CHAPTER XI

THE ROMAN STATE AND THE EMPIRE: 265–133 B. C.

The conquest of the hegemony of the Mediterranean world entailed the most serious consequences for the Roman state itself. Indeed, the wars which form the subject of the preceding chapters were the ultimate cause of the crisis that led to the fall of the Roman Republic. In the present chapter it will be our task to trace the changes and indicate the problems that had their origin in these wars and the ensuing conquests. Such a survey is best begun by considering the character of the Roman government during the epoch in question.

I. THE RULE OF THE SENATORIAL ARISTOCRACY

*The Senate’s control over the magistrates, tribunate, and assemblies.* From the passing of the Hortensian Law in 287 B. C. to the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 B. C. the Senate exercised a practically unchallenged control over the policy of the Roman state. For the Senate was able to guide or nullify the actions of the magistrates, the tribunate, and the assemblies; a condition made possible by the composition of the Senate, which, in addition to the ex-magistrates, included all those above the rank of quaestor actually in office, and by the peculiar organization and limitations of the Roman popular assemblies.

The higher magistrates were simply committees of senators elected by the assemblies. Their interests were those of the Senate as a whole, and constitutional practice required them to seek its advice upon all matters of importance. The Senate assigned to the consuls and praetors their spheres of duty, appointed pro-magistrates and allotted them their commands, and no contracts let by the censors were valid unless approved by the Senate. Except when the consuls were in the city, the Senate controlled all expenditures from the public treasury.

The chief weapon of the tribunes, their right of veto, which had been instituted as a check upon the power of the Senate and the magistrates, became an instrument whereby the Senate bridled the tribunate itself. For, since after 287 the plebeians speedily came to constitute a majority in the senate chamber, it was not difficult for this body to secure the veto of the tribunes upon any measures of which it disapproved, whether they originated with a consul or a tribune.

And, because the popular assemblies could only vote upon such measures or for such candidates as were submitted to them by the presiding magistrates, the Senate through its influence over magistrates and tribunes controlled both the legislative and elective activities of the comitia.

*The Senate and the public policy.* Since the Senate was a permanent body, easily assembled and regularly summoned by the consuls to discuss all matters of public concern, it was natural that the foreign policy of the state should be entirely in its hands—subject, of course, to the right of the Assembly of the Centuries to sanction the making of war or peace—and hence the organization and government of Rome’s foreign possessions became a senatorial prerogative. And, likewise, it fell to the Senate to deal with all sudden crises which constituted a menace to the welfare of the state, like the spread of the Bacchanalian associations which was ended by the _Senatus Consultum_ of 186 B. C. And, finally, the Senate claimed the right to proclaim a state of martial law by passing the so-called _Senatus Consultum ultimum_, a decree which authorized the magistrates to use any means whatsoever to preserve the state.

*Polybius and the Roman Constitution.* Thus in spite of the fact that the Greek historian and statesman, Polybius, who was an intimate of the governing circles in Rome about the middle of the second century B. C., in looking at the form of the Roman constitution could call it a nice balance between monarchy, represented by the consuls, aristocracy, represented by the Senate, and democracy, represented by the tribunate and assemblies, in actual practice the state was governed by the Senate. It is true that the Senate was not always absolute master of the situation. Between 233 and 217 B. C., the popular leader Caius Flaminius, as tribune, consul and censor, was able to carry out a democratic policy at variance with the Senate’s wishes, but with his death the control of the Senate became firmer than ever. From what has been said it will readily be seen that the Senate’s power rested mainly upon custom and precedent and upon the prestige and influence of itself as a whole and its individual members, not upon powers guaranteed by law. The Roman republic never was a true democracy, but was strongly aristocratic in character.

*The aristocracy of office.* The Senate was representative of a narrow circle of wealthy patrician and plebeian families, which constituted the new nobility that came into being with the cessation of the patricio-plebeian struggle and which was in truth an office-holding aristocracy. For, after the initial widening of the circle of families enobled by admission to the Senate, the third century saw these create for themselves a real, if not legal, monopoly of the magistracies and thus of the regular gateway to the senate chamber. This they could do because the expense involved in holding public offices, which were without salary, and in conducting the election campaigns, which became increasingly costly as time went on, deterred all but persons of considerable fortune from seeking office, and because the exercise of personal influence and the right of the officer conducting an election to reject the candidature of a person of whom he disapproved, made it possible to prevent in most cases the election of any one not _persona grata_ to the majority of the senators. It was only individuals of exceptional force and ability, like Cato the Elder, and in later times Marius and Cicero, who could penetrate the barriers thus established. Such a person was signalled as a _novus homo_, a “new-comer.”

