XI. End as of 4/3/95
1. In between the gerrymandering, the clients voting with their patron families, patrician control of the priesthood and censorship, the plebs basically had no vote and no way of holding office
2. Just as in Athens, what finally drove the people into revolt was upper-class abuse of debt-slavery, nexum
3. That mess largely grew out of plebs being drafted off their farms to fight in the wars. One day the army marched off in the wrong direction and told the patricians to defend their own damn estates
4. One of the reasons the Romans were so generous with their citizenship was their need for draftees
5. There were also wealthy plebs who, by the Lex Canuleia of 445 were able to contract marriage alliance with impoverished patrician families
6. The gerrymandering in the Centuriate Assembly favored whichever group was in charge--so it was upper-class plebs and patricians vs. lower class everybody
7. Therefore, as long as everybody was in cahoots, the system worked. . . but what if people fell out of cahoots?
XII. Enter (Ba ba bum ba!) the Gracchi:
A. But first, Agis and Cleomenes--because this sort of thing happens EVERY time there may be enough bananas, but selected monkeys don't feel that they've received what they need
1. These two illustrate a couple of themes worth pausing over--the first being "tormented by the past."
a) Sparta HAD once dominated the Greek world (just at the British once had this one) BUT
b) The Greek world was a lot bigger and a lot different than it had been, say, in 401
c) Agis couldn't the past be the past when he tried to revive the Lycurgan constitution
2. The second is the problem of changing perspectives:
a) The librarians in Alexandria and Pergamon did not mind books praising Athenian and Spartan past grandeur because neither city was the slightest rival at the time of the slaughter of the innocents (witness what happened to Cleomenes).
b) Athens and Sparta, however, WHEN they existed at the same time as Pergamon and Alexandria, were necessarily less interesting, and accordingly less-documented
c) Witness the lack of references in your Starr to either of them
d) It's a good thing Plutarch lived when he did and was well read.
B. We did Solon and Peisistratus which was the first stage of the trouble, again, enough bananas, or close to it, but some monkeys don't think they have their share.
C. Both sets of reformers appealed to discontent with the status quo to alter things.
1. Agis IV, king of Sparta in 244, tried to re-impose the Lycurgan solution, back to the homoioi.
2. This time, abolishing capitalism didn't work but the association of the Lycurgan constitution with past history made for a powerful argument AND it came to blows when neither side valued domestic tranquility more than they did their own agenda.
3. Cleomenes III married Agis's widow and into the cause, and started out violent after he became king in 235.
4. Tried Hiero's pattern: first be a successful conqueror (Tegea, Mantinea from Arcadians) and then take charge in earnest with the revived Lycurgans constitution (Plu. 2.33)
5. When Antigonus III (Dosun) showed how weak Sparta really was, Cleomenes lost it and ended up dead after plotting a coup in Alexandria in 220-219.
D. As Plutarch knew as well as anyone, it wasn't exactly the same in Rome, but the impulses had a lot in common.
1. Agis and Cleomenes and Tiberius (133) all had one thing in common: Reform from the top down, as Plato had tried it with the Dionysii in Syracuse
a) Mother Cornelia the daughter of Scipio Africanus (d. 184)
(1) Loot from punic wars, Asia
(2) Clients from Africa and Syrian War
(3) Daughter remarries into the Scipio family (Aemilianus)
b) Daddy Gracchus:
(1) 2x consul, triumphed, censor
(2) Hellenophile: Speech in Greek at Rhodes in 169
(3) Revolt on Sardinia: 10,000 slaves taken
c) Tiberius's own connections:
(1) Father-in-law Appius Claudius, powerful family, princeps senatus
(2) Licinius Crassus Mucianus, wealthiest man in Rome and P.M.
(3) Mucius Scaevola, Lawyer, consul in 133.
(4) So when Plutarch says (Comparison, 2.385) the Gracchi were opposed by powerful men, they had some behind them, too--Kopff's joke.
d) Tiberius Gracchus
(1) Fiery orator with good military record and knowledge of Senatorial deceit and Roman military weakness
(a) Spain
(b) 3rd Mac. War, 172-169
(c) Carthage, 149-6
(d) Hornet's Nest
(2) Becomes a tribune and uses the Tribal Assembly to circumvent the gerrymandered Centuriate Assembly and the Senate
(3) Roman reverence for tradition: Flaminius's Program Redux
(a) Large estates, Foreign slaves (like Dad's vs. Spanish return)
(b) Lex Licinia Sextia 500 jugerum maximum in 367, old problem, not solved
(c) Again, many holders original owners, many not
(4) Commission with brother Gaius and Appius Claudis to divide Ager Publicus into as small as 2 jugerum lots
(5) THINK of, the patronage system (Tenney Frank estimated 50,000 new voters/votes) and then wonder why the rest of the Senate reacted so violently and people like the "big three" wrote the bill.
e) Senate's Checkmates:
(1) No money for land commission (typo, Starr, p. 513) although we have found some land markers
(2) Octavius vetoes the land bill.
