Ancient and ArchaeologyΒ permalink
Sulla-The man who killed the Republic?
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Β
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Friday, 19th May 2006
One for the Rome buffs here,
I've recently been reading about the rule of the Dictator Sulla, towards the bitter end of the Roman Republic. Did Sulla's proscription lists bring the Republic to an end? Admittedly there had been a significant period of rebellion and civil war, and things were far from good, but when Sulla introduced the lists of proscribed persons, basically enemies of his rule, did this kill off the empire completely, paving the way for the Imperators, and finally the Emperors when Augustus finally took power?
It seems that for some unfortunates, it was only necessary for them to have a nice farm which had caught the eye of one of Sulla's cronies, and the next day, the poor victim was on the list, murdered and the farm bought up at bargain prices by Sulla's mates! Proscriptions made even the most insignificant plebeian afraid of being beheaded in the street, because someone wanted them dead for some reason or other, so did this bizarre period lead the Roman people to crave a strong leader who kept order, and didn't allow murder for the sake of personal profit as Sulla did?
Any thoughts guys?
Cheers -
Message 2
Posted by U3153557 (U3153557) on Friday, 19th May 2006
Well, Cicero stood up to him, and so did Julius Caesar, or so we are told. I think the point was that the old Republic just wasn't up to ruling an Empire myself, so it had to go. The parties grew more and more violent because of the great wealth they could grab, and because of the general crisis. It was Sulla's opponent, Marius, who set up the professional army which did for Senatorial rule in the finish.
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Message 3
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Friday, 19th May 2006
Cicero was on Sulla's staff before the dictatorship, I had never heard of him opposing Sulla. Caesar was not even 20 yet, even so had to flee for his life but Sulla relented. In any case, they both eventually died as a result of political violence. While they survived Sulla, they did not survive a process that had degenrated to thuggery.
Sulla broke the unwritten constitution by bringing his army into Rome. While Marius indeed may have justified it, the breaking of precedent is impossible to undo. In his appointment as dictator for life, rather than a limited term, his dictatorship showed the Roman headship a plum ripe for the plucking. While he restored Republican forms, it was clearly just a matter of time.
Effective self-government in democratic or republican institutions becomes impossible when the members of the political classes will no longer freely speak the truth in political debate. Problems can not be solved effectively without dealing with them truthfully. While this might occur due to simple corruption in that class, everyone manuvering soley for personal interest, it will almost certainly occur when to speak up is to risk death. This was already the state of affairs before Sulla's dictatorship, although his proscriptions brought the fear and political violence to an entirely new level.
Not unlike what Turkey is dealing with today on a smaller scale. By murdering one man in a political murder, one has subverted far far more due to the fear thereby induced. By this means a violent minority can effectively destroy republican government. -
Message 4
Posted by Mark (U1347077) on Friday, 19th May 2006
In the middle of reading up on this and there's a lot I don't understand but it seems that the aquisition of new territories unbalanced the government by putting a lot of wealth into few hands. Rome seems to have been almost anarchic with corruption and bribery endemic. It seems that there was more money in the hands of people like Pompeius than the state which meant the recruitment of the military came to rest with individuals.
Given that military conflicts plus corruption was making the ordinary people - the mix of citizens, allies and freemen - poverty stricken then their only recourse was to serve with people like Caesar, who would pay them and perhaps give them land. People were no longer loyal to the State but to the person as that was where the rewards were. It meant that they were above the law and rivals could be killed and any prosecution brought would be determined by whoever paid the most bribes.
My understanding is that the growth of Roman territory undermined the Res Publica but so far I have only read one book on it! -
Message 5
Posted by U3153557 (U3153557) on Friday, 19th May 2006
Kurt - Cicero's first important case was against one of Sulla's most important hangers-on, who was enriching himself by sticking names onto closed prescription lists and the like - or so I understand. Nobody else dared to take it on. Anyway, it was a really dicey thing to do. The other story I recall is that Caesar, as a very young man, told Sulla to his face that he had bought his position in the elections. Sulla said, 'that fellow wears his belt like a girl, but there is more than one Marius in his heart'. And he let him live, to revive the party of Marius!
