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

by H. H. Scullard

  The Equites were not of course a monolithic block: the most prominent in Rome were naturally those publicani who helped in the public finances, as described above (see p. 8), and indeed the business men and traders in general, but in addition there were the country gentry of the towns of Italy who preferred the interests of their landed estates and the affairs of their local communities to both the glamour of political life in Rome and the risks of business. It is the publicans, described by Cicero as the ‘flower of the equestrian order’ who in the main began to clash with the Senate in the political arena. See further below p. 177 f. and n. 7. [p. 8]

  10 GREEK INFLUENCES ON ROME. Rome et la Grèce by G. Colin (1905) is a most useful collection of material for the period from 200 to 146 B.C. See also N. K. Petrolochos, Roman Attitudes to the Greeks (Athens, 1974). [p. 9]

  11 THE BACCHANALIA. See A. H. McDonald, JRS, 1944, 26 ff. [p. 9 f.]

  12 STOICISM. See E. V. Arnold, Roman Stoicism (1911); M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa, 2 vols. (1948); J. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (1969); F. H. Sandbach, The Stoics (1975). [p. 10]

  13 THE SCIPIONIC CIRCLE. On this so-called coterie see A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (1967), 294 ff. H. Strasburger, Hermes, 1966, 60 ff., argues that Polybius does not mention any member of the ‘circle’ and implies that Scipio’s interest in philosophy was more moral than intellectual; he believes therefore that the ‘circle’ is an invention of Cicero. This would seem to be going rather far, though perhaps the links between the members of the alleged group were less communal, if not weaker, than is sometimes supposed. See also E. Rawson, ‘Scipio, Laelius and the ancestral Religion’, JRS, 1973, 161 ff. and ‘Religion and Politics in the late second century B.C. at Rome’, Phoenix, 1974, 193 ff. (the Optimates used the official religion for political propaganda; the Populares used less official cults). [p. 11]

  14 SLAVERY. See W. L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (1955), 57 ff. Cf. P. A. Brunt, JRS, 1958, 164 ff., and eleven papers on various aspects, entitled Slavery in Classical Antiquity (1960), edited by M. I. Finley; J. Vogt, Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man (1975); K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, i (1978); Greek and Roman Slavery (1981) by T. Wiedermann contains a translation of a large number of passages dealing with slavery from the ancient sources. [p. 11]

  15 SICILIAN SLAVE WAR. Two interesting documents survive: the little bronze coin, struck at Enna, on which Eunus styles himself King Antiochus (cf. CAH, Plates IV, p. 2), and the sling-bullets found there bearing the name of Piso (Greenidge, Sources2, p. 10). J. Vogt, Struktur d. ant. Sklavenkriege (1957); P. Green, Past and Present, 1961, 10 ff. (reprinted in The Shadow of the Parthenon (1972), 192 ff.); W. Forrest, ibid., 1962, 87 ff. [p. 12]

  16 PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION. The references are Polybius, vi, 56, 14, and Cicero, In Verr. ii, i, 2. In general see G. H. Stevenson, Roman Provincial Administration (1939) and E. Badian, Publicans and Sinners (1972). On the lex Calpurnia see E. S. Gruen, Rom. Pol., 13 ff., who does not believe that the motive in establishing the new court was concern for the provincials; ‘politics provided a decisive impetus’, i.e, senatorial interests. E. Badian on the other hand (Roman Imperialism in the late Republic2 (1968),9) thinks that the Senate was taking its responsibilities towards the provincials seriously. On the ways in which the Romans, through ties of patronage or friendship, relied on local rulers beyond the frontiers of the empire to help maintain peace see P. C. Sandys, The Client Princes of the Roman Empire under the Republic (1908) and M. R. Cimma, Reges socii et amici populi Romani (1976). [p. 13]

  16a ALLIED TROOPS. On the method by which Rome called up allied troops (formula togatorum) and the numbers in relation to those of the Romans see P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower (1971), 545 ff., 677 ff.; on their pay see C. Nicolet, Papers Brit. Sch. Rome, 1978, i ff. [p. 14]

  17 ALLIES AND CITIZENSHIP. On Rome’s reations with her allies in the first half of the second century see A. H. McDonald, Cambr. Hist. J., 1939, 124 ff., and briefly, H. H. Scullard, Roman Politics, 145 ff. On citizenship see A. N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship2 (1973). On the date (c. 124 B.C.?) of granting Roman citizenship to Latin magistrates see below, ch. IV, n. 7. On Rome’s relations with her allies in general see A. J. Toynbee’s important contribution in Hannibal’s Legacy (1965) and on her relations with the Latin colonies see E. T. Salmon, Roman Colonization (1969). See also H. Galstaren, Herrschaft und Verwaltung im republikanischen Italien (1976) and E. T. Salmon, The Making of Roman Italy (1982). [p. 15]

