From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (6 page)

Senatus Populusque Romanus
. What then of the
populus Romanus
? In 287 B.C. the
lex Hortensia
had asserted the sovereign authority of the People and had enacted that their resolutions (
plebiscita
) should have the force of law, binding on the whole community. But this development towards full democracy was checked, partly through the skill with which the Senate gained the lead, and partly because the People were quite content to leave more and more responsibility to the Senate. They seldom questioned the Senate’s control of the chief military commands, of finance or of foreign policy; and they allowed the Senate to appoint judicial commissions to deal with matters that concerned the safety of the State and to supply the jury when the first permanent court (
quaestio perpetua
) was established in 149 B.C. Further, the People’s representatives, the tribunes, were always in the city; they could keep an eye on proceedings in the Senate and they carried much legislation through the Tribal Assembly. But most of the measures had already been shaped in the Senate, and the tribunes were in fact becoming an instrument of the senatorial oligarchy, although a single tribune, by exercising his right of veto, could bring the whole machinery of government to a standstill.
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The trouble was that the People meeting in their Assemblies were becoming less representative of the needs of the Roman People as a whole. They largely reflected the wish of the urban plebs, which was very different in 133 B.C. from what it had been a hundred years earlier. But on important occasions many small landowners within reach of the city could still come in to vote, and thus a sturdy independent country opinion might continue to make itself felt. At times therefore the Senate might have to listen to public opinion, but on the whole the Sovereign People was content with the Senate’s leadership.

The Roman constitution was the remarkable product of a long period of trial and error on the part of a practical and conservative people, and it had achieved that ‘balance’ which many Greek political theorists so much admired. The historian Polybius concluded that it contained a nicely mingled and balanced blend of three fundamental principles: the consuls represented regal power, the Senate aristocratic, and the People democratic.
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This theoretical balance was not destroyed, perhaps not even seriously threatened, by the increasing influence of the Senate, thanks to the Roman aptitude for practical compromise. But another element emerged which might disturb the equilibrium, because though remaining outside the government it yet gained increasing social and economic influence. Between the Senate and the People there grew up a Third Estate, that of the so-called Knights (Equites). They owed their rise partly to the fact that senators, who formed a landed aristocracy, were forbidden by law (the
lex Claudia
of 218 B.C.) to take any part in commerce: a sharp distinction was drawn between land and trade, between
the governing and the commercial classes. The Equites had originally formed Rome’s cavalry and were enrolled in eighteen groups called
centuriae
, but in the third century the censors had drawn up a supplementary list of those whose property warranted cavalry service at their own expense; probably in the second century this
census
was fixed by law. It was these men that were commonly called the Equestrian Order.

Rome’s conquest of the Mediterranean opened up a wide field for commercial activities for rich Equites and smaller
negotiatores
, who went in for money-lending, banking and trading. They helped to supply the armies with equipment and stores, and to convert war-booty into more transportable cash. The
publicani
also received contracts from the censors for the performance of public works and for the collection of certain taxes, and they were allowed to take over the operation of mines in Spain and Macedonia. This came about because the Senate had failed to build up a Civil Service. As Rome acquired her empire, she had tried to adapt her existing institutions to enable her to administer it instead of devising completely new machinery. She turned naturally to the business men who were available and allowed them to undertake many tasks for the performance of which she would otherwise have had to create a body of professional financial agents. The Equites thus received many opportunities for advancing themselves, and this growing body of rich and intelligent men would naturally demand some political influence though at the same time avoiding political responsibility. In consequence some friction and jealousy developed between them and the Senate, and this increased when, as will be seen, Gaius Gracchus greatly added to the power of the Equites. But although a sharp political division existed between these two groups, socially they were not necessarily far apart, since many came from the same class: some men of this social group turned to public life and politics, others preferred business or even the quieter life of a country squire. Further, some senators began to indulge secretly in business deals and by Cicero’s day, though the political rivalry between senators and Equites might remain sharp, the ban imposed on senators by the
lex Claudia
was widely disregarded.
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The moral and intellectual background of Roman society in 133 B.C. was very different in many respects from that of a century earlier. Without some realization of these changes it is scarcely possible to understand the events of subsequent years, but it is clearly not feasible here to trace this revolution, for it was little less, in any detail. One major factor was the impact of the Greek world on Roman thought and customs.
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This manifested itself in all the chief cultural aspects of life. Private tutors in the houses of the nobility and teachers
in schools taught the study of Greek language and literature, so that with an increasing number of Romans learning Greek, by 133 probably most educated Romans were bilingual. Stimulated by Greek examples, Naevius and Ennius created an epic poetry, which however was infused with a deep religious belief in Rome’s destiny; writers of comedy, such as Plautus and Terence, produced Greek plays in Roman form for Roman audiences; dramatists, as Ennius, adapted Greek tragedies for the Roman stage; the satirist Lucilius developed a new branch of poetry in which Rome was to excel; and Roman senators wrote histories of Rome in Greek, partly to justify Roman policy to the Greek world. Greek architecture and art also exercised powerful influences: in the second century many public buildings and private houses began to reflect Greek models, while Greek statues and paintings were increasingly admired, imported and copied.

