Download HIS 28 – Part 7

1.
2.
Internal Developments at Rome in the 300s and early
200s BC
In looking at the Roman state’s interactions with its
immediate neighbours in the 300s BC (after the Gallic
occupation of the city) we noted the importance of the
“settlement of 338 BC” which followed the war between
Rome and the states of Latium and their allies in
Campania.
Its importance lay in the mechanisms Rome developed –
mechanisms which it could carry forward and apply in its
encounters with all the other states of the Italian
peninsula until, by the early 260s BC, Rome controlled
(albeit indirectly for the most part through treaties) all
the170 or so other states and peoples south of the
Apennines.
As a result of the “Settlement of 338 BC” the map changed
significantly – not least in terms of the growth of the territory
of Roman state itself – as we have seen.
After 338 BC, although the Roman state would continue to
increase its own territory, it mostly made the other states and
peoples of Italy allies of Rome (socii) – although almost
always prohibiting them from having any relations with one
another, ONLY with Rome.
A. How the Roman state
grew between 338
and 263 BC [GREY]
B. “Latin Colonies”
(new communities)
founded after 338 BC
a) GREEN 334 and 328
b) RED 314 – 312 BC
c) BROWN 303 – 298
d) VERY PALE GREY
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 17, 24,
26, 27 were
founded between
298 and 263 BC
THE EMERGENCE OF THE NEW “PATRICIAN-PLEBEIAN”
NOBILITY IN THE 300s AND 200s BC
1.
We noted before how, in the face of pressure that the
office of consul be opened to non-patricians, the two
consulships were replaced in 444 BC (for 77 years) until
367 BC by the “mysterious” (to us) office of “military
tribune with consular power” - initially comprising three
positions each year, later comprising as many as seven.
2.
Supposedly the new office was open to non-patricians,
although the lists of names of office holders which have
survived do not indicate many non-patricians being
elected.
The Office of DICTATOR
1.
2.
3.
4.
Frequently in this period, whether there were “military
tribunes with consular power” or consuls in a given
year, the lists often show that a DICTATOR was
appointed too.
There are various theories about the origins of the
office, but it seems to go back to at least the earliest
days of ‘the Republic’.
During the 300s and 200s in particular [down to 202 BC]
“dictators” were common, the last being appointed in
202 BC.
When the situation called for it, the Senate passed a
motion recommending that the consuls appoint a
dictator to hold power for six months or until the task
was completed (whichever was the shorter).
5. Since he was appointed rather than elected, he was not
technically answerable to “the Centuriate Assembly”
(which elected the consuls, ‘military tribunes with consular power’, and
praetors).
6. Although in practice most “dictators” seem to have been
appointed to help with serious military crises, the most
common ‘title’ of the “dictator” was rei gerundae causa (“to
undertake the task”).
7. Whether the office was open to “patricians” only is unclear, but
the first recorded non-patrician dictator was appointed in 356
BC.
Politics generally in the 300s and into the 200s BC
1.
The political picture is not always clear, but we can pick out
the main developments.
2.
Of greatest importance were, perhaps, “the issues”- now often
economic rather than political ones: debt, debt-bondage, and
the distribution of land.
After the ‘Gallic attack’ and additional incursions by
Gauls (with the devastation of the countryside), economic
conditions seem to have deteriorated.
B. This situation, particularly between about 385 and 340 BC,
affected “the Struggle of the Orders” (the fight to force the
“patricians” to make more and more concessions to nonpatricians).
C. i) As Rome expanded its territory and new wealth from
military successes became available, it is most unlikely
that “the spoils” were shared equally.
ii) And this is when we begin to hear more about economic
demands.
iii) In particular there were serious concerns about how
newly acquired land was to be used and by whom.
A.
D.
Those in “the plebeian movement” – especially the poorer
members and leaders sympathetic to them – wanted two
things to happen to captured land, which became “state
land” (“common land”) – ager publicus. They demanded
that:
i) much of it should be divided up into allotments to be
privately owned by the citizens of the state; and
ii) restrictions should be placed on the use of the “common
land” that was not divided up – particularly restrictions on
how much of it any one ‘family head’ (pater familias)
could use to his family’s advantage – including how many
animals the family could graze on it.
E. Those working the land seem to have experienced more and
more difficulties in the mid-380s, things coming to a head in
the 370s, as agricultural debt increased and those unable to
repay what they had borrowed turned to ‘debt-bondage’
(nexum) as their only solution.
F. i) The land had to be worked and agricultural slavery was
still almost unknown [prisoners captured in war from the general area and made slaves
would escape and go home!].
ii) Larger landowners used ‘debt-bondage’ as their main
mechanism to ensure a sufficient agricultural labour force.
