BIG CITY/BIG PROBLEMS

1
BIG CITY/BIG PROBLEMS

• Rome had a population of close to one million
  people and no police force or army garrison to
  keep the peace
• Majority of these people were Head Count, freed
  slaves, and slaves
• Frequently formed mobs and rioted

2
PRIVATE ARMIES

• Mobs were generally unarmed and relied on sticks
  and stones as weapons
• Wealthy could obtain permission from Senate to
  issue weapons to their clients in an emergency
• Wealthy also had knowledge of strategy, tactics
  and logistics
• Kept poor down with private armies
• Only a small step from using private armies to
  keep the peace to using them to weaken or
  eliminate a rival or advance a program

3
CROWDED CITY

• Rome had a huge population crammed together in a
  high density in a small geographic area
• Streets were narrow and winding
• Rich lived in mansions on Palatine Hill or in
  suburbs
• Most other Romans lived in small flats in rickety
  wooden apartment buildings
• In lower part of city
• Subject to periodic floods, collapsing buildings,
  and almost daily fires

4
SLUMS

• Apartment buildings were poorly constructed and
  designed
• Flats were poorly lit, poorly ventilated, and
  unheated
• Water had to be carried in from public fountains
• Not connected to the sewer system
• Most of Rome was an appalling slum
• But landlords like Cicero made good incomes from
  their property
• Rents were 100-150 sesterces a month
• Some reformers proposed suspending rents for a
  time to help the poor
• Always blocked by wealthy landlords

5
LABOR FORCE

• Most economic activity in Rome revolved around
  supplying its population with food and other
  necessities and construction
• Many workers were slaves or men from slave
  origins
• Advantages of slaves
• Slaves were cheap
• Most came from the East and had highly-developed
  skills
• They provided a stable labor force

6
HARD LIVES

• Freeborn Romans of the Head Count were mostly
  displaced small farmers
• Generally performed unskilled labor on irregular
  basis
• Most Romans only worked periodically at unskilled
  jobs for low pay
• Yet they continued to pour into Rome because it
  was even worse out in the countryside
• Lived hard lives, dependent on the voluntary
  generosity of the wealthy and occasional
  part-time employment

7
SUMMARY

• Preconditions for political violence in
  Republican Rome
• Governmental structure
• Rigged in favor of the wealthy
• Large population and lack of official police
  force
• Caused the wealthy to form private armies to
  protect themselves and their interests
• Misery and squalor of the majority of the Roman
  population
• Multiplied their grievances against the wealthy
  and the government
• Also fostered their dependence on the rich and
  powerful
• Left them open to ruthless politicians who
  promised them satisfaction of their complaints in
  exchange for support

8
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS

• In 133 BC, the tribune Tiberius Gracchus proposed
  to the Tribal Assembly that state-owned land be
  distributed among the poor of Rome
• Tribal Assembly passed it but it was vetoed by
  another tribune in the pay of the Senate
• Gracchus then had the tribune impeached and had
  his proposal passed again
• Senate then charged Gracchus with aspiring to
  tyranny and lynched him

9
GAIUS GRACCHUS

• Gaius Gracchus became tribune ten years later
• Passed several pieces of legislation that helped
  the poor
• But he knew new tribunes would revoke it all once
  his term of office was over
• Armed his clients and planned to use his private
  army to make sure his laws remained on the books
• Senate raised its own private army to oppose him
• Gaius and his clients killed in ensuing battle

10
SATURNIUS

• Another tribune, Saturnius, revived the Gracchus
  proposals between 103 and 100 BC
• Free public land to poor and free,
  government-subsidized grain to urban populus
• Murdered anyone who stood in his way with private
  army of armed clients
• Senate once again raised its own private army and
  eventually defeated Saturnius
• Saturnius and supporters killed by senators while
  awaiting trial

11
NEAR CIVIL WAR

• Tribune Sulpicius proposed to Tribal Assembly
  that freed slaves by given citizenship and be
  allowed to join voting tribes
• 88 BC
• Raised army and drove Senate and opposing
  tribunes out of city
• One of the ousted consuls, Lucius Cornelius
  Sulla, invaded Rome with an army and killed
  Sulpicius and his supporters

Sulpicius
Sulla
12
CINNA AND MARIUS

• Sulla received a military commission and went to
  Asia Minor to fight some rebellious kings
• Another tribune, Cinna, revived Sulpicius
  proposal
• Supported by Gaius Marius
• 7-time consul and military legend
• Opposed by another tribune, Octavius, and his
  private army
• Cinna finally driven from city but he called on
  the regular army, returned, and slaughtered
  Octavius and his supporters

Cinna
Gaius Marius
13
SULLA SUPREME

• Marius died of a stroke shortly after helping
  Cinna regain control of Rome
• Sulla returns with army, massacres Cinna and
  supporters, and sets himself up as dictator
• Also murders everyone who had ever crossed him in
  the past
• Retires in 79 BC and violence erupts immediately

