Socio-Economic Repercussions

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Socio-Economic Repercussions

• Military Recruitment Crises and the Gracchan
  Revolution

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Romes Great Period of Imperial Conquest, 200-150
BC

• New Extra-Italian Territories Sicily (241),
  Sardinia and Corsica (238), Spain (197), Africa
  (146), Macedonia and Greece (146), Asia (129)
• Changes in Roman Military Needs
• Continuity in High Command Prorogation
• Long-term Service for Roman LegionariesArmies of
  Occupation

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Traditional ViewHannibals Legacy as Hannibals
Revenge

• Ruin of Small Italian Farmsteads
• Influx of Wealth and Socio-Economic Dislocations
• Growing Urban Proletariat in Rome
• Poverty-Stricken Falling Below Property
  Qualification for Military Service

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Nathan Rosenstein, Rome at War (2004) A
Challenge to the Traditional View

• Roman military service begins at 17 Roman males
  marry after 30 (claims that Roman military
  demands adversely affected small agriculture are
  exaggerated)
• Conflicts between military service and
  agriculture date back to fourth century BC
• High military mortality alters Italian
  demography paradoxically creating conditions for
  population growth
• Cessation of colonization and Spanish wars
  contribute to population pressures
• Roman authorities misread the evidence believed
  there was a manpower shortage, when the reverse
  was the case

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Spain Military Recruitment Crises

• Tough, Mountain Tribesmen (Celtiberians,
  Lusitanians)
• Nearly Constant Guerilla Warfare (197-179,
  154-133 BC)
• Viriathus defeats several Consular Armies in the
  140s BC
• Military Service in Spain Unprofitable Low Army
  Morale

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Roman Ineptitude in SpainConsequences at Home
ca. 150 BC

• Tribunician Agitation for Military Reform
• Rioting in Rome over Recruitment
• Failure to Turn out the Levy (dilectus)
• Scipio Aemilianus Volunteerism for Service in
  Spain
• Incarceration of consuls in 151 BC

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Paradox of Roman Imperial SuccessSocio-Economic
Turbulence in Roman Society

• Increased Social and Economic Differentiation
  (insufficient trickle-down effect)
• State-Subsidized Grain for the Populace of Rome
  (seen as a radical, demagogic maneuver on the
  part of individual Roman statesmen in the
  historiography of the earlier Republic)
• New Magnificence in Public Buildings, Games, and
  Triumphs
• Electoral Bribery (ambitus) and Legislation
  Against It
• Sumptuary Legislation

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Problem Real (Traditional) or Imagined
(Rosenstein)

• Assidui and Property Qualification for
  Eligibility for Military Service

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Gracchan Challenge

• Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus
• Gaius Sempronius Gracchus
• Aristocratic Background
• Father T. Sempronius Gracchus, consul and patron
  of Spain
• Mother Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus,
  conqueror of Hannibal
• Revive the Original Function of the Tribunate as
  the Defender of Plebeian Interests
• Creators of the Popularis Tradition for the Late
  Republic

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Aristocratic Background of the Gracchi
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This year 480 BCE also had a tribune who
advocated a land law, Tiberius Pontificus. He set
out on the same path that Spurius Licinius had
taken, as though Licinius had been successful,
and for a time obstructed the levy. The senators
again were thrown into consternation, but Appius
Claudius told them that the tribunician power had
been overcome the year before, actually for the
time being, and potentially forever, since a way
had been discovered for employing its resources
to its own undoing. For there would always be
some tribune who would be willing to gain a
personal victory over his colleague, and obtain
the favor of the better element, while doing the
nation a service. There would be a number of
tribuneswho would be ready to help the consuls
and a single one was enough, though opposed to
all the rest. Only let the consuls, and the
leading senators as well, make a point of winning
over, if not all, at any rate some of the
tribunes to the state and the Senate.Livy,
History of Rome, 2.44
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Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus (133/132 BC)

