Crisis of the Roman Republic
Encyclopedia
The Crisis of the Roman Republic refers to an extended period of political instability and social unrest that culminated in the demise of the Roman Republic
and the advent of the Roman Empire
, from about 134 BC to 44 BC.
The exact dates of the Crisis are unclear because, "Rome teetered between normalcy and crisis" for many decades.
Likewise, the causes and attributes of the crises changed throughout the decades, including the forms of slavery, brigandage
, wars internal and external, land reform, the invention of literally excruciating new punishments, the expansion of Roman citizenship, and even the changing composition of the Roman army.
Modern scholars also disagree about the nature of the crisis. Traditionally, the expansion of citizenship (with its all rights, privileges, and duties) was looked upon negatively by Sallust
, Gibbon
, and others of their schools, because it caused internal dissension, disputes with Rome's Italian allies, slave revolts, and riots. However, today's scholars point out that the whole purpose of the Republic was to be res publica – the essential thing of the people – and thus poor people can not be blamed for trying to redress their legitimate and legal
grievances.
For centuries, historians have argued about the start, specific crises involved, and end date for the Crisis of the Roman Republic. As a culture
(or "web of institutions"), Florence Dupont and Christopher Woodall wrote, "no distiction is made between different periods." However, without question, the Romans lost liberty through plunder, by "their morally undermining consequences."
, or alternately, when he first issued his proposal for land reform
in 133 BC. Appian
of Alexander wrote that this political crisis was "the preface to ... the Roman civil wars." Velleius commentated that it was Gacchus' unprecedented standing for re-election as tribune in 132 BC, and the riots and controversy it engendered as the start of this Crisis:
In any case, the assassination of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was "a turning point in Roman history and the beginning of the crisis of the Roman Republic."
Barbette S. Spaeth specifically calls it "the Gracchan crisis at the beginning of the Late Roman Republic"...
Nic Fields, in his popular history of Spartacus
, argues for a start date of 135 BC with the beginning of the First Slave War
in Sicily
. Fields asserts:
The start of the Social War (91–88 BC), when Rome fought her nearby Italian neighbours, may be thought of as the beginning of the end of the Republic. Fields also suggests that things got much worse with the Samnite War around 82 BC.
Barry Strauss argues that the crisis really started with The Spartacus War in 73 BC, adding that, because the dangers were unappreciated, "Rome faced the crisis with mediocrities."
and Ronald Syme
date the Crisis only from the time of Julius Caesar
in 60 BC. Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon
in 49 BC has become the clichéd point of no return
for the Republic, as noted in many books, including Tom Holland's
Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
.
on 15 March 44 BC, after he and Sulla did so much "to dismantle the government of the Republic," or alternately when Octavian took on the name of Augustus
and founded the Roman Empire
in 27 BC.
took office as a tribune of the plebs in late 134 BC while "everything in the Roman Republic seemed to be in fine working order." There were a few apparently minor problems, such as "the annoyance of a slave revolt in Sicily ...."
At the same time, Roman society was a highly stratified class system whose divisions were bubbling below the surface. This system consisted of noble families
of the senatorial rank, the knight or equestrian class, citizens (grouped into two or three classes depending on the time period - self-governing allies of Rome, landowners, and plebs or tenant freemen), non-citizens who lived outside of southwestern Italy, and at the bottom, slaves By law, only men who were citizens could vote in certain assemblies, and only those men who owned a certain amount of real property could serve in the military, which would gain them social prestige and additional benefits of citizenship. The government owned large tracts of farm land that it had gained through invasion or escheat
, and rented out to large landowners, whose slaves tilled their land, or who sub-leased to small tenant farmers. There was some social mobility and limited suffrage. The plebs (or plebeians) were a socio-economic class, but also had possible origins as an ethnic group with its own cult to the goddess Ceres, and ultimately, were a political party
during much of the Roman Republic.
Normally, the Senate had the sole power to pass legislation
, and only members of the upper classes, such as former magistrate
s, were eligible to run for and serve in the Senate.
Beginning in 133 BC, Gracchus tried to redress the grievances of displaced smallholders. He bypassed the Roman senate
and passed a law limiting the amount of land belonging to the state
that any individual could farm. This would have resulted in the breakup of the large plantation
s maintained by the rich on public land and worked by slaves.
Gracchus' moderate plan of agrarian reform
was motivated "to increase the number of Roman citizens who owned land and consequently the number who would qualify as soldiers according to their census rating." The plan included a method to quiet title
, and had a goal of increasing the efficiency of farmland, while doling out small parcels of land to tenant farmer
s, his populist constituency
. Gracchus knew of a loophole
-- the lex Hortensia
of 287 BC allowed the assembly of plebs to bypass the Senate. However, another tribune, Marcus Octavius
, used his veto
to scuttle the plan.
The crisis escalated: Gracchus pushed the assembly to impeach and remove Octavius; the Senate denied funds to the commission needed for land reform; Gracchus then tried to use money out of a trust fund left by Attalus III
of Pergamum; and the Senate blocked that, too. At one point, Gracchus had "one of his freedmen ... drag Octavius from the speaker's platform." This assault
violated the Lex sacrata, which prohibited people of lower status from violating the person of a person of higher class. Rome's unwritten constitution hampered reform. So Gracchus sought re-election to his one-year term, which was unprecedented in an era of strict term limits. The oligarchic
nobles responded by murdering Gracchus, and mass riots broke out in the city in reaction to the assassination.
