Western Civ. IE. From Oligarchy to Principate. Page 12

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1 Western Civ. IE Roman Expansion to 146 B.C. From Oligarchy to Principate From Principate to the Fall of Empire Page 8 Page 12 Page 18 INTRODUCTION TO THE ROMANS Today we begin a series of lectures on a new people -- the Romans. The Romans, as you know, were from Italy. They were Indo-European but not Greek; they were Latins who moved into Italy probably around 1000 B.C. I want to begin by talking about Roman values, and I want to do that to impress upon you that, of all the ancient peoples, when it comes to values, the Romans are in some ways quite like Americans. To start with, the Romans had a value for which they had the word pietas, which we usually translate as piety. What this word meant was that a good Roman must show respect and affection for: the gods, one's parents and elders, one's children and friends, and one's country. The Romans, like Americans, were always concerned about these values; always complaining that the younger generation did not share them with sufficient intensity or had not learned them properly A second value that the Romans really stressed and that Americans stress is well is what the Romans called gravitas, which we would probably translate as "gravity" but not the kind associated with the pull of the earth of objects. What it represents is taking things seriously when it is appropriate to take things seriously. Like for instance? Well, you are in college now, which means that most of you are away from your parents. And what your parents expect, what I expect, and what American society expects is for you to take college seriously. You are to study, to do well, to put in the necessary work to succeed. That does not mean that you should not have fun; it just means that you should have sufficient seriousness not to let that fun interfere with the your college career. Another good example is that Americans, like Romans, complain about people not working hard enough or not working carefully enough. We are always angered by people who are insufficiently concerned about us as customers or who do poor work. We complain about shoddy workmanship because we expect whoever is doing the work to have sufficient gravitas to do it well, to do it right, and to finish it when they say they Roman bust showing a very stern looking senator. The look is meant to illustrate gravitas. P a g e 1 o f 25

2 will. Another example of gravitas our expectation that you will vote and vote with intelligence. We always hear complaints about the percentage of people who come out to vote. We expect better of people, that is, that they will understand the seriousness of their obligations to their nation. Another important value among the Romans was what they called virtus. Now this is the root of the word that we use, virtue, but the meaning is a little different. Virtus comes from the word vir that means man or manly. So virtus means essentially manliness. It is those qualities that a man should have, and it includes all the stuff that I ve talked about so far, plus those qualities, like courage and steadfastness, and willingness to sacrifice one s self for the good of one s comrades all of the qualities that are prized in warfare. Roman who demonstrably had all of these virtues over a period of time had another one as well. It was called auctoritas. We might translate this as personal authority, or perhaps prestige. A person with auctoritas would go far in the Roman Republic. The Beginnings of Rome Unlike Greece, Italy has few good natural harbors, so that the inhabitants were never sailors in ancient times. They were farmers. On the western side of the mountains, several small rivers had brought down earth to create a series of relatively open plains, where farming could be carried out. Most Italians lived there. Almost in the middle of the plains is the Tiber River. Rome was located on several small hills overlooking it on the south side. Various peoples lived in Italy by 4000 B.C., but the most numerous and important inhabitants did not arrive until early in the Iron Age just after 1100 B.C. After 1100 B.C., a large number of barbarian tribes migrated into Italy from the north. The tribes spoke many different languages, but they all belonged to the Indo-European family of languages. One of them was Latin, the language of the later Romans. The Latin-speaking tribes settled into the middle of this open land west of the mountains. The region they occupied was named for them. It was called Latium or Latin Plain. Although they had the same language and customs, the Latins were not politically united. They founded dozens of independent villages scattered throughout Latium. Later, when they became more civilized, villages located close to each other combined to form 30 small city-states. One group of villages that combined was located on the hills south of the Tiber. Rome was one of these city-states. But neither the Latins or the other barbarians created civilization for themselves. They learned about it from other peoples. In South Italy, civilization was introduced by the Greeks. After 750 B.C., they began to settle and to set up city-states along the southern coast of Italy. But in Latium and Central Italy, civilization was introduced by another people called the Etruscans. The Etruscans are very mysterious. We cannot read their language, and no one knows where they came from. We do know that by 800, they had begun to found city-states and to create an advanced civilization in the northwestern part of Italy, on the other side of the Tiber River from the Latins. Because they were civilized and the Latins were not, they were able to conquer and to rule some of the Latins for a brief time. Around 575 B.C., one band of Etruscans crossed the Tiber and took over the Latin village overlooking the river. They organized the village into a citystate and introduced elements of civilization. They built temples and fortifications, and they introduced the Etruscan alphabet, which was modeled on the Greek alphabet. They may also have given the villages a common name for the first time. Some scholars think that the name Roma or Rome is an Etruscan word, but this is not certain. Although the Etruscans had given them civilization, the Latins at Rome still resented being ruled by foreigners. In 509 B.C., they revolted and drove the Etruscans out. P a g e 2 o f 25

3 After they became independent, the Romans set up a new government of their own called the Republic. I now want to consider what it was like. In early Roman history, this government underwent several changes, but the most important trend was toward greater equality for citizens. At first, the Roman city-state was organized as an aristocracy, similar in some ways to the earliest government in Athens. Only members of certain noble families could hold the major offices in the city. These persons were called patricians. Other citizens could not hold office; they could only vote in the assembly. They were called plebeians (the majority). But gradually, during early Roman history, the patricians lost their privileged position in government. All citizens came to have the same political rights, at least in theory. As in all city-states, the final decisions on all important matters were made by all adult male citizens sitting in assembly. The Roman citizen-body was called the populus. As in Greece, citizenship was hereditary, and in 509, the populus was quite small. But as we shall see next time, the Romans were very generous in giving citizenship to other peoples. By 250, there were around 200,000 citizens, which was four or five times as many as at Athens under democracy. But the power of the populus was somewhat limited. They could only vote yes or no on proposals placed before them by the magistrates. The magistrates were the elected officials of the state. Roman Republican Government At first Rome was a kingdom, but in 509 the monarchy was ended in a revolution and a republic established in its place. This is the beginning of the famous Roman Republic, which lasts from this time to about 27 B.C. when the Republic was replaced by the Roman Empire. Now, when I say a government is a republic, this means that it is not really a democracy, but that it is a government that is a mixture of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. In Greek terms we would say that it has an executive of some sort, like a basileus or an Archon, a council of elders, and an assembly. And this system is, essentially, the basis of all classical republics. So, in this early period, there were basically three political bodies in the Roman Republic: The Centuriate Assembly was the Roman legislative assembly. It is made up of citizens who were also the soldiers. But, the men sitting in this assembly did not have an equal vote. They voted by centuries -- that is in groups of 100 men, although in the centuries each person had a vote. So, if 60 men in the century vote "yes" on an issue and 40 vote "no," the century votes "yes." Got that? However, centuries were formed on the basis of how much a man could contribute to the army -- what kind of equipment he could bring. And that means how much money someone had. For example, the richest class provided 80 centuries of infantry and 18 centuries of cavalry to the army. The second class provided 40 centuries of infantry, and on down the line. There were six classes, and the sixth -- the poorest men in Rome -- pooled their resources and provided one century. Now, what that means is that the richest people had 98 votes on an issue, the next class 40 votes, and the poorest class one vote. Understand? Executive authority rested in an office called consuls, of which there were two. The Centuriate Assembly elected the consuls annually, and the Roman calendar was recorded by who was consul. Men could be elected more than once. The consuls were the chief administrative officers during peacetime and the army commanders during wartime. When at war they could act independently (originally each commanded two legions), but at home they had to act together. They had to agree on any action that they wanted to take. The council of Rome was somewhat like the gerousia of Sparta. It was the Senate. In fact, the word senatus means "old men," just like the word gerousia. The Senate began in the monarchy as a body of advisers to the king and continued not only throughout the Republic but throughout the Empire as well. The Senate was made up of the great men of Rome and was basically a self-perpetuating body. Its membership was chosen by two officers called censors, who were themselves members of the Senate. One could become a senator only after holding a magistracy. Since all of the members of the Senate had held offices, had led troops, embodied the Roman values of virtus, pietas and gravitas, the members had, of course auctoritas. And, of course the whole body of the Senate had enormous auctoritas. The Senate had right to advise the consuls, and it was the consuls who presented issues to the Centuriate Assembly for action. The Senate regulated receipts and disbursements from the treasury, which meant that they controlled the expenditure of funds. The Senate had the authority to deal with all crimes requiring a public investigation, which included treason, conspiracy, and willful murder. And finally, later on, the Senate had the power to deal with all affairs outside of Italy. That, as we shall see, becomes really important over time. P a g e 3 o f 25

