Download HIS 28 – Part 14

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC UPHEAVAL IN THE
ROMAN STATE AND IN ITALY AFTER 200 BC
1. The result of Rome’s heavy military involvement over
half a century between 200 and 150 BC in Spain and,
particularly, in the Eastern Mediterranean (which was more
highly urbanized and wealthier) brought massive social and
economic changes to the Italian peninsula (both to the
Roman state and to its allies) because of the wealth that
poured into the Italian Peninsula.
2. The most important changes were:
a) The emergence of a new social and economic stratum in Roman
society.
b) The dispossession of many small, independent farmers
throughout Italy (with consequences for military recruitment).
c) The development of large landed property holdings.
d) The rapid growth of the use of slave labour.
e) The major influx of Greek influences and ideas into Roman
life.
THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
STRATUM
1. Ever since “the war with Hannibal” (in fact since 215 BC),
the Roman Senate, lacking adequate resources, had turned
to “the private sector” to raise the funds to equip Rome’s
armies with what they needed.
2. Those with wealth that was not totally tied up in landownership were encouraged to come forward and bid for
state contracts to provide what was required.
4.
Wherever a loan to the Roman state by an individual or, more
often, a consortium of individuals was involved, the state offered
publicly-owned land as a security until such time as the state
could repay the money loaned.
5.
a) A new, identifiable stratum of private citizens
(essentially money-lenders) vital to the smooth running
of the state soon emerged – in short, ‘public contractors’.
b) Such men often became very wealthy, but rarely, if ever,
aspired to public office - their backgrounds tended not to
make them have such aspirations.
Note: Ever since 218 BC, by decree of the Senate, senators and their sons
had been prohibited (under the “Claudian Law”) from owning ships
with a capacity of over 300 amphorae (300 x 6 gallons).
As a result senatorial families tended to restrict their economic activities in
Italy to land-holding (and enjoying profits from warfare).
5. This new (emerging) social stratum in Roman society
would with time come to be known as “the
EQUESTRIAN ORDER” (the EQUITES) - and would
at times in the late 100s BC - play a ‘balancing role’ in
the politics of the state..
THE DISPOSSESSION OF MANY SMALL
INDEPENDENT FARMER
1. Between approximately 200 and 150 BC large numbers of
small-scale, but independent, farmers in the Roman state
and in many of the states in Italy which were allied to
Rome sold or abandoned their farms and drifted to the
cities – especially to the City of Rome.
2. The reason for this had much to do with the nature of
military service – although not exclusively so.
3. a) When wars were being fought in Italy, it had not been
difficult for troops to be demobilized and to return to
their homes at the end of the fighting season.
b) The citizen (whether of Rome or of an allied state) who
had been called upon to serve would usually return to
work on the land for the remainder of the year.
c) But now military service often involved a presence in
SPAIN or in the EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN with no
hope of returning to Italy every year.
d) It seems that many farms suffered from such absences
by vital family members: some were away for over six
years.
e) Families often found it difficult, too, to gain access to
their fair share of ‘common land’.
4. a) Many farming families abandoned, sold, or were
forced from their land – especially at the hands of
richer citizens.
b) As they moved to the cities, they contributed there to
crowding, unemployment and other social difficulties.
5. As landless citizens they no longer qualified for
military service, since such service was based on those
who met the minimum qualifications in terms of land
ownership.
6. In its turn, this caused increasing difficulties in
recruitment to the army.
Note: By no means all of the small, independent farmers left the land, but enough
did so for the change to be noticeable.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE PROPERTY
HOLDINGS
1. When small-scale, independent farmers abandoned
their farms, there was no lack of people with money
which they could use to buy up their land:
a) many senators had gained from the profits which
came from warfare; also
b) many members of the new emerging stratum of statecontractors had large sums of money from their
contracting which was available to invest;
c) We know that huge quantities of booty had poured into
Italy – especially from the eastern Mediterranean – in
every conceivable form (including war-captives who were
enslaved).
AND land was the most “respectable” and “socially
acceptable” form of wealth in which to invest money.
2. The growth of large land holdings took two forms:
i) in a limited number of areas, such as southern
Italy and Sicily, senatorial families established
very large estates (latifundia);
ii) much more usually a senatorial family would
acquire quite a number of modest estates in
different parts of Italy.
3. Whatever sort of estates developed, the gap between
the rich and the poor, the landed and the landless, grew
massively in this half century (200 – 150 BC).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVE LABOUR
1. a) While the use of slave labour was not, of course,
unknown before 200 BC and seems to have increased
significantly after the wars against the Samnites in the
early 200s BC and during the “First Punic War”,
b) it became almost “the norm” between 200 and 150 BC
as huge numbers of slaves poured into Italy from
Rome’s wars in Spain and, particularly, in the eastern
Mediterranean.
2. i) Even poorer families who could do so acquired a
slave or two to assist on the farm or in the household.
ii) Equally in towns small artisans would acquire one or
two slaves to assist in the workshop.
iii) The very wealthy, of course, acquired large numbers
of slaves for their households and for their landed
holdings.
3.
In this way Roman (and Italian) society came to
“depend” on slave labour in the sense that the main
surplus in the economy came from the work of slaves.