*The goal of office.* While Rome was hard-pressed by her enemies and while the issue of the struggle for world empire was still in doubt, the Senate displayed to a remarkable degree the qualities of self-sacrifice and steadfastness which so largely contributed to Rome’s ultimate triumph, as well as great political adroitness in the foreign relations of the state. But with the passing of all external dangers, personal ambition and class interest became more and more evident to the detriment of its patriotism and prestige. Office-holding, with the opportunities it offered for ruling over subject peoples and of commanding in profitable wars, became a ready means for securing for oneself and one’s friends the wealth which was needed to maintain the new standard of luxurious living now affected by the ruling class of the imperial city. The higher magistracies were rendered still more valuable in the eyes of the senators when the latter were prohibited from participating directly in commercial ventures outside of Italy by a law passed in 219 B. C., which forbade senators to own ships of seagoing capacity, with the object probably of preventing the foreign policy of the state from being directed by commercial interests. As a consequence the rivalry for office became extremely keen, and the customary canvassing for votes tended to degenerate into bribery both of individuals and of the voting masses. In the latter case it took the form of entertaining the public by the elaborate exhibition of lavish spectacles in the theatre and the arena.

*Attempts to restrain abuses.* However, the sense of responsibility was still strong enough in the Senate as a whole to secure the passing of legislation designed to check this evil. The Villian law (_lex Villia annalis_) of 180 B. C. established a regular sequence for the holding of the magistracies. Henceforth the quaestorship had to be held before the praetorship, and the latter before the consulate. The aedileship was not made imperative, but was regularly sought after the quaestorship, because it involved the supervision of the public games and festivals, and in this way gave a good opportunity for ingratiating oneself with the populace. The tribunate was not considered as one of the regular magistracies, and the censorship, according to the custom previously established, followed the consulship. The minimum age of twenty-eight years was set for the holding of the quaestorship, and an interval of two years was required between successive magistracies. Somewhat later, about 151 B. C., re-elections to the same office were forbidden. In the years 181 and 159 B. C. laws were passed which established severe penalties for the bribery of electors. Another attempt to check the same abuse was the introduction of the secret ballot for voting in the assemblies. The Gabinian Law of 139 provided for the use of the ballot in elections; two years later the Cassian Law extended its use to trials in the _comitia_, and in 131 it was finally employed in the legislative assemblies.

But these laws accomplished no great results, as they dealt merely with the symptoms, and not with the cause of the disorder. And the Roman Senate, deteriorating in capacity and morale, was facing administrative, military, and social problems, which might well have been beyond its power to solve even in the days of its greatness. As we have indicated the Senate’s power rested largely upon its successful foreign policy, but its initial failures in the last wars with Macedonia and Carthage, and the long and bloody struggles in Spain, had weakened its reputation and its claim to control the public policy was challenged, from the middle of the second century B. C., by the new commercial and capitalist class.

*The Roman Constitution from 265 to 133 B. C.* During the period in question there were few changes of importance in the political organization of the Roman state. The dictatorship had been discarded, although not abolished, before the close of the Hannibalic War, a step which was in harmony with the policy of the Senate which sought to prevent any official from attaining too independent a position. In 242 B. C. a second praetorship, the office of the _praetor peregrinus_ or alien praetor was established. The duty of this officer was to preside over the trial of disputes arising between Roman citizens and foreigners. Two additional praetorships were added in 227, and two more in 197 B. C., to provide provincial governors of praetorian rank. In 241 B. C. the last two rural tribal districts were created, making thirty-five tribes in all. Hereafter when new settlements of Roman colonists were undertaken, or new peoples admitted to citizenship, they were assigned to one or other of the old tribes, and membership therein became hereditary, irrespective of change of residence.

*The reform of the centuries.* At some time subsequent to the creation of these last two tribes, very probably in the censorship of Flaminius in 220 B. C., a change was made in the organization of the centuriate assembly. The centuries were organized on the basis of the tribes, an equal number of centuries of juniors and seniors of each class being assigned to each tribe.(9) The reform was evidently democratic in its nature, as it diminished the relative importance of the first class, deprived the equestrian centuries of the right of casting the first votes—a right now exercised by a century chosen by lot for each meeting—and placed in control of the Assembly of the Centuries the same elements as controlled the Assembly of the Tribes.

