Baker's Sulla on Scaevola and the Equites

[P.Clodius]

I am re-reading Baker’s Sulla I would like to reproduce a few paragraphs. It shines a brief light on a couple of interesting characters, whom, it is a pity more isn’t written about. Namely Quintus Mucius Scaevola and Publius Rutilius Rufus, who were part of the Sullan circle or at least mentors of said. The background is the post Gracchan domination of the courts by the Equites, and the brewing trouble in Asia fomented by misgovernment and the growing threat posed by Mithridates.

 

“…It was round Quintus Mucius Scaevola, one of the truly great men of his time, that the first omens of the coming trouble centered themselves. Concurrently with the Italian franchise agitation, a second serious agitation was going on in Rome itself. The conviction was growing---at least among a certain group---that the equestrian courts used their judicial powers for the purpose of determining the policy of provincial governors, who were of the senatorial order. The charge can be brutally formulated in this shape, that the local governor whose policy played into the hands of the Roman bankers and merchants was secure after his term of office, while he who took a more impartial view of his duties was practically certain to be accused of some offense cognisible by the equestrian courts, and as certain to be condemned: a process which practically meant the control of provincial government in the interest of the Roman capitalists, who had no responsibility to either Senate or people.

 

It is extremely possible that the charge was true. It affected the views of the more intelligent Optimates in several ways. The threat in the east might pass off without war---or, at any rate, without a dangerous war---if the eastern provinces could be kept contented and happy. The real danger from Mithridates lay in that Asia was rapidly becoming a hotbed of discontent which might at anytime culminate by welcoming any invader, any change of master, as a refuge from oppression of the great Roman corporations to whom Gaius Gracchus had handed over the collection of taxes. The struggle against Mithridates thus began in Rome itself. If it failed, if Asia fell into the hands of Mithridates, then there might once more be no alternative but resort to Marius. Hence a real effort was needed to recover control of the courts.

 

But this involved important political questions. The Equites swayed the political balance in Rome. We have seen that their alliance with the oligarchy had overthrown Saturninus and Glaucia. The prosecution of such an effort as far as the necessary legislative action would mean some fresh change in the situation. The oligarchy was not anxious to invoke any such chance. To share the spoil by compromising with the moneyed interests, in return for political security, seemed to the majority the safest course. In this they were, of course, wrong. To compromise in this manner was no more than to stave off the consequences without averting them. The oligarchy was confronting one of those problems that nothing but honesty, that last bitter resort of man, can solve them. To compromise with the moneyed men might keep it in power; but then it had to fear the awful results misgovernment and oppression, for the information that came to Rome was the complaint of angry and desperate men.

 

To the group who took up the question of the equestrian courts belonged several of the most eminent men of the day: Scaevola, Publius Rutilius Rufus, Marcus Livius Drusus, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, who in some respects was the most influential of them all; and Sulla himself.

 

After the year of office which saw his attempt to close the constitution on the franchise agitation, Scaevola took the bold course of accepting Asia as his proconsular province. With him went Publius Rutilius Rufus. With the support of Scaevola, Rutilius took a strong line against the agents of the financial corporations. Abuses were rigorously repressed; justice was done with severest impartiality. Instead of men privately in league with oppressors, the Asiatics found above them men who could be relied on to carry out the law without fear or favour. If Scaevola could have been followed by a succession of governors as wise and courageous as himself, Asia might have been rescued from the trough into which it was slipping. His year over, he and Rutilius returned to fight their battle on the real field of war---the judicial courts of Rome.”

 

Thoughts?

 

PS. Interestingly Baker refers to Scaevola as "..the founder of scientific jurisprudence."

Edited March 18, 2008 by P.Clodius

[M. Porcius Cato]

Sounds right to me: the Grachhan reforms, esp those of G Gracchus, broke the system of checks and balances that had been in place. With the equites having a monopoly on the courts, they could--and did--put their extortionate tax-farming operations outside the law. So much for the nonsense that the Gracchi were out for the "little guy". (In my view, they each wanted revenge on the Senate: Ti Gracchus to avenge his father's treatment, G Gracchus to avenge his brother's. Most everything else was a thinly-veiled cover.)

 

In contrast, Livius Drusus was a real reformer: his carefully-crafted proposals would have re-established the checks and balances that had been destroyed by the Gracchi and would have transformed Italy into an authentic nation-state.

[P.Clodius]

I must admit, pondering the subject leaves me with no solution to the question of oversight. A review board perhaps? Appointed by who? The Comitia or the Senate? Would this system devolve the way of the Decemvirs? Were the concepts of dignitas and auctoritas, etc detrimental to politics?