consulscipio236

Tiberius Gracchus was not his father's politician. He inherited a place in the aristocracy but never truly was a part of it. The same could be said of Catiline or even Clodius. Marius was definately not part of the aristocracy, although he did bend it to his will. You are correct, however, that control of the aristocracy (not its destruction) was the actual goal of the civil wars. This game, of course, was ultimately won by Augustus. However, this fight typicaly took the form of a fight against the aristocracy and on behalf of the common people. The support of the common people was the key to controlling the aristocracy, so long as this control was done in the form of an overthrow. The plebs were always the tool of power, however, and so the aristocracy's corrupt form became the means of its transformation and the end of the republic.

In Carthage, we have an extreme example of the phrase "history is written by the victors". It is unfortunate that all traces of Carthage (documentation, ect) were destroyed by Rome after the 3rd Punic War. It is true that Polybius was biased, but unfortunately this is all you can expect since everything we know of Carthage comes to us from Roman (or Roman-like, in the case of the Greek Polybius) sources.

It depends on your definition of "trouble making". The earlier tribunes were radical in their ends, not their means. Take Licinius and his land law (the 'radical' Gracchi are most known for their attempts at passing a weakend version of this law) or the tribunes behind the overturning of the patrician/plebeian intermarriage bans. Even Hortinsius, most known for what he did as dictator, was (I believe) a plebeian tribune earlier in his career. The later tribunes were radical in their means, as opposed to their ends. The Gracchi are clearly the most obvious examples, but other examples include Clodius or even Mark Antony. It is not implausible that, had he been a plebeian, Julius Caesar would have run for the office, as it so naturaly fit his rabble rousing ideology. The point here is that the office was meant to be radical, and so the earlier tribunes operated within the spirit of the office. The later tribunes, if we are to be generous, were confronted with a political system too corrupt and insular to take up even mild reforms through the normal (non-violent) process.

Infamous in what way? What has been said of Clodius here is true. Also note that his being a 'patrician tribune' is an obvious contridiction, and part of the reason he was so infamous. He was a patrician, and thus ineligable for the tribunate. He had himself adopted by a (younger) plebeian relative, thus making himself a plebeian. However, since this was always a farse, he completely disregarded the ordinary adoption process, which was very serious and involved clan rights and rituals. There was a specific naming convention that should have given him a different name, but instead he simply changed the spelling of his clan name (Claudius) to a plebeian sounding name (Clodius). It is true that he was largely responisble for the erruption of gang warfare that was not put down once and for all until the principate. People forget, however, that it was Caesar who made him. Caesar needed an able demogague to make sure that, after he left for Gaul, the senate's two most able leaders (Cato and Cicero) were out of the picture and unable to led opposition. Cato annexed Cypress to Rome (due to a personal insult at the hands of a former ruler of Cypress) and sent Cato on a mission to lead the annexation efforts. This mission would not only keep Cato away from Rome but could have ruined his reputation. He also exiled Cicero, who he had hated ever since Cicero accused Clodius of helping Catline during his conspiracy. The erruption of open gang warfare between Clodius and Milo kept Pompey and the senate preoccupied while Caesar was causing trouble in Gaul.

There is a tendency to dismiss Sallust as a sort of proto-Marxist, but I actually think he is worth listening to. Yes he was pro-Caesarian and biased, but then all ancient sources are biased to some degree. As he lived during the times he writes about, he gives us a good understanding of the mood of the day. It is no secret that money played a major role in the ruin of the republic. From the overthrow of the yeoman farmer class after the 2nd Punic War to the rise of an economy based on plunder and slave labor, all the way to the corrupt senatorial aristocracy that fought the Grachhi, Marius, and would not stop until they were defeated by Caesar. A great pessimism overtook society that these events were happening, and Sallust is a window into that. This attitude can be seen by later historians, who write about (probably legendary) Romans like Cinncinatus, famous to all for his humility.

In the ancient world, and in many respects up until recently, there has been great concern over the manipulation of the masses by demogagues. Polybius stated that classical constitutions were their strongest when they gave more power to the aristocracy (as did the Roman constitution during Polybius' life) and were in decline when they gave more power to the common people (as did the Carthagenian constitution shortly before Polybius wrote). Since there was a massive distrust of the common people, those texts skew against the Gracchi. Modern views tend to be much more pro-democracy, and so the Gracchi are more often viewed possitively. I don't think there is a single way to look at them. Some of the things they did were noble, but used tactics that went too far. Some of what they did did cause actual damage. One example would be Gaius Gracchus turning the knights against the senators, or setting the stage for the Social War. No other republican figures can be better changed to fit different views than the Gracchi.