*The comitia an antiquated institution.* But by the second century B. C. the Roman primary assemblies had become antiquated as a vehicle for the expression of the wishes of the majority of the Roman citizens, because with the spread of the Roman citizen body throughout Italy it was impossible for more than a small percentage to attend the meetings of the Comitia, and this situation became much worse with the settlement of Romans in their foreign dependencies. It was the failure of the Romans to devise some adequate substitute for this institution of a primitive city-state, which was largely responsible for the people’s loss of its sovereign powers. As it was, the assemblies came to be dominated by the urban proletariat, a class absolutely unfitted to represent the Roman citizens as a whole.

*The allies of Rome in Italy.* The Latin and Italian allies, with the exception of such as were punished for their defection in the war with Hannibal, remained in their previous federate relationship with Rome. However, the Romans were no longer careful to adhere strictly to their treaty rights, and began to trespass upon the local independence of their allies. Roman magistrates did not hesitate to issue orders to the magistrates of federate communities, and to punish them for failure to obey or for lack of respect. The spoils of war, furthermore, were no longer divided in equal proportions between the Roman and allied troops. Added to these aggravations came the fact that the allies were after all dependents and had no share in the government or the financial administration of the lands they had helped to conquer. But their most serious grievance was their obligation to military service, which was exacted without relaxation, and which, owing to reasons which we shall discuss later, had become much more burdensome than when originally imposed. It is not surprising, then, to find that by 133 B. C. the federate allies were demanding to be admitted to Roman citizenship.

However, it was not in Rome or in Italy, but in Rome’s foreign possessions that the important administrative development of the third and second centuries occurred.

II. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE PROVINCES

*The status of the conquered peoples.* The acquisition of Sicily in 241, and of Sardinia and Corsica in 238 B. C. raised the question whether Rome should extend to her non-Italian conquests the same treatment accorded to the Italian peoples and include them within her military federation. This question was answered in the negative and the status of federate allies was only accorded to such communities as had previously attained this relationship or merited it by zeal in the cause of Rome. All the rest were treated as subjects, not as allies, enjoying only such rights as the conquerors chose to leave them. The distinguishing mark of their condition was their obligation to pay a tax or tribute to Rome. Except on special occasions they were not called upon to render military service.

*The provinces.* At first the Romans tried to conduct the administration of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica through the regular city magistrates, but finding this unsatisfactory in 227 B. C. they created two separate administrative districts—Sicily forming one, and the other two islands the second—called provinces from the word _provincia_, which meant the sphere of duty assigned to a particular official. And in fact special magistrates were assigned to them, two additional praetors being annually elected for this purpose. In like manner the Romans in 197 organized the provinces of Hither and Farther Spain, in 148 the province of Macedonia, in 146 that of Africa, and in 129 Asia. Subsequent conquests were treated in the same way. For the Spanish provinces new praetorships were created, “with consular authority” because of the military importance of their posts. But for those afterwards organized no new magistracies were added, and the practice was established of appointing as governor an ex-consul or ex-praetor with the title of pro-consul or pro-praetor. This method of appointing provincial governors became, as we shall see, the rule for all provinces under the republican régime.

*The provincial charter.* Although each province had its own peculiar features, in general all were organized and administered in the following way. A provincial charter (_lex provinciae_) drawn up on the ground by a commission of ten senators and ratified by the Senate fixed the rights and obligations of the provincials. Each province was an aggregate of communities (_civitates_), enjoying city or tribal organization, which had no political bond of unity except in the representative of the Roman authority. There were three classes of these communities: the free and federate, the free and non-tributary, and the tributary (_civitates liberae et foederatae_, _liberae et immunes_, _stipendiariae_). The first were few in number and although within the borders of a province did not really belong to it, as they were free allies of Rome whose status was assured by a permanent treaty with the Roman state. The second class, likewise not very numerous, enjoyed exemption from taxation by virtue of the provincial charter, and this privilege the Senate could revoke at will. The third group was by far the most numerous and furnished the tribute laid upon the province. As a rule each of the communities enjoyed its former constitution and laws, subject to the supervision of the Roman authorities.

*The Roman governor.* Over this aggregate of communities stood the Roman governor and his staff. We have already seen how the governor was appointed and what was his rank among the Roman magistrates. His term of office was regularly for one year, except in the Spanish provinces where a term of two years was usual. His duties were of a threefold nature: military, administrative, and judicial. He was in command of the Roman troops stationed in the province for the maintenance of order and the protection of the frontiers; he supervised the relations between the communities of his province and their internal administration, as well as the collection of the tribute; he presided over the trial of the more serious cases arising among provincials, over all cases between provincials and Romans, or between Roman citizens. Upon entering his province the governor published an edict, usually modelled upon that of his predecessors or the praetor’s edict at Rome, stating what legal principles he would enforce during his term of office. The province was divided into judicial circuits (_conventus_), and cases arising in each of these were tried in designated places at fixed times.