Barbette S. Spaeth asserts that Ceres' roles as (a) patron and protector of plebeian laws
, rights and Tribune
s and (b) "normative/liminal" crimes, continued throughout the Republican era. These roles were "exploited for the purposes of political propaganda
during the Gracchan crisis ...."
Ceres' Aventine Temple served the plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury, and court of law, founded contemporaneously with the passage of the Lex sacrata; the lives and property of those who violated this law were forfeit to Ceres, whose judgment was expressed by her aedile
s. The official decrees of the Senate (senatus consulta) were placed in her Temple, under her guardianship; Livy
bluntly states this was done so that the consuls could no longer arbitrarily tamper with the laws of Rome. The Temple might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by patrician magistrates. Ceres was thus the patron goddess of Rome's written laws; the poet Vergil later calls her legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter's Greek epithet, thesmophoros
. Those who approved the murder of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC justified his death as punishment for his offense against the Lex sacrata of the goddess Ceres: those who deplored this as murder appealed to Gracchus' sancrosanct status as tribune under Ceres' protection. In 70 BC, Cicero
refers to this killing in connection with Ceres' laws and cults.
Spaeth believed that he was killed because:
Rather than attempting to atone for the murder, the Senate used a mission to Ceres' temple at Henna
(in Sicily
) to justify his execution.
The agrarian reforms were only partially implemented by the commission; yet Gracchi colonies were set up both Italy and Carthage
.
About nine years later Tiberius's younger brother, Gaius
, passed more radical reforms. In addition to settling the poor in colonies on land conquered by Rome, he passed the Corn Laws (lex frumentaria), which gave the poor the right to buy grain at subsidized
prices.
In the past, the senate eliminated political rivals either by establishing special judicial commissions or by passing a senatus consultum ultimum
("ultimate decree of the senate"). Both devices allowed the senate to bypass the ordinary due process rights that all citizens had.
Some of Gaius' followers caused the death
of a man, which allowed his political rival, Lucius Opimius
, to suspend the constitution again with another senatus consultum ultimum.
Gaius fled, but he was also probably murdered by the oligarchs. According to one ancient source, Gaius was not killed directly by them, but ordered his slave Philocrates to do the deed in a murder-suicide
.
, who like the Gracchi, was a populist
. Unlike them, he was also a general
. He abolished the property requirement for becoming a soldier
. The poor enlisted in large numbers. This opening of the Army's ranks to the capite censii enfranchised the plebs, thus creating an esprit de corps in the enlarged army. Some elites complained that the army now became unruly due to the commoners in its ranks, but this is without good cause
:
Marius employed his soldiers to defeat an invasion by the Germanic
Cimbri
and Teutons. His political influence and military leadership allowed him to obtain six terms as consul in 107, and 103 to 99 BC. In 99 BC, the senate used renewed violence to declare another senatus consultum ultimum.
Sulla, one of Marius's subordinates, contested with him for supreme power. After the senate awarded Sulla the lucrative
and powerful post of commander in the war against Mithridates
, Marius's politicking resulted in his being appointed commander in Sulla's stead. Sulla seized power and marched to the east with his soldiers. Marius himself launched a coup in Sulla's absence and put to death some of his enemies. He instituted a populist regime, but died soon after.
When Sulla returned from the wars, his victorious army defeated the forces of Cinna
, Marius's populist successor
. He began a dictatorship
and purged the state of many populists. A reign of terror
followed in which some innocents were denounced just so their property could be seized for the benefit Sulla's followers. Sulla's coup resulted in a major victory for the oligarchs. He reversed the reforms of the Gracchi and other populists, stripped the tribunes of the people of much of their power and returned authority over the courts to the senators.
Pompey the Great, the next major leader who aggravated the crisis, was born Gnaeus Pomeius, but took his own cognomen
of Magnus ("the Great").
Pompey as a young man was allied to Sulla, but in the consular elections of 78 BC, he supported Lepidus against Sulla's wishes. When Sulla died later that year, Lepidus revolted, and Pompey suppressed him on behalf of the senate. Then he asked for proconsul
ar imperium
in Hispania
, to deal with the populares
general Quintus Sertorius
, who had held out for the past three years against Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius
, one of Sulla's most able generals.
Pompey's career seems to have been driven by desire for military glory and disregard for traditional political constraints. The Roman aristocracy turned him down—they were beginning to fear the young, popular and successful general, but Pompey refused to disband his legions until his request was granted. The senate acceded, reluctantly granted him the title of proconsul and powers equal to those of Metellus, and sent him to Hispania.
Pompey infamously wiped out what remained of Spartacus' troops in 71 BC, who had been pinned down by Marcus Crassus. He received Rome's highest honor, the triumph
, while Crassus only received the honorable mention of an ovation
, which hurt Crassus' pride.
In 69 BC, he conquered Syria
, defeated King Tigranes
of Armenia
, and replaced one puppet king, Seleucus VII Philometor with his brother Antiochus XIII Asiaticus. Four years later, he deposed the monarchy, replacing it with a governor. This not only finished off the Seleucids, but brought in thousands of slaves and strange peoples, including the Judeans, to Rome, thus creating the Jewish diaspora
. This generated swarms of refugees, which can only have created its own discord.