One key difference between the pre-Marian Roman Republic, and the other classical city states, is that typically those other cities had distinct military and civilian functions. The Spartans, for example, had kings who ruled in times of war, but ephori who formed a pentarchy of sorts in times of peace. The Ephori were unquestionably civilian in nature, and their main military use was to accompany the kings on campaign to arrest them if they overstepped their legal authority. The kings were mostly military in nature. The Athenians had a system even more segregated between civilian and military. Monarchies, like that of Rome before the republic, had a king as supreme overlord, but agents under that king whose function was exclusively military or civilian. The same could be said of the Roman Empire (probably pre-Diocletian, and certainly post-Diocletian) The magistracies of the Roman Republic had an inseparable military and civilian function. Sometimes the consuls would administer civil administration in Rome, and sometimes they would lead the army on the battlefield. Sometimes the praetors would serve as judges, sometimes as military commanders. Sometimes the quaestors managed the treasury in Rome, sometimes they assisted military commanders on campaign. Just about the only magistracy (other than the oddball censorship) that was mostly in one field or the other was the tribunate of plebs. However, it of course was an outgrowth of the military tribunate.

If their power had derived from the military and not a legitimate constitutional process, it would have been a military dictatorship. There are few stratocracies around today, so it is hard to find a real-life example. Stratocracies involve officials elected through a legitimate constitutional process, but where the entire civil apparatus is inseparable from the military apparatus. There are a few countries in Africa, for example, where military officers of a certain rank are entitled to a seat in parliament for that reason alone. I think you are missing the point that power in a stratocracy is legitimate and constitutional. It is based on elections, not the army. The emperors, in contrast, (as well as a few people in the later republic like Caesar) had their power based on the army as opposed to legitimate elections. Rome was, in these instances, a military dictatorship and not a stratocracy.

There are elements within the later Roman Republic which might be considered a stratocracy, but it's certainly not true on any sort of permanent basis prior to the rise of the imperatorial generals. (ie Marius, Sulla, etc.) Even in the later period, there were Consuls who would not be considered "military chiefs", even if their role was officially to act as such when necessary. Cicero comes to mind immediately-and there is a relatively long list of Consuls of whom written history gives us little evidence that these men ruled out of any sort of militaristic necessity. Perhaps this is a semantic argument, but for me, having the authority to wield military power as the Consular heads of state did is not the same as using that military power to wield authority. Cicero is a bad example. Anyone who knows about the Catilinarian conspiracy knows that Cicero's co-consul played almost no role that year. Cicero was a pacifist who didn't much like military commands. Because of this he arranged to give his co-consul the better (and more dangerous) province after their terms ended and they served as governors. In exchange, Cicero effectively ran the state without consular opposition that year. Most years this arrangement was more equal. Actually, the early republic was more of a stratocracy than the later republic. A stratocracy is a government where the military and civil commands and administration are one in the same. In the early republic the consuls almost always commanded the armies. Governors weren't needed because before about 280 BC when Rome expanded beyond Italy, the provinces were run by the natives without Roman governors. It was only after this point, when Rome expanded into Sicily, that governors began to be appointed. A few praetors were enough at that time. As such, it wasn't until after the 3rd Punic war that consuls usually spent most of their time in Rome acting more as civil administrators. It was at this time that the Roman army transitioned from one of yeoman farmers who mobilized a few months a year to fight local battles into a professional standing army in need of a distinct chain of command. By that point there were simply too many provinces for the consuls or a few praetors to manage, and so you had a more obvious division of civil and military command, and Rome became less of a stratocracy. Marius and Sulla were more like military dictators who subverted the civil constitution than they were legitimate constitutional supreme leaders of the military and civil apparatus.