4 The Struggle of the Orders In its early days, the biggest problem Rome faced was a conflict, called by historians the Struggle of the Orders. Early Rome was very much like an early Greek polis. The Romans developed a class of aristocrats called the Patricians. Only the patricians had full political rights. They made the laws, they could design the laws to preserve their wealth and their power. As an example, one of the laws was that, if a poor person owed money and could not pay off his debt, he and his family could be sold into slavery. The non-patricians were called plebeians. This is something of an oversimplification. It is possible that the patricians were a little like the Lacedaemonians, that is they were the conquerors of the other peoples who became plebeians. Whatever the case, very early on these two classes became hereditary. Patricians had both political powers and special religious functions. If you were born into a plebeian family you would always be a plebeian, and a patrician family would always be patrician. The plebeians rightly believed that they were oppressed, and they organized to try to do something about that oppression. In 471 B.C. they formed Plebeian Council to represent the interests of the plebeians. This council chose ten men called tribunes, whose job was to speak to the patricians about matters that concerned the plebeians. The Plebeian Council could also pass resolutions called plebiscites. From the formation of the Plebeian Council in 471 the struggle of the orders is the story of how slowly but surely the plebeians got more and more rights. The major steps were (a) in 450 B.C. the Assembly codified Roman laws into what became known as the Twelve Tables, which declared that all free citizens of Rome had rights as well as duties. Perhaps in that same year each tribune was given the power to forbid any action that threatened a plebeian. (b) In 366 B.C. a plebeian was elected consul, and from then on it became the custom for one consul to always be a plebeian. (c) In 287 the Centuriate Assembly voted that plebiscites had the force of law, and that event is considered to be the end of the Struggle of the Orders. The office of tribune became very important. All the other offices were open to everyone by 250, but not this one. Only plebeians could be tribunes, not patricians. Tribunes also had an unusual power. All the tribunes had to agree before action could be taken by other magistrates. If only one tribune objected to what the consuls, and the other tribunes wanted to do, he could prevent it by saying veto, which means I forbid it. Roman Social Conventions Now, having said a little about Roman values and early Roman history, I d like to take the rest of the hour to talk a little about what, for lack of a better word I ll call roman social conventions. These are relationships that created networks that glued the roman social and political systems together, and created what the Romans called res publica, which means literally that public thing, or the way of the people. Here I am going to talk about Roman s relations to each other, which seems rather simple, but as we will see, is in fact somewhat complicated. Familia: The Roman family was made up of an extended family that included all of the descendants of the eldest male in the family. In the earliest period of the republic, all of them farmed one tract of land to support the family and, hopefully, harvest a large enough surplus to trade. The eldest male was called the pater familias, and he had enormous power over his descendants. First, in Roman law, only the pater familias had any real rights over the wealth and property within the family. Second, the pater familias had the power of life and death over his descendants. He could kill them, sell them into a sort of indentured servitude, or exile them from the family at a whim. His powers were so great that the most powerful Roman general of even a consul had to obey their pater familias. He decided who his sons and daughters would marry. He expected his sons to give him every penny that they earned, then he would dole out an allowance to them from the family coffers. Even if his son were a consul or great general, or whatever. When a child was born into the family, it was placed at the feet of the pater familias. If he refused to accept it, the baby was exposed. One historian notes that the psychological stress on an adult male whose father lived often found himself in an intolerable situation. He could not marry, buy property, run for office, or do anything without his father s consent. Arguably, the second most important family member was the wife of the pater familias, the mater familias. She had some input about family matters because she had her husband s ear. But her importance is also attested by the fact that in Roman law, a pater familias could sell his livestock, his clothing, his children, but not his wife. Mater familiae often had a great deal of influence and even power in their own right. We read of mothers disinheriting their sons, or cutting them off from the familia without a penny. In some cases their sons were important men in Roman government, and this would deliver a severe shock to the auctoritas of a rising political star. P a g e 4 o f 25

5 At the death of the pater familias, the sons and their families went out and formed their own familiae. The sons then became pater familiae in their own right. And that is how Roman families worked. Familial relationships were very important. Because the extended family was ruled by a pater familias, and because Romans had a very strong tradition of close-knit families with supportive members, very extended families called gens, like clans, tended to support each other in social and political affairs. Family loyalty was always important in the Republic. Patrons and Clients: Another very important social relationship that existed among the Romans was called patrocenium. This hinged on an agreement between two individuals to support each other and provide to each what the other could provide. The agreement had two partners, but the partnership was an unequal one. The inferior partner was called the client. The superior was the patron. The patron agreed to provide his client with favors that would help him, like maybe give him some money to help him through hard times, represent him in court, help him in his political career. The client promised to visit his patron every day, to go with the patron to important events, to support his patron s interests when he voted in the assembly, and to follow the patron s lead in all matters. Patrocenium was generally a moral obligation and not bound by law, but over time tradition made patron-client relationships very firm, and even hereditary. Now, looking at this system as a relationship between two people is one thing, but you should note that these relationships spread across all of Roman society. The client might himself, be a patron to others. So he might meet with his clients early in the morning, than stroll over to his own patron s home thereafter. One Roman poet noted that UNimportant men were those who made visits but received no visitors. Important patrons might have a line of clients waiting at his door at dawn that stretched around a city block. Clients lined up and were admitted to the presence of their patron in an inflexible order of importance that absolutely duplicated the social and political organization of the Roman state. So, each morning visit to an important patron represented a cross section of Rome herself. We should remember that the more clients had, the greater the following a patron had, the greater his prestige his auctoritas remember that word. Roman Expansion in Italy In their early history, the Romans were almost continually at war with the other states around them. I want to consider why this was true. Conditions in Italy in the Early Republic had made it almost impossible for Rome or any other state to avoid war. There were literally hundreds of small, independent states in Italy, all competing with one another for power and resources. Most of these states needed land, and they could only get it by taking it from their neighbors. Because war was so common, the Romans came to admire and to reward men who were good soldiers and good generals. If a consul won a great battle, he and his relatives would find it easier to win election to other offices in the future. Even common soldiers earned great prestige when they had fought in an important Roman victory. They were also given land and a share in the spoils of war on occasions. Thus, the Romans were always ready and even eager to fight, if they were given any reason to do so by some other state. And conditions were such that reasons could usually be found. This map shows the diversity of states and cultures in Italy in the late 400s B.C. P a g e 5 o f 25

6 But the Romans did take care to insure that their love of war would not lead them to fight another state without a just cause. They believed that the gods controlled all human affairs, and that the gods would not aid them in war unless the gods felt that Rome was fighting for a just cause. To insure the gods would always approve of their wars, the Romans created a body of religious rules call the Fetial Law. These rules got their name from a board of twenty priests called fetiales, who were entrusted with interpreting the rules. The rules described the conditions under which war could be declared or treaties could be made. When the threat of war arose, the fetiales would investigate and decide whether Rome was justified in fighting. The recommendation of the fetiales was not binding, but it was unusual for the Senate and Assemblies to ignore their advice completely. The Roman Military Thus when Romans went to war, they were always sure that they were in the right and that the gods would be on their side. But, as I suggested, it was usually possible to find some justification for war in almost every situation. Often the work of the fetiales was only a formality. Rome s success in war largely depended on her army, so I want to look briefly at what the Roman military system was like. Down to 100 B.C., the Roman Army was a citizen army made up of average Romans. Almost all Roman men from age 17 to age 46 were drafted. The only men exempted from service were a few very poor Romans who did not own any farmland. This was because soldiers had to buy their own armor and weapons. Poor men could not afford to do this, so they could not be drafted. But in the early Republic, very few Romans did not own land. Most of them were farmers as we have seen. As in Greece, the Romans fought mainly in the summer months, when there was no work to be done on the farms. Soldiers would be drafted in the spring, would fight through the summer, and then be discharged to go back to their farms during the winter when the crops were growing. This was possible as long as the Romans were fighting in Italy close to Rome. In later times, however, it became harder. Thus, the Roman Army was an amateur army like those in the Greek city-states. But because they were farmers, the soldiers were very tough and very determined. And even as amateurs, they had lots of experience. A Roman could be required to serve a total of twenty summers in the army. Many of Rome s enemies had professional armies. They were better trained, but they were not nearly as large. One factor that helps explain the success of the Roman Army was that it usually had good leadership. In a way this is surprising. At first, the armies were commanded by the Roman Soldiers in the Early Republic consuls, who were also amateurs in a sense. They held command for only one year. Because their experience as generals was limited, Rome produced very few truly great military leaders in her early history. But most of them were relatively competent. Let us consider why. Members of prominent Roman families all expected to be consuls some day, so they tried to prepare in advance through a military training program called the tirocinium militiae. Young men would accompany relatives and family friends who were serving as consul to see how it was done. In addition, they got some experience in the lower ranks of the army. Besides this, overall strategy and military planning were in the hands of the Senate made up of lots of men with military experience. It could partially offset the inexperience of the consuls. This army was eventually successful in extending Roman military power until it covered the whole Mediterranean. Roman expansion can be divided into three basic stages, which I will discuss separately. The first stage includes the Roman conquest of Italy. It extends from the founding of the Republic in 509 B.C. to 272 B.C. As we have seen, Italy was filled with may different competing states at first. The peoples who lived in the plains, like the Latins and the Etruscans, were more advanced. They had city-states, as Rome did. P a g e 6 o f 25

