IN SEARCH OF A NEW FORMULA

  1. TheProblem: In the traditional constitution, sovereignty (ability to make laws) rested with the populus (the people); the magistrates, because they were elected by the people, could issue edicta (executive decrees), and the senate only consulta (advice; recommendations). Down to 150, the system was roughly in balance (see Polybius). But there were problems...Essentially the old equilibrium described by Polybius was breaking down.:
    1. Only the residents of Rome had an effective franchise (remember to vote one had to be physically present in the city). As citizenship expanded the actual number of voting citizens represented an increasingly smaller percentage of the total citizen-body. Nonetheless, the assemblies, tho clearly not representative of the citizenbody, begin to challenge the authority of the senate
    2. The equestrian (financiers and domi nobiles) order, which had the same economic and social interests as senators, but in voting was so some degree overwhelmed by the numbers of less well off citizens, felt excluded from the political process and denied access to the senatorial offices. A coalition of the equestrians and the urban voters could control the state. BUT...their interests were not the same.
    3. The army was increasingly not the "nation at arms".
    4. The senate had not been able to control its members.
  2. C. Gracchus had given the equestrians a role in the constitution; they were to be the jurors for all trials (trials tended to be very political and now became more so). The equestrians were the swing voters. Between 108 and 80, the senate and the equestrians had repeatedly found themselves on opposing sides and the authority of the senate was repeatedly undermined. The breakdown of a governing consensus.
  3. Sulla's reforms: he was appointed dictator for writing laws and re-ordering the constitution Implications?? . His goal was to restore the traditional power and pre-eminence of the senate.
    1. The size of the senate increased with equestrians (as many senators had died during the civil wars, this was both possible and necessary), resolving (for the short term) the problem outlined above. Moreover, the senate was given the power to veto the decisions of the people.
    2. Tribunes restricted: they could not veto the senate, were limited in their ability to veto the magistrates and, most telling, tribunes could not hold any further office (no ambitious man would want the office)..
    3. Magistracies...minimum age or holding office raised; only the senate could assign provinces to senatorial governors and, finally, governors restricted to assigned province under threat of treason (maiestas).
    4. Juries to be constituted out of senators only.
  4. Assessment: did this re-established equilibrium? The institutional solutions failed because Sulla had not really grasped the political realities
    1. The senate could only control with state with the help of the equestrian order and Sulla had not done enough to secure its cooperation.
    2. He had not completely resolved the problem of Rome and Italy.
    3. Sulla could not abolish his own example.
    4. Too many ambitious politicians, frustrated by the senate, were ready to turn to the assemblies.
  5. In sum, a coalition of politicians who felt excluded and of the armed (the army, the urban mob) were the fuel of the civil wars. Sulla's formula was quickly shown to be inadequate; the pressures were too great.. By 75 (i.e., within four years of his death) it had been rescinded.
  6. A new formula did however evolve; in retrospect it appears to have been consciously planned. Two possibilities for reform are mentioned in the sources. The government should be under the direction of a PRINCE or a MONARCH.
    1. Principate: foreign affairs and war given over to one man in a legal manner (institutionalization of the extra-ordinary command), but internal affairs continue in traditional manner. The idea of the princeps, rector, or moderator is most fully developed in Cicero's de re publica.
    2. Monarchy: the end of traditional institutions; all power in the hands of one man, continuity through inheritance.
  7. The Career of Pompey: illustrates the potential and the dangers of the principate.
    1. Basically he enjoyed a succession of extraordinary commands over 30 years (all from people). His goal, at least as Cicero expresses it, seems to have been to direct the state by virtue of the merit won through his military success.
      1. His problem was that the nobility refused to acknowledge his merit. Why not?
      2. without the senate, he was forced to become a popularis and use both the assemblies and, ultimately, his army to secure the offices.
    2. In 67, a law secured his dominion up to 50 miles from the coast of the Mediterranean (effectively all of the empire) and gave him an army of 120,000 and a fleet of 500 ships (the largest figures ever for ancient history.
    3. The resentful old nobility failed to respond and frustrated Pompey with a consistent pattern of obstruction..
    4. The First Triumvirate (60 - 49 B.C.)
      1. the alliance of the three secures the consulate for Caesar. He proceeds to provide the settlements that Pompey and Crassus want as well as gaining for himself an important command in Gaul.
      2. Caesar marries his daughter to Pompey and then goes of to Gaul in 59.
      3. The great innovation is that Pompey is allowed to govern Spain in absentia and through legates. He also gains control of the food supply for the city. Augustus will employ both methods to control the state.
      4. After the reconciliation of 56-55, Crassus dies in Syria and Julia, Caesar's daughter, in childbirth. The triumvirate breaks down.
      5. The steps are not important, but there is clearly going to be an open conflict between Caesar and the Optimates. Pompey, fearing the growing power of Caesar and desiring glory that only the nobility can confer, sides with the Optimates.
    5. The reality of the civil war that follows is not that it is a struggle between the republic and a would-be monarch (Caesar), but, rather, it is a struggle between two types of one-person rule. The republic is finished: The choice is between a principate system (Pompey) or monarchy (Caesar). Open conflict might have been avoided or indefinitely postponed, but for the diehard reactionaries who wanted to force the issue.
  8. Two documents:
    1. The Roman historian, Pliny writes: Marcus Crassus [one of the competitors of Caesar] used to say the no man was rich who could not maintain a legion [6000 soldiers and their equipment] upon his annual income.
    2. Soldiers' oath to their generals in the late republic (a composite): I willing and freely swear by the gods of the state to protect the safety, honor and victory of ….. I will take up arms, and I will hold as friends and allies the same ones I understand are his. And I will consider those to be my enemies, those whom I observe to be his. And if anyone does or plans anything against him or his family, I will pursue them to the death by land and by sea…and if I do anything contrary to this oath…I myself call down upon myself and property utter ruin and utter destruction unto all my issue and all my descendants, and may neither earth nor sea receive the bodies of my family or descendants, or yield fruits to them.