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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.
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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
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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.
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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. With his new army, Marius could indeed end the war in Africa, and in
two battles, in 101 B.C. and 102 B.C., hold off the Cimbri and the Teutones for a
while. But because of the support for veterans, there arose bloody disputes, which
yielded a situation nearing civil war in Rome. The republic was in a dead-end
street.
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Sulla’s Dictatorship
When, in 88 B.C., the consul Sulla, a radical representative of the landowner’s
interests, marched with his army toward Rome, conquered the city, and drove out
the populares, the republic seemed to be over. First, an officer had used an army
against the free republic. In 82 B.C., Sulla allowed himself to be named dictator,
after he had reestablished Roman authority in the province of Asia [Minor]. His
assignment was to reestablish the republic. He took harsh measures against all
opponents of the senatorial party. Their names were listed on plaques, so-called
Proscription Lists, publicly; anybody could kill them, without being punished.
Their property and land were confiscated. Over forty senators and 1,500 equites
lost their lives. Entire towns and villages, who had held to Marius and populares,
met the revenge of the optimates. Thousands lost their houses and lands; Sulla
gave their property to his veterans.
In order to stabilize the senate’s power, Sulla limited the powers of the people’s
tribunes. A tribune could only still ask for a popular decision, if the senate had
already approved it. The governors were forbidden to leave their provinces with
their armies. Nobody should be able to lead an army against Rome again, as Sulla
himself had done.
The equates, too, forfeited their influence. In the new sworn-in courts, there would
only places for senators. In trade, Sulla named three hundred new members into the
senate from the equates class.
In 79 B.C., Sulla retired from his dictatorship to everybody’s amazement, and
moved to his private estate near Napoli.
To be sure, Sulla had, by means of his actions, given the leading role back to the
senate, but had peace and quiet been secured by this? Did his policies have the
beginning of the solution of the problems?
Pompey and the Senate
It quickly showed itself, that the Roman plebeians were not inclined, to accept the
limitations on the powers of the popular tribunes. In 70 B.C., the popular tribunes
got their old powers back. But more decisive was the fact that the senate could
only still resolve the republic’s political problems if it gave extraordinary and
unlimited powers to certain men; but precisely by doing this, the senate lost still
more influence. This would be demonstrated soon in the example of Pompey. He
was an extraordinarily gifted and organized officer. With having entered onto the
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usual path to offices, he obtained command, spread along the coasts of the entire
empire, for fighting against pirates, who had paralyzed almost the entire
Mediterranean shipping industry. In a few months, Pompey had destroyed them.
From 66 B.C. to 63 B.C., he completed a military maneuver without parallel
through Asia Minor and the Near East, subjugating everything that he encountered,
and reorganizing the administration. But the senate hesitated, out of the fear of
inspiring imitators, to recognize Pompey’s Asian policies and providing for his
veterans. By means of this humiliation, the senate drove Pompey into the arms of
the rich man Crassus and of the skillful tactician Caesar. In 60 B.C., the three of
them agreed together to be part of an unofficial three-part federation, a triumvirate,
which soon obtained the nickname “the three-headed monster.” When Caesar
became consul in 59 B.C., he provided for Pompey’s veterans, and expanded his
position of power, as he obtained the governorship in the province of Gaul for five
years.
In the following years, he conquered, bit by bit, all of Gaul, and placed the
territories under Roman rule. At the end of these wars, Caesar had three trump
cards, as a victorious and almost legendary imperator, which would be decisive:
unlimited reputation, huge wealth, and soldiers devoted to him. Now he referred to
his accomplishments, which he had made for the Roman state, and demanded from
the senate, that they be acknowledged fittingly in Rome. But the senate opposed
him, because Pompey had, after the death of Crassus, again united with the senate,
and had obtained the province of Spain as a counter-balance to Caesar’s position of
power. The decisive battle for the control of the republic was at hand! When the
senate, backed by Pompey and his army, demanded that Caesar should let go of his
soldiers, he saw in this the end of his political career, and a disregard for his
dignitas, i.e., his dignity, which he had earned by means of his services for the
state. He decided to risk a civil war, crossed the Rubicon River, the border of his
province, and moved toward Rome.
In a bitter civil war, he defeated first Pompey (at Pharsalos in 48 B.C.), and then
his followers. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was murdered.
The Sole Rule of Caesar
With Caesar’s victory over Pompey, a return to the old rule of the senate was
blocked. Caesar made no secret of this; not for nothing had he called Sulla political
illiterate, because he had given up the dictatorship.
First, Caesar obtained the dictatorship for a one-year period of time; later, ten
years; and finally, in 45 B.C., by the senate’s decree, for life. Differently than
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earlier, the dictatorship was no longer restricted to certain tasks. Caesar was the
sole ruler in Rome. Neither the right of provocare [to forestall executions and
whippings] nor the right of ius intercessionis [to veto] was usuable by the popular
tribunes against him. He alone nominated the candidates for offices, and in the
senate, he obtained not only a seat of honor, but rather was also always asked first
about his opinion. Many honors emphasized his special status: since 45 B.C., he
could, at all state occasions, wear the robe of triumph and laurel wreath, which was
actually appropriate for Jupiter, the supreme Roman governmental god. In the
same year, a statue of Caesar was installed, with the inscription, “the unconquered
god,” and the title pater patriae (“father of the fatherland”) was given to him.
Finally, he was permitted to sit on a gold-covered chair at senate meetings and
court hearings.
Among contemporaries, his policies encountered little criticism. At first, his large
constructions were noticeable; by means of the planned monuments, the state
should radiate new splendor and therefore also new power. Then Caesar reduced
from 320,000 to around 150,000 the number of the Roman city proletariats who
received grain at the state’s expense. Everywhere in the empire, he set up colonies
for more than 80,000 veterans and citizens. He also attempted to act against the
expansion of the slave economy. He reorganized the senate, raising the number of
senators from 600 to 900, and thereby brought in mainly his own supporters.
He could not carry out many of his other plans, like the expansion of the harbor at
Ostia, the draining of the Pontinian swamps (south of Rome), and a collection of
all Roman laws.
Although Caesar declined the title of “king” and the diadem, the suspicion that he
sought a monarchy arose among many old republicans because of manner in which
he exercised power. His appearances, and the gestures of his followers, caused his
opponents to think about old republican values. Opposition collected itself around
Marcus Iunius Brutus. On the ides of March (March 15, 44 B.C.), Caesar was
murdered during a senate meeting.
After Caesar’s murder, a civil war broke out, between those who saw themselves
as Caesar’s heirs, and those who saw themselves as old republicans. It lasted over
ten years.
Caesar came to grief, less because of what he actually did in politics, and more
because of the thoughtlessness with which he discarded republican virtues, and
because of the manner in which he handled power and honor.
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On the other hand, Caesar’s murders had neither a political vision of how the state
should be organized, nor did they want the power for themselves. They understood
their actions as the killing of the tyrant, as an act of liberation for the old
aristocratic republic. But did that even still exist, could it be brought back by a
simple act of liberation? And were Caesar’s policies really those of a tyrant?
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