• Limitations to Holdings of Public Land (ager
  publicus)
• Land Redistribution Reestablish the Free
  Peasantry to Small Farmsteads
• Gracchan Commission for Assigning Land (triumviri
  agris iudicandis adsignandis)
• Tribunician Obstacles (M. Octavius) and
  Senatorial Obstruction
• Attalus III of Pergamums Legacy (133 BC)
• Tiberius Direct Appeal to the Popular Assembly
• Re-election Bid Riots and Lynchings
• Tiberius and 300 Gracchan Supporters found
  floating in the Tiber River

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Light Green Roman Territory In 133 BCE Rust
Color Ager Publicus Annexed from Disloyal allies
in Hannibalic War
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His brother Gaius recorded in one of his writings
that when Tiberius on his way to Numantia passed
through Etruria and found the country almost
depopulated and its husbandmen and shepherds
imported barbarian slaves, Tiberius first
conceived the policy which was to be the source
of countless ills to himself and to his brother.
But it was the people themselves who chiefly
excited his zeal and determination with writings
on porticoes, walls, and monuments, calling on
him to retrieve the public land for the
poor.Plutarch, Life of Tiberius Gracchus, 8
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About this time 133/132 BC King Attalus
Philometor died, and Eudemus of Pergamum brought
to Rome his last will, in which the Roman people
was named the kings heir. Tiberius promptly
proposed a law of popular appeal providing that
the kings money, when brought to Rome, should be
distributed among those of the citizens receiving
allotments of public land, to provide them with
equipment and give them a start in farming. As
for the cities that were in the kingdom of
Attalus, he declared that the disposal of them
was not the Senates business, but that he
himself would put a resolution before the people.
By this he offended the Senate more than
ever.Plutarch, Life of Tiberius Gracchus, 14
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Gaius Gracchus Tribunate(123/122, 122/121 BC)

• Continues Tiberius Land Redistribution Program
  (ager publicus)
• Overseas Colonization Junonia (Carthage)
• Regular, State-Subsidized Grain for Capital (lex
  Sempronia frumentaria)
• Reform of Extortion Court (quaestio de
  repetundis) equites and publicani
• Knights granted rights to exploit the province of
  Asia (lex de Asia)
• Reserved seats for knights next to senators in
  theater

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Acilian Law on Extortion (123/122 BC)From any
person who has been dictator, consul, praetor,
master of the horse, censor, aedile, tribune of
the plebs, quaestor, member of the three-man
board on capital crimes or the three-man board
for granting or assigning lands, military tribune
in any one of the first four legions, or from a
son of any of the foregoing, or fromany person
who, or whose father, is a senator, for a sum of
moneyhaving been, in the exercise of an imperium
or magisterial office, carried off, taken away,
exacted, embezzled or misappropriated from
various categories of subjects. In such case
the said person shall have the right to sue and
to summon the defendant.Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, vol. I, 2nd ed., no. 583
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Senatorial Reaction

• Gaius Gracchus failed reelection bid for 121 BC
• The Italian Question
• Unrest and Rioting
• Emergency Decree of the Senate (senatus consultum
  ultimum)
• Murder of Gaius and 3,000 Supporters

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Aftermath

• Cancellation of the Gracchan Land Laws
• Precedent for Violence as a Solution in Roman
  Republican Political Life
• Fracture Lines in the Roman Aristocracy Senate
  and Equestrian Order
• A New Politics Optimates and Populares

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Thorian Law (118 BC)

• Appian, Civil Wars, 1.4.27

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Not long after the death of Gaius Gracchus a
law was enacted to permit holders to sell the
land about which they had quarreled for even
this had been forbidden by the law of the elder
Gracchus. At once the rich began to buy the
allotments of the poor, or found pretexts for
seizing them by force. So the condition of the
poor became even worse than before, until Spurius
Thorius, a tribune of the plebs, brought in a law
providing that the distribution of public domain
should be discontinued, that the land should
belong to those in possession who should pay rent
for it to the state, and that the money so
received should be distributed and this
distribution was a kind of solace to the poor,
but it did not help to increase the population.
By these devices the law of Gracchuswas once for
all frustrated.