From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68

by H. H. Scullard

  In this hectic atmosphere family life declined. Wives did not necessarily come under the authority (manus) of their husbands as in older days, and consequently gained greater independence since they were able to control their own properties which they had acquired by dowry or legacy. The Roman matron had always held a respected place in society and indeed often exercised considerable indirect influence on public affairs. Many continued to do this: Brutus, for instance, paid much heed to the advice of his mother Servilia and his wife Porcia. Other women gained their ends by their charms, for instance Clodia, the sister of P. Clodius, wife of Q. Metellus, and lover of the poet Catullus until he was ousted by Caelius and others, was the notorious leader of a fast set. Further, political friendships had often been strengthened by marriage alliances, as when Pompey married Julia, and these would not always lead to enduring marriages. Divorce and re-marriage were common: Sulla and Pompey had five wives and Caesar four. Thus there was a steady decline of morality in part of the governing class. But this must not be exaggerated: despite much immorality and extravagance, the aristocracy was not entirely decadent. Many men lived honourable and moderate lives and turned to cultured living rather than to vulgar luxury. Wider intellectual interests and appreciation of literature and art, combined often with greater humaneness and finer taste, led to a new humanitas in society. Cicero, despite his many failings, is not a bad example of this cultured and urbane society.6

  3. THE KNIGHTS7

  Since the possession of at least 400,000 sesterces was the minimum qualification for membership of the Equestrian Order, the Knights should be included in the upper classes: they were the moneyed as opposed to the landed aristocracy (though most probably were landowners and many wealthier than some of the poorer senators), nor was the social distinction between the two orders always very great (see above, p. 8). Rather it was a political gulf that separated them: the Knights preferred to remain outside politics, but especially after Gaius Gracchus gave them control of the Courts they could exercise an increasing pressure on policy, as has been seen in their attitude to the founding of Narbo or the Jugurthine War. Thereafter their relations with the Senate varied in degree: often hostile, they were at times prepared to co-operate, especially in the face of serious dangers that might threaten their financial interests. These interests were ever extending, not least through the action of Gaius in giving to the Knights the right to farm the taxes of Asia (p. 29). These men helped the government to collect taxes and harbourdues, to work the provincial mines and to undertake public buildings; organized in companies, in private partnerships or as individuals they engaged in industry, trade, banking and money-lending throughout the Roman world. With the decline in standards of morality the publicani, their agents and the moneylenders began callously to exploit the unhappy provincials. They received a set-back when Sulla proscribed 1600 knights and confiscated their property, but they soon recovered and flourished until Julius Caesar deprived them of the tithecollecting of Asia (p. 122); thereafter their operations were more carefully watched.

  But as not every provincial governor was a Verres, so the unscrupulous transactions of many of these men should not blind us to the useful functions performed by others. Cicero himself belonged to this class by birth and though he was the first member of it to reach the consulship for a generation he retained a strong regard for it and sought by a concordia ordinum to bring it into harmony with the Senate. His great friend and correspondent, T. Pomponius Atticus, who as an Epicurean avoided political life, provides a good example of a cultured, popular, and successful business man. His wealth was based on his estates in Epirus and he pursued varied business activities from banking to publishing: discreet, urbane and sympathetic, he won the friendship of many, of Optimates and Caesarians alike.8

  4. OTHER CLASSES

  The rest of the city population comprised many groups. There were the clients of the nobles and knights, established by their patrons in various pursuits. Another section was formed by those who were self-supporting, small business-men, shopkeepers and workmen, an increasing number of whom were sons of freedmen or even freedmen themselves. Then there was the urban proletariat which relied in varying degrees on public support: since this consisted only of the corn dole, most of them must have found some means of supplementing it by some kind of work, even though it was not regular. One thing, however, they had for sale, their votes: hence particularly in the last half-century of the Republic they became more clamant as violence and corruption in politics increased. They must have lived in great squalor in blocks of high tenements (insulae) in narrow streets in such districts as the Subura. Other sections were formed by resident aliens and by the large number of slaves in the houses of the wealthy or employed in trade and industry.9