  18 AGRICULTURE. In general see K. D. White, Roman Farming (1970), and for the agricultural regions of Italy and their resources, see ch. 2; also Farm Equipment of the Roman World (1975). See also J. M. Frayn, Subsistence Farming in Roman Italy (1979); E. Gabba and M. Pasquinucci, Strutture agrarie e allevamento transumante nell ‘Italia romana (iii–i sec.a.C.) (1979). – The devastating effects of the Hannibalic War on Italian agriculture are judged to have been less severe by P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower (1971), 269 ff. than by A. J. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy (1965), ii, 10 ff. [p. 16]

  19 EFFECT OF SICILIAN GRAIN. See Tenney Frank, Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, I, 158 ff. On the effects of overseas conquest on the economy and the growth of slavery see K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, i (1978), 1–132. On the corn supply see in general G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (1980). [p. 16]

  20 MULTIPLE HOLDINGS AND LATIFUNDIA. Further, richer men could hold several farms of considerable size either adjacent to one another or even in different parts of Italy. Thus not all latifundia (great estates) need have been unified areas (cf. C. A. Yeo, Finanzarchiv, 1952, 459 f. and P. A. Brunt, Gnomon, 1964, 189 and Italian Manpower, 225 BC–A.D. 14 (1971), 352, 365).

  Recent archaeological investigation, based on field-work and the evidence of pottery, suggests that large estates were less widespread in the second century than has been generally assumed and that smaller farms, at any rate in some areas, were holding their own. Thus in South Etruria, at Veii, Sutrium and Capena, the work of members of the British School at Rome has shown that at this period small farms formed the majority of the individual sites identified in the area. Further, around Luceria in Apulia air-photography has revealed a pattern of small individual farms, each of some ten iugera, which provided oil and wine (remains of olive trunks and trenches for vines can still be seen). They appear to date from c. 120 or a little earlier and it is tempting to connect them with the settlement work of the Gracchi. For S. Etruria see Papers Brit. Sch. Rome, 1958, 1961, 1963, 1968; for Luceria (pending the publication of the work of G. B. D. Jones) see A. J. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy, II, 536. For a general assessment see M. W. Frederiksen, ‘The Contribution of Archaeology to the Agrarian Problem in the Gracchan Period’, Dialoghi di Archeologia, IV–V (1970–71), 330 ff.) [p. 17]

  21 AGER PUBLICUS. See the full discussion by G. Tibiletti, Athenaeum, 1948, 1 ff., 1949, 67 ff., 1950, 183 ff., and the resumptive account by D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), 206 ff. [p. 18]

  CHAPTER II

  1. SOURCES FOR THE GRACCHAN PERIOD. The more important passages are collected in A. H. J. Greenidge, A. M. Clay and E. W. Gray, Sources for Roman History BC 133–70 (2nd ed. 1960). Since most of the work of contemporary writers is now lost, we depend for our knowledge of this period very largely upon late writers such as Appian and Plutarch (see below).

  The development of historical writing at Rome is discussed on pp. 196 ff., where it is seen that this period was dealt with by contemporary historians such as Calpurnius Piso (cos. 133), C. Fannius (cos. 122), Sempronius Asellio (mil. trib. 133) and the Greek Posidonius, whose works are now lost. Speeches of men like the Gracchi circulated in antiquity, but do not survive: for the remaining fragments see H. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta (2nd ed. 1955). The more important surviving inscriptions are mentioned in the following notes, e.g. the ‘Popillius’ inscription, some boundary-stones of the agrarian commissioners, and the lex iudiciaria.

  Thus we have to depend very largely upon later writers. One of the most
important of these is Cicero who as a young man studied the earlier orators and whose writings abound in references back to this period; on his attitude to the Gracchi see R. J. Murray, TAPA, 1966, 291 ff. and J. Béranger, Aufstieg, I, i, 732 ff. Historical writers fall into three groups. First, Livy and the writers that made use of him. His history (see p. 202 f.) of these years survives only in the Epitomes. It was used by Velleius Paterculus (p. 300), Valerius Maximus (p. 300), Florus (who wrote in the second century A.D. an account of Rome’s wars), Eutropius (who wrote in the fourth century), Orosius (fifth century) and Obsequens (who compiled from Livy a list of prodigies). With these may be mentioned the Greek writer Cassius Dio Cocceianus who held the consulship with the emperor Severus Alexander in A.D. 229, and wrote a general history of Rome down to his own day. Of books 24–35 (which covered the years 133 to 69 B.C.) only a few fragments survive; books 36–54 (68–10 B.C.) are preserved in full, and books 55–63 (9 B.C.–A.D. 69) in abbreviation but fairly fully till A.D. 46. See further, Fergus Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio (1964).

