and when they returned from the government of a province it was to build sumptuous villas, filled with the spoils of Greece and Asia, to surround themselves with troops of slaves and dependents, and to live rather as princes than as citizens of a republic. The publicani and negotiatores formed a second order in the state, which rivalled the first in wealth and coveted a share in its political supremacy; while the third estate, the plebs urbana, was constantly increasing in numbers and at the same time sinking into the condition of an idle proletariat. The accentuation of class distinctions is indeed inevitable in a capitalist society, such as that of Rome was now becoming. But the process was fraught with grave political danger owing to the peculiarities of the Roman constitution, which rested in theory on the ultimate sovereignty of the people, who were in practice represented by the city mob. To win the support of the plebs became a necessity for ambitious politicians, and the means employed for this end poisoned the political life of Rome. The wealth derived from the provinces was freely spent in bribery,[1] and the populace of Rome was encouraged to claim as the price of its support a share in the spoils of empire.
It was not only the structure and composition of Roman society that underwent a transformation. The victory of The new learning and manners. Rome in her struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean basin had been largely due to the powerful conservative forces by which her institutions were preserved from decay. Respect for the mos majorum, or ancestral custom, imposed an effective check on the desire for innovation. Though personal religion, in the deeper sense, was foreign to the Roman temperament, there was a genuine belief in the gods whose favour had made Rome great in the past and would uphold her in the future so long as she trod in the old paths of loyalty and devotion. Above all, the healthy moral traditions of early Rome were maintained by the discipline of the family, resting on the supreme authority of the father—the patria potestas—and the powerful influence of the mother, to whom the early training of the child was entrusted.[2] Finally, the institution of the censorship, backed as it was by the mighty force of public opinion, provided a deterrent which prevented any flagrant deviation from the accepted standard of morals. All this was changed by the influence of Greek civilization, with which Rome was first brought face to face in the 3rd century B.C. owing to her relations with Magna Graecia. At first the results of contact with the older and more brilliant culture of Hellas were on the whole good. In the 2nd century B.C., when constant intercourse was established with the communities of Greece proper and of Asia Minor, “philhellenism” became a passion, which was strongest in the best minds of the day and resulted in a quickened intellectual activity, wider sympathies and a more humane life. But at the same time the “new learning” was a disturbing and unsettling force. The Roman citizen was confronted with new doctrines in politics and religion, and initiated into the speculations of critical philosophy.[3] Under the influence of this powerful solvent the fabric of tradition embodied in the mos majorum fell to pieces; a revolt set in against Roman discipline and Roman traditions of self-effacement, and the craving for individual distinction asserted itself with irresistible vehemence. As it had been in the days of the “Sophistic” movement at Athens, so it was now with Rome; a higher education, which, owing to its expense, was necessarily confined to the wealthier classes, interposed between the upper and lower ranks of society a barrier even more effectual than that set up by differences of material condition, and by releasing the individual from the trammels of traditional morality, gave his ambition free course. The effect on private morals may be gauged by the vehemence with which the reactionary opposition, headed by M. Porcius Cato (consul, 195 B.C.; censor, 184 559, 570. B.C.), inveighed against the new fashions, and by the list of measures passed to check the growth of luxury and licence, and to exclude the foreign teachers of the new learning.[4] It was all in vain. The art of rhetoric, which was studied through the medium of Greek treatises and Greek models, furnished the Roman noble with weapons of attack and defence of which he was not slow to avail himself in the forum and the senate-house. In the science of money-making, which had been elaborated under the Hellenistic monarchies, the Roman capitalists proved apt pupils of their Greek teachers. Among the lower classes, contact with foreign slaves and freedmen, with foreign worships and foreign vices, produced a love of novelty which no legislation could check. Even amongst women there were symptoms of revolt against the old order, which showed itself in a growing freedom of manners and impatience of control,[5] the marriage tie was relaxed,[6] and the respect for mother and wife, which had been so powerful a factor in the maintenance of the Roman standard of morals, was grievously diminished. Thus Rome was at length brought face to face with a moral and economic crisis which a modern historian has described in the words: “Italy was living through the fever of moral disintegration and incoherence which assails all civilized societies that are rich in the manifold resources of culture and enjoyment, but tolerate few or no restraints on the feverish struggle of contending appetites.” In this struggle the Roman Republic perished, and personal government took its place. The world had outgrown the city-state and its political machinery, and as the notions of federalism (on any large scale) and representative government had not yet come into being, no solution of the problem was possible save that of absolutism. But a far stronger resistance would have been opposed to political revolution by the republican system had not public morals been sapped by the influences above described. Political corruption was reduced to a science[7] for the benefit of individuals who were often faced with the alternatives of ruin or revolution;[8] there was no longer any body of sound public opinion to which, in the last resort, appeal could be made; and, long before the final catastrophe took place, Roman society itself had become, in structure and temper, thoroughly unrepublican.
The first systematic attack upon the senatorial government is connected with the names of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus The Gracchi, 133-21 = 621-33. (q.v.), and its immediate occasion was an attempt to deal with no less a danger than the threatened disappearance of the class to which of all others Rome owed most in the past.[9] The small landholders throughout the greater part of Italy were sinking deeper into ruin under the pressure of accumulated difficulties. The Hannibalic war had laid waste their fields and thinned their numbers, nor when peace returned to Italy did it bring with it any revival of prosperity. The heavy burden of military service still pressed ruinously upon them,[10] and in addition they were called upon to compete with the foreign corn
- ↑ From 181 B.C. onwards a succession of laws de ambitu were passed to prevent bribery, but without effect.
- ↑ Cf. Tacitus's account of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, and Aurelia, the mother of Julius Caesar, in the dialogue De oratoribus, c. 28.
- ↑ It is to be noted that these subjects were, generally speaking, taught by freedmen or slaves.
- ↑ In 161 B.C. a decree of the senate was passed against “philosophi et rhetores Latini, uti Romae ne essent” (Gell. xv. 11). In 155 B.C. the philosopher Carneades was expelled from Rome (Plut. Cato. 22).
- ↑ The elder Cato complained of this as early as 195 B.C. (Liv. xxxiv. 2).
- ↑ Divorce was unknown at Rome until 231 B.C. (Dionys. ii. 25). In the last century of the Republic it was of daily occurrence.
- ↑ In the Ciceronian period the lower classes of Rome, with whom the voting power in the comitia rested, were openly organized for purposes of bribery by means of collegia and sodalicia, nominally religious bodies.
- ↑ Caesar had accumulated debts amounting to £800,000 by the time of his praetorship. Catiline and his fellow-bankrupts, amongst whom were several women, including a certain Sempronia who, as we are told by Sallust, “danced and played better than an honest woman need do,” hoped to bring about a cancelling of debts (novae tabulae).
- ↑ For authorities, see under Gracchus.
- ↑ To Spain alone more than 150,000 men were sent between 196 and 169 (Ihne iii. 319); compare the reluctance of the people to declare war against Macedon in 200 B.C., and also the case of Spurius Ligustinus in 171 (Livy, xlii. 34).