G. a) In this period, because of “the Gallic Occupation”, the
state constructed a great defensive wall (wrongly attributed in ‘the
tradition’ to King Servius Tullius) around the city of Rome.
b) The construction of the wall may have provided
employment for many for a time unless they built it as
“debt-bondsmen” and their labour was required of them.
The “Servian Wall” is shown
in blue
The Movement for Economic Reform
1.
We begin to hear of demands for economic reform in the 380s
BC.
2.
a) In 376 BC two “Tribunes of the Plebs” tried to put forward
actual proposals to formalize these ‘demands’ in the
Plebeian Assembly.
b) Their proposals dealt with
i) land, ii) debt, and
3.
iii) the consulship.
a) The “tradition” has it that it took ten years of struggle to
make any headway - because other “tribunes of the
plebs” kept vetoing what was proposed.
b) Clearly not all “plebeian” leaders favoured reform to assist
those who were experiencing difficulties!
FINALLY, in 367 BC, “the patricians” allowed the proposals
to pass into law as the Leges Liciniae Sextiae (“the LicinianSextian Laws”).
With their passage:
1. a) Restrictions were put on how much “public” (‘stateowned’) land any one family could make use of – with
limits too on the number of animals that could be put out
to graze.
b) Fines were prescribed for those who broke the
rules; but
c) nothing was done to reclaim “common” land
which was already being used illegally.
2. The interest on what had been borrowed by debtors was now
to be deducted from the principal amount owed – in an
attempt to ameliorate the problem of debt.
4.
a) But debt-bondage (nexum) was not tackled in
the legislation and was not finally abolished until
326 BC, probably because it wasn’t until then
that there were enough war captives from far
enough away (as a result of the “Samnite Wars”) to
guarantee a sufficient agricultural labour force.
b) Nor did debt, of course, go away.
4. At the constitutional level (under the laws):
A. i) the office of “military tribune with consular
authority” was abolished and the two
consulships were revived and once again
became the two top political positions.
ii) And the two revived consulships were opened
to “non-patricians”.
3.
B.
A new annual office was created – that of praetor – to
relieve the consuls of work which involved the
administration of justice.
C.
On the model of the plebeian aediles who had always
assisted the “tribunes of the plebs” in the “Plebeian
Assembly”, the state now got two state aediles to oversee
public works.
D.
At the level of the state’s religion the “college” of two
‘for the performance of sacred rites’ (that of the duumviri
sacris faciundis) was expanded to a “college” of ten
(becoming the decemviri sacris faciundis), five of whom were
to be ‘plebeian’ (that is, “non-patrician”).
Summary of Results
So what do we have?
1. It looks as if a small group of rich and aspiring nonpatricians, over time, used “the plebeian movement”
(which had been formed by the great mass of
dissatisfied people with no privileges back in the 490s
BC to promote their interests) to break the monopoly
held by “the patricians” over state-positions (in their
own interest) and to gain entry to the top offices in the
Roman state for themselves.
2. In doing so, they could not avoid supporting at least
some economic reforms in the interests of the poorer
‘plebeians’ – since they needed the backing of the
“Plebeian Assembly” to bring pressure to bear and to
get the constitutional reforms pushed through.
3. After an intermittent “struggle” over 150 years, the
“patrician” monopoly over office-holding in the state was
broken.
4. “Plebeians” (in practice only the very wealthy) could now
hold the top offices in the state, some of those top offices
now having to be held by “plebeians”.
5. Over a relatively short period of time (30 or 40 years or
so) after the constitutional reforms were in place, a new
“nobility” began to emerge – a mixed “patricianplebeian” nobility – which would dominate the political
life of the Roman state for centuries to come.
[Note: “Nobility” derived from holding the high state-offices]
6.
This new “patrician-plebeian” nobility favoured oligarchic
government (rule by the few) and, after their “victory”, any
moves towards a more “democratic” system in the state were
frustrated (largely because of the structure of the “People’s
Assemblies” and because of the prevailing “patron-client system”).
7.
a) Poorer citizens and those at all sympathetic to their
interests still had “the Plebeian Assembly” as an instrument
to promote reform, BUT the new ‘joint’ nobility seems to
have been able to control its activities for the most part; and
b) it was not really until about 150 BC that serious attempts at
reform made any headway – and success even then was very
short-lived.
8.
Until then, the Roman state ‘settled down’ in the mid-300s BC
under the rule (for two centuries) of the new “nobility” whose
‘institution’ was THE SENATE.
