Page 150 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

instability characterizes the period of Roman history from 133 until 31 B.C.E., when Octavian defeated Mark Antony and stood supreme over the Roman world. By that time, the constitution of the Roman republic was in shambles.
Background: Social, Economic, and
Political Problems
By the second century B.C.E., the senate had become the effective governing body of the Roman state. It consisted of three hundred men, drawn primarily from the landed aristocracy; they remained senators for life and held the chief magistracies of the republic. During the wars of the third and second centuries, the senate came to exercise enormous power. It directed the wars and took control of both foreign and domestic policy, including financial affairs.
Moreover, the magistracies and senate were increas- ingly controlled by a relatively select circle of wealthy and powerful families, both patrician and plebeian, called the nobiles (NAW-bee-lays) (“nobles”). In the hundred years from 233 to 133 B.C.E., 80 percent of the consuls came from twenty-six families; moreover, 50 percent came from only ten families. Hence, the nobiles constituted a governing oligarchy whose mem- bers managed, through landed wealth, patronage, and intimidation, to maintain their hold over the magistra- cies and senate and thus guide the destiny of Rome while running the state in their own interests.
By the end of the second century B.C.E., two types of aristocratic leaders, called the optimates (ahp-tuh-MAH- tayz) (“the best men”) and the populares (PAWP-oo- lahr-ayss) (“favoring the people”), became prominent. These were terms of political rhetoric that were used by individuals within the aristocracy against fellow aris- tocratic rivals to distinguish one set of tactics from another. The optimates controlled the senate and wished to maintain their oligarchical privileges, while the populares were usually other ambitious aristocrats who used the people’s assemblies as instruments to break the domination of the optimates. The conflicts between these aristocratic leaders and their supporters engulfed the first century B.C.E. in political turmoil.
Of course, the aristocrats formed only a tiny minority of the Roman people. The backbone of the Roman state and army had traditionally been the small farmers. But economic changes that began in the period of the Punic Wars increasingly undermined the position of that group. Their lands had been severely damaged during
112 Chapter 5 The Roman Republic
the Second Punic War when Hannibal invaded Italy. Moreover, in order to win the wars, Rome had to increase the term of military service from two to six years. When they returned home, many farmers found their farms so deteriorated that they chose to sell out instead of remaining on the land. By this time, capitalis- tic agriculture was also increasing rapidly. Landed aristo- crats had been able to develop large estates (the latifundia) by taking over state-owned land and by buy- ing out small peasant owners. These large estates relied on slave and tenant labor and frequently concentrated on cash crops, such as grapes for wine, olives, and sheep for wool, which small farmers could not afford to do. Thus, the rise of the latifundia contributed to the decline in the number of small citizen farmers. Because the latter group traditionally provided the foundation of the Roman army, the number of men available for mili- tary service declined. Moreover, many of these small farmers drifted to the cities, especially Rome, forming a large class of day laborers who possessed no property. This new class of urban proletariat formed a highly unstable mass with the potential to create much trouble in depressed times.
The Reforms of the Gracchi
In 133 B.C.E., Tiberius Gracchus (ty-BEER-ee-uss GRAK- us), himself a member of the aristocracy and a new tribune, came to believe that the underlying cause of Rome’s problems was the decline of the small farmer. Consequently, Tiberius bypassed the senate, where he knew his rivals would oppose his proposal, and had the council of the plebs pass a land reform bill that author- ized the government to reclaim public land held by large landowners and to distribute it to landless Romans. Many senators, themselves large landowners whose estates included large tracts of public land, were furious, and a group of them took the law into their own hands and assassinated Tiberius.
The efforts of Tiberius Gracchus were continued by his brother Gaius (GY-uss), elected tribune for 123 and 122 B.C.E. Gaius, too, pushed for the distribution of land to displaced farmers. But he broadened his reform pro- gram with measures that would benefit the equestrian order, a rising group of wealthy citizens who wanted a share in the political power held by the ruling aristoc- racy. Many senators, hostile to Gaius’s reforms and fear- ful of his growing popularity, instigated mob action that resulted in the death of the reformer and many of his friends in 121 B.C.E. The attempts of the Gracchus
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