The Struggle of the Orders (509-287 BCE) and the Development of the Roman Constitution

1. The Problem. This is the second lecture that concerns this period. The argument here is that Roman expansion was intimately connected to changes in the constitutional order, indeed the two were mutually reinforcing.
   1. In order to protect herself from more distant and more threatening enemies, especially the Gauls...they alone had sacked Rome...the Romans had to win the cooperation of their allies, that meant that they had to practice accommodation with her neighbors.
   2. So too did the practice of accommodation extend to the domestic front. In order to defend themselves, Romans had to expand their citizen base, to expand their manpower. Without these manpower reserves, a successful defense was inconceivable.
   3. The institutionalization of accommodation, consensus building, and inclusion may have been motivated initially by a realistic assessment of the dangers and what it would take to survive, but these same institutions also made Roman an effective leader and indirectly supported Roman territorial expansion.
2. Roman society and the Struggle of the Orders:
1. Social organization: individuals are members of (extended) families, under the power of the paterfamilias. Families are part of clans (gens, gentes), clans form tribes (curia, curiae).. In the broader scheme, there was a clear division between the patricians and the plebeians (orders), a division that bordered on a caste system. Roman with imagines. Significance: individuals were defined in reference to their familia. Descent is meaningful.
2. The struggle of the orders is comprehensible only in a society in which status is clear (the two orders being the patrician and plebeian) and only when the legal or established distribution of power does not correspond to the real political power of the various groups.
3. The patriarchal system reflects the political and military realities of a more primitive, semi-nomadic or pastoral period
   1. For most of its early history, peasant husbandry was the primary occupation of the vast majority of the population. Cincinnatus?.
   2. Urbanization had encouraged the development of a class whose wealth was primarily in moveable objects (traders, masons, shopkeepers; bakers, tanners, potters, etc.). These people have the resources to defend the state, but were outside the traditional political process
4. The struggle is not a class struggle in the Marxian sense (both sides had wealthy and poor members). The issues were primarily political.
   1. The right of participation in government by the new and 'unlanded' (i.e., those with moveable wealth. For those who lacked patrician birth, military success provided the political capital to advance...implications?
   2. The end of arbitrary acts of magistrates that particularly affected the urban dwellers who were probably outside the traditional patronage system.
5. Some concepts: freedom and annuality [fear of tyranny]; secession; consultation and collective rule. (Aristotle: a united oligarchy cannot be overthrown). The evidence suggests intense competition among the leading men in the state for offices and clientele.
3. The problems facing the early republic in this connection
   1. Economic conditions: scholarly opinion varies on this point...
      1. Most ancient historians believe that the period, esp. that immediately following the expulsion of the kings in about 509BC, was one long economic depression. The evidence and the counter arguments:
         1. A dramatic drop in the number of imported Attic vases suggests a reduction of commercial contacts.
         2. Continuous warfare reduced agricultural production.
         3. The problem of extensive debt suggests impoverishment..
         4. Public distributions of food on two occasions suggests extensive famine.
      2. There is, on the other hand, evidence that suggests that this period witnessed a general rise in economic conditions.
         1. Rome adopted the new hoplite military tactics.
         2. Colonization of conquered land may have eased population pressures
      3. The problem of debt --must understand ownership pattern:
         1. only the paterfamilias really owned anything.
         2. unable to put up real property, the man in need could pledge only his services (that might easily lead to a form of servitude) or his person (or the persons under his control) as collateral.
      4. The problem of land
         1. population tended to expand beyond the ability of the land to support it.
         2. the solution was the use of ager publicus (land that had been confiscated from Rome's defeated enemies). Implications: who would favor expansion?
   2. Arbitrary exercise of power by magistrates --judging by the demands made by the plebeians during the various secessions, this was the key issue for both the rich and poor plebeians.
      1. in particular, the plebeians demanded the right of appeal to the people in capital (life or death) questions.
      2. this suggest:
         1. there was no written law, but oral tradition; the latter was interpreted by the very class that was accused of abuse.
         2. there were no restrictions at all on the actions of the magistrates, particularly when campaigning.
         3. that the urban plebeians or those who were outside the traditional patronage and who lacked protectors, were particularly vulnerable
      3. It appears that it was the arbitrary actions of the magistrates that united the wealthy and poor plebeians and led to the demand for written law (450: the XII tables and ca. 300: ius civile Flavianum). The alliance is critical, for the wealthy plebeians provided the leadership needed to advance the case for all.
4. The forces at work during the Struggle of the Orders (none of the following were significant during the regal period).
   1. The presence of a new economic class whose wealth was more moveable, but at least also sufficient to allow for participation in military events.
   2. Hoplite Reform, infantry and consensual government Table XII and the Lex Hortensia... and implications thereof.
5. Plebeian Organization: Plebeians organized into tribes, not curia; officers
6. The course of the struggle is described in the textbook and need not be repeated here. More important is the following: Why did the process continue so long? And why did it end in 287?
   1. The plebeians had achieved all of their declared goads on several occasions only to find them undermined. By the time of the lex Hortensia (287), their demands were no longer disputed.
      1. Arbitrary acts hindered by the recognized powers of the plebeian officials, especially by the tribunes.
      2. The plebeian leader had been accepted into the magistracies which they sought (i.e., they had been coopted into the elite); the poorer plebeians lost their leaders.
      3. Land acquired by conquest was distributed among poorer Romans, easing the population pressure and providing the poor with resources to join the hoplite ranks.
   2. The dynamics of the struggle:
      1. The gradual decline in number of patricians (from 53 to 29 families)
         1. typical of closed aristocracies is that they are not prolific breeders of legitimate children
         2. the wealthier classes in general bore greater burden in fighting and, as patricians, could not (by definition) be created anew. They gradually lost ground.
         3. Many patricians were prepared to break rank and cooperate with the plebeians in order to achieve personal successes (Appius Claudius)
      2. Secession in times of crisis. To defend the state in a crisis [and their own property; they had the most to lose], the patricians were ready to make concessions when the plebeians refused to fight and withdrew from the army (secession).
7. Consequences
   1. The successes achieved led to relative peace on the social and domestic front for the century and a half following 287. Moderation had been shown on both sides.
   2. A new nobility was created, consisting of those patrician and plebeian families and their descendants who had held the consulship. The new system was stable because it allowed for replenishment of the governing class by coopting the most active of plebeians. This new nobility was remarkably successful at ruling Rome.
8. Final thoughts:
   1. Roman expansion certainly affected by the fear of invasion; the sack of the city by the Gauls in 390 and all to visible threats of Italic (Samnite) expansion into urbanized areas had a profound effect on the Roman ethos.
   2. Also driving expansion were the concerns of the plebeians.
      1. The wealthy plebeians perceived military triumphs as the method to acquire the prestige and clients they otherwise lacked. They, acting through the assemblies, encouraged military adventurism as a means to win personal glory and gain access to the highest offices. The patricians acting through the Senate generally act more cautiously: they have the most to lose.
      2. The poorer plebeians driven by the desire for booty and land.
   3. Neither defense nor expansion would have been possible without the readiness of both sides to compromise and accommodate. The benefits of doing so probably became increasingly clear to the Romans, but it is also apparent that tho progress toward greater inclusion was steady over a long period, it also proceeded incrementally.

Critical documents: RC §§ 23; 25; 27; 33 and 35.

The Structure of the Roman Constitution; another perspective.