While many of Pompey's reckless actions ultimately increased discord in Rome, his unlucky alliance with Crassus and Caesar is cited as being especially dangerous to the Republic.
" of the institution of slavery
in the Roman Republic was both a cause and a result of the Crisis, for at least three reasons. Specifically, the endless competition, litigation, obligations, temptations, and humiliations of daily life in ancient Rome were constantly on everyone's mind. Romans were also particularly in grave danger of being harmed by their slaves' hatred and resentments. Finally, the wars of the Crisis brought in yet more slaves.
The cruelty and ubiquity of slavery in the ancient world
, including Rome, can not be overstated, and was a reason that the Republic always seemed to be in crisis. The freeborn had certain honors, while "children, women, and slaves were soulless bodies." Slaves were men lacking animus
, were dependent on their owners, were living in degrading servility, and were looked upon merely as "doubles" of their owners. In fact, according to Roman thought, slaves had somehow consented to their slavery by going after their passions rather than liberty:
The proposed agrarian reforms of 133 BC would have broken up the inefficient slave plantations, with which the elite in their conservatism and privilege could not agree. There were an estimated 100,000 slaves in Rome, and "2 million in all of Italy." Other authors give a figure of nearly 1 Million slaves at that time and place, but in any case it was a huge number, with an ideal of one slave minimum per free man. Slaves mostly worked in menial jobs, from prostitutes and cleaners to miners, shepherds, collectiong rubbish, mining
, and oarsmen; a few worked in comfort such as a secretary
, or a family physician
. Slaves "had no right to refuse their masters' sexual advances
." However, the myth of sex slaves was just that, because the virtuous Roman would restrain his basest urges. Nonetheless, the fact that slaves attended to freemen meant that their masters were constantly in grave risk of harm -- they were in perennial fear for themselves and the Republic for which they had worked so hard:
Roman slaves came from many sources. In his Insitutiones (161 AD), Caius
wrote that:
The Roman military brought back captives as the booty
of war,
and ancient sources cite anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of such slaves captured in each war. These wars included every war of conquest from 177-101 BC, as well as the Social and Samnite wars (91-88 and 82 BC, respectively). The prisoners taken or re-taken after the three Roman Servile Wars
(135-132, 104-100, and 73-71 BC, respectively) contributed to this number. The Thracian
slave traffic added many more numbers of imported persons, including perhaps the most famous Roman slave of all, Spartacus
. Later generations of slaves worshiped the genius
of Spartacus.
Piracy
has a long history of adding to the slave trade, and the Roman Republic was no different. Piracy was one of the many crises with which the Republic had to contend, at least until 85 BC. In those days, an increase in piracy always led to an increase in slavery. Both piracy and war lead to increases in slavery, which in turn resulted in new forms of punishment, such as crucifixion
and gladiator
contests.
Crucifixion was the capital punishment
meted out specifically to slaves, traitors, and bandits. Any "dangerous subversion of the Roman order ... for the lower classes, meant crucifixion." The "notorious prisoner" Barabbas
was supposed to be crucified, but was released. In any case, "two bandits" were crucified along with Jesus
of Nazareth, but the Greek
name for them, lestes, also "means pirate or looter." Jesus' crucifixion was the same punishment as that of a slave.
Originally, a gladiatorial contest was a form of human sacrifice
used as punishment after capture as a war slave or along with a funeral
rite. That soon changed, in part to its emergence as a form of entertainment or "bread and circuses
" event, and from conspicuous consumption
of the highest classes of Romans. It was a "competition of skill", which did little to improve law and order
: Fields writes, "Beginning as a grandiousity occasionally added to an aristocratic funeral, the gladiators themselves being taken amongst the personal slaves of the deceased and equipped in makeshift fashion, over time the combats were extended to public celebrations."
Pastoral slaves who kept goat
s and sheep often used brigandage—stealing and raiding—as a means of supporting themselves off the land, because their "owners" would not supply them with sufficient food and supplies. The banditry of these enslaved herdsmen came back to haunt the Romans when many sheepherders joined the revolts in Sicily and of Spartacus.
Rarely, slaves were also bred, although the law of the peoples forbade it.
In the ancient patriarchical society
of Rome, the pater familias
(fathers) could abandon their children that were unacceptable to them, to slavery or infanticide
. The Twelve Tables
of Roman law
obliged him to put to death a child that was visibly deformed.
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
and the advent of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, from about 134 BC to 44 BC.
The exact dates of the Crisis are unclear because, "Rome teetered between normalcy and crisis" for many decades.
Likewise, the causes and attributes of the crises changed throughout the decades, including the forms of slavery, brigandage
Brigandage
Brigandage refers to the life and practice of brigands: highway robbery and plunder, and a brigand is a person who usually lives in a gang and lives by pillage and robbery....
, wars internal and external, land reform, the invention of literally excruciating new punishments, the expansion of Roman citizenship, and even the changing composition of the Roman army.
Modern scholars also disagree about the nature of the crisis. Traditionally, the expansion of citizenship (with its all rights, privileges, and duties) was looked upon negatively by Sallust
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...
, Gibbon
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a non-fiction history book written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788–89...