Even more profound were the changes in religion and thought. From early times Rome had enjoyed some knowledge of Greek religion, through contacts with the Etruscans in northern and Greeks in southern Italy, but hitherto the State religion, though formal, had largely sufficed; by traditional observances the
pax deorum
had been preserved and thereby also the ancestral customs of Rome, the
mos maiorum
. This native attitude was now threatened by an influx of religious ideas from the cosmopolitan culture of the eastern Mediterranean. The cult of the Phrygian nature-goddess Cybele (Magna Mater) had been officially brought to Rome in 205, and the mystical worship of the Greek wine-god, Dionysus (Bacchus), became very popular in Italy, but its celebration was often accompanied by crime and immorality so that the Senate in 186 checked the spread of this cult which it regarded as a threat to public order, a
coniuratio
.
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Rome’s reaction to such novelties was typical: without persecuting any religion as such, the government tried to regulate them and to tone down their more exuberant and less healthy aspects. Excess of excitement (
superstitio
) must be curbed: where accepted, foreign cults must be brought into line with Roman tradition and common sense. But the tide from the East kept seeping in: in 139 a praetor expelled by edict from Rome and Italy all astrologers because ‘by their false interpretation of the stars and by their lies they were confusing shallow minds for their own financial profit’. Some Jews, who worshipped Juppiter Sabazios, were also sent packing.

The first reaction of the Romans to the impact of Greek philosophy had been equally sharp. This was perhaps to be expected, since they were a practical people who distrusted speculative inquiry unless directed to purely utilitarian ends. Law, engineering and architecture demanded careful and logical thought, but metaphysical speculation was alien to their traditional ways of thinking. It might even endanger their
mos maiorum
. Thus they were repelled by the scepticism of the New Academics and the emphasis that
Epicurus gave to pleasure, albeit pleasure of the intellect; consequently they expelled some Greek philosophers from Rome in 173 and again in 161.

