cult members. In short, the Romans increasingly treated their allies in Italy as subjects. That eventually led many allies to demand Roman citizenship and its privileges. Ultimately they rebelled when the Romans obstinately refused to grant this just demand.
Slaves and freedmen
One of the most discontented and potentially dangerous groups comprised the large numbers of anonymous rural slaves. They worked in the fields, forests, and mines of great landlords and commercial operators throughout the Roman world. A huge influx of war captives in the middle of the second century b.c.e. had made such slaves plentiful and very cheap. They were treated like animals. When concentrated in groups, they were often chained up in underground prisons at night. Beatings were common; family life was denied them. Moreover, their only value was as the cheapest labor possible. They did not even have the hope of being allowed to purchase eventual freedom by retaining anything from the fruits of their labor. Not surprisingly, many slaves sought escape to become robbers and brigands. Some even raised serious revolts. Indeed, their ability to do so was considerable. They were numerous, their supervision was often poor, and many of them were former soldiers captured in war.
Slave revolts began breaking out all over the Roman world between 143 and 133 b.c.e. In Italy, a revolt apparently was suppressed in 143 with the crucifixion of 450 slaves. A bigger revolt involving about 4000 slaves seems to have broken out in 140. In 134, an uprising at the great slave market of Delos was put down by force of arms. So was another at the silver mines of Laurium, near Athens. Slave revolts are reported for both 134 and 133 in Italy. In Pergamum, the war of Aristonicus (alleged bastard son of Eumenes II) and his Stoic “Sunstate” against Rome (132–129 b.c.e.) was really a major revolt of slaves, proletarians, and soldiers (p. 230). Worst of all was the slave revolt in Sicily. Ordinary robbery and assault by slaves had swollen into full-scale war about 136 b.c.e. Its leader was a Syrian slave named Eunus. Vomiting fire and uttering oracles, he was able to persuade his 70,000 (some say 250,000) followers that he was Antiochus, the king of the Syrians. Only after several years of hard fighting, the murder of many landlords, and much damage to property were the Romans able to crush this revolt and extinguish its last sparks in 132 b.c.e.
Not all slaves were forced to work under harsh conditions in the countryside, in mines, and in quarries. Many trained, educated captives from the lands of the eastern Mediterranean had better lives in domestic service as bookkeepers, secretaries, doctors, tutors, cooks, butlers, waiters, maids, hairdressers, and footmen or as skilled craftsmen like potters, carpenters, masons, decorators, tailors, and jewelers. A vast retinue of such slaves was a mark of status. The wealthy often competed to impress their peers with the numbers they owned.
Although some masters were relatively kind and generous to slaves with whom they lived, total control over another person easily led to cruelty and abuse. Small infractions might provoke harsh punishment. If a slave murdered a master, no matter how cruel, all of his fellow slaves had to be put to death with him. Male and female slaves were always vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse by their owners. Because adultery was defined for a man only as sexual relations with another citizen’s wife, it was commonly accepted that male and female slaves might served their master’s pleasure.
The usual Roman practice of manumitting (freeing) loyal slaves who had long been part of the household continued. Also, many masters hired out skilled slaves and allowed them to keep part of their earnings as their peculium. When such a slave had accumulated a large enough peculium, he or she could often negotiate the purchase of freedom. A female slave might be granted freedom after producing a certain number of children. Large numbers of slaves were manumitted in wills after their owners died. In fact, manumission was so common that the state collected handsome revenues from a 5 percent tax on the value of formally manumitted slaves.
The masters who freed their slaves also had something to gain from their generosity. The prospect of freedom in return for faithful service encouraged slaves to be docile and work hard. Many wealthy Romans helped their skilled ex-slaves set up their own businesses in return for a share of the profits. At the very least, any ex-slave was expected to be a loyal client to his former master. For the dead slave owner, it meant that his tomb would be well cared for by his freedmen, that his memory would be kept green, and that his spirit would receive the proper ritual offerings. For the living, the increase of clients through manumission had important political implications: freedmen became voting citizens. Although freedmen (but not their sons) were barred from public office, freedmen clients could be very helpful to an office seeker as voters and political agents.
The political impact of freedmen citizens caused them problems. Lower-class, freeborn citizens resented the dilution of their voting power by the influx of freedmen into the tribes of voters. Many senators feared that their rivals might gain an advantage from having a large number of freedmen clients. Therefore, the issue of tribal enrollment for freedmen became a source of political controversy.
