Optimates VS. Populares

[Legatus_legionis]

What did the Optimates represent in roman government and what did the Populares represent?

[M. Porcius Cato]

What did the Optimates represent in roman government and what did the Populares represent?

 

Optimates represented the need to do your own homework, whereas populares represented the right to steal the optimates' homework for you.

[Mosquito]

Robespierre would say that optimates are aristocrats who got power and populares are burgoises.

Churchill would say that optimates are conservatives and populares are member of labour party.

I wouldnt call populares - "commies" but the fact is that they were trying to buy the poorest plebs with cheap grain and oil and games.

[Ursus]

Weren't they ancient football teams?

[Gaius Octavius]

The Greens and the Blues.

[Julius Ratus]

What did the Optimates represent in roman government and what did the Populares represent?

 

Optimates represented the need to do your own homework, whereas populares represented the right to steal the optimates' homework for you.

 

At least that didn't sound biased .

 

The populares, IMHO, started out by responding to serious flaws in the Republican system. The Gracchi fought against the wholesale abuse of the ager publicus (public fields) system, among other things. The old Roman laws stated that no one could "own" public land, hence the title, and no one could use more than 500 iugera (roughly 2/3 acres per iugera). By this point, the large land owners had gobbled up all the ager publicus, leaving none for the common citizenry. Tiberius Gracchus fought against this with his land reform proposition, which basicly reiterated the law which was being ignored, and then redistributed some of the ager publicus amongst the poor. Unlike with the Communists of the modern era, his land commission did not confiscate private land, it just assured that the public land was being used by the public.

 

I see nothing wrong with this, and in fact, it appears that the senate did not either, they disagreed with the means by which he accomplished his ends. After murdering him (which was very illegal since he had tribunician sacrosanctity) they left his legislation in place.

 

As far as later populare tactics go, how were they supposed to accomplish their goals? I know that MPC will say that they could use "honest discourse" in the senate, but I don't think they could have. Tiberius was not breaking any law by bypassing the senate and going directly to the Popular Assembly. Look what happened to him. Scipio Nasca and his cronies got off scott-free after murdering a Tribune! Later when Caesar was ordered to disband his legions, he asked that Pompey be made to disband his legions as well, even offering to disband the majority of his own, provided that he be allowed to retire in Illyria. This seems to be a rather fair proposition, but the senate refused to compromise, they wanted it all their way.

 

I have said my 2 cents, and I forsee a reaming in my future .

[Publius Nonius Severus]

I have said my 2 cents, and I forsee a reaming in my future .

 

Let the reaming begin!

 

Tiberius was not breaking any law by bypassing the Senate and going directly to the Popular Assembly.

 

This is true, it was not illegal, but tradition was an important part of the Roman constiution, so when you openly flaunt your disregard for tradition, you open yourself to attack. Please do not think I am trying to justify the killing of a tribune, far from it. But Tiberius played a big role in his own death.

 

If a mosquito bites you once, you might get some bug spray to protect you. If it bites you again you light a citronella candle. If it bites you a third time you splatter it!

 

Tiberius bit the Senate too many times. The first time when he took his bill right to the plebeian assembly, the second time when he had his fellow tribune Octavius deposed (nearly as egregious as what eventually happened to Tiberius himself), and the third time when he threatened to pass a law using the inheritance of Perganum for his land bill, an affair that was well within the domain of the senate...splat!

 

Some of the reforms he proposed were needed but he pushed too hard, too fast, and paid the ultimate price for it.

[Julius Ratus]

Remember, he tried going to the senate first. Since reasonable dialogue witht them was almost impossible most of the time, he had to use alternate measures to bring relief to the Roman people.

 

Later populares like Marius and Caesar saw what happened to Tiberius Gracchus and had to fight the optimates in the only manner they understood. No one argues with the business end of a gladius .

[M. Porcius Cato]

This is a rich re-telling of history!

 

First off, the senate was not a monolithic body that "opposed the Gracchi". Rather, the Gracchi had many prominent supporters in the senate, but the majority were opposed. That's how votes often go, and losers need to deal with it rather than whine about how persecuted they are.

 

Second, what was most objectionable from a constitutional standpoint wasn't the fact that Tiberius Gracchus brought a bill before the people without an endorsement from the senate (that was bad, but not the worst of it). What was most objectionable is that Ti Gracchus ignored the veto of a fellow tribune for no other ground that he, Tiberius Gracchus, believed that his own will was the true will of the people. This is why he was regarded as a would-be monarch and why the senate passed the SCU against him. The SCU was completely legal, and--though you might disagree about whether it was justified--it was completely in line with the laudable goal of protecting the tribunes from one another.

 

Finally, the notion that the senate was completely closed to change is as big a falsehood as any that could be imagined. Why don't you take a look at the vast compendium of laws that were passed during the republic? Where do you think they originated? The aether? Obviously this long list of laws came about because the senate was constantly thinking about reforms to the system, asking the people to sanction these proposals, and very often convincing them to do so. If this is a system that's closed to change, I'd hate to see one that was open!

