Julio-Claudian Equestrians

How important was the rise of the equites class in the changes in the Republic to Empire? What role did these "new men" play in imperial administration?

Sir, if you asked Jacob Abbott who wrote extensively about the period preceding the Julio-Claudians.  He takes the view that a Roman middle class per se "the equites" did not exist the way you and I conceive them to exist:

"Then they were not interested, as men are now, in the pursuits and avocations of private industry. The people of Rome were not a community of merchants, manufacturers, and citizens, enriching themselves, and adding to the comforts and enjoyments of the rest of mankind by the products of their labor. "

That view is incorrect.  Abbot's claim of a Roman dearth of industry flies in the face of centuries of archeological work that asserts quietly that Rome was "a community of merchants, manufacturers, and citizens, enriching themselves, and adding to the comforts and enjoyments of the rest of mankind by the products of their labor."

Rome always had new men rise and fall in the history of the Republic.  Rome held a cultural prejudice against such men whether they by Marcus Tullius Cicero or Gaius Flaminius

Polybius wrote that the authors of the Roman constitution adhered to the ideas of Lycurgus which warned that the aristocrats would vie against one another placing one ahead of the other in the acquisition of wealth.  Thus the Roman Republic had in it legislation that was distributive in nature.

At the end of the second Punic war, the Senate relaxed such legislation.  Thus the middle class that emerged and yes I concede the premise incased in your question that a middle class did emerge.  I do not think the Imperial constitution had much with that rise of the middle class.  What the Imperial constitution did provide was respite from the violence of the Civil Wars that ended the Republic.

Professor Rufus Fears recounts a story of how fisherman saluted Gaius Octavius Thurinius (Augustus) toward the end of his life and how they thanked him for establishing peace and that peace made them rich.

The glow of the Octavian reign we tend to generalize Julio-Claudian as stable and prosperous.  That is not so and we see it instability and poverty in the careers of its prominent equestrians.  Shall we forget the mass political murder of Sejanus?  The ladder that Naevius Sutorius Macro climbed up?  Shall we forget whose bed that Claudius' most trusted advisor Marcus Antonius Pallas shared?  For every Pliny the Elder there are legions of equestrian intriguers and hatchet men willing to enrich themselves in the folly of evil.

Certainly we cannot point the finger of a total collapse to Caesar:

Certainly we cannot point the finger of a total collapse to Caesar:  

We most certainly can point to Caesar as the main culprit in killing the Republic.  For he succeeded where so many failed.  Roman had would be tyrants before.  The most conspicuous tyrant of the Early Republic was Appius Claudius Crassus or the innumerable tribunes who agitated against Rome in times of peace and on the brink of war for real and IMAGINARY offenses against the people.
he neither created it nor could he stop it.  
 I am sorry.  I can't seem to neglect this nasty little detail of history that a one Gaius Julius Caesar, consul of 59 BC beat up and placed his colleague Bibulus under house arrest.  How is that Constitutional?

It is also a bit curious that his nephew's father, the popular and able Governor of Macedonia - Gaius Octavius dies under mysterious circumstances - much like Caesar's own father.  I suppose in the absence of forensic evidence we must therefore absolve Caesar of foul play or the instance of foul play in the death of Octavian's father - distant relative to consul Gnaeus Octavius.

Then for seven years, Caesar had a let loose a vicious little tyrant named Clodius to savage the rights of noble Romans while he waged his wars in Gaul.

Think what the world would be if Caesar was a Republican, an Optimate or even a humanitarian Populare like Sertorius.
No I am afraid Caesar is a name that will live in infamy.  We must look at him as kind of Hitler had Hitler died in 1942 instead of gambling his losses for another three years.  Even the most dedicated Casareans of which they are legion in this study of history must concede the list of Caesar's accomplishments were born the backs and blood of his countrymen.
It was a series of several actions, achievements, and social conditions . . . Social problems evolved continually, even with periods we may define as stable times.

That is the human condition.  Why is that the ship of state in republics, democratic or even monarchical governments sail through changing times of actions, achievement and social conditions yet in one circumstance a people thrive whether it be Rome after the Samnite War, the Westward Expansion or the Glorianna and yet the in same set of relative circumstances, the people fall apart? 

It is not to say that Character counts, in this instance Character is the only thing can reasonably explain what happened here. 


But through the years, its expansionist policies created difficulties in the political scene.  
Aesop's fable of the Man and the Satyr illustrate the foolishness of this argument.

A Man had lost his way in a wood one bitter winter's night. As he was roaming about, a Satyr came up to him, and finding that he had lost his way, promised to give him a lodging for the night, and guide him out of the forest in the morning. As he went along to the Satyr's cell, the Man raised both his hands to his mouth and kept on blowing at them. "What do you do that for?" said the Satyr.