Customarily, freedmen had been enrolled in only the four urban tribes, where their impact was outweighed by the less populous but more numerous rural tribes dominated by landowners. Some censors, like the famous Appius Claudius Caecus (the Blind) in 312 b.c.e., had tried to strengthen their clientela by enrolling freedmen and other humble citizens in all of the tribes. Others had removed the freedmen from the rural tribes and confined them to the urban ones again. In 168 b.c.e., the censors restricted freedmen to only one urban tribe.
The rural and urban Roman plebs
Wealthy plebeian families achieved power and status after the reforms that ended the so-called Struggle of the Orders. Therefore, the term plebeian increasingly came to refer to the masses of Roman citizens who made up the census classes of small farmers and the urban poor. As previously noted, Rome’s wars of conquest paradoxically benefited small farmers at first but eventually led to their distress as they became too numerous to be supported by available agricultural land (pp. 176–8). The rapid influx of rural migrants taking advantage of economic opportunities or looking for a more exciting life in the cities greatly increased the ranks of the urban poor. Despite the attractions of the growing urban economy, there were not always enough good opportunities for the newcomers, especially the unskilled.
Unemployment and underemployment caused hardship for many. Housing was in high demand and short supply. Rents were steep for even the worst accommodations. This situation encouraged overcrowding. That, in turn, produced serious health, sanitation, and safety problems. People lived in tightly packed rows of flimsy tabernae, one- or two-story buildings with timber frames and wicker walls open to the street except for shutters. In some neighborhoods, the tabernae were giving way to multistoried apartment blocks called insulae. Often they were hardly less flimsy than the tabernae. They sometimes collapsed, and many were firetraps. Without adequate fire protection, they burned in large numbers. The lack of any organized police force encouraged the growth of crime, which the hardships of life fostered. Consequently, the urban poor of Italy became increasingly discontented.
The situation became especially acute at Rome itself in the late second century b.c.e. The city’s economy no longer rested on an adequate productive base. Its great growth during the first sixty years of the century had depended on the profits of overseas expansion. That had fueled a great construction boom in the city and created a mass market for labor, goods, and services. After the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 b.c.e., however, there were no more profitable wars for some time. The drawn-out wars against relatively poor Spanish tribes probably did not even recover their own expenses. They disrupted the regular tribute, too. In 135 b.c.e., a slave rebellion in Sicily also required an expensive military effort. Whether or not there was a concomitant decline in publicly and privately funded building activity and benefactions at Rome between 146 and 133 b.c.e. is debatable. Still, economic activity probably did not increase to the level needed to sustain the city’s increased population, most likely 400,000 by 133 b.c.e.
The aristocratic senatorial order and the consular nobility
The aristocratic class or order (pp. 63–4) that dominated the social and political life of the middle and late Roman Republic was the senatorial order (ordo senatorius). It had emerged after the reforms of the fourth century b.c.e. It was made up of those wealthy patrician and plebeian landowning families whose direct male ancestors or current heads had obtained membership in the senate by appointment or by holding a qualifying elective office such as the quaestorship or aedileship. To hold a qualifying office or be a member of the senate, one needed to possess property equal in value to the minimum for enrollment in the first census class (400,000 HS in the late Republic). In practical terms, to reach the praetorship, consulship, or censorship, which distinguished the highest ranks in the senate, one probably needed much more wealth than the minimum for membership.
Within the senatorial order, those patrician and plebeian families who counted a consul in their direct male lines constituted the nobles (nobiles, sing. nobilis) or the nobility (nobilitas), the most elite group in Roman society (p. 93). During the third and early second centuries b.c.e., this group of families had become more and more exclusive. The nobiles made political and marital alliances with each other to monopolize access to the consulship, keep control of the levers of power within the senate, and take advantage of the oligarchic bias in the Republic’s institutional arrangements (p. 97). For example, 211 consuls were elected from 232 to 133 b.c.e. Ninety-one came from families representing only eleven gentes (pp. 60–1). Nineteen gentes supplied only one consul each. Seventeen of those were plebeian. Of those seventeen gentes, fourteen had no previous consuls, and eleven produced no more consuls in the remaining years of the Republic. Clearly, therefore, it was now difficult for members of nonconsular plebeian families to reach the consulship or, once they had, to keep their laurels fresh in competition with candidates from families of more entrenched patrician and plebeian gentes. This exclusivity of the nobiles angered ambitious members of the lower ranks of the senatorial aristocracy who also wished to become consuls.