14
POMPEY MAGNUS

• Price of grain skyrockets in Rome due to pirates
  in eastern Mediterranean
• Tribal Assembly votes to give Pompey Magnus
  extraordinary military powers to eliminate pirate
  threat
• Opposed by Senate but poor chase senators out of
  the city
• Also physically several tribunes who threatened
  to veto appointment
• Clear that common people would not stand any
  opposition to Pompeys appointment
• Pompey wipes pirates out in 3 months
• Price of grain falls

15
MORE POLITICAL VIOLENCE

• Political violence continued
• Cataline Conspiracy
• Milo/Clodius affair
• War between Pompey and Julius Caesar
• Establishment of dictatorship by Caesar and his
  subsequent assassination
• All ate away at the core of the Republic

16
END OF THE REPUBLIC

• Victory of Caesars grandnephew, Octavian, over
  Marc Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC brings end of
  the Roman Republic
• Last civil war of the period
• Octavian (now calling himself Augustus) creates
  an imperial monarchy to take place of the Republic

17
MAIN POINTS

• Political violence did not proceed from any
  single source in Rome
• Sometimes it was private army some tribune
• Sometimes it was private army of senators
• Sometimes it was a spontaneous uprising by the
  poor themselves
• And sometimes it came from the senators
  themselves
• The common thread which connects all of these
  sources (except the last one) was that all mob
  actions involved the poor
• They made up the private armies of both tribunes
  and the Senate as well as the unorganized mobs

18
WHO MADE UP THE MOBS?

• Cicero claimed the supporters of Clodius were
  assassins freed from jail, runaway slaves,
  bandits, and foreigners
• But was this accurate?
• Best evidence indicates no
• Based on similar studies of crowds during the
  French Revolution by George Rudé and some
  contemporary evidence, there is no solid reason
  to believe that Roman mobs were dominated by
  criminals and outsiders
• But they were poor and frequently desperate

Cicero, supreme bullshit artist
19
WHY DID THE POOR RIOT?

• Some historians have interpreted motivations of
  mobs in class terms
• As a struggle between rich and poor
• Class consciousness was not a motivating factor,
  or at least not a crucial one
• Main motivations lay elsewhere
• Sometimes poor were following orders of patrons
• At other times, the mobs were motivated by grain
  shortages or high grain prices
• Unifying motivational factor was hunger
• Mobs were not out to overthrow their economic and
  social superiors nor where they a bunch of heroic
  democrats out to change the rigged structure of
  Roman government
• They were poor, hungry people who wanted food,
  who wanted to survive

20
IMPERIAL MONARCHY

• From the standpoint of the poor, the destruction
  of the Republic and the installation of an
  imperial monarchy by Augustus was not such a bad
  thing
• Wealthy lost control of government under the
  monarchy
• Emperors provided free grain (and later free
  olive oil and free wine)
• They also improved the water supply, provided
  better fire protection, launched a rebuilding
  program that provided more jobs, and put on
  lavish public entertainments
• And mob violence correspondingly declined

21
SUMMARY I

• Emperors did more to alleviate the misery of the
  poor of Rome than the Republic had ever done in
  order to protect themselves
• Political violence of the Republic begins to make
  some sense from this point of view
• Suffocating under a governmental structure
  designed to only benefit the rich and powerful,
  those who wanted to help the poor had to go
  outside the system to accomplish their goals
• And since Roman republican politics was based on
  the development of large networks of clients and
  the maintenance of private armies to keep the
  peace, it was inevitable that this would lead to
  the frequent use of violence

22
SUMMARY II

• Nor were the poor adverse averse to violence
• Desperately poor, underemployed, pressed by the
  high cost of living in Rome, and often hungry,
  they were more than willing to follow men who
  promised to solve their problems
• And sometimes even took matters into their own
  hands
• The destruction of the Republic was, in a way,
  their victory
• For with the destruction of the oligarchy which
  had controlled the Republic and establishment of
  imperial monarchy, living conditions for the poor
  did improve
• And that was the only thing they had wanted in
  the first place

23
PRINCEPS

• Augustus did not immediately establish a blatant
  imperial monarchy after he emerged victorious
  over Marc Antony
• Institutions of the Republic still appeared to
  operate
• But no longer possessed any real political power
• All real power was now in the hands of Augustus
• With the honorary title of princeps
• Controlled army and provinces, had the poor in
  his pocket, selected candidates for public office
  and made sure they were elected, determined
  Senate membership, had total control of the
  treasury

24
THE AUGUSTAN SYSTEM

• Augustus exercised his vast powers quietly,
  behind the scenes
• Because he was fearful that his open use of his
  powers might arouse republican sympathies of
  Roman people
• On the other hand, he had no intention of
  voluntarily giving his powers up
• Since this might re-ignite civil war
• Augustus thus stayed in power and established a
  dynasty
• Emperors who would follow him would become less
  and less careful in the quiet exercise of their
  power and the fiction of the Republic would fall
  to the wayside