  Secondly, Plutarch, who was born in Boeotia in the principate of Claudius, wrote in Greek Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans. These were conceived as moral biographies rather than as critical histories, and should be judged as such. They are written without prejudice or deliberate falsification, and their historical value depends largely on what sources Plutarch happened to be using for any particular passage. He is interested in men and their behaviour and although he had no profound knowledge of the historical background of the lives of many of his subjects, he has provided much valuable and fascinating material. His Lives of the two Gracchi are among his best; he made use of the Roman annalistic tradition and also of the main source used by Appian (on this see n. 10 below). For general accounts of Plutarch see R. H. Barrow, Plutarch and his Times (1967), C. P. Jones, Plutarch and Rome (1971) and D. A. Russell, Plutarch (1973).

  Thirdly, Appian, an Alexandrine Greek (c. A.D. 95–165), who went to Rome where he gained a place in the imperial civil service under Antoninus Pius. He wrote 24 books of Romaika, dealing largely with wars on an ethnographic arrangement; thus, e.g. book 12 described the wars against Mithridates. Books 13–17 covered the Civil Wars and are usually numbered separately; his sources are discussed by E. Gabba, Appiano e la storia delle guerre civile (1956). Book I of the Civil Wars (of which there is an edition by J. L. Strachan-Davidson, 1902; and also one in Italian by E. Gabba, 1967) covers the years 133 to 70 B.C. For the Gracchi Appian has followed an excellent source which goes back to the tradition of the contemporary annalists (e.g. Fannius). Though he understood the empire of his own day, Appian had little accurate personal knowledge of the Republican constitution and therefore on occasion may have misunderstood his source, but in general his account of the Gracchi is first-rate.

  Finally Diodorus Siculus should be mentioned. He wrote at the end of the Republic a World History from earliest times to 54 B.C. in 40 books, of which those dealing with the later Republic are lost apart from some fragments. Those from books 34 and 36 dealing with the Sicilian Slave Wars are valuable and derive from the account by Posidonius; these are now conveniently available in the Loeb Diodorus, vol. xii (1967) by R. M. Geer. See below p. 302 f.

  The sources for one of the largest areas of Republican history, namely magisterial activities, are conveniently listed in T. R. S. Broughton’s indispensable work, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 2 vols and Suppl. (1951–60).

  Modern works. Chapters I and II of CAH, IX (1932) by H. Last are fundamental. See also A. H. J. Greenidge, A History of Rome BC 133–104 (1904); ingenious essays by J. Carcopino, entitled Autour des Gracques2 (1967); H. C. Boren, The Gracchi (1968); K. Richardson, Daggers in the Forum (1976), a popular treatment; D. Stockton, The Gracchi (1979), a useful survey and assessment of recent views. On Tiberius Gracchus see D. C. Earl, Tiberius Gracchus. A Study in Politics (1963), A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (1967), esp. pp. 190–226, a valuable critical discussion by E. Badian, Aufstieg, I, i, 668 ff. and A. H. Bernstein, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (1978). Badian also has an extremely useful survey of work done on the period from the Gracchi to Sulla in the years 1940–1959 in Historia, 1962, 197 ff. = Seager, Crisis, 3 ff.). J. M. Riddle, Tiberius Gracchus (1970), provides a selection of interpretations of Gracchus (cf. C. Nicolet, Les Gracques (1968). [p. 19]

  2 LAELIUS’ REFORM. See Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, 8. 4. Cf. H. H. Scullard, JRS, 1960, 62 ff.; L. R. Taylor, JRS, 1962, 24 ff.; A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (1967), 307 ff. Astin inclines to follow Plutarch’s view that Laelius’ main concern was with the problem of manpower available for military service rather than to forestall a potentially revolutionary situation: he believes that the economic and social problems were much less severe even as late as 140 and that they increased sharply in the 130s. [p. 19]

  3 SECRET BALLOT. See Cicero, De legibus, 3. 15 ff. [p. 20]

  4 SCIPIO’S POLITICS. See H. H. Scullard, JRS, 1960, 59 ff., and in general, including a discussion of some of these views, A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (1967). For a detailed analysis of Scipio’s political friends and enemies and the political developments during the decade preceding 133, see Astin, pp. 81 ff., and Gruen, Rom. Pol., ch. i, ‘Politics in the Age of Scipio Aemilianus’. [p. 20]

