Download Domestic Crisis and the `Struggle of the Orders`

Domestic Crisis and the
‘Struggle of the Orders’
The City
from M. Grant,
History of Rome
A Roman Patrician
with Maiores
from Cary and Scullard,
A History of Rome
Towards a Methodology for Reconstructing
Early Roman Society (K. Raaflaub)
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Comprehensive Approach: recurrent themes and
patterns in diverse sources are probably historically
significant (that is, we should not limit ourselves to
history writing, or even literary evidence, for that
matter)
Comparative Approach: test hypotheses for early Rome
against fuller records of societies that passed through
similar socio-economic historical processes (for
example, early Greece)
Archaeology: seems to confirm literary tradition of
socio-economic crisis in 5th-century BCE Rome:
cessation of temple-construction and other public
building
Interrelationship of Roman Foreign Policy
and Internal Roman Politics
“At the outbreak of the First Samnite War in 343, the
plebeian leaders’ demand that one of the two consulships
should always be theirs was still being determinedly
resisted. By the end of the Second Samnite War in 304 this
demand had long been taken for granted and a closed
‘nobility’ had been formed that was so united that its
members, patricians and plebeians alike, went into
mourning when an upstart outsider of servile origin like
Cn. Flavius was elected curule aedile over two ‘noble’
plebeians [see Livy, 9.46; Pliny, Natural History, 33.17].”
E.T. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge,
1967) 217
Twelve Tables: Table III
“the creditor may bind [the debtor] either in
stocks or in fetters; he may bind him with a
weight of no more than fifteen pounds…Unless
they make a settlement, debtors shall be held in
bonds for sixty days. During that time they shall
be brought before the praetor’s court…on the
third market day they shall suffer capital
punishment or be delivered up for sale abroad,
across the Tiber. On the third market day the
creditors shall cut pieces.”
Internal Crises: Patricians and
Plebeians
 Patricians
and non-Patricians
(Plebeians)
 War as Palliative
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 10.33
“The following year [455 BCE]…was not of an even tenor but was
varied and fraught with great events. For the internal struggles,
which seemed to be already extinguished, were again stirred up by
the tribunes; and some foreign wars sprang up, which, without being
able to harm the commonwealth at all, did it a great service by
banishing these struggles. For it had by now become a regular and
customary thing for the city to be harmonious in war and to be at
odds in peace. When all who assumed the consulship observed this,
they regarded the appearance of any foreign war as an answer to
prayer. And when the enemies were quiet, they themselves invented
grievances and pretenses for wars, since they saw that wars made the
commonwealth great and flourishing, and seditions humiliated and
weak. Having come to this same conclusion, the consuls of that year
resolved to lead an expedition against the enemy, apprehensive that
idle and poor men might, because of peace, begin to raise
disturbances.”
The Secession of the Plebeians (494 BCE) and
Patrician Concessions
Creation of the Tribunate (494 BCE)
 veto, intercessio, auxilium
 Plebeian Assembly (concilium plebis)
 Plebeian Record Office
 Plebeian Aediles
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Aventine: site of plebeian resistance
The Decemvirate and the Twelve
Tables: ca. 453-449 BCE
Non-elite Grievances: debt (nexum); land
(ager publicus); military service
(stipendia)
 Primary Source: Livy, 3.31-35
 Publication of Ten Tables of Codified
Law
 Two Supplements Added
 Further Plebeian Gains
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Supplementary Laws
(Tables XI and XII)
Whatever the people has last ordained
shall be held as binding by law.
 Intermarriage shall not take place
between patricians and plebeians
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Legislative Skeleton: “Struggle of the Orders”
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494 BCE: first secession of the plebeians; creation of the
tribunate (2, 4 or 5 at first, later 10); Plebeian Council (concilium
plebis)
454 BCE: Aternian-Tarpeian legislation fixes maximum fine a
magistrate could impose
ca. 450 BCE: Decemvirate and Twelve Tables
449 BCE: Valerio-Horatian legislation makes decisions of
Plebeian Council (concilium plebis) law
445 BCE: Canuleian law allows intermarriage between
patricians and plebeians (conubium)
367 BCE: Licinian-Sextian legislation addresses debt; limits
holding of ager publicus (?); demands one plebeian consul
326 BCE: Poetelian-Papirian law abolishes nexum; debtor can’t
pledge person
300 BCE: Valerian law protects citizens by right of appeal
(provocatio)
300 BCE: Ogulnian law opens priesthoods to plebeians
287 BCE: Hortensian law makes decisions of Plebeian Council
law
Temple in the Forum Boarium
Voting was the formal mechanism leading to the
contested consulate (from Grant, History of Rome)
Curia Iulia-The Julian Senate House
Cui Bono? Troubled Harmony (?)
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Codification of Law (the Twelve Tables): “a measure to ensure
aristocratic predominance;…an attempt to stabilize the political
and social status quo, which was being seriously threatened by
social unrest” (W. Eder, in Social Struggles in Archaic Rome, pg.
263)
Patricio-Plebeian Aristocracy (Licinian-Sextian legislation of 367
BCE):
 “A new nobility arose to which only a few plebeians were
admitted, and which was as dominant as the patricians had
been. Its economic interests and oligarchic sentiments were no
different. The order of society was basically unchanged. The
old social conflicts were to reappear, but it was harder for the
poor to find champions, once the political ambitions of the rich
plebeians had been satisfied” (P.A. Brunt, Social Conflicts in
the Roman Republic, pp. 58-59)
Readings for Next Meeting
Livy, Rome and Italy, 289-356
 Oakley, “Roman Conquest of Italy,” in War
and Society in Republican Rome, 9-37
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Questions for Readings
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Consider Livy’s treatments of the climactic
battles at Sentinum and especially at Aquilonia
at the end of Book 10. Is this sensationalist,
dramatic history?
Consider the interrelationship between Roman
foreign policy and Roman domestic affairs in
Book 10.
What position does Oakley take on the
reliability of Livy as an historical source?
Assignments for Next Meeting
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Individual Report on Livy’s treatment of the final
phases of the Samnite Wars, with a special focus
on the speeches in the History
Individual Report on Oakley and the Roman
conquest of Livy. Compare Oakley’s
reconstruction with Livy’s narrative
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Reports should run approximately 15 minutes