David said:
> Wasn't that the time that led into the Gracci and then
> Spartacus?
The problems during the tribunates of the Gracchi were caused by social
changes brought on my the Second and Third Punic Wars and the various
wars against Hellenistic monarchies and Spanish tribes and the like in
the second century BC. Up to the time of the Second Punic War, the
Roman army was essentially made up of amateur soldiers who worked as
farmers between wars. Indeed, there was a minimum property
qualification that ensured that the soldiers would be able to return to
civil life when discharged. The Roman entanglements with the wider
world lead to the rise of professional soldiers who were out of Italy
for many years, and to provide enough manpower the property
qualifications were gradually relaxed (they were eventually discarded
entirely by Marius in 100BC[?]).
On returning to civilian life, these soldiers were generally absorbed
into the urban poor ("proletarii"), the land in Italy having been
largely converted into large farming estates bought by those enriched
by the foreign wars and farmed by the slaves brought to Italy as
prisoners of war. The proletarii formed the base of power of the
Gracchi, who followed a campaign of agrarian reform aimed at returning
them to the land. Unfortunately, when veterans were settled on the land
they weren't available to vote in Rome, and so the partial success of
the Gracchi brothers partially undermined their base of power and in
the end resulted in their violent deaths. Nevertheless, even many of
the optimates (the "noble" party) among the Senate eventually adopted
semi-Gracchan land policies.
And, as I mentioned earlier, it was the failure of the Republic to
provide for ex-soldiers that caused active soldiers to look to their
generals for a secure future, and hence to the rise of the war-lords
(Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Antony, Octavian and the rest) in the mid
first century BC and eventually to the establishment of the Augustan
monarchy.
Rich
GCU History Lesson
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