The equestrian order
By 218 b.c.e., certain wealthy nonsenatorial families began to emerge as a separate upper class just below the senatorial order. Their male heads were enrolled in the first eighteen centuries of the first census class and constituted the equites (sing. eques), cavalrymen or knights (p. 92). Therefore, their families made up the ordo equester, the equestrian order or class. Sometimes, however, the term was informally stretched to include men of the first census class who were not enrolled in the eighteen equestrian centuries.
In the early Republic, the first eighteen centuries actually supplied the cavalry for the Roman army. Throughout the Republic, a man whom the censors enrolled in these centuries was given a cavalry horse and public funds for its upkeep even after the Romans stopped using citizens as cavalry. Equites were distinguished from senators by their dress. The latter wore a broad vertical band of purple, the latus clavus, on their tunics. Equites had only a narrow band, the angustus clavus, on theirs.
Often, however, the two orders overlapped. Senators’ close male relatives—like brothers, sons, nephews, and cousins—who did not hold actual seats in the senate were enrolled in the equestrian centuries and wore the narrow band of purple. Many of the equites were as wealthy as some of the higher-ranking senators. Wealthy, individual local aristocrats (called domi nobiles) in Italy who had acquired Roman citizenship were enrolled in the equestrian centuries. These and other equestrians were often linked to senatorial families through ties of patronage and marriage.
The equites were not simply businessmen. Like senators, they were men of landed wealth. As such, equites and senators often had similar outlooks and interests, and both necessarily pursued business activities. In 218 b.c.e., however, the tribune Q. Claudius, probably with the support of C. Flaminius, sponsored the lex Claudia forbidding senators and their immediate families to engage in large-scale overseas commerce. Senators were also not allowed to participate in public contracts. Accordingly, equestrians came to dominate those activities. Sometimes they came into conflict with senators who did not share such business interests.
More seriously, ambitious equites who wanted to compete for the highest honors at Rome resented the attempts of the nobility in the senate to exclude them from the office of consul. Members of the great noble families might support an equestrian client for one of the lower offices of the cursus honorum. On the other hand, they greatly resented a novus homo, new man, who managed to be the first of his family to reach the consulship (see Box 10.1). Most equestrians probably were content with their rank. Still, many must have resented the slight implied to their ordo by the nobility’s attitude toward those of them who wanted to achieve highest honors at Rome.
10.1 The “new man” at Rome
In the second century b.c.e., competition for the consulship was fierce, and the office was the almost exclusive property of men from a few elite senatorial families, whose wealth and powerful connections made them attractive to voters. Yet occasionally the office fell to a new man (novus homo), someone who was the first in his family to reach the highest office in Rome. M. Porcius Cato (p. 168), one of the most famous new men of the second century b.c.e., is a good illustration of how extraordinary a man had to be to break into the consular rank. Cato came from a wealthy family prominent in their hometown of Tusculum, which lies about fifteen miles southeast of Rome. Cato was a man of impeccable personal virtue and excelled in all the skills required of a magistrate—knowledge of the law, oratorical ability, and proven military valor—but it was not until his legal acumen and general popularity brought him to the attention of the patrician L. Valerius Flaccus, that a political career was an option. Valerius, whose ancestors had enjoyed political prominence for centuries, became Cato’s patron, and the result was a long and especially close political partnership. With Valerius’ support, Cato sought political office in Rome, and eventually the two men shared the consulship in 195 b.c.e. and the censorship in 184.
The publicani
Broadly speaking, all people involved in the business of public contracts were publicani, publicans. To the people in the provinces, the word publican meant “tax collector,” that is, the contractors’ agent or employee who actually collected the taxes for the companies of tax farmers. In Rome, however, the publicans were the wealthy principals and shareholders who put up the capital for and took the profits from companies engaged in public contracts. They came to be considered one of the orders of Roman society. They overlapped with the equestrian order because many of them were equites or met the property requirements for equestrian rank. Therefore, they had the level of wealth needed to finance the initial heavy expenses of public contracts. Senators, although legally barred from public contracts, often participated indirectly through loans to investors and the purchase of shares in the name of a friend or a client.