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Message 6
Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Saturday, 20th May 2006
Hiya Dark
No, I dont think that Sulla can be held soley responsible for the end of Republican Rome. The seeds had been laid for that long before his rise to power, with the state ill-equipted to deal with the sort of overseas possessions that Rome was rapidly aquiring.
The conditions that led to Sulla's assumption of power were extreme conditions indeed, and it must be remembered that Sulla laid down his power as well!
The proscriptions IIRC were administered by certain elements of his buerachy and in Rome it had long been the case of money talks. So the actions in which some people gained massivly was only an extension of how Roman politics had worked for generations.
Did Sulla pave the way for the Imperators? Don't know on that one. Marius and Sulla led the way for the likes of Caesar to seize power via the army, a trend that was to have disastrous impact some 300 years or so later with the Generals raising and dethroning Emperors almost at will.
The rise of the Emperor was really the result more of Octavius' actions rising from the political legacy of Caesar, how much that can be laid at Sulla's feet and not Cato, Cicero or any of the Boni I'm not sure -
Message 7
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 20th May 2006
The imperial governance could be theoretically traced to Sulla's actions but then not only to Sulla's but also to a large number of Roman statesmen of that period up to Octavius (who became the first emperor).
In my view, Marius' military reforms played a more crucial role since he made a professional army that was disengaged largely from the Roman citizens. Lets not forget that democracies were born out of the need of stated to form armies consisting of citizens. By then, this system was out of question, the army was already increasingly non-Roman but multi-national, it was bound to become professional but then there was also no need to retain the republican structure as naturally those who ruled the army yielded the real power within the Empire and not any political group of citizens within Rome be it from humble or noble families. Thus politicians in order to have power they had better to be backed up by legions and not by Roman political groups. That is what happened naturally and that is how things ended in Imperial Rome where things on the overall were considerably better than in Republican Rome of late 2nd early 1st B.C. times. No wonder why Romans rarely dreamt of returning back to the Republic apart one-two efforts in late Imperial times when that was seen as a 'return to the roots' to save the Empire from falling apart and re-strengthen it. -
Message 8
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Saturday, 20th May 2006
Cicero was on the staff of Sulla when he and Marius were still on the same hymn sheet during the Social War, a deliberate choice as the Tullii and Marii were local rivals in Umbria, he left to join the retinue of Scaevelo before the Civil wars broke out. However Cicero made his name as a lawyer attacking the agents of Sulla rather than the man himself, most famously in the pro Roscio of 80BC where the case was turned from a land dispute with accusations of patricide to an exposure of the corruption at the heart of the Sullan regime although as Sulla was still in power at the time it was directed at his Greek agent Chrysogonus. Poor old roscio seems to have been quite forgotten in the whole affair however. He made further capital by prosecuting another Sullan partisan Verres for abuses during his governorship of Sicily. Caesar tried a similarlry populist approach but did not win his case and thus chose to rely on his defiance of Sulla's orders to divorce the daughter of a prominent Marian and marry a non patrician while assuming the head of the priestly college of Jupiter, a position that would disbar him from any magistracy incidentally, not to metion his exploits while in exile.