4.
a) Even so, except in state-owned mines and on some
large ranches, we should not imagine large numbers
of slaves being found in any one place.
b) The estates of the rich tended to be places where
specialized agricultural produce was grown and slaves
were acquired for their skilled knowledge and
employed in such areas as olive-growing and as vinedressers in vineyards.
5. a) The massive influx of slave labour also goes a long
way to explaining why free agricultural labourers
are not really found in Italy as wage-earners.
b) Independent farmers (as we have seen) upon
becoming landless drifted to the cities.
THE INFLUX INTO ITALY OF GREEK
INFLUENCES AND IDEAS
1. The Roman state had, of course, long had contact with
Greek states – from the later 300s BC in Campania and
in the 280s BC in the far south of Italy, but Greek
influence on the Roman way of life appears to have
been limited.
2. BUT the warfare in the eastern Mediterranean from the
190s BC onwards brought large numbers of ordinary
Romans fighting as legionary soldiers into contact with
“things Greek”.
3. Greek artefacts (as part of the booty), educated Greeks
(as slaves), Greek concepts (in philosophy and the liberal
arts) all found their way back in quantity to Italy and,
inevitably, began to have a considerable influence on
Roman practices and thinking.
4. a) Some members of the Roman elite, under the
leadership of Marcus Porcius CATO (the Elder), tried
to resist this “Hellenization” - as we have noted
before;
b) others, especially those in the circle of SCIPIO THE
YOUNGER, embraced new thinking and practices –
again as we have noted before.
5.
The influx of Greek ideas gave, as an example, a
particular stimulus to literary activity at Rome, which
had not had an extensive literature until now.
DIGRESSION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROMAN LITERATURE
1.
It was, it seems, influences from the Greek states of southern Italy
which gave rise to the first literary works in Latin from about 240 BC
(at the end of the First Punic War):
a) The first figures are LIVIUS ANDRONICUS (who died about
200 BC), his contemporary GNAEUS NAEVIUS and
the slightly younger TITUS MACCIUS PLAUTUS (ca 250 to
184 BC) :
i) Livius Andronicus (dramatist and epic poet) put on his first
play in 240 BC. He translated Greek works into Latin, including
Homer’s Odyssey, and
wrote tragedies and comedies (based on Greek
‘New Comedy’ – the ‘comedy of manners’).
ii) GNAEUS NAEVIUS (died 201 BC), again an epic poet and dramatist,
ran foul of the powerful Cecilii Metelli and was forced into exile. He
too adapted Greek ‘New Comedy’ to the Roman stage, but
extended tragedy to deal with national Roman figures and
incidents from Roman history.
iii) TITUS MACCIUS PLAUTUS (254 – 184) [the earliest Roman writer any of
whose works survive intact] staged almost exclusively comedies – ‘comedies
of manners’.
b) More or less contemporary with Plautus was QUINTUS ENNIUS
(ca 239 – ca 169); and his somewhat younger nephew MARCUS
PACUVIUS (220 – 130 BC):
i) Ennius wrote Rome’s first great epic (his “Annals” – from the end of the
Trojan War [1184 BC] to the censorhip of Cato the Elder in 184 BC).
Coming from Calabria, he had experienced three types of culture,
language and milieu: Oscan, Greek, Latin;
ii) PACUVIUS was one of Rome’s great tragic poets too.
1. Latin prose-writing was later getting under way, the first Roman
historian, QUINTUS FABIUS PICTOR (fl. about 200 BC)
writing in Greek.
2. About the earliest and most important Latin prose-writer was
CATO THE ELDER [234-149 BC] (already mentioned for his stand
against Greek influences).
His principal works (which belong mainly to the period after 200
BC) included
a) his “Origins” (seven books on the history of Italian towns, with
special reference to Rome) and
b) his extant De Agri Cultura (“On Farming”).
A surviving quotation from his Praecepta ad Filium (“Maxims
addressed to his son”) makes clear Cato’s attitude to Greek influences
affecting Roman ways may be of interest:
“In due course, my son, I will explain what I found out in Athens
about Greeks and demonstrate what advantage there may be in
looking into their writings (while not taking them too seriously).
They are a worthless and unruly tribe. Take this as a prophecy: when
those folk give us their writings they will corrupt everything. All the
more if they send their doctors here. They have sworn to kill all
barbarians with medicine – and they charge a fee for doing it, in
order to be trusted and to work more easily. They call us barbarians,
too, and opici [‘stupid oafs’], a dirtier name than the rest. I have
forbidden you to deal with doctors.”
1. All the changes that affected the Roman state and the states of Italy
between 200 and 150 BC - namely
1.
The emergence of the new social and economic stratum at Rome
2.
The dispossession of many Roman and Italian small, independent farmers
3.
The growth of large property holdings in the hands of wealthy citizens
4.
The massive extension of the use of slave labour throughout society
5.
The influx of Greek influences and ideas into the Roman state
had a huge impact on society, the economy, and on politics.
2. The SENATE at Rome, which had guided the state well for
decades, especially during the ‘Second Punic War’, proved
itself, well before 150 BC, incapable or unwilling to deal with
all the problems society was facing – because of the acquisition of
an empire.
3. For the next 100 years after 150 BC, Romans seemed to be
constantly searching for a solution to their problems – a period often
called the period of “the Roman Revolution”.
ROME’S
EMPIRE BY
133 BC
ROME’S
EMPIRE IN
200 BC