But philosophy includes ethics within its ambit, and ethics have a practical bearing on life. Hence the Romans gave a less frigid welcome to Stoicism which taught a new doctrine of the relation of man to God and offered a new way of life.
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Its appeal lay largely in the possibility of applying its teaching to everyday life. One of the leading Stoic teachers of the day, Panaetius of Rhodes, who came to Rome, won the personal friendship of Scipio Aemilianus. The interest of Scipio’s friends was aroused and under Panaetius’ guidance the teaching of the Porch was adapted to the Roman way of life. Whereas earlier Stoics had held the view that, since virtue is based on knowledge, only the absolutely wise man can be virtuous, Panaetius rather gave encouragement to those who were struggling to make progress in wisdom and virtue: the Wise Man was no longer to be merely an abstract ideal but was to be realized in practical life. Panaetius adapted ethics to the needs of Roman statesmen, and provided a philosophic sanction for many of the traditional characteristics of Roman behaviour, such as
virtus, pietas
and
gravitas
. He was also interested in political theory. Unlike the older Stoics who did not expect the wise man to be politically-minded, Panaetius brought him down to earth and into relation with the needs of society; the Stoic sage may share in human feelings of love, loyalty and companionship, and may even have a desire to lead, an ‘appetitio quaedam principatus’, so that moral superiority might be harnessed to practical politics. Panaetius’ attitude to religion was to reject many of the popular manifestations (e.g. the gods of Greco-Roman mythology) but to regard it as a valuable method of popular control in the hands of a statesman. But Stoics also believed in divine immanence, God being reason immanent in the universe; divine reason in man provided a religious impulse for morality and thus offered a new basis for religion in Rome. This seed fell on fertile ground: if the Stoic was self-sufficient and hard, an appeal to follow unflinchingly the call of Reason and Will met with a ready response in the Roman temperament, while the cosmopolitan outlook of Stoicism broadened the narrower parochial perspective of the Roman.

Such ethical, religious and philosophical ideas were among the matters discussed by a group of ‘intellectuals’ that gathered around Scipio Aemilianus: besides Panaetius there were the historian Polybius, Scipio’s friend Laelius the ‘Wise’, the dramatists Terence and Pacuvius and the satirist Lucilius. Through the discussions of such men an attempt was made to blend the best elements of Greek and Roman life.
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And of all this we can learn something from Cicero, who looked back to this period as an ideal era of aristocratic government and chose it as the dramatic setting of some of his philosophic and political treatises.

The countries of the eastern Mediterranean provided Rome with material goods in addition to ideas, and in this traffic the western provinces also took their part. Though Rome had not acquired any of her provinces for commercial purposes, nevertheless their products began to enrich both state and individuals: war-booty, war-indemnities and the profits of administration, tax-collecting and trade all poured in. With these material aids the lives of many Roman nobles became more luxurious, and sumptuary laws were passed to check extravagance, though to little purpose. For the first few decades of the second century the deterioration was probably slight but the annalist Calpurnius Piso, who was consul in 133, dates the overthrow of Roman modesty to the year 154 (‘a quo tempore pudicitiam subversam’) and another contemporary witness, Polybius, attests the general extravagance and dissoluteness of the young Roman nobles when Scipio Aemilianus was growing up. This decline was probably confined mainly to Rome itself and affected the nobility in the first instance, but there lay the danger: if the governing class became rotten, there would be little hope for the Republic. One way in which wealth was seriously misused was in the increasing bribery of the urban population at elections. Not unconnected with this was the growing elaboration of public festivals, games and gladiatorial shows with which the people demanded to be entertained. Other social changes included the greater emancipation of women, greater freedom of divorce, the increase of celibacy, a decline in family life and above all the increase of slavery.

Before the third century slavery
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had existed at Rome, but on a small scale, and since emancipation was frequent a considerable body of freedmen had come into existence. With the Punic and overseas wars, however, and the consequent influx of large numbers of war captives, slavery began to bulk much larger in Roman life. It took two forms: while the more barbarian captives would be sent by their Roman masters to work on their lands, the more cultivated Greek slaves were kept in their town houses and employed as secretaries, teachers and doctors. Though subject to the arbitrary whims and possible cruelty of their masters, these domestic slaves were often well treated and they had a good chance of saving up sufficient pocket-money (
peculium
) to buy their freedom before they were too old to enjoy it. Some alleviated their lot by pandering to the luxurious tastes of their masters, others more usefully helped to acquaint them with Greek culture, while yet others were employed in the manual trades and were often, after emancipation, set up by their former masters in small businesses of their own. The fate of the rougher slaves who were put to work on their masters’ estates, often under the control of slave-bailiffs, was much more pitiful; they were often treated as mere
beasts with revolting callousness; the lot of those who worked in the State mines in Spain or Macedon was still more wretched.