Sulla was not dictator for life however as the title was only invented for Caesar. He did revive the title dictator and held the post longer than the the traditional six months but renounced it three years after marching on Rome for the Second time. As Nick mentions the professionalisation of the army under Marius provided a temporary solution to the agrarian disputes that had first been adressed by the Gracchii. However the loyalty shown by both Marius and Sulla's troops to their respective Generals in the light of the Republic's failure to adequately pension off the large number of men under arms after the Social war did lead to the first civil war sparked by the intense rivalry between Sulla and Marius for the command of the Mithridates campaign. Marius popularity in the city of Rome resulted in his election to this command and prompted Sulla's initial march on Rome in 88BC. Still once the cat was out the bag a whole new generation of Roman youhs saw that the route to power was through the command and respect of an army. Pompeius Magnus didn't even go to the extent of standing for official magistracies to command an army, he just picked up his father's old partisans and joined Sulla in his second march on Rome and proceeded to flout most of the Sullan requirements on holding magistracies and military posts for much of his early carreer. Sulla thought it best to pack him off to Spain to put down the rebel Sertorius rather than have him steal his limelight in Rome. Pompey even reintroduced the tribunate's veto abolished under the Sullan reforms, in order to style himself as a populist once the dictator's name was mud. There again Sulla's restteled troops appear to have largely given up on farming and swiftly become desitute and ready for more military action, a factor Cataline hoped to exploit. -
Message 9
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Tuesday, 23rd May 2006
Hi DL,
I reckon that whilst Sulla's proscription lists did mark a high waterline of dictatorial activity they were not in and of themselves unrepublican in nature. Sulla was a republican, albeit of the oligarchic end of the scale. One has to remember the pupose of the role of dictator within the Roman context, which was a short period of absolute power to fix the problem that was assaulting the stability of the polity. Ehat was unusual with Sulla was that it was the first time that such authority had been focused inward on the body politic itself. Two consuls were supposed to represent two distinct branches of powere, home and abroad. It was envisaged as a tool for focusing military power into a single individual to avoid military command by committee at times of greatest danger. I do not think it was envisage as a thought police style that Sulla made it.
However, Marius was the more culpable for the end of the republic by far. Whatever about Sulla, he was trying to force people to revert to the old order, to a stylised concept of the proper place in society, an envisaged 'republican order' which favoured the aristocratic classes. He was anti-reform, despite instigating many reforms. Marius, on the other hand, was a progressive reformer who professionalised the army. In doing so he undermined the relationship between citizen and military, and what had been a militia of politically enfranchised citizens became an army for salary operating at the behest of a general who fixed their wages and controled their retiremnet allocation. The soldiers' loyalty was shifted from the state to the individual, and therefore legions became the private possessions of powerful individuals, Sulla included. Without the cult of personality that Marius instilled in his troops Caesar and Augustus would not have been able to achieve what they did.
The seeds to the end of the republic lie in privatisation of the armed forces.
Elistan -
Message 10
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 23rd May 2006
It is true that Marius was the archetype for Caesar who went so far as to restoring the statues that had been erected in honour of Marius' triumphs after they were torn down by Sullan supporters. The question is why does Marius become the savior in light of a fairly minor territorial dispute in North Africa against Jugurtha not to mention an incursion into the Transpodena by the Cimbri and Teutones. The expansion of Cato the Elder's style of estate management was rather problematic for the Roman Republics ability to field its military levies while the migration of farmers pushed off the land into the urban centres and then onto Rome had been having a detrimental effect on the allies ability to field their contributions as well.
Again I think the roots of Marius' actions need to be seen in the light of agrarian crisis as his suggestions of Italian mass enfranchisemnt and land redistribution echoe those of Gaius Gracchus. He just proposed they should redistribute the land in return for service in the military rather than simply because there was a lot of Italy owned by the Republic while there was a mass of landless poor in Rome, nobody seriously considering colonies outside Italy. The Republic had the chance to ratify Marius's proposal of how to disband his army but the constant obstructions put in the way seem to have lead his troops further down the road of placing their commanders interests as their own and this would have involved some persoanl loss to the other Senators and many of their Italian clients. In essence their refusal helped erode the traditional client networks of Italy. Livius Drusus was assassinated for threatening to do this legally by enfranchising the Italians sparking the Social war that saw numerous Roman armies active in Italy for the first time since the Hannibalic wars.