7 Those who lived in the Apennines Mountains were less civilized. They usually had a loose, tribal organization of some kind. Because of the constant warfare, some states had to band together for common defense. It was natural for Rome to ally with other Latin cities since they had a lot in common. In 493 B.C. all the Latin cities, including Rome, formed a military alliance called the Latin League. It was aimed primarily at two groups of enemies. They were the Etruscans to the north of the Tiber and the barbarian tribes in the mountains around Latium. At first, Rome was merely an equal partner with the other Latin cities. But gradually the skill and the toughness of her armies allowed her to become the leader of the alliance. Roman expansion in Italy mainly consisted of adding more and more states to this alliance as her influence spread. When she conquered other peoples, Rome usually did take land from them. Sometimes she founded coloniae, new Roman settlements, on this land to watch out for her interests. But even conquered states usually became her allies. Many others became allies voluntarily because Rome could protect them when they were being threatened by someone else. You should recall that Greek Empires, like that of Athens were also organized as alliances. But the Roman alliance was much different from those in the Greek world. It was much more stable. Unlike Athens and other Greek cities, the Romans treated their allies well. They did not interfere with the government of allied states, and they protected their interests in war. This was partly because Rome sometimes needed the help of her allies, especially in her early history. She was careful not to offend them. Moreover, alliances were covered by Fetial Law. Rome was afraid the gods would disapprove if she did not keep treaty obligations. Rome also gave the peoples of many allied states Roman citizenship. This again was something that Athens and other Greek cities never did. In Athens all citizens were supposed to have an equal chance to hold office, but this was only possible if the number of citizens was relatively small. But in Rome, a small number of families tended to monopolize the major offices in the state. They could give out citizenship without seriously threatening their own position. Citizenship was valuable to the allies, not so much for political reasons as because it allowed them to trade with Romans on an equal basis and to intermarry with Roman families. All Rome required of the Italian allies in return was that they support her in war and provide troops to fight with the Roman Army. Generally, it was a good bargain for both sides. The allies got protection and fair treatment, and the Romans got vast numbers of soldiers to assist them in their conquest. War With Carthage Once Italy had been consolidated behind her, the next two stages of Roman expansion were much shorter. The second stage was the triumph over the Western Mediterranean. This stage was the hardest of all, for in it the Romans faced their most formidable enemy, the city of Carthage ( B. C.). Carthage was one of the cities which had been built on the north coast of Africa by the Phoenicians. As a Phoenician city, Carthage was very active in trade and commerce. By 264, Carthage had established a lucrative commercial empire which included much of North Africa, part of Spain and part of Sicily. The Romans fought two long costly wars with Carthage ( and ). In the first war, most of the fighting took place on the sea around Sicily. The Romans were at a disadvantage because they had no navy. But they boldly moved to build several large fleets when they saw it necessary. The Romans were always willing to do what had to be done. The Roman loses were tremendous, but they finally won from sheer perseverance. The second war was even worse. It started with the invasion of Italy by the Carthaginian general Hannibal (d. 182). Hannibal was the greatest general since Alexander the Great, and he won several major victories against the Romans. Hannibal hoped that the Roman allies would revolt and abandon her during crisis. But the Roman allies remained loyal, providing more soldiers to aid the Romans, and they finally won. When Carthage was no longer a threat, the rest of the West became allies of the Romans. After that, the last stage of Roman expansion was relatively easy. It involved Roman expansion into the eastern Mediterranean ( B.C.). Here the major enemies were the kingdoms ruled by the successors of Alexander the Great. Some states, avoided war with Rome, and they were able to prevent annexation for a time. But by 146 B. C., Rome could take over any other power in the East whenever she wanted. Yet, some escaped for a long time. Hannibal on a Carthaginian coin. P a g e 7 o f 25

8 Roman Expansion to 146 B.C. In this lecture we will look at Roman expansion in the Mediterranean down to 146 B.C. Some of the information will be repeated from the last lecture in a bit more depth in order to make new information a little better integrated. Last time we looked at values, social processes and government at Rome and we saw that the Roman republic began as a pure aristocracy, but by about 270 B.C. had evolved into at least a partial democracy. Another part of the story from the early Republic on is Roman expansion. So today we will begin with some questions, and, by the end of the hour, hopefully, answer some of them. So, How did Rome expand? Why? What motivated Romans to devote so much of their time and energy to war? What were the benefits of expansion? Romans, like other ancient peoples took spoils from their defeated enemies. In the early period of Rome s development the most important spoils that Romans took from their enemies was land. Rome seldom had enough land to provide for all of her citizens. They were not seafarers, so they couldn t solve the problems of land shortage through colonization or trade like, say the Athenians. So, Roman settlements had to be in Italy, and that meant that they had to take land away from some other state to achieve that goal. Roman politicians knew that they could relieve population pressures at Rome by fighting to gain more land, so political leaders, who were also, you remember, military leaders actively sought wars. But economic motives weren t the only ones. The causes of expansion were more complex than simply wars for land. Conditions in Italy in the Early Republic made it almost impossible for Rome or any other state to avoid war. There were literally hundreds of small, independent states in Italy, all competing with one another for limited resources. Most of these states needed land, and they could only get it by taking it from their neighbors. So, war became a regular feature of Roman life at a very early stage in its development. Roman virtues were warrior virtues that were appropriate to farmers and warriors. In order to acquire those virtues, men needed to fight wars. Thus, one major benefit of expansion was glory! If a consul won a great battle his prestige increased. He and his relatives would find it easier to win election to offices in the future and would be given greater military responsibilities. Even common soldiers earned great prestige when they had fought in an important Roman victory. They received land and a share in the spoils of war. Thus, the Romans were always ready and even eager to fight, if they were given any reason to do so by some other state. And conditions were such that reasons could usually be found. P a g e 8 o f 25

9 Another important reason for Roman expansion is also related to the frequency of warfare in the early period of Rome s development. Romans were used to viewing their next-door neighbors as potential threats to the security of the Republic. As Rome expanded in Italy, she bumped into yet another quarrelsome neighbor that wanted her land. Hence, the unwritten assumption of Roman Foreign policy became every neighbor is yet another potential threat. Rome s earliest conquests can be neatly divided into three parts -- the conquest of central Italy, the conquest of northern Italy, and the conquest of southern Italy. We begin with central Italy. From Rome fought primarily against hill tribes and nearby cities in Central Italy. Basically they did so to protect themselves. These tribes or these other cities raided Rome, and Roman soldiers would go out and try to conquer them. And to make sure that they would not be threatened again, Rome would settle some of her own citizens among these people. In other words, the Roman citizens would receive land, settle down, and form communities of their own or intermarry with the locals. What this means is that Roman settlements are now farther away from Rome proper, and they have to be protected as well which means more expansion. In the 390s another threat appeared, this time from the north. Tribes of Celts called Gauls began to raid into Central Italy, and the Romans organized resistance among the other Italian cities to these raids. By 350 BC the Romans were able to defeat the Gauls and establish their authority over northern Italy. In 282 B.C. the Romans received an appeal from some of the old Greek cities in southern Italy to assist them in resisting one of the lesser Hellenistic kingdoms, that of Epirus. The Romans agreed to provide that assistance and fought against the king, named Pyrrhus, until 275 when they not only defeated that king but essentially brought all of southern Italy under their influence. So, by 275 B.C. the Romans controlled all of Italy. Punic Wars By 275 the Romans controlled all of Italy, and in 264 began the great wars that allowed Rome to become master of the Mediterranean. The most important of these wars were called the Punic wars, which came in three parts. The first lasted from 264 to 241 B.C., and the second from 218 to 201 B.C. The third led to the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C. These wars were fought against the city of Carthage, an old Phoenician colony (Punic is another word for Phoenician) on the northern coast of Africa. In 264 Carthage was a lot like Rome. It was powerful, controlled a lot of territory, including Spain by the way, and wanted more. The reason for the war was actually quite simple. Rome and Carthage were the two big powers in the central Mediterranean. It just seemed inevitable that these two big powers would come to blows. In the first war, most of the fighting took place on the sea around Sicily. The Romans were at a disadvantage because they had no navy. But they created several large fleets when they saw it was necessary. They borrowed ship designs from their Italian Greek allies, and probably employed them as rowers as well. They then modified their ships to turn sea battles into land battles. Roman loses were tremendous, but they finally won through sheer perseverance. The chief feature of this Second Punic War was that the Carthaginian army was commanded by another one of those military geniuses of the ancient world, Hannibal. Hannibal decided to take the war to the Romans. Hannibal led his forces into Italy in 218 B.C. and proceeded to beat the Romans in battle after battle. But Hannibal could never accomplish two feats that were essential to defeat Rome. He could never take the city itself, and he could never get the other Italian cities to abandon their Roman allies. Those policies we talked about of giving lots of rights and independence to the Italian cities really paid off in the Punic Wars. Every time the Romans fought a battle with Hannibal they lost. So they decided to harass his army as it marched up and down Italy. In other words, they wore him out. Then in 204 BC, a Roman army under a famous commander by the name of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (he received that nickname after Zama) landed in Africa to threaten Carthage itself. Hannibal was forced to leave Italy and defend his home. At the Battle of Zama, near Carthage, the Romans defeated him for the first time. Hannibal fled to the Hellenistic kingdoms of the East and Carthage surrendered. Rome was now the chief power of the central Mediterranean. After Zama: Rome and the East After Zama, the king of Macedonia, Philip V, welcomed Hannibal to his court. Hannibal assured Philip that the Romans had expended so many men and resources defeating Carthage that Philip could pick up some territory. On Hannibal s advice, Philip began to put pressure on the Greeks who complained to Rome. P a g e 9 o f 25