9.
a) We should take note, before concluding that from
now onwards the new nobility COLLECTIVELY
dominated the state through THE SENATE without
controversy, that additional legislation had had to be
passed (supported by those who advocated ‘oligarchic
government’) to rein in the annually elected officeholders to at least a certain degree and to prevent
particularly prominent individuals from wielding too
much power on an on-going basis.
b) It would be contrary to the interests of collective rule
by a group of leading families to allow any single family,
let alone any single member of a ‘noble’ family, to
exercise power too often or for too long.
10.
a) To this end, in 342 BC, “the Genucian Law” (the Lex
Genucia) had been passed - in itself controversial
because it seems not to have been a “law” at all but a
series of “plebiscites” (passed in the Plebeian
Assembly).
b) And if it was not a law, then it remains unclear
whether it really was binding.
11.
Be that as it may, this piece of legislation ruled:
i) that the same man could not hold the same office for a
second time until ten years had passed;
ii) that the same man could not hold more than
one secular state office at any one time; and
iii) that it was not forbidden for both consuls in a
given year to be “plebeian”.
The reason why the binding nature of these measures is
questioned is that, although the two measures imposing
restrictions were observed for the most part over the next
few decades, there were a few notable exceptions [as seen in the
surviving lists of office-holders] which make it clear that some
prominent individuals were able to ignore “the rules” and
get themselves elected by the electorate to, for example, a
string of consulships without waiting ten years.
REAL HISTORICAL FIGURES
In the last decades of the 300s BC we begin to get a stronger
and stronger sense that some of the leading political figures in
the surviving accounts were real flesh and blood people,
although we often still know little about them.
It would also be simplistic to assume that those belonging to
the new “patrician-plebeian nobility” necessarily
EITHER a) adhered rigorously, as individuals, to a particular
outlook depending on whether their families were “patrician”
or “plebeian”;
OR b) supported wholeheartedly ‘oligarchic’ rule [government by
the limited few] through the Senate or (alternatively) were more
sympathetic to a more ‘populist’ programme.
But we do have examples of a few prominent men who seem to
have been REAL and who were quite controversial in their day.
Let us take just one historical figure - not necessarily “typical”
and very much an ‘enigma’ but most definitely real - APPIUS
CLAUDIUS CAECUS.
Alternative figures whom we might consider would be
A. Quintus Publilius PHILO – a prominent ‘plebeian’ between
339 and 326 BC, who held the consulship and the dictatorship
[at the same time] in 339; who became the first ‘plebeian’ praetor in
336; who held the censorship in 332-331, and a second, a
third, and a fourth consulship in 327, 320 and 315 BC (very
much contrary to the recently passed “Genucian Law”); or
B. Quintus FABIUS MAXIMUS Rullianus – a prominent
‘patrician’ between 331 and 295 BC; or
C.
Publius DECIUS MUS - a leading ‘plebeian’ between
312 (when he held his first consulship) and 295 (when he held his third
consulship) who
ended his career by serving, between 300
and 295, as the state’s chief priest when he held the high
office of Pontifex Maximus.
But let us concentrate on APPIUS CLAUDIUS CAECUS
- a ‘patrician’ who went blind late in his career in 280 BC
(hence his name “Caecus”).
He didn’t hold as many offices as some of his immediate
predecessors but he was very active, especially as one of the
two censors in 312 BC.
In fact he made his mark as censor in 312 BC – his first major
office and one he held without holding a consulship first
(contrary to what became the norm in the later Republic once a
standard order of office-holding had become established).
Only later did he go on to his first consulship in 307 and his
second in 296 (keeping, but only just, to the 10-year rule) following these
offices with the lesser ‘praetorship’ in 295.
On 12th March 2008 the Times Literary Supplement (under the
title “First Blind Politico”) described him as “the first personality
in all of Roman history”.
And we know just about enough about him for us to realize
what a puzzle he is.
A memorial inscription
of Appius Claudius Caecus’
career
HIS CAREER
1. As “censor” in 312 BC
a) he is said to have created new senators of questionable
background, allegedly promoting the sons of freedmen
(that is, of former slaves) to the Senate, with the result that the
consuls of 311 BC refused to recognize his list of
senate-members;
b) without the Senate’s approval (that is, without the
approval of the bulk of the new “patrician-plebeian
nobility”), he used public funds to construct the Via
Appia (the Appian Way) from Rome to Capua in
Campania – which was to be always a very important
road;
APPIUS CLAUDIUS WAS RESPONSIBLE
FOR THE FIRST SECTION OF THE ROAD
FROM ROME TO CAPUA
c) without the Senate’s approval he used public funds to provide
the city of Rome with a major aqueduct – the Aqua Appia;
d) he allegedly also refused to step down as censor
(remaining in office until he was elected in 308 to a consulship
for 307).