*The governor’s staff.* The governor was accompanied by a quaestor, who acted as his treasurer and received the provincial revenue from the tax collectors. His staff also comprised three _legati_ or lieutenants, senators appointed by the senate, but usually nominated by himself, whose function it was to assist him with their counsel and act as his deputies when necessary. He also took with him a number of companions (_comites_), usually young men from the families of his friends, who were given this opportunity of gaining a knowledge of provincial government and who could be used in any official capacity. In addition, the governor brought his own retinue, comprising clerks and household servants.

*The provincial taxes.* The taxes levied upon the provinces were at first designed to pay the expenses of occupation and defence. Hence they bore the name _stipendium_, or soldiers’ pay. At a later date the provinces were looked upon as the estates of the Roman people and the taxes as a form of rental. The term _tributum_ (tribute), used of the property tax imposed on Roman citizens did not come into general use for the provincial revenues until a later epoch. As a rule the Romans accepted the tax system already in vogue in each district before their occupancy, and exacted either a fixed annual sum from the province as in Spain, Africa and Macedonia or one tenth (_decuma_) of the annual produce of the soil, as in Sicily and Asia. The tribute imposed by the Romans was not higher, but usually lower than what had been exacted by the previous rulers. The public lands, mines, and forests, of the conquered state were incorporated in the Roman public domain, and the right to occupy or exploit them was leased to individuals or companies of contractors. Customs dues (_portoria_) were also collected in the harbors and on the frontiers of the provinces.

*The tax collectors.* Following the custom established in Italy, the Roman state did not collect its taxes in the provinces through public officials but leased for a period of five years the right to collect each particular tax to the private corporation of tax collectors (_publicani_) which made the highest bid for the privilege. These corporations were joint stock companies, with a central office at Rome and agencies in the provinces in which they were interested. It was this system which was responsible for the greatest evils of Roman provincial administration. For the _publicani_ were usually corporations of Romans, bent on making a profit from their speculation, and practised under the guise of raising the revenue, all manner of extortion upon the provincials. It was the duty of the governor to check their rapacity, but from want of sympathy with the oppressed and unwillingness to offend the Roman business interests this duty was rarely performed. Hand in hand with tax collecting went the business of money lending, for the Romans found a state of chronic bankruptcy prevailing in the Greek world and made loans everywhere at exorbitant rates of interest. To collect overdue payments the Roman bankers appealed to the governor, who usually quartered troops upon delinquent communities until they satisfied their creditors.

*The rapacity of the governors.* A further source of misgovernment lay in the greed of the governor and his staff. The temptations of unrestricted power proved too great for the morality of the average Roman. It is true that there were not wanting Roman governors who maintained the highest traditions of Roman integrity in public office, but there were also only too many who abused their power to enrich themselves. While the shortness of his term of office prevented a good governor from thoroughly understanding the conditions of his province, it served to augment the criminal zeal with which an avaricious proconsul, often heavily indebted from the expenses of his election campaigns, sought to wring a fortune from the hapless provincials. Bribes, presents, illegal exactions, and open confiscations were the chief means of amassing wealth. In this the almost sovereign position of the governor and his freedom from immediate senatorial control guaranteed him a free hand.

*The quaestio rerum repetundarum: 149 B. C.* The mischief became so serious that in 149 B. C. the public conscience awoke to the wrong and ruin inflicted upon the provinces, and by a Calpurnian Law a standing court was instituted for the trial of officials accused of extortion in the provinces. This court was composed of fifty jurors drawn from the Senate and was presided over by a praetor. From its judgment there was no appeal. Its establishment marks an important innovation in Roman legal procedure in criminal cases. It is possible also that the Senate was encouraged to undertake the organization of new provinces shortly after 149 because it believed that this court would serve as an adequate means of controlling the provincial governors. But it was useless to expect very much from such a tribunal. The cost of a long trial at Rome, the difficulty of securing testimony, the inadequacy of the penalty provided, which was limited to restitution of the damage inflicted, as well as the fear of vengeance from future governors, would deter the majority of sufferers from seeking reparation. Nor could an impartial verdict be expected from a jury of senators trying one of their own number for an offense which many of them regarded as their prerogative. And so till the end of the republic the provincials suffered from the oppression of their governors, as well as from that of the tax-collectors.

III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

*Outstanding characteristics of the period.* The epoch of foreign expansion which we are considering was marked by a complete revolution in the social and economic life of Rome and Italy. It witnessed the spread of the slave plantations, the decline of the free Italian peasantry, the growth of the city mob of Rome, the great increase in the power of the commercial and capitalist class, and the introduction of a new standard of living among the well-to-do.

