State, Society and Popular Leaders in Mid-Republican Rome 241-167 B.C.

Rachel Feig Vishnia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135093716
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

State, Society, and Popular Leaders profiles the incorporation of the lower classes into the governing system of ancient Rome. In 287, the Hortensian law made the decisions of the plebs binding on the whole people. This event is often referred to as the great plebeian victory, a landmark in Roman history. In this original study, Rachel Feig Vishnia maintains that the real turning point in the relations between the plebs and the patricians can be found eighty years earlier. Based on the works of Livy and most recent scholarships, this book provides a new and controversial view of one of the most exciting periods in Roman history.

1

THE ERA OF CAIUS FLAMINIUS (214–218)

Hanc insitam ingenio eius {C. Flaminii} temeritatem fortuna prospero civilibus bellicisque rebus successu aluerat.

This native rashness {of C. Flaminius} had been nourished by the success which Fortune had bestowed on him in political and military enterprises.

(Livy 22.3.4)

SOURCES AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

When the Livian narrative breaks off in 293, Rome has recently overthrown the most dangerous and formidable coalition she has ever faced in Italy. In 295 the combined forces of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians and Gauls failed to thwart Rome’s sweeping conquests in Central Italy where she emerged as the largest and most puissant power.¹ In 218, after a hiatus of some seventy-five years, the Livian account is resumed, but the Rome we now encounter has undergone a dramatic change. From a state that exercised control over Latium, Etruria, Umbria and Samnium, Rome has become the unchallenged mistress of Italy, from the foot of the Alps in the north to the ‘tip of the boot’ in the south. Rome has also acquired her first overseas domains: Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, wrested from Carthage after the First Punic War, have become Rome’s first provinces.

Notwithstanding the loss of Livy’s second decade, which described the events of the years 292–219, we are able, with the aid of subsidiary and often fragmentary sources, to sketch the main outlines of Roman external wars and conquests; about internal affairs, however, we remain practically in the dark. It is in this respect that the loss of Livy’s books (11 to 19) is most regrettable as they must have drawn heavily on the histories of Fabius Pictor, the first Roman historian, whose works have not survived. Pictor, who composed his work in the closing years of the third century, was a scion of one of the oldest and noblest patrician families and took an active part in the major political, military and religious events of the last quarter of the third century.² His work doubtless contained not only a first-hand account of contemporary events, but also invaluable and trustworthy information about earlier times. His informants, whose testimonies enabled him to inquire into the history of the recent past, probably also recounted stories of earlier decades that were still fresh in their memory, thus providing Pictor with reliable information that went back as far as the beginning of the third century.

The quantity and quality of the evidence available to us make it unfeasible to reconstruct a comprehensive picture of Roman internal politics during the third century. This is particularly regrettable, since this period obviously witnessed crucial developments. Thus we are unable to follow the final stages of the patricio-plebeian rapport and the ensuing crystallization of the Roman ‘establishment’ which has fully consolidated once the Livian narrative is resumed on the eve of the Second Punic War.³ The intriguing process by which the senate gained the authority it displays during the Second Punic War also evades us. We also lack information about the final and most important stages of the organization of Italy south of the Pisa–Ariminum line and of the intricate network of treaties and alliances by which Rome bound the heterogeneous Italian communities to her city-state institutions.⁴

We know practically nothing about the impact of Rome’s widening horizons on her society and economy. We can plausibly infer from the far-reaching repercussions caused by the expansion in the Mediterranean in the second century that the major changes in territory, demography, organization and domestic politics in this earlier period also left a considerable mark on Roman life.⁵

We are better informed about the second half of the third century. Polybius, whose histories set out to describe ‘by what means and under what system of polity the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government’ (1.1.5–6), had originally (1.3.1) intended to begin his histories in the 140th Olympiad (220–216). Realizing that his Greek readers were not familiar with either Roman or Carthaginian history, he prefaced his main historical work with two introductory books, in which he described, among other topics, the first clash between the two powers (264–241) and the incidents which eventually led to the second and most decisive showdown between Rome and Carthage (1.3.7–10). Thus we gain valuable information about events which are otherwise scantily documented: Rome’s conquest of the Po Valley and her first intervention in the Greek mainland.

Two essential shortcomings, from our point of view, impair Polybius’ account. First, in line with all the chapters concerning Roman history, save for his sixth book, he rarely relates domestic affairs. Second, and perhaps more important, is the unfortunate fact that Polybius is predisposed to believe that the Second Punic War was inevitable after Rome’s unlawful seizure of Sardinia in 238.⁶ Accordingly, all important matters that occurred between the years 241 and 218 are interpreted in the light of this forthcoming conflict,⁷ which first encouraged the Romans, aided by Tyche, ‘to reach out their hands to grasp the rest and to cross an army to Greece and the continent of Asia’(1.3.6).