At times, however, publicani became embroiled in conflicts with the senate. They resented not only the attempts of honest senatorial magistrates and provincial governors to prevent illegal profiteering but also the schemes of corrupt ones to extort money from them. Even more frustrating were their unsuccessful attempts to use the courts to attack senators whom they disliked. The jurors were always senators and were often sympathetic to the accused. Therefore, the publicani eagerly supported attempts in the late second and during the first century b.c.e. to limit service on juries to nonsenators of the first census class. That class included many equites who were also publicani or investors in their operations.
The advancement of upper-class women
The role of upper-class Roman women becomes more conspicuous in the sources for the late third and second centuries b.c.e. One theme that runs throughout these accounts is the ostentatious display of wealth. For example, Aemilia, the wife of the elder Scipio Africanus, was notorious for such display. She died richer than her own brother, L. Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the victor at Pydna. In 215 b.c.e., during the Second Punic War, the lex Oppia limited how much expensive clothing and ornamentation a woman could wear in public. In 195 b.c.e., however, women protested in great numbers—a sign that there were already strong social networks among them in this early period. The law was repealed despite the conservative Cato’s vehement objection. As a result of wartime casualties, many women came to possess great wealth as heiresses. In 169 b.c.e., a law was passed to restrict female inheritances, but its impact seems to have been limited.
As families became richer and their daughters’ dowries and inheritances greater, fathers did not want to lose control of such wealth. Therefore, the old-fashioned marriage with manus, which transferred a wife to the complete control of her husband, became increasingly rare. Now, marriage contracts usually contained the stipulation that the dowry be returned to the wife’s family if she predeceased her husband. In this way, a woman would live with a man who did not have legal supervision over her. The men who did have legal control over her, namely her male blood relatives or legal guardian, were physically separated from her, particularly if they were away on overseas service or business for long periods. As in the case of Busa after Cannae, such a situation allowed savvy and capable women much room to maneuver (p. 144). Often, they even had the approval and cooperation of fathers, husbands, and guardians. Wealthy and well-connected women could be useful partners in advancing mutual social, economic, and political interests.
The crisis of war also gave greater prominence to upper-class women’s religious roles in the community. The Vestal Virgins were considered particularly important for ensuring divine favor through their chastity and were accorded important privileges along with their responsibilities. Elite families competed for the honor of having a daughter chosen to be a Vestal. Unfortunately, two Vestals, Opimia and Floronia, became scapegoats for the disaster at Cannae on the ground that they had been unchaste. Elite families’ rivalries may well explain why these two were singled out. Condemned to death, one was buried alive, and the other committed suicide.
Upper-class women also played prominent parts in religious festivals and other rituals considered vital to the community. In 204 b.c.e., for example, the senate sought the protection of Cybele, the Great Mother, by bringing her from Asia Minor to Rome. Upper-class matrons came out to greet the ship bearing the black stone that embodied her. One of them was Claudia Quinta, perhaps a granddaughter of the famous censor Appius Claudius Caecus. Supposedly, when her fitness was doubted on the grounds of unchastity, she vindicated herself by single-handedly freeing the ship after it stuck in the riverbed.
The increased level of education among upper-class women also contributed to their prominence and influence. The growing wealth and sophistication of aristocratic families prompted them to acquire the most highly trained tutors for their children. The large staffs of domestic slaves meant that girls were not needed for household chores. Therefore, they were allowed to attend the lessons that might have been denied them in earlier times. Also, Roman aristocrats were now being exposed to the Hellenistic Greek model of the educated woman. Soon, a number of educated women were patronizing literary circles and running salons, as did aristocratic French women in the eighteenth century c.e.
One of the most famous Roman women of the late second century b.c.e. combines many of these characteristics and accomplishments. She was Cornelia, daughter of the elder Scipio Africanus and mother of the Gracchi (see Chapter 12). When her distinguished husband, the elder Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, died, her wealth increased. Well educated under the influence of her philhellene father, she provided the best education possible for her daughter and two sons who, out of allegedly twelve children, survived to maturity. She was also well known as a patroness of writers and philosophers. Her own cultured letters were read for generations after her death. Her personal accomplishments, her wealth, and her politically valuable family connections made her a force in Roman aristocratic circles. She is even said to have received an offer of marriage from a king of Egypt (the rival brothers Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII were both looking for Roman support to secure the throne). If so, she declined. She was much more interested in promoting her sons’ careers at Rome, the new center of power in the Mediterranean.