10 The Romans put Scipio in charge. Scipio raised an army, and, in what is called the Second Macedonian War, B.C., he crushed Philip. The Punic Wars had not in fact weakened Rome but given it a large, experienced fighting force led by a truly able commanders. Remember what I said about Hellenistic armies? After defeating Philip, the Roman Senate made the Macedonians pay a large fine and told the king to leave Rome s friends in Greece alone. That done, Scipio and his army returned to Rome. Hannibal escaped and ran away to the Seleucid Kingdom. Once there, Hannibal convinced the Seleucid king, Antiochus III, that, "Hey, the Antigonids are weak, and the Romans have to be tuckered out by now, so why not take a shot of expanding Seleucid interests and possessions in Greece." So, in 192 B.C. Antiochus began to move into Greece. The Romans asked Scipio to go to work again, and, as you can guess, he defeated the Seleucid army (The Syrian War, BC). The Seleucids were fined, told to behave, and the Romans went home. At this point, with nowhere left to run, Hannibal committed suicide. So, between 204 and 188 B.C., Rome became the big power in the Mediterranean basin. Now, I should mention that the Romans didn t annex any of these defeated states yet, they just charged them big fines and told them to behave. The extent of Roman Expansion up to now outside of Italy had been the acquisition of Spain from Carthage, and that s about it. Rome was not the great empire that she would become, but, Rome had changed as a result of all of these wars, and not necessarily for the better. These changes can be viewed in a couple of ways, but all of them led to a very different Rome, both in terms of her government and her foreign policies. So, let s look at the changes in Roman economics and government first. Social and Economic Changes at Rome Remember that the early Romans had a simple agricultural economy; most Romans were small farmers who grew enough food to provide for the needs of the immediate family. As a result of the Roman conquests this traditional system was replaced by a far more advanced economy. To begin with, the Roman conquests made it possible for Rome and Italy to develop extensive trade. Roman contact with the East created a demand for luxury goods that Romans had not known about before. Romans be paid for these goods with money which had been brought into Rome by conquest. Also, by 200 B.C. it was becoming harder and harder for small farmers to make a living. There were several reasons for this, but the most important grew out of Roman expansion and warfare. In the early period, most Roman soldiers were farmers who farmed in the winter and fought in the summer. This was easy since the wars took place close to home. But when the Romans begin fighting far away in, say, in Spain, or Greece, or Africa, many soldiers were forced to stay away from their farms for years at a time. When the men went to war their farms went untended and ultimately had to be sold. Wealthy Romans bought these farms and combined them into larger estates called latifundia. Unlike early Roman farms, the latifundia were mainly intended to produce a cash crop that could be sold for profit. Major products were cattle, wine and olive oil. Latifundia were operated by slaves, and the owner might only visit them once or twice a year. He looked on it has an investment. The slaves who worked on these estates were non-romans who had been taken prisoner by the Romans in war. These changes caused serious disruptions to Roman society. Those farmers who were forced to sell their land had to move to the cities, and the urban population rose rapidly in Italy after 200. In the cities work was scarce for free Romans as slaves did most of the unskilled labor. There were not enough jobs available so the unemployed either had to beg or steal to make ends meet. Therefore, urban poverty and crime became a serious problem. While a growing number of Roman citizens got poorer, other Romans became extremely wealthy. The winners in this new economy had varied backgrounds. Most senators made money, but there were also others who became rich as well. These men were wealthy enough to afford to serve in the army as cavalry, so they were called equestrians. Wealthy Romans lived in unprecedented luxury: they had expensive houses and clothes, many slaves. They could afford to provide better education for their children. They often sent their sons to study in Greece. In short, the lives of wealthy Roman leaders became increasingly distinguished from the lives of poor Roman citizens. Political Changes These social and economic difficulties were aggravated by political problems. After 200 B.C., a few better-known and better-organized families increasingly monopolized the important Roman offices. They fell into the class of wealthy Roman Senators called nobiles, which means notable or well known persons. These families dominated the Senate, which made the government less responsive to the new social and economic problems. The Senate had no real interest in the problems of the poor and no desire to share power with the equestrians who wanted a greater role in government. P a g e 10 o f 25

11 Moreover, the nobiles interfered with the administration of conquered lands outside Italy. These lands were divided up into administrative districts called provinces, and each province was entrusted to a Roman general known as a proconsul. The Senate appointed men to hold these posts. The Senate was supposed to supervise these men, but for various reasons it failed to do so. As generals, these proconsuls had wide military powers equivalent to those of consuls in Rome itself. Proconsuls collected taxes, administered justice, and led the Army in their province. Since the proconsuls were themselves nobiles, the Senate was reluctant to keep too close a watch over them. The governors were often guilty of very serious abuses. They collected more taxes than they were entitled to and skimmed the excess profits into their own purses (togas do not have pockets). They extorted the people of their province. They provoked frontier wars and build up large armies under their personal command. Corruption grew in the Empire, as did a callousness about foreign expansion and diplomacy that Romans had not shown in the past. This can be illustrated by two events that both took place in 146 B.C. The first was in Greece. Roman leaders pushed the Greeks until, in desperation, Southern Greece revolted against Roman influence. Instead of resorting to diplomacy in what was a fairly minor difference, the Roman consul Lucius Mummius invaded and destroyed the city of Corinth. He had no real reason to do so except to loot the city and send the booty back to Rome. That same year Rome declared war on Carthage without much more provocation except that it still existed. The great city of Carthage was defeated, destroyed so that not one stone was left standing on another, and Roman soldiers sowed the ground with salt so that nothing would grow there. Truly, by 146 B.C. Rome WAS the 400-pound gorilla on the Mediterranean block, and it was out of control. P a g e 11 o f 25

12 From Oligarchy to Principate Today I want to look at the difficult transition in Roman politics that took place from roughly where we left of last time down to the establishment of the Roman Empire under Augustus. From 146 to 133 BC, all of the problems we talked about grew steadily worse. Then after 133, a series of internal struggles broke out which gradually undermined the whole structure of the Roman state. The conflict was ignited by the action of two brothers named Tiberius Gracchus (d 133) and Gaius Gracchus (d.121), who tried to remedy the problems which had arisen. These two men came from a very distinguished Senatorial family, But there were still anxious to solve the problems which had arisen at Rome in the previous century. The Gracchi The chance came in 133 BC when Tiberius Gracchus was elected to the office of Tribune of the People. This office had originally been set up to protect the interests of the lower classes, and Tribunes had the right to propose laws for the benefit of poorer Romans. Tiberius decided to use this power to relieve unemployment. He proposed to divide parts of the Roman public land in Italy to provide farms to unemployed Roman citizens. This had been done in the past without problems; but by 133 BC, many Senators had rented the public land from the government for their own use, and they did not want to give it up. The law met with great resistance from the Senate, so Tiberius used his power as tribune to take the measures directly to the Roman assembly where laws passed. When Tiberius Gracchus tried to run for reelection as Tribune, some senators and their supporters rioted and killed him. After the death of Tiberius, there was peace in the city until 123 BC, when his brother Gaius became Tribune. Gaius Gracchus introduced many new reform measures which were intended to appeal to a much wider group of Roman citizens. He proposed more new land for the unemployed, but he also wanted to give political privileges to the equestrians. Some of the proposals passed and some did not. This time, the Senate was much more cautious. They took no immediate action. Gaius held the tribuneship for two years. After he had left office in 121, the Senate repealed all of his reforms. When the Senate met to repeal the reforms a riot broke out. The Senate accused Gaius of treason and used the army to kill him and many of his supporters. This action shows the true colors of the Senate; they were willing to use any means to defeat reform and maintain their own dominance over the state. The Senate s flagrant use of the army to support their monopoly of power created a precedent that, at first, protected the nobiles, but ultimately would bring about their downfall, and nearly tear Rome to pieces. P a g e 12 o f 25