Of course the citizenship issue had been raised between the two Gracchi by Fulvius Flaccus after Tiberius initial land reforms worried many of the Italian and Latin client states. Fregulae revolted in 124 after Flaccus' bill was defeated. Gaius Gracchus and his supporters were put down by violent means for that matter so it seems there was a willingness to resort to public violence in defence of visions of the Republic from the 120s onwards in contrast to the more peaceful picture the Romans liked to paint of the Struggle of the Orders until the Lex Hortensia. The trouble was there was nothing to pay them with hence the great desire for command of the Eastern campaign. Despite winning Sulla probably loses on this count, firstly because his absence allowed the Marians free reign in Italy forcing him to march on Rome for a second time, it can be habit forming apparently, as well as because Sallust blames him for bringing back the trappings of Eastern luxury that corrupted the Italian spirit. In any case what did Sulla expect if his answer to the citizenship question involved sticking all the Italians in the last four tribes where their votes would hardly ever be called upon even to resolve issues that directly affected them, such as what decisions are taken over the distribution of state owned land. -
Message 11
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
Lolbeeble,
As insightful as ever.
I think one of the difficulties was that the defeat of Carthage and Corinth in 146BCE opened great wealth for the senatorial and especially the equestrian classes. It is notable that the agrarian difficulties that you highlight occur within a generation of this shift in economic activity, from an agrarian society with a land-based economy to a trading nation with a maritime economy. The vast wealth of Rome was not based on Italy's produce, but on the mediterrean trade that Rome found itself mistress of through the control of Sciliy, Libya, Greece and Spain. When Rome 'inherited' Pergamum in 133BCE their control of the activities around the mediterrean basin was even more copper-fasten.
The agrarian crisis was, in part, created by the vast unsubstantiated wealth that was flooding the peninsula. By this I mean that peasants were being priced off the land by people who did not need the land to return a economic surplus. The land was valued above what it could produce, and was being bought up the upper-classes for status rather that practical purposes. I would find it quite ironic if indeed it was Cato the Elder's system of estate management that heralded the end for the small freeholder upon which the original Roman militia had been based, considering his general repulsion for the hellenisation of the Roman state (which would include the professionalisation of the army).
I concur that Marius's reforms, if accepted in full, would not necessarily have lead to the cult of generalship that so marked the latter Republican/Imperial period. However, his quintessential for military service first and land second, a reversal on the traditional system. He also expected his trrops to serve much longer than heretofore required. His policy of hoovering up the most disenfranchised and placing them under a strong individual who was also to become their political voice was, with hindsight, a receipe for disaster. I do not persoanlly think that Marius was anti-republic for most of his career, and the struggle between him and Sulla was ultimately between two differing visions of what was meant by res publica. I think Marius was for the more inclusive interpretation, coming from a rural equestrian family himself, whilst Sulla was more exclusive, patrician, in his opinion as to what constituted the 'common wealth'. In the modern era we would use the terms 'left' and 'right' to express such divisions, but more with the american inflection than the European.
Elistan -
Message 12
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
Outstanding posts guys,
Many thanks! I am a bit of a novice when it comes to the Republican period, and posted this thread to try and clear up a few things in my mind, and this has helped immensely!
It may just be an irrelevance but to compare with modern history, I find Sulla reminds me greatly of Stalin! One who sits at the top of a power structure, whilst those below beaver away killing people in order to progress their careers, to keep the dictator's favour, and of course, to profit. Oppressive dictatorship, all in the name of SPQR....
Fascinating stuff!!
Thanks
DL -
Message 13
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
DL,
The Stalin comparison is not exactly fair or accurate. You have to remember that Sulla did relinquish his dictatorship, albeit after an extended period. He was more akin to rampaging seventeenth century Tory than a communist dictator. It is difficulty to use modern prarllels as the actions and events of that time have added an extra layer of complexity to our own political instutions. Sulla was a conservative who was intent on halting any changes that would have meant a power shift from the patrician class to the equestrians and nouveau riche.
elistan -
Message 14
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
an appendum
Bollingbroke with teeth -
Message 15
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
I have to laugh at that description-
A rampaging Tory! Hmmm I'm thinking is that mad woman from Grantham the reincarnation of old Sulla??
