The Roman Revolution

[caldrail]

He prefers to see Augustus as the front man of a cultural evolution rather than as the strong man of a political revolution.

 

I really don't see much cultural evolution at all. Roman culture changed rapidly. An end to the austere life expected of a roman, the institutionalisation of public entertainment, the autocracies, the lowering of public morality, and the beginning of the inward looking empire that bought and brought the outside world toward it. It really was more of a revolution, but one that was bound to happen at some point, because you get the impression that roman society was building up pressure for a change from the social wars onward.

[The Augusta]

The other motivation [from Anthony Everitt's Augustus] is thought-provoking; Augustus was worried about manumission and subsequent citizenship enfranchisement's effect on the 'Italianness' of the population with perhaps a view towards pandering to the prejudice's of the average Italian.

 

I've waited over a week to post this comment - so I am NOT going to give it up lightly Thank you Firefox!

 

I just wanted to say that Everitt's view here is not a new one. This very same reasoning behind Augustus' curbing of manumissions was expounded in the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, Vol X way back in the 30s.

 

I quote from the article by Hugh Last in CAH, X (Cambridge 1934)

 

Distinct from the problem presented by domestic manumission with which the Lex Junia had to deal, was the threat made to the character of the Roman People by the numbers in which slaves were set free by the full procedure which converted them forthwith into Roman citizens....Augustus fixed limits to the reckless generosity with which masters freed their slaves by will. [The Lex Fufia Caninia] countered this with an arrangement whereby the number of slaves a master might liberate by will was limited to a stated fraction of the number which he owned, and this fraction diminished as the size of the familia increased.....Thus one of the broadest channels by which foreign blood flowed into the community of Roman citizens was so far dammed as to leave its stream of manageable dimensions, with consequences of which the value may be gathered from the care which was taken to prevent their frustration.

 

Augustus further introduced the Lex Aelia Sentia, which, as we know, also curbed manumissions by masters during their lifetimes, with exactly the same aim in mind.

 

The earlier measure [i.e. the Lex Fufia Caninia] had brought testamentary manumission under control: the Lex Aelia Sentia curbed manumission during the lifetime of the owner: and together these laws cannot have failed to secure a drastic reduction in the number of persons alien both by culture and by blood, whom the body politic of Rome was called upon to absorb.

 

I have to say that this was always the argument I 'grew up with' regarding Augustus' manumission policy.

[georgious]

Could you be more specific on Just what the " Roman Revolution" was suppose to have been?

 

regards,

 

The Roman Revolution is about the republic being replaced by a dictator and then an empire, although our words for it are modern and lose the meaning the romans had. The roman word for emperor - Imperator - actually means military leader and is a mark of respect from the legions. The empire in a strict sense - the control over foreign states - was already in existence during the republic. Its just that by convention we refer the roman state from Augustus onward as the Empire.

 

The republic was a reasonably stable plutocracy - rule by the wealthy - with a high degree of law and culture, at least in theory. The revolution was the rise of individual leaders instead of the temporary shared format that had worked so well. Ultimately, Octavian was the winner. Although its often thought that the 'Empire' was a monarchy, this is not so. It tended to develop toward one, as is natural for an autocratic state, but lacked the stability and traditions to allow it.

 

I think that the Empire was also a plutocracy but one must not forget the role of military muscle played. Syme comments on the cultural aspects of legitimating the Principate through the patronage of poets for example. A major thesis of the book is on the oligarchic character of the Republic.Another point about the oligharchic aspects of Rome was that the governing class was not simply rich but also aristocratic which means that was a class which used metaphysical legitimacy to justify itself-even the populares used this device, Caesar has Venus as an ancestor for example.Both the Republic and the Empire were exploitative structures as far as the provinces were concerned.Regime change is a difficult topic to tackle.