, and others of their schools, because it caused internal dissension, disputes with Rome's Italian allies, slave revolts, and riots. However, today's scholars point out that the whole purpose of the Republic was to be res publica – the essential thing of the people – and thus poor people can not be blamed for trying to redress their legitimate and legal
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
grievances.
Dating the crisis
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
(or "web of institutions"), Florence Dupont and Christopher Woodall wrote, "no distiction is made between different periods." However, without question, the Romans lost liberty through plunder, by "their morally undermining consequences."
Arguments for an earlier start date (c. 134 to 73 BC)
Harriet I. Flower and Jurgen Von Ungern-Sternberg argue for an exact start date of 10 December 134 BC, with the inauguration of Gracchus as tribuneTribune
Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...
, or alternately, when he first issued his proposal for land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
in 133 BC. Appian
Appian
Appian of Alexandria was a Roman historian of Greek ethnicity who flourished during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.He was born ca. 95 in Alexandria. He tells us that, after having filled the chief offices in the province of Egypt, he went to Rome ca. 120, where he practised as...
of Alexander wrote that this political crisis was "the preface to ... the Roman civil wars." Velleius commentated that it was Gacchus' unprecedented standing for re-election as tribune in 132 BC, and the riots and controversy it engendered as the start of this Crisis:
In any case, the assassination of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was "a turning point in Roman history and the beginning of the crisis of the Roman Republic."
Barbette S. Spaeth specifically calls it "the Gracchan crisis at the beginning of the Late Roman Republic"...
Nic Fields, in his popular history of Spartacus
Spartacus
Spartacus was a famous leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable...
, argues for a start date of 135 BC with the beginning of the First Slave War
First Servile War
The First Servile War of 135–132 BC was an unsuccessful rebellion of slaves against the Roman Republic. The war was prompted by slave revolts in Enna on the island of Sicily. It was led by Eunus, a former slave claiming to be a prophet, and Cleon, a Cilician who became Eunus's military commander...
in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. Fields asserts:
The start of the Social War (91–88 BC), when Rome fought her nearby Italian neighbours, may be thought of as the beginning of the end of the Republic. Fields also suggests that things got much worse with the Samnite War around 82 BC.
Barry Strauss argues that the crisis really started with The Spartacus War in 73 BC, adding that, because the dangers were unappreciated, "Rome faced the crisis with mediocrities."
Arguments for a later start date (69 to 44 BC)
Thorton Wilder, in his novel, The Ides of March, focuses on the period ca. 69 BC to 44 BC as the Crisis. PollioPollio
Pollio was a Roman cognomen. It may refer to:* Gaius Asinius Pollio , the historian and orator* Gaius Asinius Pollio , grandson of the preceding* Vedius Pollio Pollio was a Roman cognomen. It may refer to:* Gaius Asinius Pollio (consul 40 BC), the historian and orator* Gaius Asinius Pollio (consul...
and Ronald Syme
Ronald Syme
Sir Ronald Syme, OM, FBA was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. Long associated with Oxford University, he is widely regarded as the 20th century's greatest historian of ancient Rome...
date the Crisis only from the time of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
in 60 BC. Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon
Rubicon
The Rubicon is a shallow river in northeastern Italy, about 80 kilometres long, running from the Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic Sea through the southern Emilia-Romagna region, between the towns of Rimini and Cesena. The Latin word rubico comes from the adjective "rubeus", meaning "red"...
in 49 BC has become the clichéd point of no return
Point of no return
The point of no return is the point beyond which one must continue on his or her current course of action because turning back is physically impossible, prohibitively expensive or dangerous. It is also used when the distance or effort required to get back would be greater than the remainder of the...
for the Republic, as noted in many books, including Tom Holland's
Tom Holland (author)
-Biography:Holland was born near Oxford and brought up in the village of Broadchalke near Salisbury, England. His younger brother is the historian and novelist James Holland...
Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic is a non-fiction book written by Tom Holland, published in 2003.The book tells the story of the end of the Roman Republic and the consequent establishment of the Roman Empire. The book takes its title from the river Rubicon in the northern...
.
Arguments for an end date (44 to 27 BC)
The end of the Crisis can likewise either be dated from the Assassination of Julius CaesarAssassination of Julius Caesar
The assassination of Julius Caesar was the result of a conspiracy by approximately forty Roman senators who called themselves Liberators. Led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, they stabbed Julius Caesar to death in the Theatre of Pompey on the Ides of March 44 BC...
on 15 March 44 BC, after he and Sulla did so much "to dismantle the government of the Republic," or alternately when Octavian took on the name of Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
and founded the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in 27 BC.
Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
Tiberius GracchusTiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populares politician of the 2nd century BC and brother of Gaius Gracchus. As a plebeian tribune, his reforms of agrarian legislation caused political turmoil in the Republic. These reforms threatened the holdings of rich landowners in Italy...
took office as a tribune of the plebs in late 134 BC while "everything in the Roman Republic seemed to be in fine working order." There were a few apparently minor problems, such as "the annoyance of a slave revolt in Sicily ...."
At the same time, Roman society was a highly stratified class system whose divisions were bubbling below the surface. This system consisted of noble families
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
of the senatorial rank, the knight or equestrian class, citizens (grouped into two or three classes depending on the time period - self-governing allies of Rome, landowners, and plebs or tenant freemen), non-citizens who lived outside of southwestern Italy, and at the bottom, slaves By law, only men who were citizens could vote in certain assemblies, and only those men who owned a certain amount of real property could serve in the military, which would gain them social prestige and additional benefits of citizenship. The government owned large tracts of farm land that it had gained through invasion or escheat
Escheat
Escheat is a common law doctrine which transfers the property of a person who dies without heirs to the crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in limbo without recognised ownership...
