Could late 2nd and 1st Century republicans stave off the empire?

[Marcus Cicero]

Salve

 

Making my first post with a topic I hope will educate and entertain everyone, including me. I am fascinated by the Roman Republic and it's decline beginning in the year of the consulships of P. Mucius Scaevola and L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi.

 

I am curious what could have been done differently to avert the end of the Republic?

 

1) More support for lex agrari amongst conservative patrician and plebian nobiles?

 

2) More support for Italian enfranchisement amongst the same group, but also the lower urban classes of Rome including the capite censi?

 

3) Less demagoguery, lesser inclination to resort to violence among the populares ?

 

4) No seventh consulship for C. Marius!

 

5) Sulla's appointment to the eastern war against Mithridates left in tact?

 

6) Less of a personal vendetta against C. I. Caesar.

 

7) More of a willingness of C. I. Caesar to work within the confines of the mos maiorum

 

8) Crassus doesn't die?

 

9) Julia wife of Pompey doesn't die?

 

10) Cicero accepts invitation to join 1st Triumvirate?

 

 

Anyone think that any of these things, or a combination of them, would have averted the fall of the Republic and the rise of the empire? Or would other minor events been able to do it?

 

Marcus Tullius

[M. Porcius Cato]

My personal view is that the key to the stability of Rome (both during the republican and imperial periods) was in the way that the provinces were managed. As long as the provinces could be treated as personal kingdoms for any Verres, Pompey, or Caesar who wanted to enrich himself and lead his hapless troops against Rome, there was a real danger to civilian government.

[Marcus Cicero]

My personal view is that the key to the stability of Rome (both during the republican and imperial periods) was in the way that the provinces were managed. As long as the provinces could be treated as personal kingdoms for any Verres, Pompey, or Caesar who wanted to enrich himself and lead his hapless troops against Rome, there was a real danger to civilian government.

 

Marcus Porcius, thank you for your reply. I've always thought that the system of governing the provinces endeared hatred for Rome, especially characters like Verres. It seems that getting rich of one's province through extortion was too great a reward for being elected consul or praetor, and no one was willing to do anything about it, as it was accepted custom.

 

You also raise a good point about a general's armies belonging to the general and not to Rome. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar all led armies loyal to them first and to Rome second. Perhaps if the legionaries had to swear an oath to Rome first and their commander second that could have been abrogated.

 

Marcus Tullius

[M. Porcius Cato]

1) More support for lex agrari amongst conservative patrician and plebian nobiles?

The problem wasn't an insufficient number of agrarian laws, but the type of agrarian laws that were passed and the manner in which the agrarian laws were passed. Some agrarian laws were simply designed to set up colonies of Roman citizens on new land (e.g., the laws proposed by Livius Drusus). These were typically unopposed in Rome by Romans (though sometimes they were opposed by Italians and residents of the municipia nearby). Other agrarian laws, however, were confiscatory and created as many poor as they alleviated. Caesar's lex agraria Campania is a good example of a very bad agrarian law of this type. Finally, some agrarian laws were passed in manner that was unconstitutional. Tiberius Gracchus' agrarian reforms come to mind here. The passage of the latter two types of agrarian laws were harmful for the republic because they led to the formation of political blocs and to the breakdown of the rule of law.

 

2) More support for Italian enfranchisement amongst the same group, but also the lower urban classes of Rome including the capite censi?

Italians had been enfranchised by 49, which was undoubtedly a good thing. However, the voting districts were not amenable to active participation by Italians due to the demands of travelling to Rome. The problem, therefore, was not a problem of enfrachisement but that the Romans did not have a proper concept of representative government--that is, where a local official was meant to represent the voices of his or her constituents. Rather, the Roman adopted the Greek practice of direct democracy, which was impossible to scale-up without some form of representative government.

 

3) Less demagoguery, lesser inclination to resort to violence among the populares ?

Had the rule of law been adhered to, demagoguery wouldn't have been such a problem. The problem was not in voicing crazy ideas; the problem was using force to prevent opposition to crazy ideas.

 

4) No seventh consulship for C. Marius!

It would have been better if there were no first consulship for Marius!

 

5) Sulla's appointment to the eastern war against Mithridates left intact?

Would have been hugely helpful.

 

6) Less of a personal vendetta against C. I. Caesar.

The problem is that there weren't enough vendettas against the Queen of Bithynia.

 

7) More of a willingness of C. I. Caesar to work within the confines of the mos maiorum

Caesar could have ignored the mos maiorum all he wanted as long as he followed the laws.

 

8) Crassus doesn't die?... 9) Julia wife of Pompey doesn't die?... 10) Cicero accepts invitation to join 1st Triumvirate

I doubt it made much of a difference in the long run.

 

Anyone think that any of these things, or a combination of them, would have averted the fall of the Republic and the rise of the empire? Or would other minor events been able to do it?

 

See here for discussion.

[M. Porcius Cato]

You also raise a good point about a general's armies belonging to the general and not to Rome. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar all led armies loyal to them first and to Rome second. Perhaps if the legionaries had to swear an oath to Rome first and their commander second that could have been abrogated.

Exactly--the sacramentum was sworn to the commander, not to the senate and people of Rome.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Just noticed that our Marcus Cicero above is from Tusculum.

[joyfulpuck]

This theme is a very instresting and difficult one.

 

Surely points 1) 2) and 3) of M. Porcius Cato ipothesis are very reliable.

Nonetheless I'd like to suggest another point of view.

 

There was a slender contradiction in the way Romans constructed their Legacy with other Italian communities.