13 Gaius Marius It was not long before men appeared who were able to destroy the Senate's power over the army. The first was named Gaius Marius (d. 87 BC). Marius was not really a reformer, but he was unpopular with the Senate because he did not come from a distinguished noble family. Normally, he would not have had a chance to reach high office, but he was able to get enough support from the equestrians to win the office of Consul in 107 B.C. In that year, Rome was challenged by a war against a Numidian people in North Africa near Carthage. Marius was a brilliant field commander, and was elected to defeat Rome s enemies in Africa. Once in office, Marius made important changes in the way the soldiers were recruited for military service. Previously soldiers had been drafted from among the Romans who owned land or other property. But by 107, the number of Roman farmers had declined, leaving few citizens available for military service. So Marius decided to seek volunteer soldiers from among the unemployed. He promised to work for bonuses of land and money for the soldiers after they had finished their service. In this way, he got many men to volunteer. These promises helped him as well. In order to make good on his promises he would need support from the assembly. So the soldiers supported him in politics, in order to receive their bonuses. Thus Marius was able to be elected to the consulship five times ( ). Because the men who made up the Roman army under Marius looked to him rather than to the Senate for their support, this new Roman army was more loyal to Marius, their leader, than they were to the Roman state. From this time on, Roman armies were often more loyal to their generals than they were to the Senate or to the Roman state as a whole. Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix Marius made the army a force in politics which it had not been before. It was not long before someone got the idea of using that force to threaten the government itself. That man was Cornelius Sulla (d. 78 B.C.). Sulla was a Roman from a good family who supported the nobiles in politics. In 88 BC he was made general (a proconsul) to lead a large army to a war in Asia. But after he departed from the city with his troops, the Marian faction was able to remove him from his command. But Sulla still had a large army behind him, so he asked them to help him seize control of the government and they did. Sulla marched his army into the city of Rome. He retook the government, killed his enemies, then he went East and fought his war. After the war in the East was over, Sulla had to return to Rome and fight another civil war to regain control of the state again. He defeated his enemies, and made himself dictator for two years. During that period he made many new laws to strengthen the power of the Senate in the government. None of these laws lasted for a very long time, but Sulla was important in other ways. He was the first general to turn his army against the government and Rome. Whereas Marius had merely asked his troops to vote for him, Sulla showed that a general might use his support from the Army in a military way to seize the reins of power illegally. In the years between 200 and 79 B.C., the Roman republican government of magistrates, Assembly and Senate rapidly declined and moved toward final destruction. The Senate had to take a large part of the blame for this development. They were much too arrogant and selfish to solve any of the social and economic problems confronting Rome. Indeed, the Senate opposed reform of any kind with great tenacity. We have seen that the Roman constitution was organized in a way which made reform possible. It was possible, for instance, for the Gracchi brothers to secure reform without the help, and even against the opposition of the Senate. But change was difficult, because the powerful and prestigious Senate opposed change. For primarily self-serving reasons the Senate was willing to resort to illegal means to stop any reform. The result was that no one was particularly concerned with legality anymore. Both reformers and conservatives began to think that any means could and should be employed to gain their ends. Violence became more and more a feature of Roman politics. The most ominous development was the growth of the army as a force in politics with goals and interests of its own. After Sulla's time, any successful general became a potential threat to the Roman state. And that is exactly what would happen. P a g e 13 o f 25

14 Gnaius Pompeius Magnus We might say that, after Sulla it was only a matter of time before a general would come along with enough support among the Roman armies to make himself the dominant figure in the Roman state. The first really powerful military leader after Sulla was a man named Pompey the Great (d.48 B.C.). He had been a subordinate of Sulla. In the 70's and 60's Pompey was Consul once, and he also held several important governorships in the provinces. The Senate did not like him very much, however, because he didn t come from a noble family. But Pompey was very popular with a lower classes, and in his military commands he was able to win the support of a large number of soldiers. At several points before 60 BC, he might have seized control of the government but he really did not wish to do that. Pompey always hoped that he could win the support and approval of the Senators, so he refused to take the final step toward dictatorship. Unfortunately for Pompey, the Senators always refused to cooperate with him because of his ambition, and they were also jealous of his military successes. The First Triumvirate In 60 B.C., Pompey wanted the Senate to pass a large land grant to give to Pompey s army. The Senate balked. In order to get his grant, Pompey needed to get a Consul elected who would help him. To achieve his ends Pompey created a political alliance that historians call the First Triumvirate. First, he needed a lot of money, so he brought in the richest man in Rome, Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus was rich, but he wanted something, as well. Crassus had never commanded troops. He wanted a great military victory and a Triumph. Next they needed a Consul. For this position, Pompey chose Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar came from a very distinguished Roman Patrician family the Julian family, but the Julii had fallen on hard times and no member of that family had been Consul for several generations. Caesar wanted a consulship. Between them, they all got what they wanted (more or less). Caesar got his consulship in 59 B.C. He got Pompey his grant, and even got a command for Crassus, who went off to war with Parthia and was defeated and killed in 53 B.C. Cn. Pompeius Magnus M. Licinius Crassus The 1 st Triumvirate Quid pro quo Wants bonuses for his troops, and favors for his equestrian clients. G. Julius Caesar Richest Roman. Wants favors for equestrian clients and glory. He has been consul, but never won a triumph. Caesar wants to restore his family to glory of the past, to gain greatness himself. As consul, helps Pompey and Crassus. In return gets assigned to Proconsulship of Gaul. P a g e 14 o f 25

15 Julius Caesar In return for this service to the Triumvirate, Caesar received the proconsulship of Roman Gaul in southern France. He served their nine years from 58 to 50 B.C. Caesar's career in Gaul shows the dangers inherent in a lack of control which the Romans had over their governors. Caesar provoked a series of wars with the barbarian tribes on the borders of his province, and he eventually took over all of France up to the borders of the Rhine River. In the process he was able to build up a huge army that was fiercely loyal to him. So great did his power become that Pompey and the Senate were forced to ally with one another against Caesar. In 49 BC, the Senate tried to remove Caesar from his governorship. He refused to step down, in fact he took his army and marched on Rome. This began a civil war that continued from 49 to 45 BC. In the war, Pompey was killed along with many leaders of the Senate. By 45, Caesar was master of the entire Roman state. Caesar had himself made dictator for life and he probably would make Rome a monarchy with himself as king. He was certainly a position to do so, for most of his opponents were dead, and he had the support of the army. But before he could proceed very far, he was assassinated, in 44 BC, by a small group of nobiles whose lives he had spared after the war. By 30 BC, one man had emerged as dominant. He was the nephew of Caesar the was known as Octavian or Caesar Augustus. The Second Triumvirate With Caesar dead, the various other leaders struggled to regain the place which he had held. There were two more civil wars between 44 and 30 BC. The Second Triumvirate is the name historians give to the official political alliance of Octavian, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, and Marcus Antonius formed on 26 November 43 BC. There were two 5-year terms, covering the period 43 BC 33 BC. Unlike the somewhat more famous First Triumvirate, the Second Triumvirate was an official (if extraconstitutional) organization, whose overwhelming power in the Roman state was given full legal sanction that outranked all other magistrates, including the consuls. The most important members of this new arrangement wer Julius Caesar s nephew (and adopted son and heir) Octavian, and Caesar s closest friend and general Marc Antony. Octavian was able to out maneuver Antony. The latter was sent to Egypt to consolidate Roman control of the East, while Octavian stayed in Rome. Despite having married Octavia, Octavian s sister, in 40, Antony openly lived in Alexandria with Cleopatra VII of Egypt and they had children together. A master of propaganda, Octavian turned public opinion against his colleague. Octavian illegally gained Antony s will in July 32 BC and read it aloud; it promised large legacies to Antony s children by Cleopatra and instructed that his body be shipped to Alexandria for burial. Rome was outraged, and the Senate declared war. Octavian s forces decisively defeated Antony s and Cleopatra s at Actium in Greece in September 31 BC and chased them to Egypt in 30 BC. Both Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide in Alexandria, and Octavian personally took control of Egypt and Alexandria. With the complete defeat of Antony, Octavian was left sole master of the Roman world. Octavian would become the first Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar. What Augustus Created Augustus Caesar was the most important man in Roman history. He maintained control of the Roman State for the rest of his life. He was dominant from 30 B.C. to A.D. 14. During that 43 years he reorganized the Roman government to give permanent control to one man. He was the first Roman emperor. Augustus used military power to have himself put in charge of the old city-state government of Rome. He gained control by combining many powers of the old magistrates, consuls and tribunes into the largely informal and unofficial role of first citizen. In many years, he served as one of the consuls himself; and he got the Senate and Assembly to give him the power of a Consul even in years when he did not actually hold the office. There continued the to be regular consuls as well. But because consuls had to agree, he was able to prevent the actions of the other consuls whenever he wanted. He was also given the power of the censor, which enabled him to control who would be Romans citizen and who would sit in the Senate. He was also given the power of a Tribune of the People as well. He could use his tribunician power to block any undesirable action of the Senate. Moreover, all Roman leaders had to swear an oath that they would not harm a Tribune in any way. In all of these offices Augustus did not rule alone. Besides him, there were regular consuls, tribunes, censors etc. But his prestige and his military support enabled him to control who would be elected to serve in office with him. Moreover, since he held all of these jobs of once, he had more auctoritas than any other Roman. In theory, he was elected to all of these offices, although the election was, in reality, only a formality. P a g e 15 o f 25