  5 CORNELIA’S FAMILY. See J. Carcopino, Autour des Gracques, ch. 2. [p. 20]

  6 BLOSSIUS. See D. R. Dudley, JRS, 1941, 94 ff. On Greek influences on Tiberius see T. S. Brown, Cl. Journal, 1947, 471 ff. J. B. Becker, ‘The Influence of Roman Stoicism upon the Gracchan economic land Reforms’ (La Parola del Passato, 1964, 126 ff.), argues that Stoicism created a generally favourable ‘humane’ background in the Scipionic Circle, but this received a set-back with Laelius’ failure. (On humanitas see A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus, 302 ff.) But whatever influence Blossius and Diophanes may have had on the development of Tiberius’ thought, the tradition that they actively incited him to reform may be dismissed: they will have been supporters rather than promoters. M. Gelzer rather surprisingly attaches more importance to the influence of Diophanes than to that of Blossius (Kleine Schriften, II (1963), 77 f.). [p. 21]

  7 TIBERIUS’ MOTIVES. Both Appian and Plutarch stress that his chief motive was to relieve the economically distressed (cf. Appian, Bell. Civ. 1. II. 43: ), namely to resettle the poor on small farms, with the incidental advantage of reducing the amount of slave labour on the land. The repopulation of the countryside and the consequent diminution of the unemployed in Rome are two sides of the same problem. A factor in the urban crisis has been emphasized by H. C. Boren (Amer. Hist. Rev., 1958, 890 ff. = Seager, Crisis, 54 ff.), who indicates that government expenditure was high in the 140s (on building, coinage, etc.) but declined in the 130s, thus leading to a depression: Tiberius’ aim will have been to relieve the crowded city and help those whom the boom had attracted to it. It need scarcely be doubted however that the country came first in his thought. But as has been seen (above p. 20) there was a close connexion between agricultural distress and military service (in general see P. A. Brunt, ‘The Army and the Land’, JRS, 1962, 69 ff.), and there can be little doubt that one of Tiberius’ motives (as it certainly was a result of his legislation) was to make more citizens liable to military service by increasing the number of independent peasant farmers. But that is not necessarily to accept one of D. Earl’s main contentions (Tiberius Gracchus (1963)) that the crisis lay primarily in the recruitment for the legions rather than in the agricultural, economic or social sphere which he minimizes. Badian (Aufstieg, I, i, 684 ff.), however, emphasizes, with Earl, the military crisis. See also Y. Shochet, Recruitment and the Programme of Tiberius Gracchus (1980). The impact of the Numantine affair on Tiberius has again been stressed by M. G. Morgan and J. A. Walsh, Cl. Ph., 1978, 200 ff., while F. Coarelli, Papers Brit. School Rome, 1978, 1 ff., has underlined the building activity in Rome in the Gracchan period and consequently the low level of unemployment among the urban plebs. [p. 22]

  8 TIBERIUS’ FRIENDS. See Cicero
De Rep., 1. 19; Plut., Ti. Gr. 9.1. There can be no doubt that these men supported Tiberius, though P. Scaevola’s support was less open than that of his brother Crassus Mucianus (Cic. Acad, Prior. 2. 13): this may be due to his earlier support of Scipio Aemilianus (as late as 136); he will have moved towards Gracchus and Appius Claudius under his brother’s influence (cf. E. Gruen, Athenaeum, 1965, 321 ff.). The extent to which Tiberius’ supporters were united in any other sense is controversial. Those who deny the functioning of ‘group-politics’ would say, with P. A. Brunt (Gnomon, 1964, 191), ‘there is no evidence for the existence of a powerful noble faction behind Gracchus, only that a few isolated nobles sought vindicare plebem in libertatem’. But this is surely too extreme a reaction from, e.g., the view of D. Earl (Tiberius Gracchus) who argues that the Claudii Pulchri, Sempronii Gracchi and Mucii Scaevolae formed ‘a political group of the classic Roman type … a factio with bonds of amicitia strengthened by those of marriage’ (p. 12). The power and hopes of these men were too deeply rooted in the oligarchical system and its spoils to provoke a wish to destroy it: ‘whatever was contemplated in 133, it was not revolution’. The opposition of the other nobles will have been provoked by the potential increase to the clientela of the Claudian gens, combined with the powerful clientela which Tiberius inherited from his father in Rome, Italy and the provinces. Whether or not Earl is right in seeing the connexion between the Claudii and Sempronii as a continuation of old traditional links, and whatever the motives of the different members of the group, E. S. Gruen at any rate has no doubt about the background: ‘the factional nature of this struggle cannot be gainsaid … Meier, Res Pub., 98, in defiance of the evidence, denies all factional considerations to the Gracchan program. Few will follow him’ (Rom Pol., 53 and n. 41). On the career of P. Mucius Scaevola, see now A. L. Bernstein, Cl. Ph., 1972, 42 ff. and R. A. Bauman, Revue internat. des droits de l’antiquité, 1978, 223 ff. The political supporters and opponents of Tiberius are discussed by J. Briscoe, JRS, 1974, 125 ff., while E. Gabba considers the economic motives in the opposition to the agrarian law (Polis and Imperium, ed. J. A. S. Evans, 1974, 129 ff). [p. 22]