The points above are correct: Cicero was no coward. But he was a pacifist. He was willing to risk his life for his country, but he didn't care much for being directly involved in violence. I don't think anyone knows why they didn't involve Cicero. My guess is that he was too emotional, indecisive and chatty and could not be trusted. Actually even Brutus was not well fit for the task. Cassius (the actual ringleader) wanted Brutus along simply because of his name and the hope it would inspire memories of his ancestor driving out the last tyrant. In reality, however, they may not have thought about the issue of Cicero as much as we might think. It is widely agreed that the assassins did not think things through well. They planned the assassination, but nothing else. They thought Caesar was the cause of the problem, despite the last century of similar trouble (the Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, ect). So they thought that, with Caesar gone, everything would snap back into place as though there was never any trouble. They expected the people to act as they were told the Roman people acted 500 years earlier when Tarquin was driven out. Perhaps nothing more signified their unpreparedness than their refusal to kill Mark Antony along with Caesar. Ironically, Cicero realized this mistake immediately. Had be been a part of the conspiracy, he might have convinced them to take out Antony. Antony was the one who chased the assassins out of the city, who began the civil war by taking an army to fight Decimus Brutus, and who united with Octavian to make an unstoppable force. It was Antony's close association with Caesar (many thought Antony would have been made his heir) that won him over so many soldiers. The senate sent the aristocrat Lepidus to fight Antony after his heavy losses at Mutina, and the army (mostly of Caesar's veterans) deserted their hapless commander for Antony. If they had killed Antony with Caesar, there would have been no Battle of Mutina, the legitimate consuls (and pro-Caesarians) would not have been killed, and Octavian's rise might have been prevented.

The Roman Republic was a stratocracy, and not a military dictatorship (like Italy and Germany during WW2). A stratocracy is a form of government headed by military chiefs. It is not the same as a military dictatorship where the military's political power is not enforced or even supported by other laws. In a stratocracy the state and the military are traditionally the same thing and government positions are always occupied by military leaders. The military's political power is supported by law and the society. As such a stratocracy does not have to be autocratic by nature in order to preserve its right to rule.