*The slave **plantations.* The introduction of the plantation system, that is, of the cultivation of large estates (_latifundia_) by slave labor, was the result of several causes: the Roman system of administering the public domain, the devastation of the rural districts of South Italy in the Hannibalic War, the abundant supply of cheap slaves taken as prisoners of war, and the inability of the small proprietors to maintain themselves in the face of the demands of military service abroad and the competition of imported grain as well as that of the _latifundia_ themselves.

The public domain that was not required for purposes of colonization had always been open for pasturage or cultivation to persons paying a nominal rental to the state. Those who profited most from this system were the wealthier landholders who could occupy and cultivate very considerable areas. This fact explains the senatorial opposition to the division and settlement of the _ager Gallicus_ proposed and carried by the tribune Flaminius in 233 B. C. The dangers of the practice to the smaller proprietors caused the passing of laws, probably late in the third century, which limited the amount of public land to be occupied by any individual and his family. But these laws were disregarded, for the Senate administered the public domain and the senators were the wealthy landholders. After several generations the public lands occupied in this way came to be regarded as private property. The havoc wrought by Hannibal in South Italy, where he destroyed four hundred communities, caused the disappearance of the country population and opened the way for the acquisition of large estates there, and the law which restricted the commercial activities of senators and forbade their engaging in tax collecting or undertaking similar state contracts encouraged them to invest their capital in Italian land and stimulated the growth of their holdings.

The change in agrarian conditions in Italy was also advantageous to large estates. The cheapness of Sicilian grain rendered it more profitable in Italy to cultivate vineyards and olive orchards, and to raise cattle and sheep on a large scale. For the latter wide acreages were needed: a summer pasturage in the mountains and a winter one in the lowlands of the coast. Abundant capital and cheap labor were other requisites. And slaves were to be had in such numbers that their labor was exploited without regard for their lives. Cato the Elder, who exemplified the vices as well as the virtues of the old Roman character, treated his slaves like cattle and recommended that they be disposed of when no longer fit for work. Often the slaves worked in irons, and were housed in underground prisons (_ergastula_). The dangers of the presence of such masses of slaves so brutally treated came to light in the Sicilian Slave War which broke out in 136 B. C., when over 200,000 of them rebelled and defied the Roman arms for a period of four years.

*The decline of the free peasantry.* Partly a cause and partly a result of the spread of the _latifundia_ was the decline of the free Italian peasantry. As we have seen, the competition of the slave plantations proved ruinous to those who tilled their own land. But another very potent cause contributing to this result was the burden imposed by Rome’s foreign wars. Since only those who had a property assessment of at least 4000 asses were liable to military service, and since the majority of Roman citizens were engaged in agricultural occupations, the Roman armies were chiefly recruited from the country population. And no longer for a part of each year only, but for a number of consecutive years, was the peasant soldier kept from his home to the inevitable detriment of his fields and his finances. Furthermore, a long period of military service with the chances of gaining temporary riches from the spoils of war unfitted men for the steady, laborious life of the farm. And so many discharged soldiers, returning to find that their lands had been mortgaged in their absence for the support of their families, and being unable or unwilling to gain a livelihood on their small estates, let these pass into the hands of their wealthier neighbors and flocked to Rome to swell the mob of idlers there. Then came the heavy losses of the Second Punic and the Spanish Wars. Although the census list of Roman citizens eligible for military service shows an increase in the first half of the second century B. C., between 164 and 136 it sank from 337,000 to 317,000. Yet the levies had to be raised, even if, as we have seen, they were unpopular enough to induce the tribunes to intercede against them. The Latin and Italian allies felt the same drain as the Roman citizens, but had no recourse to the tribunician intercession. The Senate was consequently brought face to face with a very serious military problem. The provinces, once occupied, had to be kept in subjection and defended. Since the Roman government would not, or dare not, raise armies in the provinces, it had to meet increasing military obligations with declining resources.