Political developments
During the period of the Punic wars and the subsequent growth of Roman power, the consular families who had come to dominate the senate made sure that the opportunities for more families to acquire consular status were not created. Although Rome’s imperial expansion greatly increased the need for high executives, the senate did not raise the number of annual consuls from the traditional two. Instead, it enlarged the number of praetors to six each year. It also greatly expanded the practice of proroguing (prolonging) a consul’s or a praetor’s military command or provincial governorship after his normal year in office. Magistrates whose terms of service were prorogued became promagistrates. Such men were able to use their extended terms to capitalize on the opportunities that their positions gave them to acquire clients and financial resources to further their domination of high offices. Moreover, the increase in praetorships meant that there were more eligible candidates—and consequently heightened competition—for the two annual consulships.
The result was a very unhealthy political situation for Rome. Unchecked by any challenges from without, oligarchic nobles often failed to deal with the pressing problems and discontent that accompanied imperial expansion. Instead, they competed with increasing intensity among themselves. They wanted dominance within the senate and the prizes of gloria (glory), dignitas (esteem), and auctoritas (prestige) that came with high office and military triumph. Simultaneously, the holding of high office helped a man to amass the resources of money and patronage needed to maintain or increase his family’s advantage in competition with other nobles and lesser aristocrats for political and military advancement.
Political groupings
Political struggles within the senatorial order were not organized on the basis of formal political parties, organizations, and programs. There was no incentive to organize in such ways. The senate, a body of about 300 men with lifetime tenure, exercised great control over public affairs. Senators were not held directly accountable to the electorate or any other authority. Candidates for offices might well have different ideas concerning domestic issues or foreign affairs. Nevertheless, their electoral supporters were often organized on a highly personal basis of family connections, friendships, mutually advantageous coalitions, and patronage.
Some outstanding individuals might build up relatively stable factions of personal supporters that would last for some time. Others might last for only one electoral campaign. Members of a man’s family or even gens might support his election to high office out of feelings of kinship or family pride. There are, however, not enough data to support the thesis that there were long-lasting factions of related families or otherwise allied groups who consistently supported fellow members for office and promoted concerted political programs in the senate.
Prosopography and Roman politics
An important tool for analyzing the highly personal politics of the Roman Republic is prosopography. This term comes from the Greek words meaning “writing about persons.” It often involves the analysis of the social and geographic origins of individuals, their kinship networks, their personal friendships or associations, and their career paths. Those things can reveal social and political affiliations or affinities that are not explicitly documented in the ancient sources. Prosopography can also involve the analysis of biographical data from many individuals within a clearly identifiable group, such as Roman consuls. Those data can create valuable statistical profiles of that group.
The application of the prosopographical approach to Roman history has often been criticized for being limited mostly to studying the elite (who usually have left most of the information available) and for being applied too mechanically or simplistically: for example, “X was married to Y’s cousin; therefore, X was a political supporter of Y.” The undocumented behaviors or attitudes of a particular individual cannot be deduced from kinship relationships or other close affiliations and associations with people exhibiting the same or similar behaviors and attitudes. Nevertheless, the careful collection and interpretation of prosopographical information can be very useful for understanding a person’s documented behavior or attitudes in a wider context. They reveal the commonalities that link the person to a wider group exhibiting the same or similar behaviors and attitudes. On the other hand, just because two or more people exhibit similar behaviors or attitudes, it is not legitimate to say that they constitute a group without other evidence of close associations. Where sufficient evidence exists for nonelite individuals, like freedmen or noncommissioned military officers, facts of their individual lives can yield useful statistical profiles of those groups. In Roman history, most such evidence comes from inscriptions. Unfortunately, inscriptional evidence does not become plentiful enough for nonelite individuals until the period of the Empire.
Attempts to check outstanding individuals
Many members of the nobility feared the rise of any outstanding individual. He might amass so much wealth, power, popularity, glory, prestige, and esteem that he would reduce the chances for them to compete for the same things on an equal basis. The social and financial rewards of political power increased with the power and wealth of Rome. Therefore, the temptation increased to violate the customary rules governing political behavior as men sought to secure competitive advantage. At the same time, those rewards included the means to violate traditional norms. Values and behavior necessary to preserve a republican form of government gradually began to disintegrate under the pressure. The way was imperceptibly opened for one man to overcome his competitors and dominate all in the manner of Hellenistic monarchs, whom Roman nobles had replaced as the masters of the Mediterranean world.