  Many of these slaves were of foreign extraction, especially Greeks and easterners, and since the Romans were generous in their attitude towards manumission, large numbers of slaves had in fact been gaining freedom and citizenship during the last generation or two. This must obviously have had some effect on the racial stock of the population of Rome: the extent is debatable. Some historians have believed that the Italian element was swamped and that anything up to 85 per cent of the people employed in factories, shops and households were slaves or ex-slaves.10 But even if this high figure were to be accepted, uncertainty about the origin of the slaves and about the birth-rate in freedmen families must render theories of radical racial change doubtful. A considerable foreign element clearly did infiltrate into the population, but it may have been largely assimilated by the Italian element which will therefore have been adulterated but not superseded (see also p. 196).

  The cry for Panem et Circenses, for free food and entertainment, that rose so loudly during the Empire, was already heard in the late Republic. Since Clodius had changed Gracchus’ corn-law into a free dole, the proletariat had claimed this as a right which no politician who needed their votes could refuse, until Caesar, who devised other means of relief, was able to limit the number of recipients (p. 122). As to Circenses, the number of public games was increased by the establishment of Ludi Sullanae victoriae and Ludi victoriae Caesaris in honour of Venus Genetrix. In addition to the regular festivals, individuals, especially candidates for office, staged gladiatorial combats and won votes by pandering to the cruelty and blood-lust of the mob. Animal-hunts (venationes) also increased in number and elaboration. An age which was apparently unmoved when 6000 of Spartacus’ followers were crucified along the Appian Way, is not likely to have been affected by the sufferings of animals, but it is good to know that at least once some qualms were felt. When at the games which celebrated the dedication of Pompey’s gift to Rome of her first stone theatre in 55 B.C., 500 lions and 17 elephants were slaughtered, Cicero wrote, ‘What pleasure can it give to a cultured man to see a weak human being mangled by a powerful wild-beast or a splendid animal transfixed by a hunting-spear?’ Pliny records that the spectators were so moved at the killing of the elephants that they rose as one man and cursed Pompey.11 Unfortunately this feeling of pity was merely a passing mood, but the demonstration reminds us that the theatre could perform another important function: it served as a sounding-board for public opinion.

  5. THE CITY

  The city of Rome, whose population in the Ciceronian age may not have fallen a great deal short of a million, must have been steadily expanding, and during the period from Sulla to Caesar much systematic building and planning was undertaken in the centre.12 Under Sulla the Forum, where the Senate-House (Curia) was restored and the Rostra probably rebuilt, was linked as an architectural unit with the Capitol by the construction of the Record Office (Tabularium) which was completed by Catulus in 78. This fine building overlooking the Forum with its arcaded façade and high Italic base (podium), its combination of Roman arch and Greek pilaster, is among the most striking examples of surviving Republican architecture. Sulla also restored the Capitoline Temple of Juppiter which had been burnt in 83. Pompey was responsible for a group of build
ings in the Campus Martius, centred on his new theatre and portico. The next of the great principes, Caesar, started work on his new Forum (a colonnaded area with shops behind, which included a temple to Venus Genetrix) in order to relieve pressure on the crowded old Forum, where he built a magnificent new Basilica Iulia. He also planned to rebuild the Curia, burnt again in the rioting of 52, and a new voting-enclosure (Saepta Iulia). But much of his work was finished only by Augustus, who in turn, as Octavian, started his own great building schemes as early as 36 in his attempt to foster national pride (see below, p. 192).

  Better building materials were coming into wider use. Older material, as wood, crude brick, and tufa, was being superseded in many richer buildings by the cream-coloured limestone from Tibur, now called Travertine; marbles from overseas were also employed, and from Caesar’s day those of Carrara in N. Italy. From the second century onwards concrete was increasingly used for interior construction; it was faced with stone, at first with little irregular pieces (opus incertum) and later with square or lozenge-shaped bits arranged in a network pattern (opus reticulatum).