1. Servius Tullius was a Roman king. He expanded the boundary of the city (the "pomerium") which was an act of religious as well as legal significance. It was the pomerium, not the physical wall around the city (which he also built) that constituted the city's actual boundary. He also instituted the world's first census, which was used not only to count the number of people but also (mostly) to take an inventory of all property held by Romans. The first king, Romulus, had divided the city into 3 divisions called "Curia" (familial kinships). These were the "patrician" families that would form the aristocracy in Rome. Over time, however, new families entered the city and while they sought patronage with one of the patrician families, thereby linking themselves to one of the Curia divisions, they were not true members of those divisions. These families were called "plebii" (plebeians), a name that derives from their lack of organization. Tullius corrected this problem by dividing the city into 4 geographical divisions called "tribes" (the Suburana, Esquilina, Collina, and Palatina). The Tribes were like American congressional districts, not ethnic divisions as the Curia were. The term "tribe" derives from the "tribute" (taxes) collected by the government from the tribes. Each tribe was led by a "tribune". This made all citizens, patricians and plebeians, "Roman" but in doing so created a distinct aristocratic and commoner class. By giving the plebs political legitimacy but not yet political power, he set the stage for their later accumulation of political power, in a struggle which eventually led to the ruin of the republic. The reforms he may be known best for are his reorganization of the army. He divided the army into different property classes, so that richer soldiers belonged to more aristocratic army divisions ("centuries"). This was one of the reasons he instituted the world's first census. At the time the legislative assembly was the assembly of the curia. When he created the tribes, he allowed them to form an assembly of tribes which would have more importance under the republic. However, in organizing a distinct century-based system in the army, those centuries together constituted an "assembly of centuries" which he made into the principal legislative assembly. This was significant because membership in the old assembly (of curia) was restricted by ethnic background. The new assembly (of centuries) was restricted based on property ownership. This was a major step forward for the plebs, since this meant any pleb could now vote on legislation, so long as he ended up rich enough. Tullius organized the century assembly to be quite aristocratic. The centuries were units of soldiers. Each solider would vote, and the majority would decide how the century voted. The blocks of centuries would each cast a single vote and the majority would rule. But because there were fewer richer soldiers, and they were put into more centuries, the assembly was weighted toward the aristocrats. Later in the republic, the lowest ranking century (the "proletarii"), which would always vote last, held more soldiers than all other centuries combined. This also led to the ruin of the republic. In the early 3rd century I believe, a censor made this assembly more democratic. In 82 BC Lucius Sulla restored this "Servian organization" in his attempts to make the constitution more aristocratic. 2. Tarquinius Superbus didn't do a whole lot for Roman law. There are probably two major things he is known for. First, he bought the Sibylline Books. These were the major oracular books that were consulted during times of extreme danger. Roman religion mainly looked to the Gods to let them know if a particular action was good or bad. The Romans didn't have oracles like the Greeks (where they could get explicit instructions from the Gods) so the Sibylline Books were the only oracular sources the Romans had. They told the Romans to, among other things, adopt certain Gods (which they did) and thus played a major role in the creation of Roman religion in the period after about 400 BC. They also helped lead to Julius Caesar's assassination. As he was preparing to invade the Parthian Empire, it was reveled that the Sibylline Books said only a king could defeat the Parthians, and so this was seen as justification for the belief that he would make himself king. The second thing Tarquin is known for he instigating the rebellion which overthrew the monarchy. His son raped a noblewoman, which triggered a conspiracy that expelled him and his supporters from the city. In his place the Romans elected (in the Century Assembly from above) two praetors ("leaders", later called "consuls") and the Roman Republic was born. It was the fear of another tyrant like Tarquin that caused the Romans to be so fearful of monarchy. This fear was so great that even the emperors took steps to make it look like they were not kings. This is why the emperors of the first three centuries of the empire called themselves "princepts" (first citizens) and claimed to share power with the senate. 3. Pompey didn't do a whole lot for Roman law either, although as Julius Caesar's enemy in the civil war, he played a major role in the fall of the republic. Probably his most important legal contribution was the repeal of most of Sulla's constitutional reforms. He, for example, restored the powers of the Plebeian Tribune. This earned him a great deal of popular support. He also was the first Roman to hold dictatorial powers but not the formal dictatorship itself. He actually held this power for 5 years after pirates bombed the port at Ostia. He used this power to defeat the pirates and then consolidate the eastern half of Rome's fledging empire. Another contribution to law was his part in the triumvirate, which was a de facto dictatorship shared between Pompey, Caesar and Marcus Crassus. With this power he and Caesar did what the Gracchi had been unable to do 60 years earlier (even if on a fairly limited scale): redistribute large amounts of land to the common Romans (specifically Pompey's agitating veterans). He was ultimately unable to stop Caesar from make himself de facto king and wrecking the republic. 4. Sulla made major (if largely temporary) changes to Roman law. He codified the crusus honorum ("course of honors") which specified the political roles one must hold before achieving the most significant role (the consulship). This was meant to prevent some populist agitator from seizing high power despite out of whim. It required certain achievements before holding a post, such as requiring consuls to be of a certain age (I believe 42) and have served on a certain number (I believe 10) of military campaigns. He also codified the requirement that after a consul (the "president" of the Roman Republic) leaves office, he must wait 10 years before seeking reelection. In addition, he set requirements for consuls and praetors (politicians ranking second to consuls) when they left office and went to govern a province. He also increased the number of praetors so that there would be enough governors despite this term limitation. He increased the number of lower magistrates as well, partly to weaken the magistrates (by diluting the power of each) and thus strengthening the senate. In this he was required to increase the