16 These measures gave Augustus control over the government in Rome and Italy. But it was also necessary for him to have charge of the areas under Roman rule outside of Italy. This was especially important since control of the provinces also brought with it control of the army. During the period before 30 BC, the proconsuls or governors of the provinces had increasingly become the main Roman generals. There was little fighting to be done in Italy, and the consuls had to stay there and run the central government. But on the fringes of Roman territory, war was more likely; so that the proconsuls did more and more of the fighting. This was dangerous because it permitted the governor like Julius Caesar to gather an army to overthrow the government in Rome. Augustus knew that he would have to control the governors if his own position in the state were to remain secure. He had a brilliant idea of how to do this. Traditionally the Senate had chosen the governors. But Augustus had the Senate divide the provinces into two groups. In the older provinces which were less likely to encounter trouble, he allowed the Senate to appoint Proconsuls as it always had an. Since he had the power of Consul, he could occasionally check on those proconsuls; but he did not have to supervise them closely all the time. They would not have occasion to fight very often, so they were no threat to him. In the newer provinces where the possibility of war was more likely, Augustus himself was made proconsul. He was governor in more than half of the Roman provinces. He was allowed to appoint assistants called legates to go out and rule the provinces for him. the slight gains were responsible to him and he could remove him from office any time he wished. They could not fight without his authorization. Through this device, Augustus was able to keep control over the army. After the Civil War was over, he reduced the size of the Roman army from around 700,000 men to 350,000. Then he divided the army into small groups of from 5,000 to 30,000 men. Most of the forces were assigned to the provinces where he was governor. There were only a few soldiers stationed in Italy to guard Rome and to insure that Augustus would not be challenged there. No one of his legates had enough men to threaten Rome seriously, and they could not increase the size of their armies without the emperor's approval. If a large army was needed to fight in any one place, Augustus would either take command of it himself, or he would turn it over to a reliable person like a close friend or relative. Moreover he was recognized as the commander all of the soldiers, and they were required to take an oath of loyalty to him. Their pay and bonuses all came from him. This arrangement worked well for two reasons. It gave Augustus a military power to dominate the government and secured him against military threats. It also enabled him to insure that the administration of the provinces would be fair and efficient. A Desirable Fiction Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Augustus' reorganization of the Roman state into an imperial government is that it was generally accepted by the Romans as a desirable arrangement. One reason for this is that Augustus did not abolish any of the older offices or organs of government. He allowed them to continue, but only under his close personal supervision. It was important that they should continue because the Romans placed a very high value on the honor which derived from holding offices and from sitting in the Senate. We saw earlier that the honors for military victory and office holding were one factor in promoting Roman expansion. The honor of being consuls, being a governor, or being a Senator was still available but only for those who supported Augustus. He could control who was selected for offices in Rome or in the provinces. As censor Augustus could decide who would be in the Senate. Moreover, Augustus used this control to get the support of men who would cooperate with him. Members of the traditional families had to accept this arrangement if they were to be allowed to advance in politics. Augustus also helped to broaden the base of the government by supporting men for offices they would have been excluded from during the Republic. He allowed some equestrians to gain high positions in government. He also promoted men from other parts of Italy who had only recently received Roman citizenship. Augustus shown in the garb of a Roman priest. P a g e 16 o f 25

17 Augustus did not create a democracy at Rome, but he did spread offices and honors more widely among wealthy Roman families. In fact, he created and organized a powerful political machine with himself as the boss at the center of Roman political patronage. But Augustus did not flaunt his great power openly. He tried to preserve the appearance of the older form of government the fiction that the old Republic still lived and functioned. His power was made to appear legal. He received all of his offices from the Senate and Assembly. All future rulers had to receive their power to same way. In theory, emperors were elected; they were not hereditary monarchs. In practice, of course, the election was a formality. A smart ruler could see that a brother or son was elected to succeed him. In addition, Augustus did not assume the trappings of a king or dictator. He did not wear special clothes, or crowns, nor did he have special titles. Our word emperor comes from one of his titles imperator. But this title might be held by any Roman general. His most important title was that of princeps, and it was very modest. This was the title that Augustus liked best. This title had been traditionally granted to the most distinguished member of the Senate, and it simply meant first citizen. Modern historians like to call the government of Augustus, the principate. Thus, with the period of Augustus, the Roman government ceased to be a city-state government or republic and became an imperial government run by one man. Given our own ideas about democracy, we tend to see the appearance of absolute government by one man as a bad thing. But we should not let ourselves be misguided by modern prejudices. In practice the Roman government had never really been very democratic. It had been dominated by a few highly placed distinguished Roman families. In a city-state government nothing else was possible. Most persons under Roman rule really enjoyed only civil rights, and those civil rights were not seriously eroded of the founding of the principate. Moreover the dominant Roman families the were affected by the establishment of the empire had long since shown that they were not capable of providing efficient government for their empire. I handed over my power to the dominion of the Senate and Roman people. And for this merit I was called Augustus and the doors of my temple were publicly clothed with laurel and a civic crown was fixed over my door and a gold shield placed in the Julian senate-house, and the inscription of that shield testified to the virtue, mercy, justice, and piety, for which the senate and Roman people gave it to me. After that time, I exceeded all in influence, but I had no greater power than the others who were colleagues with me in each magistracy. Res Gestae of Augustus Caesar P a g e 17 o f 25

18 From Principate to Dominate In an earlier lecture, I described the reorganization of Roman government by the first of the Roman Emperors Caesar Augustus. One sign of the success of his constitution is that it did not require any major changes for over three hundred years (30 B.C.-A.D. 284). The height of the empire came from 30 B.C. to A.D So, we will briefly look at this period first. The rulers in this period fall into three groups. The first group was the Julio-Claudian family of emperors (30 B.C.-A.D. 68). They consisted of Augustus and men related to him. As we saw, Augustus s system was accepted partly because he disguised his enormous power. He kept all the old Republican political institutions and theoretically shared decisions with them. He used persuasion, influence, and patronage, instead of force, to get senators and other government leaders to support him. The wiser Julio-Claudians all relied on these methods, but two rulers of the family employed force openly to make others obey them. They were Caligula (37-41) and Nero (54-68). Both men were very unstable, and they became bloodthirsty tyrants. They carried out purges of senators and other political leaders. This proved to be an extremely dangerous course of action. Members of the Roman upper class would support a ruler only as long as they felt safe from his power. They would not remain loyal indefinitely to a man who used his power against them. There was no legal way to remove an unpopular emperor, but he could die. And that s what happened to Caligula and Nero (left). Both were assassinated. When Caligula was assassinated, his Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, most commonly known as Caligula, was the third Roman Emperor and a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 37 to 41 A.D. Known for his extreme extravagance, eccentricity, depravity and cruelty, he is remembered as a despot. He was assassinated in AD 41 by several of his own guards. uncle was made emperor by the Praetorian Guards. In the case of Nero, several of his legates eventually revolted against him in 68. His death brought the Julio-Claudian family of emperors to an end. P a g e 18 o f 25