*The urban proletariat.* Another difficulty was destined to arise from the growth of a turbulent mob in Rome itself. This was in large measure due to Rome’s position as the political and commercial center of the Mediterranean world. By the end of this period of expansion the city had a population of at least half a million, rivalling Alexandria and Antioch, the great Hellenistic capitals. Although not a manufacturing city, Rome had always been important as a market, and now her streets were thronged with traders from all lands, and with persons who could cater in any way to the wants and the appetites of an imperial city. There was a large proportion of slaves belonging to the mansions of the wealthy, and of freedmen engaged in business for themselves or for their patrons. Hither flocked also the peasants who for various reasons had abandoned their agricultural pursuits to pick up a precarious living in the city or to depend upon the bounty of the patron to whom they attached themselves. Owing to the slowness of transportation by land and its uncertainties by sea, the congestion of population in Rome made the problem of supplying the city with food one of great difficulty, since a rise in the price of grain, or a delay in the arrival of the Sicilian wheat convoy would bring the proletariat to the verge of starvation. And upon the popular assemblies the presence of this unstable element had an unwholesome effect. Dominated as these assemblies were by those who resided in the city, their actions were bound to be determined by the particular interests and passions of this portion of the citizen body. Furthermore, in the _contiones_ or mass meetings for political purposes, non-citizens as well as citizens could attend, and this afforded a ready means for evoking the mob spirit in the hope of overawing the Comitia. This danger would not have been present if the Roman constitution had provided adequate means for policing the city. As it was, however, beyond the magistrates and their personal attendants, there were no persons authorized to maintain order in the city. And since the consuls lacked military authority within the _pomerium_, there were no armed forces at their disposal.

*The equestrian order.* The Roman custom of depending as much as possible upon individual initiative for the conduct of public business, as in the construction of roads, aqueducts and other public works, the operation of mines, and the collection of taxes of all kinds, had given rise to a class of professional public contractors—the _publicani_. Their operations, with the allied occupations of banking and money-lending, had been greatly enlarged by the period of war and conquest which followed 265 B. C. through the opportunities it brought for the exploitation of subject peoples. Roman commerce, too, had spread with the extension of Roman political influence. The exclusion of senators from direct participation in these ventures led to the rise of a numerous, wealthy and influential class whose interests differed from and often ran counter to those of the senatorial order. In general they supported an aggressive foreign policy, with the ruthless exploitation of conquered peoples, and they were powerful enough to influence the destruction of Carthage and Corinth. In the course of the second century this class developed into a distinct order in the state—the equestrians. Since the Roman cavalry had practically ceased to serve in the field, the term _equites_ came to be applied to all those whose property would have permitted their serving as cavalry at their own expense. The majority of these was formed by the business class, although under the name of equestrians were still included such members of the senatorial families as had not yet held office.

*The new scale of living.* In the course of their campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, the Romans came into close contact with a civilization older and higher than their own, where the art of living was practised with a refinement and elegance unknown in Latium. In this respect the conquerors showed themselves only too ready to learn from the conquered, and all the luxurious externals of culture were transplanted to Rome. But the old Periclean motto, “refinement without extravagance,” did not appeal to the Romans who, like typical _nouveaux riches_ vied with one another in the extravagant display of their wealth. The simple Roman house with its one large _atrium_, serving at once as kitchen, living room, and bed chamber, was completely transformed. The _atrium_ became a pillared reception hall, special rooms were added for the various phases of domestic life; in the rear of the _atrium_ arose a Greek peristyle courtyard, and the house was filled with costly sculptures and other works of art, plundered or purchased in the cities of Hellas. Banquets were served on silver plate and exhibited the rarest and costliest dishes. The homes of the wealthy were thronged with retinues of slaves, each specially trained for some particular task; the looms of the East supplied garments of delicate texture. A wide gulf yawned between the life of the rich and the life of the poor.

*Sumptuary legislation.* But the change did not come about without vigorous opposition from the champions of the old Roman simplicity of life who saw in the new refinement and luxury a danger to Roman vigor and morality. The spokesman of the reactionaries was Cato the Elder, who in his censorship in 184 B. C. assessed articles of luxury and expensive slaves at ten times their market value and made them liable to taxation at an exceptionally high rate, in case the property tax should be levied. But such action was contrary to the spirit of the age; the next censors let his regulations fall into abeyance. Attempts to check the growth of luxury by legislation were equally futile. The Oppian Law, passed under stress of the need for conservation in 215 B. C., restricting female extravagance in dress and ornaments, was repealed in 195, and subsequent attempts at sumptuary legislation in 181, 161, and 143, were equally in vain.

To resume: in 133 B. C. the Roman state was faced with a bitter contest between the Senate and the equestrians for the control of the government, the Comitia was dominated by an unstable urban proletariat, the provisioning of Rome was a source of anxiety, dissatisfaction was rife among the Latin and Italian allies, the military resources of the state were weakening, while its military burdens were greater than ever, and the ruling circles had begun to display unmistakable signs of a declining public morality. With a constitution adapted to a city-state Rome was now forced to grapple with all the problems of imperial government.