2. He later oversaw, through a protégé who was an aedile in 304
BC, the publication of a handbook of legal procedures and a
list of dies fasti (days when legitimate business could be
transacted) – information which had previously been known
only to the “pontifices” (priests) – all of them “nobles”.
3. He also reorganized the voting “tribes” (the territorial
voting districts) in some way, giving enhanced rights to
the landless - a reform reversed by the censors of 304
BC.
4.
In some way he interfered with the state religion further,
by transferring, for example, oversight of the cult of
Hercules from the gens (“clan”) of the Potitii to public
slaves.
In everything he did he appears to have attracted controversy
- but it is difficult to know how to assess his outlook – hence
references to him as an enigma.
A. It has been claimed that he was a “radical populist”.
B. It has also been claimed that he was an upholder of
traditional patrician privileges against the more recent
trends (and so very ‘conservative’).
Assessment
1.
2.
His programme suggests he was a radical reformer with the interests of
ordinary citizens on his agenda.
BUT those who see him as a “conservative” fighting a rearguard action against
the changes creating an “oligarchic state” point out that, allegedly:
a) he opposed the “Ogulnian Law” of 300 BC which opened the
priestly colleges to plebeians; and
b) on two occasions he tried to exclude plebeians from the office of
consul.
These two positions do not have to be contradictory since they could be
seen as those of a “radical” who did not wish to see the electorate
restricted in any way on the question of who they wanted to elect to
official office – which would be the case if they had to choose
“plebeians” when sometimes “patrician” candidates might appear more
desirable.
The jury is still out on Appius Claudius Caecus!
The Final Stages of “the Struggle of the Orders”
The emergence of a strong “patrician-plebeian” nobility did
not see “the Struggle of the Orders” completely over.
Although there were a few other measures which
introduced some small constitutional adjustments,
the FINAL act came in 287 BC.
1. During worsening economic conditions, the plebeians
engaged in their last secessio (withdrawal) when the
Senate refused to address the question of debt.
2. To deal with the impasse, a dictator, Quintus
Hortensius, - a ‘plebeian’ - was appointed.
3.
He introduced the “Hortensian Law” (the lex Hortensia)
which does not seem to have introduced any economic
changes (despite what seems to have been the background to his appointment)
but (whatever the situation earlier – and the record is
confused) which made it clear once and for all that the
decisions of the “Plebeian Assembly” (plebiscita) were
binding on the whole state (that is, all citizens, including
“patricians”).
4.
A victory for the principle of popular sovereignty? No!
5.
The aftermath of his law demonstrated the determination
of “plebeian” state office-holders and, in particular, the
ten annually elected “tribunes of the Plebs” themselves
(with very few exceptions) to be part of the new nobility and
to promote oligarchic government.
6.
7.
And those who served as “tribunes of the Plebs” did not
have to concern themselves much with economic demands
from the ordinary people - since relief from the worst
economic problems came now not from reform legislation
but from the fruits of warfare and the massive expansion of
Roman territory in Italy in the 280s, 270s, and 260s, which
made great tracts of agricultural land available to citizens.
a) With “plebiscites” passed by the “Plebeian Assembly” now
binding on everyone (including patricians) and becoming
the equivalent of laws, there was virtually no difference
between “the Plebeian Assembly” (presided over by the
‘tribunes of the plebs’) and the state “Tribal Assembly”
(usually presided over by the consuls).
7.
b) They were structured in exactly the same way - based on the
“tribes” (the voting districts to which all citizens belonged depending on their
place of residence) – and the same system of voting.
c) The absence of “patricians” from the “Plebeian Assembly” did not
really affect the outcome of the vote either: there were so few
“patricians” and, as patrons, they could in any case control,
through the “patron-client system”, the way many plebeians (their
clients) cast their votes without being present.
8.
New laws, then, were now passed in either assembly, although
9.
i) the “Plebeian Assembly” elected the ten “tribunes of the plebs”
each year; and
ii) the “Tribal Assembly” elected the state’s aediles and quaestors.
10.
The state’s “Centuriate Assembly” (based on wealth) elected the
consuls and the praetors, but ceased to pass new laws.
AFTER 287 BC
1.
Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, the entire period from the 280s to
the 150s BC proved to be one of fairly stable “oligarchic
government” under the strong leadership of the noble families in
the Senate.
2.
The main emphasis was one of military activity in the wider
Mediterranean and the acquisition of “empire - either as a matter
of policy or by default.
3.
For well over 120/130 years there were no further major political
changes.
By 263 BC the Roman
state had grown
SIGNIFICANTLY
in terms of territory
[the darker GREY] and
now reached the east
coast of the
peninsula, acquiring
rich agricultural land
as it expanded.
By the same date,
Rome “controlled”
all other states and
peoples in Italy
through treaties of
alliance.