A good example of the process can be seen in the career of the elder P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus during the Second Punic War. After Scipio’s father and uncle had been killed in Spain, the well-connected young Scipio obtained a proconsular command from the senate to continue the war there. He was only twenty-five, however, and had held no office beyond the aedileship. His successful prosecution of the war in Spain emboldened him to return to Rome and run for the consulship in 206 b.c.e. Still, he was far younger than normal and had never held the praetorship, normally a prerequisite for the consulship. Rival families and conservative-minded senators who objected to his unorthodox career opposed him. His popularity as a military hero and his promise to invade Africa if elected guaranteed his victory. Scipio’s opponents sought to block him. They placed him in charge of the disgraced survivors of Cannae and denied him public funds. He used his popularity to raise enough funds and volunteers to man, equip, and train a first-rate army to invade North Africa in 204 b.c.e. Such power and independence in one man did not bode well for the Republic. Its stability depended upon adherence to the well-established political ground rules.
Other ambitious individuals soon followed Scipio’s path and sought to equal or surpass his achievement. For example, T. Quinctius Flamininus had never been elected to any office beyond the junior one of military tribune. Still, he was made a propraetor in charge of Tarentum in 205 b.c.e. Not yet thirty, he was elected consul for 198 b.c.e. to prosecute the Second Macedonian War.
The extraordinarily rapid rise of such young men as Scipio and Flamininus was disturbing. Their rivals and leaders who saw unorthodox careers as a danger to the traditional Republic reacted vigorously. They procured laws to enforce what custom and tradition could no longer safeguard. For example, shortly after Flamininus was elected consul, the praetorship was made a prerequisite for the consulship in the cursus honorum (course of offices [p. 94]). That change probably was made to reduce the number of candidates for the two consulships each year. The number of praetors had increased from two to four at the end of the First Punic War to cope with administering new provinces. It was increased to six in 197 b.c.e. after the organization of the two Spanish provinces. Without this new prerequisite, fourteen former quaestors, aediles, and praetors would have been eligible to run for the two consulships. The chances that the voters would pass over an older man for a more popular younger one and the dangers of overheated electoral competition were too great for many senators to ignore.
In 180 b.c.e., the curule magistracies were systematically regulated by the lex Villia Annalis. It set minimum ages for holding the curule aedileship, the praetorship, and the consulship—probably thirty-six, thirty-nine, and forty-two, respectively. A minimum interval of two years between the end of one office and the holding of another was also required. The status of the quaestorship at this time is not clear. A minimum age of twenty-five may have been fixed for it. In any case, it became the normal, if not mandatory, first office of the senatorial cursus honorum. Finally, in 152 b.c.e. or soon after, a law was passed to forbid reelection to the consulship. Significantly, M. Claudius Marcellus had just been elected to his third consulship without waiting the required ten years after his second.
Still, the temptation to violate traditional political norms intensified with political competition. Between 181 and 131 b.c.e., several laws were passed to stop bribery and limit the control of patrons over voters in the assemblies. They required secret ballots and even instituted the death penalty for bribery. Two other laws attempted to limit the efforts of wealthy men to extend their private clientelae and impress voters with lavish entertainments and dinners. Nothing really worked.
When the prizes are large and the temptations correspondingly great, mere laws are not enough to restrain undesirable behavior. In Rome, the legal restraints on political behavior were especially weak. The Roman political system was not based on a written constitution that could be altered only after a lengthy process allowing due consideration and requiring the overwhelming approval of those responsible for making any changes. “Constitutional” matters were either merely customary or regulated by normal, ad hoc legislative acts like the lex Villia Annalis. All that an ambitious and popular leader had to do to circumvent such restraints was to procure a new law in his favor. For example, in 148 b.c.e. Scipio Aemilianus, the younger Africanus, obtained a special enactment to run for the consulship, although he met none of the conditions set by the lex Villia Annalis. Another special law also gave him the command against Carthage. That action breached the customary right of the senate to assign consuls to military commands. Finally, in 135 b.c.e. Scipio received an exemption from the law forbidding repetition of the consulship. That enabled him to take charge of the war against Numantia.