(3) Tiberius deposes him, 1st breach of mos maiorum
(4) The Pergamon bit, Senate's control of foreign policy (2nd), money (3rd)
(5) Tiberius tries to be re-elected, 4th breach, fatal.
(6) Honest reformer or front man? Note that Plutarch gives you pretty full information here.
2. Gaius Gracchus:
a) His family duty was to avenge his brother
b) Scipio Aemilianus (brother in law) was supposed to restore concord (cahoots) but died mysteriously in 129
c) His platform:
(1) People enraged by violent suppression of Tiberius and destruction of his program
(2) Equites angered by Senatorial restriction of their opportunities for profit in the provinces
d) Elected tribune in 124, 122 and pays off
(1) Public storage and regulation of the grain supply (annona, congiarium)
(2) Granaries also public jobs, as were the roads built to allow the (new voters) farmers to get to Rome--note that importing grain wipes out the small farmers, contradiction
(3) Equestrians get taxes in Asia (post Aristonicus), which they will virtually gut
(4) Control of the de repetundis courts that get to try the provincial governors for extortion (stopping their exploits because of the patronage system)
(5) As noted, turns Senate on Equestrians
e) Carthage and Other colonies for the city folk
f) Citizenship for the dispossessed allies
(1) Error: Resentment by Romans for the loss of their exclusive privileges
(2) Enfranchised allies could have been able to vote against his land commission, another bad step?
3. Senate's Counters
a) Drusus and outbidding: Gaius didn't have a monopoly on cynicism,
(1) Unfounded colonies in Italy
(2) Ungranted immunity from execution, whipping while in the service to provincials
b) Propaganda campaign regarding Carthage
c) Victory: But Gaius won't take "No" for an answer
d) Riots, Senatus Consultus Ultimum, Opimius purge of 3,000 supporters
e) Trials, Senate's arrogation to itself of the right to employ domestic violence
f) Temple to Concord: Forlorn hope?
4. Romans are now routinely killing Romans over their political differences, and remember their reverence for precedent.
5. An overlooked palliative: Narbo and Gallia Narbonensis, successful settlement of the urban mob who wanted to go farming, hence, stabilization after 118.
XIII. Marius and Sulla: Other things broken than Precedent
A. Next problem: the Roman Army continued to decline
1. 2nd Macedonian War: 200-194
a) Romans try and fail to bring Philip to decisive battle until Cynoscephale in 197
b) Rhodians and Pergamenes weak Philip at Chois (201), pin him down with Roman fleet at sea
2. Syrian War
a) Rome had declared Greece free in 196 but remember patron-client relationship then established
b) Antiochus III had reconquered to the East and South, tried to reassert himself in Greece
c) Romans first tried to sell out Rhodes and Pergamum, until Antiochus invades Greece in 191
d) Corycus, 191, Rhodians at Side, 190; Rhodians save Roman fleet at Myonessus, Scipio at Magnesia in 189
3. 3rd Macedonian War
a) Roman navy negligible, plunders allies and enrages Greeks
b) Roman army badly led, fumbles from 171-168
c) Perseus finally breaks at Pydna, 168
d) The Hornet's Nest, 166
4. Other Signs of Weakness
a) Excessive brutality of Achaean War, Corinth, 146
b) Three Years for Carthage
c) Nine years for Numantia in Spain, 144-133.
5. The Jugurthine War, Courtesy of Sallust
a) Romans massacred by Jugurtha, prince of Numidia, at Cirta in 112;
b) Jugurtha summoned to Rome in 111 (after Bestia gets nowhere), assassinates rival Massiva, buys a tribune, "city for sale."