Such conditions led to insecurity even in Italy: runaway slaves naturally turned to brigandage and conspiracies became frequent. Most serious was a rising of the slaves in Sicily against their Greek and Roman masters in 135; from small beginnings soon no less than 70,000 slaves were organized into a disciplined fighting force by their leaders, a Syrian named Eunus and the Sicilian Cleon. This revolt was accompanied by sporadic outbreaks elsewhere, in Italy at Minturnae and Sinuessa, in Attica and Delos (this island being a main centre of the slave-trade) and in Asia Minor under Aristonicus (see p. 33): although there is little evidence to suggest that this development was due to concerted action or an ‘international’ organization, it at least shows the widespread nature of the evil of slavery. Though King Antiochus, as Eunus called himself, began to consolidate his power in central Sicily at Enna and gained control of Agrigentum, Tauromenium and Catana, the Romans’ first reply was half-hearted: the forces that they sent were at first defeated, including those led by a consul of 134. L. Calpurnius Piso, consul of 133, however, improved discipline among the Roman troops and reached Enna;
¹⁵
his successor, P. Rupilius in 132, who had more soldiers at his disposal after Rome’s final victory in Spain at Numantia, brought the war to an end, reorganized the province of Sicily and, with ten senatorial commissioners, drafted a charter for its administration (
lex Rupilia
). The insurrection was thus crushed, but it vividly indicated the need for reform.

The fighting in Sicily demonstrated another widening chink in Rome’s armour: her standards of military conduct were declining. Though the prospect of spoils may have rendered campaigning in the East not unattractive, harsher conditions of service in Spain made both officers and men unwilling to serve there. Cases of mutiny or insubordination are reported as far back as the 190s; generals, in pursuit of booty or triumphs, sometimes conducted campaigns in defiance of the wishes of the Senate; the management of the wars in Spain was marked by increasing treachery and bad faith; difficulties in raising the levies reached such a pitch that some tribunes in 151 arrested one of the consuls and others again in 138 threatened similar action. To meet this changing mood, conditions of service were ameliorated: Roman citizens on military service were first granted immunity from scourging and then allowed the right of appeal, like civilians; their period of service was reduced to six years; their rations were improved. But despite concessions, discipline deteriorated. When Scipio Aemilianus arrived in Spain in 134 he took over a demoralized army: he had to rid the camp of traders and women and put his men through some toughening drill before he could turn to fighting, and even then he could not think of trying to storm Numantia by assault but had to reduce it by blockade. Things had
come to such a pass that campaigns tended to open with defeats before victories could be won.

The standard of provincial administration was threatened by the selfishness of individual governors and by the growing pressure of Roman business interests in their provinces. As a body the Senate no doubt wished to maintain high standards, if not for moral reasons, at least for practical ones: they would not want to see either individual governors gaining undue personal independence and power or members of the equestrian order becoming richer and so potentially more threatening to the Senate’s own predominance. Thus in 149 a tribune, L. Calpurnius Piso (the future consul of 133), proposed a measure to set up in Rome a permanent court to try cases of extortion (
quaestio de rebus repetundis
); this court was to consist of senators and its judgements were subject neither to appeal to the People nor to the tribune’s veto. Its establishment gave senators greater control over provincial governors, but at the same time its existence would not tend to improve relations with the Equites, since if some of them hoped to work hand-in-glove with corruptible governors, such governors would clearly be more chary of condoning their exactions in the future. On the other hand if a governor, himself a senator, had sufficient friends in the jury court, he could hope that his peers might be ready on occasion to judge his misdemeanours more lightly. On the whole, however, the establishment of the court must be reckoned as an honest recognition of a growing evil and a deliberate attempt to check it. Further, though abuses existed, and later reached an unparalleled pitch of shame in Verres’ governorship in Sicily (see p. 81 f.), the standard of provincial administration in the main was still high: Polybius paid a glowing tribute to the uprightness of Roman magistrates, and even Verres’ prosecutor admitted that hitherto Roman rule in Sicily had been popular.
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