, and rented out to large landowners, whose slaves tilled their land, or who sub-leased to small tenant farmers. There was some social mobility and limited suffrage. The plebs (or plebeians) were a socio-economic class, but also had possible origins as an ethnic group with its own cult to the goddess Ceres, and ultimately, were a political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
during much of the Roman Republic.
Normally, the Senate had the sole power to pass legislation
Legislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...
, and only members of the upper classes, such as former magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
s, were eligible to run for and serve in the Senate.
Beginning in 133 BC, Gracchus tried to redress the grievances of displaced smallholders. He bypassed the Roman senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
and passed a law limiting the amount of land belonging to the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
that any individual could farm. This would have resulted in the breakup of the large plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
s maintained by the rich on public land and worked by slaves.
Gracchus' moderate plan of agrarian reform
Agrarian reform
Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit measures,...
was motivated "to increase the number of Roman citizens who owned land and consequently the number who would qualify as soldiers according to their census rating." The plan included a method to quiet title
Quiet title
An action to quiet title is a lawsuit brought in a court having jurisdiction over land disputes, in order to establish a party's title to real property against anyone and everyone, and thus "quiet" any challenges or claims to the title....
, and had a goal of increasing the efficiency of farmland, while doling out small parcels of land to tenant farmer
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...
s, his populist constituency
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
. Gracchus knew of a loophole
Loophole
A loophole is a weakness that allows a system to be circumvented.Loophole may also refer to:*Arrowslit, a slit in a castle wall*Loophole , a short science fiction story by Arthur C...
-- the lex Hortensia
Lex Hortensia
Lex Hortensia was a law passed in Ancient Rome in 287 BC which made all resolutions passed by plebeians binding on all citizens.-Introduction:...
of 287 BC allowed the assembly of plebs to bypass the Senate. However, another tribune, Marcus Octavius
Marcus Octavius
Marcus Octavius was a Roman tribune and a major rival of Tiberius Gracchus. A serious and discreet person, he earned himself a reputation as an influential orator. Though originally close friends, Octavius became alarmed by Gracchus's populist agenda and, at the behest of the Roman senate,...
, used his veto
Veto
A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...
to scuttle the plan.
The crisis escalated: Gracchus pushed the assembly to impeach and remove Octavius; the Senate denied funds to the commission needed for land reform; Gracchus then tried to use money out of a trust fund left by Attalus III
Attalus III
Attalus III Philometor Euergetes was the last Attalid king of Pergamon, ruling from 138 BC to 133 BC....
of Pergamum; and the Senate blocked that, too. At one point, Gracchus had "one of his freedmen ... drag Octavius from the speaker's platform." This assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
violated the Lex sacrata, which prohibited people of lower status from violating the person of a person of higher class. Rome's unwritten constitution hampered reform. So Gracchus sought re-election to his one-year term, which was unprecedented in an era of strict term limits. The oligarchic
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
nobles responded by murdering Gracchus, and mass riots broke out in the city in reaction to the assassination.
Barbette S. Spaeth asserts that Ceres' roles as (a) patron and protector of plebeian laws
Plebeian Council
The Concilium Plebis — known in English as the Plebeian Council or People's Assembly — was the principal popular assembly of the ancient Roman Republic. It functioned as a legislative assembly, through which the plebeians could pass laws, elect magistrates, and try judicial cases. The Plebeian...
, rights and Tribune
Tribune
Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...
s and (b) "normative/liminal" crimes, continued throughout the Republican era. These roles were "exploited for the purposes of political propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
during the Gracchan crisis ...."
Ceres' Aventine Temple served the plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury, and court of law, founded contemporaneously with the passage of the Lex sacrata; the lives and property of those who violated this law were forfeit to Ceres, whose judgment was expressed by her aedile
Aedile
Aedile was an office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings and regulation of public festivals. They also had powers to enforce public order. There were two pairs of aediles. Two aediles were from the ranks of plebeians and the other...
s. The official decrees of the Senate (senatus consulta) were placed in her Temple, under her guardianship; Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...
bluntly states this was done so that the consuls could no longer arbitrarily tamper with the laws of Rome. The Temple might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by patrician magistrates. Ceres was thus the patron goddess of Rome's written laws; the poet Vergil later calls her legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter's Greek epithet, thesmophoros
Thesmophoria
Thesmophoria was a festival held in Greek cities, in honor of the goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephone. The name derives from thesmoi, or laws by which men must work the land. The Thesmophoria were the most widespread festivals and the main expression of the cult of Demeter, aside from the...
. Those who approved the murder of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC justified his death as punishment for his offense against the Lex sacrata of the goddess Ceres: those who deplored this as murder appealed to Gracchus' sancrosanct status as tribune under Ceres' protection. In 70 BC, Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
refers to this killing in connection with Ceres' laws and cults.
Spaeth believed that he was killed because:
Rather than attempting to atone for the murder, the Senate used a mission to Ceres' temple at Henna
Enna
Enna is a city and comune located roughly at the center of Sicily, southern Italy, in the province of Enna, towering above the surrounding countryside...