B. Note on the Papers: Bibliographies and footnotes required in final drafts.
a) Aulus Albinus, left in charge by his brother the consul, suprised and sent under the yoke at Suthul in 110 with 40,000 men
C. There's Nothing Like Military Weakness to topple a government: The Ins vs. the Outs
1. The Optimates: The Ins, the Consular families: for a fifty year period, twenty families had supplied all but two of the consulships
2. The Populares: The Outs (when the labels got applied), using the Gracchi's methodology of exploiting popular resentment against the ruling families, which to some extent had already turned on each other.
a) Impoverished or discredited patrician families could use their status and clients to turn the lowers upon the others: the Caesars, the Claudii Pulcheres, the Antonii
b) "New Men" could use the resentment, at least, for their own advance, which brings us to...
D. Gaius Marius cos. VII
a) Most dominant at this period was the united family of the Caecilii Metelli, the Optimates' optimates.
(1) After the failure of the Albini in Numidia, Q. Caecilius Metellus assumed command in 109
(2) He first restored discipline to the army, which was not a good way to win votes
(3) Began long and slow traditional and effective anti-guerrilla campaign.
b) From Arpinum, they had a client
(1) Among other things, Marius also demonstrates how the client system was falling down--he'd been a client of the Herennii, but they hadn't done enough for him
(2) Made it to praetor in 115, barely, seems to have acquired some copper mines in Southern Spain and acquired considerable wealth thereby
(3) Scipio Aemilianus had noticed his talent--Plu. 1.550
(4) The Caesars decided to marry money and ability, hence Marius's wedding with Julia
(5) Marius saw how long the war was going to take, asked Metellus for leave to run for consulship--"You can run with my son," in 20 years
(6) Returns to Rome, allies with
(a) Equestrians, who lost opportunities for rips-offs in the provinces to Senatorial governors out to build clients and make their own pile
(b) The Populares, out to show that the current government was weak on defense
1. Marius promised to win the war and won it
a) Centuriate Assembly elects him, Tribal Assembly throws out Metellus, who returns to become an Optimate martyr
b) Marius takes an impoverished aristocrat of his own as a client, L. Cornelius Sulla as quaestor
c) Sulla, also good officer, hunts down Jugurtha and convinces Bocchus, father-in-law, king of Mauretania, to betray him in 104
d) Marius himself destroys Jugurtha with his new army
(1) Senate had had the idea of allowing proletarii (no property) into the army--probably their own clients
(2) Marius allowed thousands of proletarii into the army, who then BECAME his clients
(3) Better yet, Marius also got a great many people out of the draft, more votes
(4) Tactical reforms
(a) Cohorts (10/legion, 500 each), Eagles, Starr, p. 518
(b) Marius's Mules: 80 lbs. equipment, 40 miles/day.
(c) Pila, gladii, standardized (copper-containing!) equipment,
2. Meanwhile, the subject of Army reform had acquired a certain pressing urgency...
a) Invasion from the North: The Cimbri and the Teutones
(1) Nations on the March: Massilia starts screaming and thanking heaven they'd built Demetrius-proof walls
(2) Carbo attacks at Noreia in 113 and finds out about cornered rats and weekend warriors
(3) Wander around for 4 years trying to find SOME place to survive, get hit by a second Roman army at 109
(4) Continued disasters under incompetent and greedy senatorial commanders, feud between Maximus and novus homo Mallius (yet another sign of discontent) and proconsul Caepio leads to loss of TWO armies at Arausio, 104, 80, 000 dead, and, incidentally, the reputation of the citizen-army (Who NEEDS an assault pilum?).
b) The Cimbri and the Teutones were still more interested in survival than in conquering Rome, and by the time they realized that those were related, Marius had had time to get his new army ready for them.
(1) The Teutones at Aquae Sextiae--they asked for land, 102!
(2) Patrician Catulus nearly lets the Cimbri in, but at Vercellae in 101 Marius annihilates them.
(3) Sulla drives off the Tigurini, allied Swiss, in the Alps
3. Politics makes strange bedfellows, who tend to fall out. . .
a) Marius had left Glaucia (pr.) and Saturninus (trb.) behind in Rome to keep him in the consulship from 104-100
b) These men had their own agenda
(1) Marius veterans would need land if they were going to vote for him
(2) Glaucia and Saturninus got the laws through, but the result was Gracchus-style rioting
(3) Marius stayed within the system and suppressed his allies under the S.U.C., but wiped himself out with the voters from 100 to 87
E. A Great Many of those slaughtered at Arausio had been allied Italians, who had never had even the chance to vote against the incompetent slobs who killed them.
XIV. End as of 4/10/95
1. Livius Drusus (tr.) tried to bleed off the pressure, either deservedly or undeservedly got the "aiming at regnum" treatment, d. 90.