Polybius’ interpretation has been generally adopted by modern scholars, as best exemplified perhaps by De Sanctis, whose account of the third century is still unsurpassed. De Sanctis tagged the period between the two wars as ‘la tregua operosa’ (the active truce):⁸ a truce between Rome and Carthage with almost yearly warfare on other fronts. In view of later developments and with the benefit of hindsight, the Polybian preconception seems convincing. However, a closer, less biased scrutiny of the sources reveals that Polybius severed long-term processes from their historical context. Moreover, his description obscures the fact that Rome neither foresaw nor planned another war with Carthage;⁹ Rome’s interests in that period, as a short survey of the events will show, lay elsewhere; her eyes were turned to a much closer arena, to northern Italy.

THE CONQUEST OF THE PO VALLEY

Rome had to deal with Gallic raids deep into Italy quite frequently after the Gallic invasion and occupation of Rome in 390 (Varronian).¹⁰ On the whole, Rome repulsed these raiding expeditions quite successfully and the cumulative effect of Roman victories induced the Gauls to sue for a peace treaty in 331. The peace was strictly adhered to for thirty years (Polyb. 2.18.9). Polybius’ narrative (2.19.1–5) suggests that inter-tribal rivalries among the Gauls provoked them to resume their raids into Etruria, but it is more plausible that the treaty signed in 331 was in fact a truce that was limited in time (indutiae). In 295 they formed part of the formidable coalition that was crushed in Sentinum.¹¹ In 284 or 283, the Senones, perhaps as part of a wider anti-Roman uprising,¹² besieged Arretium. Roman forces lifted the siege and pursued the Senones into their territory, killed most of them, exiled the survivors and annexed their land, which became Rome’s first acquisition in Cispadane Gaul, the ager Gallicus.¹³ The Boii, whose territory bordered on that of the Senones, feared a similar fate. In 283/282, together with some Etruscan states (probably Volsinii and Vulci), they set out against Rome but were defeated at Lake Vadimon.¹⁴ Polybius (2.20.2) records that only a few Boii escaped. The Roman victory, however, was not as conclusive as Polybius implies, since the following year saw renewed hostilities between the same parties. The second, probably more decisive defeat persuaded the Boii to sue for peace (2.20.2–5). Luck was on their side. The gathering stormclouds in southern Italy towards 281/280 may well have prompted Rome to grant them peace;¹⁵ had circumstances been different, the fate of the Senones might have befallen the Boii at this juncture instead of a whole century later.¹⁶

The Pyrrhic war and the protracted conflict with Carthage distracted Rome’s attention from the north. Fortunately for the Romans, the Gauls kept quiet throughout this period.¹⁷ After 241, omnipotent in Italy and a force to be reckoned with in the western Mediterranean, Rome continued where she had left off some forty years earlier.

Both Polybius, who doubtless reflects Roman historiography,¹⁸ and modern scholarship depict the major war with the Gauls that broke out in 225 as an act of self-defence induced by the Gallic invasion of Etruria.¹⁹ Yet, a careful scrutiny of the sources will reveal that Roman propaganda strove to conceal the fact that the total war waged against the Gauls between 225 and 222 was in fact the outcome of a premeditated, well-planned Roman design beginning perhaps as early as 239. And indeed, once Rome had gained control over Umbria, Picenum and Adriatic Gaul, and once Etruria, the crucial link between Rome and her north-eastern domains, had finally been brought under firm control between 273 and 241 by extensive land confiscations, intensive colonization and by both improving its old road-system and constructing new ones,²⁰ the turn northward was only natural.

The Romans, Polybius argued (2.13.6), realized that as long as the Gauls threatened their northern frontier ‘not only would they never be masters of Italy, but they would not even be safe in Rome itself. Florus (1.19.2), who was perhaps citing Livy, claimed that the Ligurians, the Insubres and the Illyrians, who lived at the foot of the Alps, inhabited the very entrance to Italy.²¹ It is possible that Rome, now a ‘superpower’, began thinking in broader strategic terms and wished to extend her borders to their natural confines.²² But control over the Po Valley could prove advantageous in other respects as well. First, the Gauls, especially the Boii and the Insubres, were the last force in sub-Alpine Italy that could incite the locals, especially the Etruscans, as they had done in the past, to join them in taking up arms against Rome. Control over the Po Valley would put a stop to the recurrent raids which threatened to destabilize the recent order Rome had enforced in Italy. Second, the Po Valley was the largest land reservoir in sub-Alpine Italy still untouched by Rome. Its occupation and its impending colonization would provide both security and an economic solution for the landless poor created by Rome’s continuous military campaigns. And third, the fertility of the valley, the abundant wheat and the inexpensive food it produced, which Polybius praises enthusiastically,²³ did not escape the Romans. At a time when Rome was encountering economic difficulties and shortage of wheat, when Hiero, who came to Rome in 237, brought with him huge amounts of wheat as a present to the Roman people (Eut. 3.19), the region could have been viewed as a possible source of cheap and plentiful provisions.²⁴