(in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
) to justify his execution.
The agrarian reforms were only partially implemented by the commission; yet Gracchi colonies were set up both Italy and Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
.
Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman Populari politician in the 2nd century BC and brother of the ill-fated reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus...
, passed more radical reforms. In addition to settling the poor in colonies on land conquered by Rome, he passed the Corn Laws (lex frumentaria), which gave the poor the right to buy grain at subsidized
Subsidy
A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
prices.
In the past, the senate eliminated political rivals either by establishing special judicial commissions or by passing a senatus consultum ultimum
Senatus consultum ultimum
Senatus consultum ultimum , more properly senatus consultum de re publica defendenda is the modern term given to a decree of the Roman Senate during the late Roman Republic passed in times of emergency...
("ultimate decree of the senate"). Both devices allowed the senate to bypass the ordinary due process rights that all citizens had.
Some of Gaius' followers caused the death
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
of a man, which allowed his political rival, Lucius Opimius
Lucius Opimius
Lucius Opimius was Roman consul in 121 BC, known for ordering the execution of 3,000 supporters of popular leader Gaius Gracchus without trial, using as pretext the state of emergency declared after Gracchus's recent and turbulent death....
, to suspend the constitution again with another senatus consultum ultimum.
Gaius fled, but he was also probably murdered by the oligarchs. According to one ancient source, Gaius was not killed directly by them, but ordered his slave Philocrates to do the deed in a murder-suicide
Murder-suicide
A murder–suicide is an act in which an individual kills one or more other persons before or at the same time as killing himself or herself. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms, including:...
.
Gaius Marius and Sulla
The next major reformer of the time was Gaius MariusGaius Marius
Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the...
, who like the Gracchi, was a populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
. Unlike them, he was also a general
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
. He abolished the property requirement for becoming a soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
. The poor enlisted in large numbers. This opening of the Army's ranks to the capite censii enfranchised the plebs, thus creating an esprit de corps in the enlarged army. Some elites complained that the army now became unruly due to the commoners in its ranks, but this is without good cause
Good cause
Good cause is a legal term denoting adequate or substantial grounds or reason to take a certain action, or to fail to take an action prescribed by law. What constitutes a good cause is usually determined on a case by case basis and is thus relative....
:
Marius employed his soldiers to defeat an invasion by the Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
Cimbri
Cimbri
The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. The Cimbri were probably Germanic, though some believe them to be of Celtic origin...
and Teutons. His political influence and military leadership allowed him to obtain six terms as consul in 107, and 103 to 99 BC. In 99 BC, the senate used renewed violence to declare another senatus consultum ultimum.
Sulla, one of Marius's subordinates, contested with him for supreme power. After the senate awarded Sulla the lucrative
Graft
Graft or grafting may refer to:*Grafting, where the tissues of one plant are affixed to the tissues of another*Medical grafting, a surgical procedure to transplant tissue without a blood supply**Bone grafting**Skin grafting...
and powerful post of commander in the war against Mithridates
Mithridates VI of Pontus
Mithridates VI or Mithradates VI Mithradates , from Old Persian Mithradatha, "gift of Mithra"; 134 BC – 63 BC, also known as Mithradates the Great and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia from about 120 BC to 63 BC...
, Marius's politicking resulted in his being appointed commander in Sulla's stead. Sulla seized power and marched to the east with his soldiers. Marius himself launched a coup in Sulla's absence and put to death some of his enemies. He instituted a populist regime, but died soon after.
When Sulla returned from the wars, his victorious army defeated the forces of Cinna
Cinna
Cinna was a cognomen that distinguished a patrician branch of the gens Cornelia, particularly in the late Roman Republic.Prominent members of this family include:...
, Marius's populist successor
Successor
A successor can refer to* Someone who, or something which succeeds or comes after * Successor , an American Thoroughbred racehorseIn history:* The Diadochi, or Successors to Alexander the GreatIn mathematics:...
. He began a dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...
and purged the state of many populists. A reign of terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
followed in which some innocents were denounced just so their property could be seized for the benefit Sulla's followers. Sulla's coup resulted in a major victory for the oligarchs. He reversed the reforms of the Gracchi and other populists, stripped the tribunes of the people of much of their power and returned authority over the courts to the senators.
Pompey
Pompey the Great, the next major leader who aggravated the crisis, was born Gnaeus Pomeius, but took his own cognomen
Cognomen
The cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...
of Magnus ("the Great").
Pompey as a young man was allied to Sulla, but in the consular elections of 78 BC, he supported Lepidus against Sulla's wishes. When Sulla died later that year, Lepidus revolted, and Pompey suppressed him on behalf of the senate. Then he asked for proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
ar imperium
Imperium
Imperium is a Latin word which, in a broad sense, translates roughly as 'power to command'. In ancient Rome, different kinds of power or authority were distinguished by different terms. Imperium, referred to the sovereignty of the state over the individual...
in Hispania
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
, to deal with the populares
Populares
Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite...
general Quintus Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius was a Roman statesman and general, born in Nursia, in Sabine territory. His brilliance as a military commander was shown most clearly in his battles against Rome for control of Hispania...
, who had held out for the past three years against Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius was a pro-Sullan politician and general. He was named Pius because of his 99 BC petition to return his father from exile and was true to his cognomen for the constance and inflexibility with which he always fought for his father's rehabilitation and return to...