  Thus Rome gained many fine buildings, her water-supply was improved by means of two new aqueducts (in 125 and 33), and the gardens of men like Lucullus, Sallust, Maecenas and Caesar, provided open spaces in the suburbs. But there was much squalor in the poor quarters, where rose the high and over-crowded tenements of the more humble. The city too was liable to fire and flooding, the streets were not lighted, and there was no police force. Though the well-to-do were safe enough at home, if they ventured out at night they might need an escort of slaves or clients. Such conditions naturally encouraged crime and violence.

  Much building in other towns belongs to the Sullan period. That at Pompeii has already been mentioned (p. 148). Partially surviving monuments of this epoch include two temples at Cori, two others at Tibur (Tivoli), the great temple-complex of Juppiter Anxur on the hill above Terracina with its imposing surviving platform, and the enlarged sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste. Many villas also belong to this period, for instance an earlier one under Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli. Thus many of the towns of Italy, like Rome, began to assume a new appearance in the late Republic.

  6. THE PROVINCES13

  Before 133 B.C. Rome had acquired six provinces (cf. pp. 3 ff.), but gradually the number was increased: Asia (133–129), Gallia Narbonensis (between 121/20 and 100) to which the rest of Transalpine Gaul was added by Caesar’s conquests (58–50), Cilicia (from c. 102), Bithynia (74) to which Pompey added parts of Pontus, Cyrenaica (74 or later), Crete (c. 67), Syria (64–3), Illyricum (from 53 or earlier), Cyprus (58), Egypt (30) and the somewhat anomalous Gallia Cisalpina (89, 81 or later). The inhabitants of all these provinces varied greatly in race and civilization; in the East the city-dwellers were mainly Greek or Hellenized, but in the West there was no predominant culture apart from that enjoyed by the Celtic peoples. The Romans had no clear-cut theoretical methods of administration that they wanted to force on the provincials; they preferred to leave local arrangements alone so far as these did not clash with their own interests. They therefore used for the basis of their rule the existing communities (civitates), either city-states or native tribes, though as they naturally found the more advanced cities easier to deal with, they tended where possible to promote the development of city life.

  When a province was annexed by Rome the conditions of its administration might be defined in a charter (lex provinciae) which was drafted by a higher magistrate and a commission of ten senators. These charters, which were varied to suit local conditions, established the status of the communities within the province and laid down regulations about such questions as tribute and jurisdiction. Matters of detail which fell beyond the scope of the charter were announced by each succeeding governor in his edict, but since he would normally tend to follow his predecessor’s principles, the provincial edicts tended to become standardized. Within each province there were two groups of especially favoured communities, the civitates foederatae and civitates liberae, the chief difference being that the status of the former was guaranteed by a permanent treaty, whereas that of the latter (which had been granted under the lex provinciae or by a special lex rogata) was revocable and could be revised by Rome. The civitates liberae were more numerous than the civitates foederatae, which in Sicily numbered only three out of a total of some sixty-five communities. Both types, however, enjoyed certain privileges in common: they could use their own laws, they normally remained outside the governor’s jurisdiction, they sometimes were exempted from the obligation to quarter Roman troops, and, not least, all the civitates foederatae and probably most of the civitates liberae were exempt from taxation. In theory they might be liable to supply military help on demand, but Rome did not normally employ provincial levies, although on occasion she might summon contingents from the wilder tribes. The less favoured communities (civitates stipendiariae) were also normally allowed by the government a considerable degree of local self-government; although Rome usually required a property qualification for municipal office, she interfered as little as possible in local politics when her own interests were not threatened.14

