218 – 202: The Second Punic War
• Hannibal is defeated at Zama
by Scipio Africanus
• Rome becomes ruler of the
Mediterranean (Mare Nostrum)
• The army is
needed to
protect the new
empire of
Rome.
Enlistment is
for six years.
•Because of the length of enlistment, many
soldiers lose their family farms, and go to
Rome, becoming part of the Head Count
(capiti censi)
133 BC Tiberius Gracchus
• To deal with the problems of
increasing landless poor in Rome,
and the dwindling numbers of
landowners for the army, Tiberius
proposed a land grant to the poor, to
be taken from the ager publicus, the
public lands.
• At this point, the ager publicus is largely leased by owners
of latifundia, large industrial farms, run on slave labor. If
Gracchus’s bill goes through, the owners of these large
farms will lose money.
• The Senate refuses to approve of the bill
133 BC Tiberius Gracchus
• Tiberius bypasses the Senate to
bring the vote to the plebs.
• Marcus Octavius, a tribune attempts to
veto the bill, Tiberius postpones the vote.
•Octavius interposes his veto twice more,
Tiberius responds by having him removed
from the Tribunate.
•The agrarian law passes
133 BC Tiberius Gracchus
• The Senate refuses to fund the Agrarian
commission
•King Attalus of Pergamum dies, leaving
his country to Rome in a will; Tiberius
says he plans to use some of the money
for his land reform.
• Graccus announces his intention to run for a
second tribunate, a violation of the mos
maiorum.
133 BC Tiberius Gracchus
•132 BC, in the face of violence
by the mob, Publius
Cornelius Scipio Nasica, the
Pontifex Maximus takes
action.
• Nasica and his followers beat Gracchus and
his supporters to death, and dump the
bodies into the Tiber.
• Violence as a political tool is now a part of
Roman life.
122 BC Gaius Gracchus
• 123 BC, elected tribune of the
plebs
• 123 BC, Lex Sempronia passed, forbidding
the execution of a Roman citizen without a
trial before the comita centuriata.
•123 BC Lex Frumentaria, subsidizing cheap
grain prices for all citizens
• 123 BC Lex Militaris, subsidizing the costs of
military clothing and equipment
122 BC Gaius Gracchus
• 122 BC, “spontaneously “ elected
a second tribunate
•122 BC, Lex repetundis, changing extortion
trial juries from the Senate to the equites.
•122 BC proposed a bill granting full
citizenship to Latin Allies, and limited voting
rights to the rest of Italy
122 BC Gaius Gracchus
• 121 BC, open efforts to repeal
Gaius’s legislation
•At a public meeting in the forum, a dispute
between supporters of Gaius and Senatorial
opponents, Senator Quintus Antyllius is killed
•The Senate authorizes the consul Lucius
Opimius to take steps that the Republic take
no harm: Senatus Consultum Ultimum
122 BC Gaius Gracchus
•Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus
take refuge on the Avetine hill
•Gracchus, Flaccus and his eldest and
youngest sons, and hundreds of followers
are killed when troops march against
them.
Gaius Marius
•A novus homo, Marius is
elected consul in 107 BC,
commissioned to finish the
war in Numidia with
Jurgurtha
• In order to fill out the depleted
legions, Marius opens up the
army to the head count (non
land owners)
Gaius Marius
• The poor sign up in large
numbers, motivated by the
promise of wages for service,
promises of bonuses, and land
after their service is over
• The soldiers see their generals
as their source of economic
stability, resulting in divided
loyalties
Gaius Marius
•In his consulship of 100 BC,
Marius attempts to get land
grants promised for his
soldiers
•100 BC, Lucius Appuleius
Saturninus, a tribune of the
plebs, forces through legislation
for the land grants, despite bad
omens, with the help of Marius’s
veterans
Gaius Marius
•Saturninus passes a law
requiring the Senate to
swear to uphold the law
•100 BC Consular elections
produce gang violence,
Saturninus and Servilius
Glaucia take refuge on
Capitoline Hill
•The Senate passes the Senatus Consultum
Ultimum.