IV. CULTURAL PROGRESS

*Greek influences.* In addition to creating new administrative problems and transforming the economic life of Italy, the expansion of Rome gave a tremendous impulse to its cultural development. The chief stimulus thereto was the close contact with Hellenic civilization. We have previously mentioned that Rome had been subject to Greek influences both indirectly through Etruria and directly from the Greek cities of South Italy, but with the conquest of the latter, and the occupation of Sicily, Greece, and part of Asia Minor, these influences became infinitely more immediate and powerful. They were intensified by the number of Greeks who flocked to Rome as ambassadors, teachers, physicians, merchants and artists, and by the multitude of educated Greek slaves employed in Roman households. And as the Hellenic civilization was more ancient and had reached a higher stage than the Latin, it was inevitable that the latter should borrow largely from the former and consciously or unconsciously imitate it in many respects. In fact the intellectual life of Rome never attained the freedom and richness of that of Greece upon which it was always dependent. In this domain, as Horace phrased it, “Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror.”

*New tendencies in Roman education.* A knowledge of Greek now became part of the equipment of every educated man, the training of the sons of the well-to-do was placed in the hands of Greek tutors, who were chiefly domestic slaves, and the study of the masterpieces of Greek literature created the genuine admiration for Greek achievements and the respect that men like Flamininus showed towards their Greek contemporaries—a respect which the political ineptitude of the latter soon changed to contempt. These tendencies were vigorously opposed by the conservative Cato, who regarded Greek influences as demoralizing. Following the old Roman custom he personally trained his sons, and had no sympathy with a philhellenic foreign policy. But even Cato in the end yielded so far as to learn Greek. The chief patrons of Hellenism were men of the type of Scipio Africanus the Elder; notably Titus Flamininus, Aemilius Paulus and Scipio Aemilianus, at whose house gathered the leading intellectuals of the day. Intimate associates there were the Achaean historian Polybius and the Stoic philosopher Panaetius of Rhodes.

*Roman literature: I. Poetry.* More than anything else Greek influences contributed to the rise of Roman literature. Prior to the war with Hannibal the Romans had no literature, although Latin prose had attained a certain development in the formulation of laws and treaties and a rude Latin verse had appeared.

Not unnaturally Roman literature began with translations from the Greek, and here poetry preceded prose. In the latter half of the third century B. C., Livius Andronicus, a Greek freedman, translated the _Odyssey_ into Latin Saturnian verse, as a text-book for school use. He also translated Greek comedies and tragedies. At about the same time Cnaeus Naevius wrote comedies and tragedies having Roman as well as Greek subjects. He also composed an epic poem on the First Punic War, still using the native Saturnian.

Dramatic literature developed rapidly under the demand for plays to be presented at the public festivals. In the second century appeared the great comic poet Plautus, who drew his subjects from the Greek New Comedy, but whose metre and language were strictly Latin. He was followed by Terence, a man of lesser genius, who depended largely upon Greek originals, but who was distinguished for the purity and elegance of his Latin. A later dramatist of note was Lucius Accius, who brought Roman tragedy to its height. In both comedy and tragedy Greek plots and characters were gradually abandoned for those of native origin, but tragedy failed to appeal to the Roman public which was in general too uneducated to appreciate its worth and preferred the comedy, mime or gladiatorial combat. A notable figure is Ennius, a Messapian, who began to write at the close of the third century B. C. He created the Latin hexameter verse in which he wrote a great epic portraying the history of Rome from the migration of Aeneas. Another famous member of the Scipionic circle was Gaius Lucilius, a Roman of equestrian rank, who originated the one specifically Roman contribution to literary types, the satire. His poems were a criticism of life in all its aspects, public and private. He called them “talks” (_sermones_), but they received the popular name of satires because their colloquial language and the variety of their subjects recalled the native Italian medley of prose and verse, narrative and drama, known as the _satura_.

*II. Prose.* Latin prose developed more slowly. The earliest Roman historical works by Fabius Pictor (after 201 B. C.), Cincius Alimentus, and others, were written in Greek, for in that language alone could they find suitable models. It remained for Cato, here as elsewhere the foe of Hellenism, to create Latin historical prose in his _Origins_, an account of the beginnings of Rome and the Italian peoples written about 168 B. C. His earlier work on agriculture was the first book in Latin prose. The work of the Carthaginian Mago on the same subject was translated into Latin by a commission appointed by the Senate.

*Oratory.* The demands of public life in Rome had already created a native oratory. A speech delivered by Appius Claudius in 279 B. C. had been written down and published, as were several funeral orations from the close of the third century. But it was Cato who first published a collection of his speeches, about one hundred and fifty in number, which enjoyed a great reputation. A new impulse to this branch of literature was given by the introduction of the systematic study of rhetoric under the influence of Greek orators and teachers.