Other ambitious men dispensed with legality altogether. As provincial governors, they often exceeded their authority or disobeyed express senatorial decrees in order to win military laurels that would enhance their popularity at the polls. Individual governors were practically laws unto themselves in their provinces. Far from the watchful eyes of their senatorial colleagues, they enjoyed supreme judicial and military power in their provinces. The provincials were at their mercy. Governors usually held a particular province for only a year or two. They often had no interest in securing the long-term welfare of their charges. Too often they were interested in using their power to extort as much money as they could from hapless provincials. Thus, they would have the resources to advance their careers, pay off their debts, and maintain their status among competing peers back home. That is not to say that there were not many responsible and fair Roman governors who refused to put selfish interest above duty. Still, the bad ones were numerous enough to cause discontent in the provinces and concern among other senators.
The first permanent standing court (quaestio perpetua)
The problem had become acute in 149 b.c.e. with the failure to bring Servius Sulpicius Galba to justice for his crimes in Spain (p. 168). In that same year, a new law established Rome’s first permanent jury court, the quaestio perpetua de rebus repetundis. It is doubtful, however, that it was intended to bring real relief to the provincials. It seems that only Roman citizens could bring suit in the court. A later reform was needed to make the extortion law a source of meaningful redress for provincials (p. 222). The law of 149 b.c.e. seems more an attempt to prevent ambitious individuals from misusing public service to acquire money for competing with their peers.
Overview and assessment
Imperial expansion transformed Rome’s economic, social, and political life. Economically, small farmers as a whole benefited from the conquests of northern Italy and Spain and, paradoxically, even from the heavy casualties in the wars of the late third and early second centuries b.c.e. At the same time, it was easier for the wealthy to establish large slave-worked estates, especially in central and southern Italy. They and many small farmers began to produce commercially for Italy’s rapidly growing cities. The latter grew from the influx of wealth from Rome’s conquests and increased trade and commerce. The inflow of precious metals helped to create a stable monetary system, and the minting of millions of coins to pay soldiers helped to monetize the economy. Wealthy Romans increased their fortunes through war booty, overseas commerce, and lucrative public contracts.
Socially, imperial expansion benefited upper-class Romans, both men and women, and the provincial elites who cooperated with them. It also created numerous discontented social groups. Many provincials resented their loss of independence and felt oppressed by often corrupt and rapacious Roman governors and tax collectors. Even Rome’s Italian allies came to feel abused. They did much of the fighting, but Rome kept most of victory’s fruits and treated them more like subjects. Successful wars flooded Italy with slaves. While some skilled slaves came to work as household servants, tens of thousands ended up in far more dangerous and hostile conditions in mines, large workshops, and the fields of great estates. In the 140s and 130s b.c.e., several dangerous slave revolts broke out, particularly in Italy and Sicily. Even those slaves who eventually gained freedom and citizenship resented how the value of their votes was limited to the benefit of freeborn citizens. Many of the latter, particularly among the rural and urban plebs, faced desperate social and economic conditions by the late second century b.c.e. Wealthy nonsenators who made up the equestrian class resented the difficulties placed in the way of equites who sought to rise into the ranks of the consular nobility. Also, those engaged in public contracts as publicani, particularly the tax farmers, sometimes found that their economic interests brought them into conflict with the senatorial elite.
Politically, imperial expansion strained the Republic’s system of government. The rewards that came from holding high office and commanding conquering armies greatly increased, and this in turn raised political competition among the leaders of noble or would-be-noble families in the senate to destructive levels. The expansion of the lower offices of the cursus honorum only intensified the competition for the two consulships at the top. Attempts to rein in ambitious individuals by legislating what had been traditional norms and by instituting punishments for those who violated them only produced greater efforts to evade them. At the same time, fear that someone might gain political advantage by sponsoring needed reforms prevented the senate from solving the problems that others could manipulate to their benefit. While Rome’s empire grew, the competing oligarchs who controlled it became less and less able to solve the problems it created.
Suggested reading
Brunt , P. A. Italian Manpower, 225 B.C.–A. D. 14. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Rosenstein , N. Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Roman Republic. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1990.
Tan , J. Power and Public Finance at Rome, 264–49 B.C. Oxford Studies in Early Empires. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.