  The chief burden laid upon the provincials by Rome was taxation, but this, if judged by the standards of the time, was not generally exorbitant; the amount was arranged by Rome, and was not the governor’s concern. Before the time of Caesar the provinces fall into two categories: the majority paid a fixed tax (vectigal certum), which from Caesar’s time appears to have become universal; on the other hand a tithe (decuma) on agricultural land and a grazing-tax (scriptura) on pasture (reckoned according to the number of animals grazed) was paid by Sicily and Asia, by parts of Sardinia, and after Pompey’s settlement possibly by Syria, Bithynia-Pontus, Cilicia and Cyprus. In addition to this tributum soli, tolls (portoria) were levied at a low rate (2–5 per cent) on goods entering or leaving a province.

  The method of collecting the taxes differed in the two groups. Where the land tax was a fixed sum of silver, representing a proportion of the value of an average harvest, it was collected by the various local authorities (who might be helped by private contractors) and then handed over by them to the Roman quaestor. The tithes were either delivered in grain, as in Sicily and Sardinia, or commuted into a cash payment, as in Asia: in both these cases the right to collect it was put up to auction. In Sicily, where the Romans had taken over the system formerly used by king Hiero of Syracuse, the taxes were auctioned locally, with the result that a city could bid for its own tithes, and their collection was carefully controlled (6 per cent profit being allowed to the collector), so that the large Roman companies (societates) were not interested (except in the portoria and scripturae which were auctioned in Rome). But the tithes of Asia were, by Gracchus’ law of 123, auctioned en bloc in Rome, so that they fell under the control of the Equestrian Order which supplied the shareholders (socii) and directors (magistri) of the societates of publicani. In addition to the taxes, provincials were liable for the upkeep of the governor’s staff and soldiers, but conditions were carefully regulated and payment was made for the grain that he might require. In Sicily and Sardinia the Roman government also claimed the right of pre-emption of further corn, but not more in quantity than a second tithe. Further, since it is unlikely that rich men who happened not to own any land escaped taxation altogether, a property tax (tributum capitis) probably could be imposed, although not much is known about it before the Principate.

  The provincial governor was normally a proconsul or propraetor, who had held a magistracy in Rome during the previous year (or five years previously according to Pompey’s law of 52 B.C.). The Senate usually decided which provinces should be assigned to the consuls and which to the praetors (between 123 and 52 B.C. the consular provinces had to be named before the consuls were elected); they were then assigned to the prospective governors by lot. Governorships were theoretically annual, but through an insufficiency of senior magistrates they were often prolonged for a year or so. A gove
rnor’s authority was almost unlimited over the provincials (except through the lex provinciae and treaties), but any Roman citizens in the provinces were entitled to use their right of appeal (provocatio).

  His chief duties were defence, against both external attack and internal disorder, and jurisdiction. For the latter purpose a province was divided into a number of circuits (conventus) in which he would hold assizes to try cases of serious crime in accordance with the rules that he had laid down in his provincial edict. He kept the balance of any money that he handled in a provincial fiscus, and both he and his quaestor were liable to account, but only at the end of their term of office. By Caesar’s lex Julia (59), however, financial arrangements were tightened up and a governor had to balance and publish his accounts before leaving his province. Each governor had a considerable staff. His right-hand man was his quaestor, allocated to him by lot, who was chiefly responsible for finance but who could be entrusted with other tasks such as jurisdiction and levying or even commanding troops. A consular governor usually had three legati, normally senators chosen by himself and approved by the Senate, while other friends or young relatives of semi-official status (comites or contubernales) helped to swell his suite; in addition he could appoint praefecti for specific tasks or to honorary praefecturae. Further, he had a large staff of subordinate officials (apparitores), who included a private secretary (accensus), clerks (scribae), lictors, viatores, haruspices, praecones, medici and the like.15 He clearly had at his disposal a great amount of patronage, while, if unscrupulous, he could also show favour to the businessmen, the publicani and negotiatores.