membership of the senate from 300 (as it had been since the time of the kings) to 600. Julius Caesar would raise the number to 900, but Augustus would reduce it back to its permanent number under the empire of 600. Overall, Sulla wanted to strengthen the aristocracy and weaken the plebs, as he believed the plebs had caused much of the political trouble (going back at least as far as the Gracchi) and were the ones most likely to back a populist demagogue who would ruin the republic. This meant strengthening the senate and weakening the magistrates (who were elected by the citizens) and the popular assemblies. Most important in this was that he weaken the Plebeian Tribune. He took away most of the tribune's power, except the power to rescue a citizen from arbitrary punishment by magistrates (ensuring people still had due process). He also made it so that after someone served as tribune, they could never again run for office. This was meant to keep ambitious people away from this office, which from the earliest days of the republic had been the main outlet for plebeian rage. He also transferred most legislative powers from the popular assemblies to the senate. As mentioned above, he also restored the old aristocratic Servian organization of the Century Assembly. In addition, he took most of the Censor's powers away (in particular his right to move people into and out of the senate). This office was always held under suspicion since it technically outranked the consulship, had more coercive power than any office (since, in conducting the census, the censors decided the rank and power of each citizen by surveying their property), and each censor served a 5 year term (although usually they abdicated after 18 months). All other magistrates served annual terms. Sulla also instituted less important reforms. For example, he replaced the knights with senators on the jury courts. This repealed a reform enacted by Gaius Gracchus decades earlier, which succeeded in its attempts to turn the most powerful group of non-senators against the senate, since senators were frequently prosecuted for extortion (usually associated with their terms as governors over provinces). In seizing the dictatorship without a time limit, he established the precedent of ambitious generals seizing absolute power. The ultimate irony of his career was that his main goal was to prevent someone from doing what he himself did: seizing absolute power. Ultimately he did little more than further destabilize an already unstable political situation, especially with his neutering of the tribunes. 5. Besides seizing a perpetual dictatorship and wrecking the republic, Julius Caesar made some significant reforms of the constitution as well. He settled Gaul and reformed the tax system in the eastern provinces. He went almost as far as the Gracchi in a land distribution law (15 years after his law that only distributed land to Pompey's veterans). He made himself perpetual censor (called the "prefect of the morals") which give him censorial powers (including the power to move people into and out of the senate) without subjecting the office to any checks (in particular vetoes by colleagues or tribunes). He did something similar in giving himself perpetual tribunician powers. This did several things that election to the tribunate could not. It gave him access to the powers which, as a patrician, he should not have had. It also allowed him to avoid standing for election every year or being term limited. It also prevented anyone from vetoing him, while giving him all tribunician powers (in particular the sacrosanctity of his person and the power to veto any magistrate or the senate). He did pass legitimate laws, however. He attempted to reduce the level of indebtedness by allowing all debtors to deduct from the principal of their debts the interest paid or pledged. This reduced indebtedness by about 25%. He instituted another census, and reduced the grain dole from the levels instituted by the populist agitator Clodius 15 years earlier. He passed a law that offered rewards for families that bore large numbers of children, in an effort to address the massive loss of manpower from the recent wars. He passed a sumptuary law, which taxed and regulated certain luxuries. He outlawed all guilds, accept those of ancient origin, which from the time of Clodius had been front groups for subversive gangs. He also limited former consuls to 2 years as governor and former praetors to 1 year. This was so that the troops wouldn't get too attached to their commander, as they had to Caesar during his 8 year term as governor. His most permanent change (which lasts to this day) was his reformation of the calendar. The old calendar was one of 10 months and 2 monthless periods (our November and December) that was based on the orbit of the moon. This required constant corrections, often with the insertion of an "intercalary" (extra) month between February and March. Since the official who did this, the pontifex maximus (an office that survives to this day as the Pope) was a political official, the regulation of the calendar was often exploited to serve political interests. Caesar set the new calendar to follow the sun, and set the mean year to 365.25 days, where every three years would have 365 days, and every fourth year (the leap year) would have 366 days. The extra day would be inserted at the end of February, where the old intercalary month had been inserted. To bring the calendar into alignment with the equinox, he inserted two months of 34 and 35 days between November in December, in addition to the intercalary month of 23 days that year (46 BC). He set the number of days in each month. He remained the month of Quintius 'July' (after himself). His successor, Augustus, made a few minor modifications to this. To gratify his vanity, he renamed the month of Sextilus 'August' (after himself), and so it would have as many days as July, he took one day from February and gave it to August. Before this, February had 29 days every 3 years and 30 days every 4th year. He also made a minor correction in the leap years (Caesar had counted each 4th year inclusively, resulting in a distortion). This "Julian Calendar" was only changed once, in the 16th century by Pope Gregory. This "Gregorian Calendar" differed from the Julian Calendar only in that it skips 3 leap years every 200 years (this last happened in 2000). This is because the year is about eight minutes less than 365.25 days. As for the other two Romans, I don't know as much about their reforms. I will say that Diocletian reformed the empire (the first to do since Augustus) by dividing it into an western and eastern half, and putting an emperor and junior emperor in control of each half. He also reformed the administration (both civil and military) in a system copied by the catholic church (including, for example, civil divisions called Dioceses after himself). These were mostly intended to minimize the risk of a general attempting to seize power again. Constantine maintained many of these reforms, with the exceptions of ruling the empire by himself for a brief time, and further subjugating the importance of the city of Rome. He in effect downgraded the Roman Senate to a municipal body, and founded a new eastern capital and named it after himself (Constantinople).