"My hands are numb with the cold," said the Man, "and my breath warms them."

After this they arrived at the Satyr's home, and soon the Satyr put a smoking dish of soup before him. But when the Man raised his spoon to his mouth he began blowing upon it. "And what do you do that for?" said the Satyr. "The soup is too hot, and my breath will cool it."

"Out you go," said the Satyr. "I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath."

So I ask you sir, why is it that Rome's unbroken expansion from the first king of Rome to the end of the Hannibalic wars bespoke well of the Romans, but all expansion subsequent Hannibal bespoke ill of the Romans?

Two men grow wealthy in the enterprise of business - one man is enriched by his wealth and another man broke by it.  Shall we outlaw wealth because the weakness of the second man?  Or should we instead the study the hallmark's of the first man's character?

Without a beginning and an ending of the death of the Republic centered on character the rest of this discussion of factors and causes is a lot of cacafuego.

The way the Senate governed did not help.    

The Senate reflects what?  A representative body of the character of the people, therefore we may presume that the Senate as an institution failed but in doing so we forget that the people that comprised that institution caused it to fail as an institution cannot EXIST without people!
Rivalries created severe problems in a system that was weakening.  There was always conflict within the Senate that divided the people. 

Again you seem to validate my argument in your escape for rivalries are human nature.  It is how we dispose of these rivalries that speak to our character.

Would it be fair to say that the Republic's constitution, while fine for a city-state, was inadequate for a rapidly expanding empire?

Absolutely NOT!

The constitution of the Roman Republic served the Senate and People of Rome for 727 years.  It was her people that failed her.  The promises of a tyrant seduced the people of Rome to surrendering their liberty.

"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes."

-- Thomas Paine

"The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell."

-- Karl Popper

"The people never give up their liberty but under some delusion."

-- Edmund Burke, 1784 

The idle promises of the Gracchii, Marius, Caesar and the Julio-Claudian dynasty, what did it ever do for the Roman state?  The problem with modern historians is that we take these men at their word when they promise the people wealth provided they steal from Peter.  They say that Caesar killed one million Gauls and enslaved another million.  How many Romans did he kill?  How many did Marius kill at his last grasp for the Consulship?

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." 

--Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4,1777 

Why did the Senate and People of Rome allow Clodius (caesar's stooge) to exile Cicero?  Why did they not stand by him when he opposed Antony or stand by the Liberators?

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)

The temporary safety offered by Octavian did not stop the Senate and People of Rome from starving when Antony withheld the Egyptian grain.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

-- Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884)

"Eternal vigilance is required and there have to be people who step up to the plate, who believe in liberty, and who are willing to fight for it."

-- Milton Friedman

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”

-- Edmund Burke

Mr. Freeman's comment on the death of the Republic is less than papal.

According to Charles Freeman, “In the third and early second centuries it had maintained an aura of competence and stability and although its legal powers were limited it had dominated the decision making process.”1 For a long time the senate’s authority was respected. As Freeman states, “Unfortunately the senate’s aura was easily dissipated through its own incompetence and political clumsiness.” 

If this was true, then why did Rome go to war with Carthage in the first place?  It went to war haphazardly and piecemeal fashion.  Why did it suffer so many set backs when at the brink of victory?  This is not a decision of a competent or stable body.  

Secondly, if it was such a stable and competent body, then why did it not assess, anticipate and dispose of Hannibal, Field Marshal of Carthage?

The Senate is like any other legislature stacked full of incompetent and unstable people.  Further, democratic governments like the Republic are by their very nature fraught with instability.  One man governs the will of many in a kingdom.  In a Republic, men are made to govern themselves.  The tales told by Livy are ones were the Romans teetered back and forth between peace and revolution even as the Volscians encamped at the gate.

The reason why the Roman Republic fell is as simple and as straightforward as there are 60 second in a minute and 24 hours in a day.  Men just did not care for the Republic anymore.  They surrendered the only vehicle that secured their liberty for a bit of bread, a bribe, an Alban Villa, and the applause of an up and coming politician.  

Do you think the men of like Cincinnatus would have resorted to Milo  in dealing with Clodius?  How would Camillus dealt with Caesar or Gracchus?  Cicero and Cato tried to tame the beasts of their time.  They prevailed on Pompey and Cicero almost succeeded in co-opting Caesar.  The Liberators won their early battles against Antony.  For every angling tyrant like Octavian and Lepidus, men devoid of self control like Dolabella, Caitline and Curio that might have made the difference in preserving the Republic, but whose moment had come and gone because they could not see clear.  They had chosen to pursue foolish things.