[Gaius Octavius]

Weren't tribunes co-opted by senators for their own purposes? Didn't the patron-client relationship and bribes assure the outcomes of votes? Not always, but often enough to unsettle matters.

 

Some of the reforms he proposed were needed but he pushed too hard, too fast, and paid the ultimate price for it.

- Pub. Non. Severus.

Thus it was; thus it is; thus it shall be. (G.O.)

[Publius Nonius Severus]

First off, the senate was not a monolithic body that "opposed the Gracchi". Rather, the Gracchi had many prominent supporters in the senate, but the majority were opposed. That's how votes often go, and losers need to deal with it rather than whine about how persecuted they are.

 

This is a very good point Cato. Ti was a member of the Claudii faction of the Senate who stood to gain immensely in terms of clientelae by passage of the agrarian bill. Obviously the Corenlii Scipiones (the major opposing faction to the Claudii) were unhappy at this development.

 

There are many possible motives for Ti's actions ranging from being the pawn of factional politics, to revenge for being humiliated by the Senate for repudiating his treaty with the Numantines, to his mother putting too much pressure on him (yes I am serious!). Regardless, it wasn't Ti's motives that were so controversial (as Cato said, the Senate had yielded a lot of ground (no pun intended) over the years), it was his motives. Open defiance rarely turns out well.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Weren't tribunes co-opted by senators for their own purposes?

 

Yes, and so what? Take the most clear-cut example, the tribuneship of Livius Drusus. Look at his notorious obstructionism. C Gracchus proposed 2 colonies, with only the best class of citizens eligible; the senate's 'stooge' counter-proposed 12 colonies, open to the poorest. C. Gracchus proposed dividing the public land amongst the poor and charging them a small rent; the senate's 'stooge' counter-proposed that no rent be charged. C. Gracchus proposed suffrage for Latins; the senate's 'stooge' upped the ante by proposing that it might not be lawful for a Roman centurion to scourge a Latin soldier. As Plutarch remarks,

And Livius, in all his speeches to the people, always told them that he proposed no laws but such as were agreeable to the senate, who had a particular regard to the people's advantage. And this truly was the only point in all his proceedings which was of any real service, as it created more kindly feelings towards the senate in the people; and whereas they formerly suspected and hated the principal senators, Livius appeased and mitigated this perverseness and animosity, by his profession that he had done nothing in favour and for the benefit of the commons without their advice and approbation. But the greatest credit which Drusus got for kindness and justice towards the people was, that he never seemed to propose any law for his own sake, or his own advantage; he committed the charge of seeing the colonies rightly settled to other commissioners; neither did he ever concern himself with the distribution of the moneys; whereas Caius always took the principal part in any important transactions of this kind.

So, Yes, tribunes were sometimes co-opted by senators, but they could play the populare game too--and they could play it better. And that's the strength of the republican system: when politicians compete for the people's votes, the people get what they want. The problem, of course, is that the people needed to be more careful in what they wished for. The Roman people successfully resisted civil rights for Italians until it blew up in their greedy faces.

[Gaius Octavius]

Yes, the peasants are always greedy. They need never be bribed or threatened by their lords. They did the 'right' thing, and the bribes were icing on the cake. The just lords did not monopolize the land - the peasants gloried in this. The 'better people' always know what is best for the peasantry. It just takes time - a lot of time. Gracchii, Caesar, Pompey, Senate, Cato, Cicero be damned - no lasting good ever came from their ephemeral efforts. The unending LAWS gave the louts everything they needed or wanted. And this is why the army stayed Italian and fought their enemies as their ancestors did.

 

But then, these churls did not rise up when Caesar was abroad.

Edited March 21, 2007 by Gaius Octavius

[Mosquito]

If a mosquito bites you once, you might get some bug spray to protect you. If it bites you again you light a citronella candle. If it bites you a third time you splatter it!

 

I wont take it personal but please dont be that brutal.

Edited March 22, 2007 by Mosquito

[theilian]

I need to study more to add anything meaningful to discussion, and I'm afraid that I'll draw ire from both sides, but here is a wild suggestion.

 

Maybe both Optimates and populares are to blame?

 

My basic understanding of this period is that while the Senate was not monolithic, there existed the majority party of Optimates who unfortunately did not recognize the necesity to adopt to chaning times.

I believe the farmer population was being decimated by the wars while wealthy class were taking all the spoils of the conquest. While the situation may have been exaggerated,there seem to have been widespread discontent among the urban plebs toward Senate, which fed populares movement.

Optimates should have seen that they could no longer hold on to status quo and should have come up with better strategy than obstructionist policy. And I fault populares for increasingly extralegal measures that justified Optimates in their view.

 

The bottomline is that both the times of Gracchus and later period could use more moderates, and I felt that it was this failure to find compromise that allowed generals to dominate and doomed the republic.

 

So far my impression is that Roman politics was to myopic and too dependent for personal alliances to recognize the general direction it was heading into.