2. Open Warfare: The Italian Federation vs. Rome, 90-85
a) New Capital, Corfinum, new coinage
b) Samnites back in it, back in the mountains
c) Sulla does pretty well (and Marius is sidelined) BUT
d) ROME LOSES!
(1) Grants citizenship to anyone who will come in and get it, Lex Plautilia-Papiria of 89
(2) Lincoln tried the same technique in the ACW.
(3) New tribes, but pretty gerrymandered, Samnites stayed fighting until 85.
(4) Still, full jury rights, when in doubt, sue
(5) New blood eligible for election to office or for jobs abroad
A. Meanwhile, back in the East
1. Aristonicus's revolt in 131 had destroyed the old Pergamene infrastructure, which the tax-farmers had kept from being rebuilt by draining off capital
2. International overland commerce was in tatters due to poverty and brigandage
3. Rhodes and her navy kept the pirates from stopping the grain trade, but people were still going hungry as
a) The Pergamene fields lay idle
b) Egypt was being torn to pieces under an oppressive tax code and revolts of the fellahin
c) Mithridates VI of Pontus had gotten control of the Ukraine.
4. Mithridates had watched Rome destroy Macedonia and Syria, and turn on Pergamon--one way or the other, he'd have to fight
a) Conquered areas producing food and naval stores
b) Could threaten Greece with either fleet or starvation
c) Once again, an old-style (Non-Marian) Roman army bites the dust in 88.
d) The Vespers: 80,000 Roman and Italian men, women, and children dead all over Greece and Asia EXCEPT FOR
e) RHODES
(1) Mithridates launches all-out siege and naval attack
(2) Rhodians engage and disengage at will (Damagoras), troop transports
(3) Vast grain reserves
(4) Defenses of Rhodes anvil, navy hammer
(5) Launch surprise attack on Mithridates at Caunus
(6) Mithridates turns over much of his fleet to pirates
5. Sulla cos. 88
a) "Don't send a boy," Marius rises again, BUT
b) Marian Army depends on Sulla, not Marius, and has sworn to obey him
c) Sulla first general to march on Rome, Marius in the Swamps
d) Then off to Asia
(1) Athens starved, besieged (still find ammunition), reduced
(2) Rhodians and Lucullus collect fleet, destroy remnant of Mithridates huge force at Heracleia
(3) Sulla signs peace in 85 to go home and mend fences after Marius's return and Cinna
(4) Starr's Class Warfare (p. 521): peace at a price, Sulla's indemnity of 20,000 T, still more poverty
6. Back to Rome, revenge
a) Dictator rei publicae constituenda: Sulla, the terrible reformer: Hell hath no fury like a determined idealist, cf. the Khmer Rouge
b) Cinna dies in Mutiny, Marius and Carbo started settling old scores and killing, making promises to Italians
c) Sulla joined by Pompey, Catiline, slaughters Samnites at the Colline gate, 85
d) The Proscriptions
(1) The Mechanics
(2) The Numbers: 40 Senators, 1600 Equestrians, then thousands
(3) The Anecdotes
e) Because he was an idealist, he wanted the good old days, and threw in with the Senate and the Optimates
(1) Knights off the juries
(2) No more welfare (grain dole)
(3) Tribunate emasculated
(a) No other office
(b) Once every 10 years
(4) Senate gets (and loses!) a veto
(5) Regularization of praetors/consulares to provinces
(6) Resigned in 79, died in 78
7. The Verdict of History: Sulla could correct every problem facing Rome except his own example:
a) Lepidus's revolt of 78-76
b) Sertorius in Spain from 80 to 71
c) Spartacus from 73 to 71
(1) Spartacus vs. followers
(2) Crassus vs. Pompey, 71
(3) slaves on the Appian Way
d) Pompey and Crassus 500 lb. Gorilla the Consulship
(1) Crassus Dives
(a) Clients, fire brigades
(b) Allies: bankrolled Julius Caesar's aedileship, Catiline's bids for power
(2) Pompey the Vulture or the Competent, Whichever you Prefer
(a) Uses Rhodian ships and tactics in brilliant anti-piracy campaign, 67-66
(b) Takes over Lucullu's Campaign against Mithridates in 66
(i) Mithridates kills himself in 63
(ii) Pompey's sweep through Asia, Syria, and Palestine until 62
(c) Incredible wealth and prestige
B. Lucullus & Cicero: The Last Efforts to Play within the Rules