On one side, the single Italian towns were autonomous: they had a local senate, they could make local laws and grant local property and commerce. They had their own levy, and the roman army was, for tho thirds, made of Latins and Italians.

But, on the other side, these autonomous states could not decide extern policy, could not decide to employ their autonomous commerce out of the roman rule, could not conduct their autonomous wars. The municipal

[G-Manicus]

4) No seventh consulship for C. Marius!

It would have been better if there were no first consulship for Marius!

 

Cato:

 

Interesting. If Marius never became Consul, what do you propose the Romans should have done about "The German Problem"?

[Segestan]

This theme is a very instresting and difficult one.

 

Surely points 1) 2) and 3) of M. Porcius Cato ipothesis are very reliable.

Nonetheless I'd like to suggest another point of view.

 

There was a slender contradiction in the way Romans constructed their Legacy with other Italian communities.

On one side, the single Italian towns were autonomous: they had a local senate, they could make local laws and grant local property and commerce. They had their own levy, and the roman army was, for tho thirds, made of Latins and Italians.

But, on the other side, these autonomous states could not decide extern policy, could not decide to employ their autonomous commerce out of the roman rule, could not conduct their autonomous wars. The municipal

[M. Porcius Cato]

What do you think about my ipotethical reconstruction?

 

Very imaginative, but there was no connection whatever between Italian participation and the aims of the optimates or populares (insofar as those terms have any real meaning). Cicero and Pompey, for example, would have been considered optimates, yet they were Italians and were consistently in favor of Italian interests. Among populares, I can think of absolutely no legislation (passed or merely proposed) that would have benefitted Italians. On the most contentious matters of the day--the sundry leges agrariae--Italians were almost uniformly opposed to having their land confiscated for the sake of some Roman general's second-handers.

[joyfulpuck]

If I have well understood your observances,

 

Segestan says it was very dangerous for nobilitas to leave Italian interest to take their role in traditional

politics such a way, and so was not possible that men like Caesar and Pompey were not aware of that.

 

M. Porcio Cato says that there were no tidings between nobiles like Caesar and Pompey and that Italians and no legislation was passed through for them.

 

I find very relevant this statements, but I'll try the same to debate, without any claim for last word.

 

I'll answer first to Cato.

 

What we intend for Italians, naturally has a modify after Social War in 90 a.C. After this war, all Italians are officially Roman citizens, so should have participation of ius Quiritium. But, in spite of that, this participation is not decisively accepted, and a new censiment is not proclamed until five years after the cease of the war and with a fundamental difficulty: where will be inserted the new citizens? In every 35 tribus or in two (only 2 for all Italy contra 35 only for ager Romanus!!) new one?

This matter is of basic importance for municipal well-to-do class and on this matter, after the war, fires the first civil war between the faction of municipalis homo novus C. Marius and the one of the optimate L. Silla. Before the war, Marius and Silla were friends, only now they are on opposite sides and the object of their rivalry are the interests of new citizens (and their respective clients).

When Silla is fighting against Mithridates, finally C. Marius, not without violence, takes power at Rome with the aid of L. Cornelius Cinna and in that occasion, in 86 a.C. , makes finally a censiment, inserting all the citizens in the 35 tribus. But, because of the rivolutionary moment, he can inscribe "only" 463.000 individuals.

 

Bear mind that the last censiment, before the war, was in 115 a.c., so 30 years before, and counted 394.000, so in 30 years, and including for the first time "all Italy" in the censiment, took only 69.000 people more.

There was been the Social War with his deaths, I admit. But consider also that in 70 a.C., so only 15 yars later the Marius censiment, censors could count "all Italy" in 900,000 people. Roman citizens increased 437.000 in only 15 years!

 

So we can expect that more italian people was counted only on 70 a.C., 20 years after the social war was finished and their claim for citizenship was welcomed.

But even now there were some Italians that were left behind this assimilation progress: they were the Transpadani.

Gallia Togata was affranchised by Pompeus Strabo , father of Pompeus, with Latin citizenship after the Social War, but then Silla opposed to their citizenship and, in 81 a.C., fixed Italy boundaries only to river Rubico, just near Ariminium.

 

They were very displeased about that, because they were now latins since eight years and between them there were many latin and roman colonies. The area was been well romanised since last III sec. a.C. and now was reducted as a normal provincia.

Sources are very clear about the causa Transpadanorum and the appeal of Caesar and Crassus about their affranchisement. Transpadani were very rich and sustained openly Caesar (nephew and sustainer at Rome of the memory of his uncle C.Marius) with money in his electoral campaigns, as you can see in Plutarch (Caes. 20, 3 and 21, 3) even if they were not citizens.

 

And here I come to answer something to Segestan.

Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, for not talking about Cicero, were certainly aware that what they were doing was revolutionary and out of mos maiorum boundaries. They were also conscious that all this integration politic was dangerous for traditional institutions, because now only leges and not mos could succeed to govern this new people, that were citizens, even rich, but not patricii. They weren't boni!

So these new leges should be imposed by force and with loyalty of arms.

Nontheless, after Social War, integration was a matter of fact. When he came back to Rome and became dictator, Silla tried to limit access to politics to municipal class, not taking new census and only admitted in senate those new families, even from the plebs, even from municipia, that were loyal to his own person. Personal loyalty seemed to Silla the only way to preserve romanity from being corrupted: many of this new aristocratics members were been also his own soldiers and officials. But again, he could not stop new citizen enrollment and claiming for the future, neither could forbid to aristocratic factions to use new sustainers for new purposes.

 

My question is therefore: could this state of things, if I could accept it, be a good cause for trouble roman constitution?