19 With Nero removed, it was clear that one of his legates would have to be the new emperor. But several generals wanted the job, and they fought a civil war for nearly a year with each other over the throne. In that time, four different men were able to seize control of the government at one point or another. Thus, the year 69 A.D. is called the Year of the Four Emperors. Finally, one general did succeed in ending the civil war and making himself the unchallenged emperor again. The new ruler s name was Vespasian (69-79). The second group of emperors consisted of Vespasian and his relations. They were the family of the Flavians (69-96). They were generally intelligent men, and at first, they were careful not to exercise their power unwisely or to excess. This changed with the last Flavian ruler, Domitian (81-96). Gradually, over the course of his reign, he became more and more arbitrary and ruthless. As he grew more despotic, he also became more unpopular. Finally, he too was assassinated, ending the Flavian family. Fortunately, this time civil war was averted, and the last group of rulers came to power peacefully. They are usually called the Good Emperors (96-180). They do not have a family name because they were not related to each other at all. None of the Good Emperors had any close relations to pass the throne to, so before each of them died, he picked a popular general to adopt as his successor. These emperors were very capable men who ruled wisely and effectively. Under them, the Empire enjoyed the greatest prosperity in its history. I hope that two general points will be clear from this sketch. First, Romans would not tolerate a bad ruler forever. Second, the only way to get rid of a tyrant was through violence of some kind. Now I want to consider some larger historical trends that took place roughly during the period that I have just sketched. Romanization of Europe The greatest contribution of the Roman Empire to European history was the spreading of civilization to many lands in Europe, which previously had no advanced institutions or culture. Let me start with that. Prior to the Empire, civilization in Europe was largely confined to numerous small city-states that were scattered around the coast of the Mediterranean. Except in Italy and Greece, areas further inland were inhabited by various uncivilized barbarian peoples. In her wars with Carthage and the Greeks, Rome brought all the city-states under her control, and in the Late Republic, her armies began to conquer barbarian tribes in the interior of Europe as well. You may recall that when Julius Caesar was proconsul in Gaul, he took over all the tribes there as far as the Rhine River. Augustus largely completed Roman expansion by conquering the barbarians who lived south of the Danube River in Eastern Europe. The Rhine and Danube gave the Empire a visible natural line running almost continuously all across Europe to mark the imperial border clearly in the north. That was a very useful arrangement. Once the line was reached, later emperors rarely expanded beyond it. Ironically, under the Empire, imperial expansion largely stopped. The main exception to that policy was Britain. The emperor Claudius (41-51) did invade it during his reign. As they were conquered, the barbarians began to acquire a more advanced, civilized Roman way of life. To begin with, they started to organize and live in what Romans called civitates, city-states. In the Empire, city-states still existed and functioned as they had in earlier times. Each had its own magistrates, council, and assembly to govern its territory as it did before the Roman takeover. The only change was that the cities were no longer independent. They were supervised by the imperial governor of their province. The barbarians previously had no cities or advanced institutions, but they took over this form of organization very quickly. Gaul had come to be divided into 64 civitates by the death of Augustus. With more advanced political organization came other improvements. The cities themselves grew rapidly, and they began to create more developed economies based partly on industry and trade. The city governments also established schools to provide their citizens with a Roman education. Within two centuries, all the subjects of the Empire abandoned their earlier customs and came to dress, act, and talk like Romans. Latin replaced older languages almost everywhere. The only exception was the Greek lands of the eastern Mediterranean. Greeks did keep their own language and culture. But they were so similar to the Romans anyway that this did not make much difference. The spread of civilization was linked to the second major trend of the Early Empire. This trend was the assimilation of imperial subjects into the Roman political system. I need to explain what I mean. At the start of the Empire, all Italians were Roman citizens, but there were few citizens outside of the Empire. And, of course, citizens held all the positions in imperial government. Inhabitants of the provinces, lands outside Italy, were all subjects of Rome. They served in the governments of their own city-states, but they could not hold Roman offices like senator, proconsul, or legate. During the early Empire, more and more subjects were brought into the Roman political system. P a g e 19 o f 25

20 The Roman Empire at the Time of the Emperor Hadrian (ca. 140 A.D.) Subjects did provide military units for the Roman army. The units were called auxilia (helpers). Subjects who served in the auxilia were made Roman citizens when they were discharged from the army. Emperors also gave citizenship to entire civitates, most commonly to those that had fully adopted Roman civilization. The extension of citizenship was finally completed in 212 by an imperial decree called the Antonine Constitution. It granted citizenship to all free persons in the Empire who did not have it already. As citizenship spread to new areas, upper-class families from those areas began to enter Roman government. The makeup of the Senate provides a handy illustration of this. By the reign of Vespasian in the 70s, 17 percent of Roman senators came from the provinces. By 180, this figure had grown to 44 percent, almost half. Most remarkably, even the office of emperor itself reflects this trend. The Julio- Claudian family belonged to the traditional Roman nobility of the Republic. Later rulers did not. The Flavians were an Italian family that received citizenship only in the Late Republic. Four of the five Good Emperors were from provinces three were from Spain and one from Gaul. So write down that as time passed, all of the peoples of the Empire not only came to act like Romans, but they essentially became Romans. Growth of the Power of Emperor The last major trend in the Early Empire was a steady growth in the power of the emperor. Of course, Augustus had extensive power. But outside the army, he exercised most of his power indirectly by influencing the Senate and other institutions held over from the Republic. In the provinces, he ruled through governors, and even they had limited authority in civil matters. The local civitates handled most of the day-to-day business of the government for the Empire. Yet, over time, later emperors took a more direct role in ruling. Some simply did not want to work with the Senate and Republican officials like proconsuls, but that is not the whole story. Local governments in the Empire often sought financial aid or other favors from the central, imperial government in Rome. Instead of going through the governor and the Senate, they usually asked the emperor directly for what they wanted since he had the power and resources grant their requests personally. To handle such requests, the emperors had to create more and more new officials to help them to deal with local problems and also, inevitably, to exercise greater control over local administration. At Rome, they hired secretaries and clerks to receive and send out letters and to assist in P a g e 20 o f 25

21 keeping records. By 100, they had begun to dispatch officials to the provinces to take over duties previously discharged by governors or city-states. The new officials differed from older Republican officials like proconsuls in that the emperor appointed them himself. They were what we would call civil servants, or maybe bureaucrats. Thus, the Empire came to have a large bureaucracy controlled by the ruler, which took over the powers of the older political institutions. Growing Political Problems Down to 180, the Roman Empire fared reasonably well, but then from 180 to 284, it ran into grave problems. I can only note them very briefly. The major flaw in the imperial constitution was the underlying power of the armies. In theory, the emperor was elected, but in practice, his position ultimately depended on military support. If the armies opposed an emperor, he would inevitably fall. Then the armies would have to agree to accept the new ruler. If they could not agree, then a civil war would be needed to settle the issue. This is what happened in 69. The century between 180 and 284 revealed the seriousness of this flaw. It can be divided roughly in half. The first half from produced several rulers who were not able to keep the loyalty of the armies. There were frequent assassinations and a couple of civil wars over the throne. During these conflicts, the armies became more aware of their power and more inclined to use it indiscriminately. Discipline declined. Then from 235 to 284, civil war raged almost continuously. During this fifty-five year period, there were more than twenty emperors at one time or another in different parts of the Empire. With the Romans fighting one another, foreign invasions increased, and in this period, the Empire came close to being destroyed altogether. the real power in Rome was the Praetorian Guard, the police force of the city of Rome. These soldier often sold the office of emperor to the highest bidder, so the emperors of the period fro are often called the Barracks Emperors. Fortunately, by the time of the civil wars, two hundred years of cultural and political integration had laid the basis for the survival of Rome despite internal unrest and anarchy. By the 200s, everyone in the Empire was Roman and wanted to see the imperial system continue. And in 284, as we will see soon, a new emperor emerged out of this mess that restored the stability of the Empire. The External Problems As the fabric of the Roman Empire began to unravel internally, external threats on the frontiers of the Empire contributed to further crises. The most important external threat was posed by a people called the Germans. The Germans are Indo-Europeans who apparently appeared in the area of the Baltic Sea around 1500 B.C. They began to migrate to the south in the late Bronze Age, and they reached the Rhine River, which actually is in today s Germany, around 200 BC. The Romans had had dealings with the Germans from the time that Julius Caesar annexed Gaul into the Empire in the 50s B.C. Most of these dealings had been less than friendly. As we will see, the Germans were a bellicose people, like the Romans, and most relations between the two in this early period usually involved a fair amount of blood and body parts getting strewn about the landscape. Several German tribes spread down the Danube River and reached the Black Sea around 200 AD. So, Germanic peoples slowly but surely become the neighbors of the Roman Empire to the north. The basic social unit of the Germans was the clan of some 10 to 20 families, and, for military and some other purposes, a bunch of these clans would join together to form tribes. This society was dominated by men who were the hunters and the fighters. All other physical labor farming, cooking, etc. was left to women or slaves, but usually the women. When the men were not hunting or fighting, they usually were drinking, eating and arguing. The main system of government was based on loyalty to a war leader called a konig. These leaders also served as a judge to settle disputes among the men. The konig had a group of very close retainers, called a comitatus who swore absolute loyalty to him. It was a custom among the Germans that the chief could not be outshone in bravery by his retainers and his retainers could not be outshone in bravery by the chief. This made a hell of a group of fighters. Germanic warriors engaging in the popular pastime of ambushing and killing Roman soldiers. P a g e 21 o f 25