, one of Sulla's most able generals.
Pompey's career seems to have been driven by desire for military glory and disregard for traditional political constraints. The Roman aristocracy turned him down—they were beginning to fear the young, popular and successful general, but Pompey refused to disband his legions until his request was granted. The senate acceded, reluctantly granted him the title of proconsul and powers equal to those of Metellus, and sent him to Hispania.
Pompey infamously wiped out what remained of Spartacus' troops in 71 BC, who had been pinned down by Marcus Crassus. He received Rome's highest honor, the triumph
Roman triumph
The Roman triumph was a civil ceremony and religious rite of ancient Rome, held to publicly celebrate and sanctify the military achievement of an army commander who had won great military successes, or originally and traditionally, one who had successfully completed a foreign war. In Republican...
, while Crassus only received the honorable mention of an ovation
Ovation
The ovation was a lower form of the Roman triumph. Ovations were granted, when war was not declared between enemies on the level of states, when an enemy was considered basely inferior or when the general conflict was resolved with little to no bloodshed or danger to the army itself.The general...
, which hurt Crassus' pride.
In 69 BC, he conquered Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, defeated King Tigranes
Tigranes
Tigranes was the name of a number of historical figures, primarily kings of Armenia.The earliest Tigranes is mentioned in the Cyropaedia and in Armenian historical sources. He was an Armenian king from the Orontid Dynasty and an ally of Cyrus the Great. One of his sons was also named Tigranes...
of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, and replaced one puppet king, Seleucus VII Philometor with his brother Antiochus XIII Asiaticus. Four years later, he deposed the monarchy, replacing it with a governor. This not only finished off the Seleucids, but brought in thousands of slaves and strange peoples, including the Judeans, to Rome, thus creating the Jewish diaspora
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
. This generated swarms of refugees, which can only have created its own discord.
While many of Pompey's reckless actions ultimately increased discord in Rome, his unlucky alliance with Crassus and Caesar is cited as being especially dangerous to the Republic.
Institution of Slavery
The "background noiseBackground noise
In acoustics and specifically in acoustical engineering, background noise or ambient noise is any sound other than the sound being monitored. Background noise is a form of noise pollution or interference. Background noise is an important concept in setting noise regulations...
" of the institution of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
in the Roman Republic was both a cause and a result of the Crisis, for at least three reasons. Specifically, the endless competition, litigation, obligations, temptations, and humiliations of daily life in ancient Rome were constantly on everyone's mind. Romans were also particularly in grave danger of being harmed by their slaves' hatred and resentments. Finally, the wars of the Crisis brought in yet more slaves.
The cruelty and ubiquity of slavery in the ancient world
Slavery in antiquity
Slavery in the ancient world, specifically, in Mediterranean cultures, comprised a mixture of debt-slavery, slavery as a punishment for crime, and the enslavement of prisoners of war....
, including Rome, can not be overstated, and was a reason that the Republic always seemed to be in crisis. The freeborn had certain honors, while "children, women, and slaves were soulless bodies." Slaves were men lacking animus
Animus
-Psychology :* Anima and animus, Jungian concepts* The ancient Roman concept of animus or soul-Music:*Animus , a Philadelphia, PA based Eastern Mediterranean World Fusion music group...
, were dependent on their owners, were living in degrading servility, and were looked upon merely as "doubles" of their owners. In fact, according to Roman thought, slaves had somehow consented to their slavery by going after their passions rather than liberty:
The proposed agrarian reforms of 133 BC would have broken up the inefficient slave plantations, with which the elite in their conservatism and privilege could not agree. There were an estimated 100,000 slaves in Rome, and "2 million in all of Italy." Other authors give a figure of nearly 1 Million slaves at that time and place, but in any case it was a huge number, with an ideal of one slave minimum per free man. Slaves mostly worked in menial jobs, from prostitutes and cleaners to miners, shepherds, collectiong rubbish, mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
, and oarsmen; a few worked in comfort such as a secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
, or a family physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
. Slaves "had no right to refuse their masters' sexual advances
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
." However, the myth of sex slaves was just that, because the virtuous Roman would restrain his basest urges. Nonetheless, the fact that slaves attended to freemen meant that their masters were constantly in grave risk of harm -- they were in perennial fear for themselves and the Republic for which they had worked so hard:
Roman slaves came from many sources. In his Insitutiones (161 AD), Caius
Caius
-Persons:*Caius , bishop of Milan in the early 3rd-century, saint*Caius , Christian writer*Caius Gabriel Cibber, sculptor*Caius of Korea, Catholic missionary*Caius Welcker, footballer...
wrote that:
The Roman military brought back captives as the booty
Booty
Category:Article Feedback Blacklist...
of war,
and ancient sources cite anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of such slaves captured in each war. These wars included every war of conquest from 177-101 BC, as well as the Social and Samnite wars (91-88 and 82 BC, respectively). The prisoners taken or re-taken after the three Roman Servile Wars
Roman Servile Wars
The Servile Wars were a series of three slave revolts in the late Roman Republic. See:...
(135-132, 104-100, and 73-71 BC, respectively) contributed to this number. The Thracian
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
slave traffic added many more numbers of imported persons, including perhaps the most famous Roman slave of all, Spartacus
Spartacus
Spartacus was a famous leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable...
