find more resources at oneclass.

com

CLA 2103 - Socio-Poliical and Cultural Paterns

 These emerge in the Middle Republic and set the stage for the Late Republic
 Economic
o Ascendancy of Equestrian class
 Equestrians were not born to statecrat; although, property required to
be an equestrian was the same as for senatorial class
 They became big business entrepreneurs, bankers
 They developed, urbanized opportunisically, set up commercial ies with
new places throughout Mediterranean
 They traded on behalf of senatorial patrons (Lex Claudia)
 They got so rich that they were sought by senatorial oligarchy (and some
popular reformers) for the money
 They were able to buy their way into statecrat
 They oten voted with their wallets
o Ruin of peasant farmer
o Rich get richer and poor get poorer
o Gap between elite and poor widens
o Cause: the war which caused economic decline
 Poliical
o Facional strife: populares vs. opimates
o Cause: the wars or the end of the wars resulted in economic decline
 Cultural
o Massive inlux of Hellenisic inluences: Scipionic circle vs. Cato the Elder et al.
o Cause: Eastern wars with Greeks
 Economic Troubles:
o Wars accelerated the decline of the farmer
o Wars (Hannibal) forced farmer to neglect his farm

find more resources at oneclass.com

 find more resources at oneclass.com

o Devalued land
o He couldn’t get new land (no land reform)
o He couldn’t work on the laifundia: slave labour laifundia compromised his
relevancy
o Farmers went to Rome to ind jobs
o There were jobs at irst (building, urban growth, etc.) but when war money ran
out (spoils dried up)
o There were no more jobs
o Result: big, unemployed, hungry and bored urban, landless, proletariate
o Ruin of farmer created a military problem: a shortage of soldiers
o Farmers no longer had necessary property/assets to be eligible for drat
o War also created a large, hosile, hungry, poor, unemployed urban proletariat
o Civil unrest from economic decline and disenfranchised generated: Poliical
Facionalism
o Economic hard imes accelerated process of reform and strife between rich and
poor, powerful and weak, senate and people
 Poliical Paterns: ops vs pops
o From end of Middle Republic onwards, poliics were based on two facions (as
opposed to social orders)
o Opimares: conservaive, (mostly) senatorial folks, resistant to change
 Controlled Senate and magistracies
 Pursued their goals by tradiional means: cursus honorum, senatus
consultum, decrees of magistracies
o Populares: reform minded, ani-senatorial
 Turned to the people
 Obtained commands and powers by laws passed by popular assemblies
without auctoritas patrum
o Not poliical paries in modern sense; they can (but not necessarily have any)
ideological basis
o Facio: a clique of leading men who had common sense designs for their own
poliical advantage
 The Propaganda

2
find more resources at oneclass.com
 find more resources at oneclass.com

o Opimares saw themselves as defenders of consituion, law, order, and tradiion

 They were boni = good men
 To populares they were greedy, ruthless reacionaries willing to defend
property, privilege and status quo at any cost
o Populares believed ops were interested simply in personal power and were
potenial tyrants/monarchs
o Each side claimed to be liberaing the state from tyranny
 Programs under negoiaion:
o There was no dispute about need for reform
o However, there was compeiion about who would get ‘credit’ (aka clientele) for
implemening such programs (i.e. the means)
 Issues and programs:
o State subsidy of grain and bread for urban mob (relevant if the mob controlled
assemblies)
o Agrarian laws: land for poor/demobilized troops
o Defence of private property oten conlicted with agrarian reforms
o Extensions of ciizenship: provides new clientele but endangers an older, more
established one
 Proletariat wants reforms and a charismaic leader; Senate wants to preserve its auctoritas;
so where do equestrians come in?
o Both sides (ops and pops) want them (i.e. their money)
o Equestrians go either way (they are opportunisic)
o Oten they are conservaive (they want law and order to protect their
money/assets)
 Gracchi embodied new populares
o Used tribuneship as a powerful tool to oppose auctoritas patrum
o Used equestrians to back-up popular opposiion
 Cultural Paterns: Scipionic Circle vs. Cato the Elder
o Philhellenes under Scipionic Circle
o Scipio Aemilianus and Lucius Aemilius Paullus
o Perseus Library, Greek art, Monument of Aemilius Paullus
 Cato the Elder (conservaive)

3
find more resources at oneclass.com
 find more resources at oneclass.com

o Carthage delenda established, etc.

o As censor 184 BCE, he burned objecionable books
o Expelled Greek philosophers (censored material, etc.)
o Conservaive poliically; novus homo; censorial
 186 BCE Bacchanalian Scandal
o Cato launched a witch hunt against adherents (in Magna Graecia) of the growing
cult of Bacchus
o Many were believed to have been Italian Greeks who had temporarily ‘gone over’
to Hannibal
o Livy gives an account of the scandal
o Speech of Cato re: danger of cult to Roman morality
o Any form of unauthorized culic acivity was potenially treasonous given the
context and mandate of State Religion
o Context of Livy: wriing for Augustus
 Cato promoted the rhetoric of moral decline due to excessive (Eastern) Greek inluence and
luxury
 Historiographical tradiion also focused on moral decline of Rome over the course of the
Middle Republic
 However, for general decline in Republic, the sources blamed Equestrians
o Blamed their greed, abuses, and treachery in eastern Mediterranean
o Equestrians were blamed for corrupion in provinces
o Sources also lay blame on Roman state diplomacy (ex. diplomaic abuses)
o Harsh, puniive policies (destrucion of Carthage)
o Bad diplomacy
 Emerging Problems:
o Allies and Provincials
 Allies are beginnings agitate for more rights
 Subjects in provinces are abused by governors and agents
o Vassal/client arrangements with Rome are too luid
o Foreign ‘policy’ was too informal
o Lack of cohesive foreign policy in provinces

4
find more resources at oneclass.com
 find more resources at oneclass.com

5
find more resources at oneclass.com