Gaius Marius
•Marius takes Saturninus and
Glaucus and their followers
into custody, locking them in
the Curia Hostilia for
safekeeping until trial.
•A crowd stones them to
death with roofing tiles. No
arrests are made.
Setting the Stage
•Due to an increasing military commitment,
land-owning soldiers serve longer in the army,
losing their land due to debt to the owners of
the latifundia.
•The landless poor move to Rome, straining the
city’s resources, providing a large group of
people for ambitious politicians.
•The Senate is eager to preserve the privileges of
the Patrician class, and blocks all legislation
aimed to help the poor.
Setting the Stage
•When faced with threats to their privileges,
the Senate reacts with violence, and
ultimately turns to the Senatus Consultum
Ultimum as a means of suppressing rebellion
•When the army is opened up to the Head
Count, soldiers feel greater loyalty to the
general promising wealth and land than to the
Senate or People of Rome.
•When grievances are not addressed, many turn
to revolution.
•Italian Social War 91 BC – 89 BC
•Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix
• Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo
• Gnaeus Pompeius (Magnus)
•Lucius Sergius Catilina
•Marius v. Sulla 89 BC – 82 BC
•M. Aemilius Lepidus 77 BC
• Killed by Q. Lutatius Catulus under
the authority of the Senatus Consultum
Ultimum
Catilinarian Conspiracy
• Lucius Sergius Catilina, an impoverished member of
the Patrician class sought to overthrow the Senate and
establish himself as Dictator in 63 BCW
• Eventually thwarted by Cicero, he dies in a battle in
Etruria, at the head of his army
Rise of the Street Gangs
• Milo v. Clodius
• Pompey granted sole consulship in 52 BCE to
quell the problem
The First Triumvirate
60 BCE
• Crassus, Pompey and Caesar form an
unofficial coalition to support each other’s
political ambitions
• The Triumvirate holds until the deaths of
Crassus at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE and
Julia, daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompey,
who died in childbirth in 54 BCE
End of the Republic
• Julius Caesar is made governor of Gaul for 10
years, where he seizes the opportunity of a
migration of Celtic tribes to begin a series of wars;
• Cato, Caesar’s implacable enemy, plans to
prosecute Caesar for corruption when Caesar’s
imperium is exhausted, Caesar’s only hope is to
be able to secure another consulship in order to
avoid prosecution, Cato blocks his attempt.
End of the Republic
• To safeguard his dignitas (and avoid
prosecution), Caesar brings his army
across the Rubicon river on January 10,
49 BCE, uttering the phrase alea iacta
est.
•The Senate commissions Pompey to lead an army
against Caesar. Pompey promptly evacuates Rome for
Greece, where he and Caesar meet at the battle of
Pharsalus, and Caesar defeats Pompey
• Within a year, Caesar has defeated all of his opposition,
and claims the status of Dictator, to restore the Republic
“Beware the Ides of March!”
• Claiming to want to save the Republic from Caesar,
a group of senators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus,
assasinates Caesar in the Theater of Pompey, 15 Mar
44 BCE
• Their ambition to save the Republic failed miserably.
• The Senate later brands the conspirators as
enemies of the state, and commissions Marcus
Antonius and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus to
hunt them down;
• Antony forms the Second Triumvirate with
Octavian and Lepidus;
• The forces of Antony and Octavian meet at the
battle of Philippi, October 42 BCE. Antony and
Octavian win
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The triumvirs divide up the governance of the Roman
world: Antony takes the east, Octavian the West,
Lepidus is made Pontifex Maximus, and an
understanding is reached with Sextus Pompeius, son of
Pompey;
In 36 BCE, Octavian defeats Sextus Pompeius
In 31 BCE, tensions between Octavian and Antony
come to a head, and their opposing forces meet at
Actium.
• Octavian wins.
• Antony and Cleopatra both commit suicide, and
Octavian retains sole authority over Rome
• In 27 BCE, Octavian “returns” his powers to the
Senate, for which they name him “Augustus”.
• In his autobiography, Augustus would write that
“After that time I excelled all others in dignity, but of
power I held no more than those who were my
colleagues in any magistracy.”