Thatcher would have had Scargill's name straight on the old proscription lists!!!
Thanks Elistan, hope the work's going well! -
Message 16
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
DL,
Actually, Maggie would have been exactly what Sulla wanted to stop. A jumped-up greengrocer's daughter thinking she was the equal of a patrician!
Elistan
On the thesis, slowly, slowly, chatchy-monkey! It has progressed over the last few months but its time to jump through the departmental hoops again. -
Message 17
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
The thesis sounds like it is progressing in the same manner as my writing. Sort of a semi-autobiographical account of the 1990s, which I had meant to be very serious, but anyone who has ever read parts of it is usual left laughing like the proverbial hyena, whilst saying "I know it shouldn't be funny, it's just the way it's written..." and DL scraps another chapter and starts again..... So far I must have written 1500 pages, yet only have about 150 completed.
Damned hard work. -
Message 18
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 24th May 2006
As such Tiberuius Gracchus became Tribune of the Plebs in 133BC at the time when Attalus' will was read bequeathing Pergamum to Rome. He used it to finance the agrarian reforms after the Senate refused to ratiy the laws passed in the popular assembly. His brother instituted the equestrian tax farmers in Asia and made them rather hard to prosecute for any abuses of their contracts because they were also given exclusive access to the juries in the lawcourts. In order to do this the Grachii first had to suggest that the will of the popular assembly had to take precedence over that of the Senate in contrast to the traditional order of government. As such Gaius' allowing the equestrians control of the law courts was intended to seperate the Senates control of this body.
People talk about the expansion of Roman committments abroad from but ti seems that Spain which saw contant military activity from the Haniiballic wars to the end of the Republic. certainly many of the longest serving troops were stationed and settled in Spain leaving their farmlands to lie fallow. There is also the fact that the reconquest of those Italian cities that fell to Hanibal saw an increase in the amount of land in the Republics possesion that could be sold onto Roman citizens as part of their punishment was the confiscation of the cities territory. Cato was a new man how else did he gain such a large number of estates? On top of that many of the traditional Roman smallholder families had been wiped out by Hanibals battles that allowed the survivorsd to buy their estates and increase their own status. One might argue that Cato could only really have used his military record to gain magistracies because there were so few of the old Patrician lines in existence. One might also note that he was the strongest exponent of destroying Carthage and enslaving its population. The extent the slave run estates had spread across Italy can be seen in the rapid escalation of Sparticus' slave rebellion in 75BC once the peninsular was less heavily concentrated with troops. -
Message 19
Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Thursday, 25th May 2006
Lol,
I am curious about something in your post. If the freeholders had been decimated by Hannibal's wars, who was flocking into the urban centres and eventually to Marius's legions?
I was aware that the Pergamum bequeath had been utilised by the Grachii for their Agrarian reforms, but it surely it would have destabilised the land prices as well as land was being purchased by money that was not generated by the land itself? We see the same thing happening in Europe today were trade/urban wealth is redistributed to the farmers in the form of CAP so as to enable them to kep abreast of an economic structure that has left them behind as the value of their land has outstripped their ability to finance it from their own produce. The rationalisation of agricultural practices into large holdings is a by-product of an economy no longer dependent on the agricultural sector for its wealth but merely its food and where in the manner day such rationalisation is facilitated by mechanical innovations in the late republic it was slavery.