*Juristic writings.* In the field of jurisprudence the Romans at this period, were but little subject to Greek influences. The codification of the law in the fifth century B. C. had been followed by the introduction of new principles and forms of action, chiefly through the praetor’s edict. The necessity arose of harmonizing the old law and the new, and of systematizing the various forms of legal procedure. Roman juristic literature begins with Sextus Aelius Paetus (consul in 198 B. C.), surnamed Catus “the shrewd,” who compiled a work which later generations regarded as “the cradle of the law.” It was in three parts; the first contained an interpretation of the XII Tables, the second the development of the law by the jurists, and the third new methods of legal procedure. A knowledge of the law had always been highly esteemed at Rome and the position of a jurist consult, that is, one who was consulted on difficult legal problems, was one of especial honor. Consequently the study of the law, together with that of oratory, formed the regular preparation for the Roman who aimed at a public career.

*Religion.* Greek religion, like Greek literature, had attained a more advanced stage than that of Rome, and possessed a rich mythology when the Romans had barely begun to ascribe distinct personalities to their gods. Hence there came about a ready identification between Greek and Roman divinities to whom similar powers were ascribed and the wholesale adoption of Greek mythological lore. By the close of the third century B. C. there was formally recognized in Rome a group of twelve greater divinities who were identical with the twelve Olympic gods of Greece. There ensued also a rapid neglect of the minor Latin divinities whose place was taken by those of Greek origin. The old impersonal Roman deities had given place to anthropomorphic Hellenic conceptions. This is reflected in the acceptance of Greek types for the plastic representations of the gods, a strong demand for which arose with the acquaintance of the works of art carried off from Syracuse and other Greek cities. An important factor in this hellenization of the Roman religion was the influence of the Sibylline Books, a collection of Greek oracles imported from Cumae in the days of the Roman kings and consulted in times of national danger.

*The decree of the Senate against Bacchanalian societies: 186 B. C.* But Greek influence in the sphere of religion went deeper than the identification of Greek and Roman divinities, for the emotional cult of Bacchus with its mystic ceremonies and doctrines made its way into Italy where religious associations for its celebration were formed even in Rome itself. The demoralizing effects of this worship called forth a senatorial investigation which resulted, as we have seen, in the suppression of these associations. A similar action was taken with regard to the Chaldean astrologers, banished from Italy in 139 B. C.

*The worship of the Great Mother.* Of a different character was the cult of the Great Mother officially introduced into Rome in the year 204 B. C. This was in essence a native nature worship of Asia Minor, disguised with a veneer of Hellenism. It was the first of the so-called Oriental cults to obtain a footing in the Roman world.

*Skepticism and Stoicism.* Although the formalities of religion in so far as they concerned public life were still scrupulously observed, there was an ever increasing skepticism with regard to the existence and power of the gods of the Graeco-Roman mythology. This was especially true of the educated classes, who were influenced to a certain extent by the rationalism of Euhemerus, whose work on the origin of the gods had been translated by Ennius, but much more by the pantheism of the Stoic philosophy. The Stoic doctrines, with their practical ethical prescriptions, made a strong appeal to the Roman character and found an able expositor in Panaetius of Rhodes who taught under the patronage of Scipio Aemilianus.

*Public festivals.* Of great importance in the life of the city were the annual public festivals or games, of which six came to be regularly celebrated by the middle of the second century, each lasting for several days. Five of these were celebrated by the aediles, one by the city praetor. A fixed sum was allotted by the state to defray the expenses of these exhibits, but custom required that this must be largely supplemented from the private purse of the person in charge. In this way the aedileship afforded an excellent opportunity to win public favor by an exhibition of generosity. To the original horse and chariot races there came to be added scenic productions, wild beast hunts, and gladiatorial combats, in imitation of those exhibited by private persons. The first private exhibition of gladiators was given at a funeral in 264 B. C., and the first wild beast hunt in 186 B. C. These types of exhibitions soon became the most popular of all and exercised a brutalizing effect upon the spectators.

*The city Rome.* The growth of Rome in population and wealth brought about a corresponding change in the appearance of the city. Tenement houses of several stories and high rentals reflected the influx into the capital. Public buildings began to be erected on a large scale. The Circus Flaminius dates from the end of the third century, and several basilicas or large public halls, suitable as places for transacting business or conducting judicial hearings, were erected by 169 B. C. A new stone bridge was built across the Tiber, a quay to facilitate the unloading of ships was constructed on the bank of the river, a third aqueduct brought into the city, and stone paving laid on many streets. Many temples were erected, adorned with votive offerings, mainly spoils of war from Greek cities. But no native art or architecture arose that was worthy of the imperial position of Rome.