Our meagre sources make it practically impossible to draw a coherent picture of Roman ‘foreign policy’ in the aftermath of the First Punic War in general or of the strategy devised for the north, in particular. Thus we are unable to follow the decision-making process, a difficult task even in better-documented periods.²⁵ Still, we are able to conjecture about the factors that guided Roman policy makers in that period by examining the facts which are known to be reasonably well established; in our case, Roman military operations.

After a brief period of peace celebrated by the closing of the gates of the temple of Janus,²⁶ Rome embarked on a war against the Ligurians in 239/238.²⁷ Most modern scholars, perhaps influenced by Polybius who omitted this event from his account, disregard this campaign. De Sanctis (3.1.280–281) called it guerrilla warfare and Harris (WI 191–192) claims, with good reason, that there was no defensive theory behind it. Although on the face of it the campaigns in Liguria make little sense,²⁸ if seen as a preliminary and a preparatory step towards the conquest of the Po Valley, they become more intelligible.

Rome’s primary targets in the Po Valley were the Insubres and the Boii.²⁹ The Insubres, who inhabited the north-western part of the valley, were the largest and the most powerful people in Cisalpine Gaul (Polyb. 2.17.4). They controlled the western Alpine passages into Italy through which Transalpine Gauls crossed and joined their Cisalpine brethren in raiding expeditions deep into Italy (Polyb. 2.19.1–4). The Boii dwelled south of the Po (Polyb. 2.16.7), and after the Romans had expelled the Senones in 281 their territories verged on the ager Romanus. To reach these regions it was imperative that Rome have control over Liguria.³⁰ The Apennine passes in Liguria led directly to the lands of the Boii, and given the impassibility of the western Ligurian Apennines,³¹ the Ligurian coast was of utmost strategic importance as a springboard into Insubrian territories. The military operations conducted in 224 and 223 indicate that this was indeed Rome’s line of reasoning: in 224 Roman armies invaded the lands of the Boii through Liguria (Polyb. 2.31.4) and in 223 Roman forces, after arriving by sea at the Ligurian coast, attempted to assault the Insubres through the land of the Annares (Polyb. 2.32.1).

Shortly after the beginning of the Ligurian campaign, the Romans treacherously seized Sardinia from Carthage.³² Polybius assigned the utmost importance to this unholy act which he regards as one of the two main reasons for the outbreak of the Second Punic War.³³ Polybius’ interpretation, however, obscures the link between the war in Liguria, usually regarded as a marginal affair, and the seizure of Sardinia and Corsica. It is important, therefore, to re-examine the order of events.

In 240 or 239, the Carthaginian mercenaries in Sardinia, exploiting Carthage’s weakness and internal predicament stemming from the mercenaries’ revolt in Africa, took over the island and invited the Romans to occupy it (Polyb. 1.79.1–7; 1.83.11). The Romans, Polybius explains, unwilling to violate their recent treaty with Carthage which recognized Carthage’s authority over Sardinia, refused.³⁴ Taking a more sceptical view of Roman integrity, one could perhaps attribute Rome’s refusal to general exhaustion from prolonged warfare.³⁵ Strangely enough, one year later, Rome had managed both to recover from her fatigue and to overcome any pangs of conscience aroused by the prospect of breaking the treaty with Carthage.³⁶ The mercenaries, who were soon expelled by the indigenous population, took refuge in Italy and asked for Roman help (Polyb. 1.79.5). This time Rome concurred; not only did she invade Sardinia and later Corsica, but she also responded to Carthage’s complaints and protests by threatening war. Rome compounded this humiliation of Carthage, which was slowly recovering from the havoc caused by the mercenaries’ revolt, by dema...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Era of C. Flaminius (241–218)
• 2 Rome and the Romans During the Second Punic War (218–201)
• 3 Conquest and the Conqueror: the Impact of Expansion (201–167)
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of translated passages
• Index