As to the constitutional struggle between Senate and Common Council would it not be fair to say that the Grachiis were trying to reclaim authority and power to the councils that the Senate had accrued to itself? Technically speaking legislation was supposed to origante in the 'lower house' be discussed in the 'upper house' and ratified by the 'executive', although the executive had the power to peopse legislation to the lower house as well. In the post Hannibal period, though, the role of the council's was more and more sidelined by the oligrachic tendencies of the Senate. I do not claim altruism in the Grachiis actions, but a parallel, if one was required, could be seen eighteenth century England and the complaints of the Walpolian oligarchic model that allowed populists like Wilkes to reassert the claims of the commoners through the invocation of perceived ancient rights of representation (generally liked to Witan). Lucas in Dublin and Franklin in America argued in similar veins to the Grachiis in Rome.
Elistan -
Message 20
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 25th May 2006
Italians and Latin individuals who had taken advantage of Roman Civil laws like the Ius Migationis, Commercium and Connubium. Citizenship was based on residency rather than descent. During the fourth and third centuries BC this had primarily seen a net export of citizens from Rome into the Itlian peninsular in the shape of the Latin colonies but throughout the second century BC this trend was reversed and Roman censors regularly told those not registered on the civil rolls to clear off with little effect as their successor had to do the same five years later from the 180sBC onwards. In fact even more came back as Italians could gain Latin status through residency in a Latin colony and thus become eligable to resettle in Rome under the Civil Laws. This did lead to complaints that Rome was hoovering up all their best citizens and leaving them with hicks fresh from the hills who had no previous legal status in Latin colonies and thus no land in the community and thus could not contribute to Roman troop demands. Its all very well Marius professionalising his army but if the Italians still had to rely on an ever decreasing pool of landed citzens to meet their part of the bargain then they were perhaps justified in getting annoyed.
Hanibal's occupation of the south also helped to clear the landscape of many Italian smallholders by driving their owners into urban centres for security leaving their farms vacant. Many did not come back to claim their plots and those that tried to were often unable to guarantee their property rights as either their community had land confiscated by Rome or their smallholdings had been absorbed into larger estates aimed at commercial revenue not subsistence. One might note that in Bruttium the spread of Cattle ranching once Roman hegemony was reasserted after the second punic War forced many smallholders off their estates as they had no means of keeping the cows off their fields. Having lost everything they were in no position to chase their claims through the courts as the onus was on the taking such actions privately in the state courts.
As I understand it the Senate held Imperium by virtue of its traditional role as a debating chamber for the Patricians when they held exclusive access to both magistracies and priesthoods as well as control of the knowledge to the rites and formulae for the posts and ceromonies. Although no longer exlusivley Patrician it still maintained this role in spite of the Lex Hortensia's suggestion from 287BC that the will of the people was paramount given their role in puting down the combined Gallic, Umbrian Samnite and Etruscan forces at the battle of Sentinum. However it was SPQR not PSQR. In any case the Roman people were always wowed by an illustrious name and as such they had a tendency to ignore the Lex Licinae Sextae of 367BC that stated one consul had to of plebian descent. Such a situation only really came about on account of Hannibals success against Roman armies in the early years of the second Punic war.
It is true there was an inflationary trend on the price of land in Italy as more and more of the mediteraneans wealth wa sacked by Roman armies, on the other hand once the initial outlay on estates had been made getting slaved to work them got progressively cheaper and as such the movement from primarily subsiatence farming militias to cash crops to generate a private income. Of course Roman Senators were ideally placed to take advantage of this situation as their position in charge of campaigns and the distribution of booty in addition to their income from their own estates. Having said that there always was an inflated value of land in Italy because of the fact that status and suitability for government was defined in terms of the amount of landed wealth. Admittedly it was not as inlfated as under the Principate when non Italian senators had to own estates in the Italian peninsular to be eligable to sit in the Senate. All the same the land commision was painfully slow in any case given the unwillingness of many to have their land surveyed so it seems that they didn't get much chance to compensate those who lost territory in the attempts to reimpose the old land laws limiting estates to no more than 500 jugera. -
Message 21
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Friday, 26th May 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen, I claim my Β£5 reward for spotting that lolbeeble has finally, after many thousands of posts, actually made a typing error!!!
Excellent post though, just couldn't resist pointing it out!!
Cheers
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