. Later generations of slaves worshiped the genius
Genius
Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight....
of Spartacus.
Piracy
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
has a long history of adding to the slave trade, and the Roman Republic was no different. Piracy was one of the many crises with which the Republic had to contend, at least until 85 BC. In those days, an increase in piracy always led to an increase in slavery. Both piracy and war lead to increases in slavery, which in turn resulted in new forms of punishment, such as crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
and gladiator
Gladiator
A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...
contests.
Crucifixion was the capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
meted out specifically to slaves, traitors, and bandits. Any "dangerous subversion of the Roman order ... for the lower classes, meant crucifixion." The "notorious prisoner" Barabbas
Barabbas
Barabbas or Jesus Barabbas is a figure in the Christian narrative of the Passion of Jesus, in which he is the insurrectionary whom Pontius Pilate freed at the Passover feast in Jerusalem.The penalty for Barabbas' crime was death by crucifixion, but according to the four canonical gospels and the...
was supposed to be crucified, but was released. In any case, "two bandits" were crucified along with Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
of Nazareth, but the Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
name for them, lestes, also "means pirate or looter." Jesus' crucifixion was the same punishment as that of a slave.
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
used as punishment after capture as a war slave or along with a funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
rite. That soon changed, in part to its emergence as a form of entertainment or "bread and circuses
Bread and circuses
"Bread and Circuses" is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement...
" event, and from conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status....
of the highest classes of Romans. It was a "competition of skill", which did little to improve law and order
Law and Order
Law and Order may refer to:In politics:*Law and order , a term common in political debate and discussion, generally indicating support of a strict criminal justice system*Law and Order Offensive Party, a minor German political party...
: Fields writes, "Beginning as a grandiousity occasionally added to an aristocratic funeral, the gladiators themselves being taken amongst the personal slaves of the deceased and equipped in makeshift fashion, over time the combats were extended to public celebrations."
Pastoral slaves who kept goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s and sheep often used brigandage—stealing and raiding—as a means of supporting themselves off the land, because their "owners" would not supply them with sufficient food and supplies. The banditry of these enslaved herdsmen came back to haunt the Romans when many sheepherders joined the revolts in Sicily and of Spartacus.
Rarely, slaves were also bred, although the law of the peoples forbade it.
In the ancient patriarchical society
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
of Rome, the pater familias
Pater familias
The pater familias, also written as paterfamilias was the head of a Roman family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate". The form is irregular and archaic in Latin, preserving the old genitive ending in -as...
(fathers) could abandon their children that were unacceptable to them, to slavery or infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
. The Twelve Tables
Twelve Tables
The Law of the Twelve Tables was the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centrepiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum...
of Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
obliged him to put to death a child that was visibly deformed.
External links
- Rome:crisis of the State from Washington State University website (Schmitz and Zumpt, 1848): Bellum Iugurthinum
Major sources and further reading
- P.A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) ISBN 9780198148494.
- Florence Dupont (translated by Christoper Woodall), Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell, 1992) ISBN 0-631-17877-5.
- Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Luis Roniger, Patrons, clients, and friends: interpersonal relations and the structure of trust in society, "Themes in the social sciences" series (Cambridge University Press, 1984) ISBN 9780521288903
- Nic Fields, Spartacus and the Slave war 73-71 BC: A gladiator rebels against Rome (Osprey 2009) ISBN 978-1-84603-353-7 (an easy read for young adults and college students)
- Harriet I. Flower, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2004) ISBN 9780521003902 (Found at Google Books). This book includes the essay by Jurgen Von Ungern-Sternberg (translated by Harriet I. Flower), "The Crisis of the Roman Republic," pp. 89–109.
- E. S. Gruen, The last generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley 1974).
- Richard R. Losch, All the People in the Bible: An A-Z Guide to the Saints, Scoundrels and Other Characters in Scripture (William B. Erdmans 2008). ISBN 978-0-8028-2454-7.
- Pamela Marin, Blood in the forum: the struggle for the Roman republic (New York: Continuum 2009) Dewey # 937.07M. ISBN 9781847251671
- Christian Meier, Caesar: A Biography, afterward pp. 481–496 (Basic Books, 1997) ISBN 9780465008957
- Christian Meier, Res publica Amissa: eine Studie zur Verassung und Geschichte der spaten romischen Republik (3rd ed. Frankfort, 1997)
- Robin Seager, ed., Crisis of the Roman Republic: Studies in political and social history (W. Heffner & Sons, Ltd. 1969) ISBN 9780852700259 (soft sover) and ISBN 9780852700242 (hardcover).
- Barbette S. Spaeth, The Roman godess Ceres (U. of Texas press 1996) ISBN 0-292-77693-4.
- Barry Strauss, The Spartacus War (Simon and Schuster 2009) ISBN 978146532057
- Ronald Syme, The provincial at Rome: and, Rome and the Balkans 80BC-AD14 (original ed. Liverpool University Press, 1939) Anthony Birley, ed. (University of Exeter Press, 1999). ISBN 9780859896320.
- Timothy Peter Wiseman, Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford University Press US, 2009) ISBN 9780199239764.
See also
- The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a non-fiction history book written by English historian Edward Gibbon and published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings. Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788–89...
by Edward GibbonEdward GibbonEdward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...