22 The Germans did not launch a major assault on the Roman Empire at any particular time. They drifted down along the northern border of the Empire, and they would raid into the Empire and suffer attacks by the Roman army in retaliation for these raids. The first Germans actually entered the Roman Empire as slaves, where they were highly prized for their good looks. But the raids continually increased, and after 200 A.D. they became increasingly threatening. In fact, the Romans in the 3rd and 4th centuries even adopted the policy of settling some German tribes along the northern border to protect the Empire from other German tribes. And, since they did that, some Germans became Christians. In fact, the Germans generally adopted many aspects of Roman civilization; they did not really represent a competing civilization. The oldest example of writing that we have in German, for example, is a translation of scripture verses done in Latin script around 350 AD by a Romanized German named Ulfila. The Parthians the Germans were not the only ones. On the eastern frontier of the Empire the Parthian Empire grew stronger, and ultimately developed into a very powerful state. Again, the Parthians weren t new to the Romans. They had fought them on several occasions, and lost to them several times. In 53 B.C., Marcus Licinius Crassus (remember him? First Triumvirate, richest man in Rome?) Decided to fight the Parthians to show that he was as good a general as Caesar. He wasn t! Marc Anthony fought a war with Parthia in 36 B.C. and barely escaped with his life and army intact. So, Parthia had been a threat for quite some time as well. Well, anyway, in 224 A.D. the Parthian Empire was shaken up, and a new ruling family, the Sassans, took over. They began to reform the Empire, and began, once more to expand their territories and as a consequence to threaten Roman cities in the East. The Parthians never really threatened to bring down the Roman Empire, but they were always a nuisance and, as time went on, they forced the Romans to send ever greater resources to that border that might have been used to fight the Germans. Internal Crises These external problems might not have caused as much difficulty for the empire were it not for serious internal problems. The first of these, and probably the most important, was really economic. For reasons that are still not absolutely clear, in the late 2nd century A.D., the Roman Empire began to suffer economic difficulties. The principal reason seems to have been a loss of population brought on by a recurrent series of plagues that hit the Empire. But there were other problems as well. We know that the birthrate declined over much of the Empire in the mid-200s as well, and agricultural production declined. The truth is that we know the symptoms, but we don t really know all of the causes. As the population declined, the demands on the population began to grow. What I mean is that after 200 A.D. the German and the Parthian threats demanded ever greater resources in terms of manpower and money to deal with them. But those demands were made in a time of population decline, which meant that there were fewer men to be drafted and fewer taxpayers to supply the resources. But no one at that time could really appreciate the connections among all of these problems. So, the army simply demanded more and more men, not realizing that taking large numbers of men out of the work force would diminish the resources to pay for the army. And the tax collectors, under ever greater pressure to collect more taxes -- to pay the army and its support system -- could not fully appreciate that raising taxes also cut into productivity -- and, of course, took more men away from their communities, which also tended to further reduce the birthrate. Well, as you can imagine, these conditions created a downward spiral economically and ultimately socially. In need of men and money, the military recruiters and the tax collectors would come around more often than they used to, and the people would begin to run away when they heard they were coming. That meant that when they came around, there would be fewer people from which to draw men and taxes, so the recruiters and tax collectors would have to increase their quotas on the people that stayed. That meant that more people would flee -- and so it went. Military recruiters and tax collectors would be driven away from villages or landed estates and sometimes would be expelled from cities as well. In fact, along the borders Roman citizens would sometimes welcome German tribes and invite them to settle down with them so that the Germans would protect them from the Roman military recruiters and tax collectors. You get the picture. In addition to the economic and demographic problems, the roman empire began to suffer serious political problems. P a g e 22 o f 25

23 Failure of Leadership As we discussed when we talked about the establishment of the Roman Empire, even though the old Republican institutions were kept, power ultimately wound up in the hands of one man, and that was the emperor. As long as the emperors were reasonably competent, this political system could work. But in 180 AD a rather vicious and incompetent man became emperor, a guy named Commodus [anybody seen Gladiator?]. He was the son of one of the truly great emperors, Marcus Aurelius, which is why he became emperor. Commodus gets a lot of bad press from a lot of different interests in the Empire. He persecuted Christians, so they wrote pretty bad things about him. He liked to play gladiator, dressed like Hercules and even announced that he was an incarnation of Hercules a god. His eccentricities made the Senatorial class despise him, so they talked a lot of trash about him as well. It would be nice to say that various groups in the Empire didn t like him because of their own biases, but, the truth seems to be that Commodus REALLY was just no damn good. His addiction to the games left him little time to administrate over the empire at a time when it needed a Commodus in his Hercules outfit. steady hand at the helm. He spent scads of money on circuses, horse races, parties, and so forth that should have been spent to defend the borders. He was basically content to let the empire fall apart as long as he could pass a good time. Senators accused him of being excessively focused on his own pleasures (how very UNROMAN). Christians accused him of being excessively cruel, especially to Christians. He was probably not much more libidinous than many Romans, and no more cruel than most. But we can fairly accuse him of being really stupid, and really selfcentered, which is a pretty bad combination in a leader in what can only be described as bad times. Anyway, Commodus was assassinated (strangled by his wrestling coach, and, no; it wasn t an accident!) in 192, which began about a century of political disasters. This period is called the era of the Barracks Emperors, because emperors were chosen and dumped at the whim of the army. In fact, on several occasions the army auctioned the principate off to the highest bidder and split the money up among themselves. Between 235 and 284, a period of 49 years the Empire had 20 different emperors. Now, the important thing to remember is that this chaos at the top is happening when the economic decline is in full swing. Nobody was exercising any administrative control over provincial government, tax collection, military conscription, food production, trade, and other stuff. Additionally, the constant struggles over who would be emperor made it very difficult for the army to concentrate its attention on fighting off the Germans and the Parthians. Diocletian Saves the Day But the Roman Empire was not dead yet. it still had vast resources, and strong traditions. what it needed was someone who could pull it all together again. and it looked in 284 as if it had found just such a person. this person was the emperor Diocletian. he revived the empire, at least for a while. When Diocletian became emperor in 284, he determined that the Empire was declining primarily because of its internal and not its external problems. So, he set out to shore up the crumbling internal system and the first thing he did was give himself the power to do it. He got rid of the last remnants of the Republic and gave himself a new title of Dominus, which meant lord, or perhaps more appropriately master specifically the master of a slave. Whereas Augustus had stressed the fiction that he was merely the first among equals (princeps), Diocletian based his rule on absolute power and the mystery of his person. P a g e 23 o f 25

24 He was almost never seen in public. When he did appear he wore magnificent clothing and jewelry to emphasize his wealth and power. He met with and took advice from a select group of advisors called the companions. The very few who actually gained audience with the Dominus were forbidden to look him in the eye, and had to kiss the hem of his garment when they entered or left the ruler s presence. His home was called the Sacred Palace, and he was said to be divinely appointed to rule. There was still a Senate in Rome and another was created in Byzantium, but their powers were nil; both essentially served as town councils. Diocletian, with an enormous bureaucracy was the sole ruler of the empire. Then he set to work reforming the army. He divided the army into two branches, one to guard the frontiers against the Parthians and the Germans (400,000 foot soldiers) and the other to form a mobile force that would go to wherever it was needed the most (200,000 horse soldiers). He also restored discipline and training to make certain that this army performed well. But he also knew that this army would need resources and that meant the collection of regular and dependable taxes. And here he introduced something we find interesting. In the old days, the Empire conducted a census every 15 years to determine tax levies. Diocletian increased that to every five years. But to make certain that this income would be forthcoming, he tried to freeze social and economic life as it was at that time. He declared that farmers could not sell their land and move, and, if they did, their neighbors would be responsible for paying their taxes. He decreed that civil servants could not quit, and, if they died, their children had to take their places. He decreed that businessmen could not shut down or open new businesses and could not leave the cities. He essentially issued laws that would keep everyone doing exactly the same thing forever. And to make certain that people would stay where they were, he promised horrible punishments to anyone who disobeyed. He ordered the confiscation of property, maiming of limbs, gouging out of eyes, and branding of faces. But what this tells you is not that all of this working but just the opposite. After Diocletian Diocletian abdicated in 305 ad, but, before he did so, he tried to solve Rome's political problem at the top as well. He was not tied to the city of Rome. In fact, in the 20 years he was emperor, he visited Rome only once; the rest of the time he stayed on the move trying to make certain everything was going well. To solve Rome's political problems, he established a system of four emperors, one for the west, one for the east, and one to assist each of the others. He thought this way the succession, which had been so terrible, would be resolved. It was not, of course, because right after Diocletian stepped down, the four emperors fought among themselves for power. The winner of this first fight for power was Constantine, and he is really important for three reasons. He continued the revival of Rome that Diocletian began. (ruled from 311 to 337 AD). He moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to his own city called Constantinople. Constantine also made Christian worship legal. Once scholars believed that Constantine had converted to Christianity, but whether this is the case is in dispute. We do know that he held several councils among Christian groups and helped them out, and he raised his children to be Christians, and that after Constantine, all of the Eastern Roman Emperors, but one, were Christians. So, maybe it really doesn t matter so much whether he was one or not. P a g e 24 o f 25