2 Because the empire became so large and because of rising social tensions at home, there were challenges which the senate was unable to meet.
This statement is stupid.  The Rome expanded its territory exponentially when it was a Republic and only gradually and then lost territory exponentially in a monarchy.  Freeman has it wrong.
   The senate also did not have a monopoly on power, as other men were becoming powerful. For instance, when Pompey rose to power and acquired a command, this caused the senate’s power to be lessened and made impotent. 

Other men became powerful in Rome, because of what?  There were always powerful men in Rome since its founding.  For 727 years, Cicero's words "Cedant togae arma"  was a way of life for the Romans.  Force of arms, violence, the willingness to fight brother against brother - that spirit backed the strong men that came of age in the time of Caesar and those men Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus had predecessors in Gracchus,  Saturninus, Sulpicious, Cinna and Fimbria.

What fate does a man of honor have when he is surrounded by knaves?  Ask Cato.  Ask Cicero, Labienus, and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica.  Ask Brutus why the Republic fell.

It remained for awhile because it had been so powerful. Even when Pompey had power to overthrow the senatorial government, he did not do so. 

Marius financed his legions.  You cannot overthrow a government without perverting the morals of the Army.  When the Army pledges its loyalty to men and not the state, then we have a nation of men and not laws.  This is how the Republic DIED!!!

Response to comments about the Death of Roman Republic

 "First the land reforms and grain price fixing of the Gracchi brothers led to large scale political unrest."

 The Roman constitution had remained unchanged for a number of years.  Secondly what changes the Romans occurred gradually.  The fact is the the Romans since the early days of the Republic had purchasing grain at low prices during periods of famine since the dawn of the Republic.

"Next the addition of 300 equestrian senate seats by the dictator Sulla created more unrest."

The increase of membership of the world's most powerful legislature no doubt diluted the power of each individual Senator.  But is the dilution of senatorial power enough to cause a riot?  Which did happen quite frequently during the last days of the Republic, I don't think so.

The Optimates in the Senate who survived Marius' death squads rallied around Sulla as a dictator to reconcile the Constitution as the office of Tribune used by Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus became a vehicle for tyranny and demagoguery.  Plutarch's Life of Marius, Crassus and Antony bears this out.   

The Death of the Republic

What were the major dynamics that contributed to the decline of the Roman Republic in terms of the constitution by the 1st century BC?
We attribute Edmund Burke for observing "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."   When the Republic dies, it dies because the enemies of liberty overwhelmed the defenders of liberty.  It was true in Caesar's day as it was in Tsar Nicholas' day, Tadeusz Kościuszko's day or the days of the Weimar Republic.

Just as our oath to the Constitution warns against enemies both foreign and domestic: Romans stood vigil against the enemies of liberty thwarting the designs of men like Tarquin the Proud and Appius Claudius.  Rome resisted these men simply put because the defenders of liberty had more strength in numbers and in force of character than the enemies of liberty.

The question before is "What were the major dynamics that contributed to the decline of the Roman Republic in terms of the constitution by the 1st century BC?"  But the question before us should be "Who contributed to the decline of the Roman Republic in terms of the constitution by the 1st century BC?"

Those enemies of Roman liberty were Gaius Julius Caesar, Octavian Caesar, Gaius Marius, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Mark Antony, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Caitline,  Pompey, Saturninius, Suplicius, and the legion of sycophants, fools, traitors and changelings that surrendered their liberty to be lackeys of these dangerous blood thirsty men.    Men like Annius, Asiaticus, Flaccus, Fimbria and to a degree Sertorius.

The last Roman Marcus Tullius Cicero died a patriot's death at the hands of an executioner in 43 BC.  When he died, so did dreams of Roman liberty - NEVER TO BE RECOVERED.

One last thing about Cicero, Cicero was one of the greatest Romans to live since Camillus.  Cicero, this novus homo who defended Sextus Roscius, convicted Gaius Verres in all but name, exposed and crushed the Caitline conspiracy, guided the ship of state through the tumult of the triumvirate, waged a Fabian strategy against the illegal dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar and blunted the mad tyranny of Mark Antony.

All men must die, but not all men truly live.
Braveheart

"Where did we get such men?"
The Bridges of Toko Ri James Michener

A comment about Roman religion

Flamen Dalis - a priest of Jupiter

Every Roman was a priest, a prophet and a king in his own home.  He was a priest and called to live in accord with the gods - that meant he had to be moral and seek the harder right over the easier wrong.  To do otherwise is to invite a curse on him and whom ever he came into contact with.  

Romans worked hard to live pious lives.  You hear that over and over again in the lives written by Plutarch and the works of Virgil.  The word sacred comes from the latin word sacer.

The Roman pagan ethos was fertile ground for the Christianity that would ripen there.

The Greeks and proto-Romans have been in contact with each other since the Greek colonization starting in the 8th century BC.  This is incidentally when the Phoenicians - the mythical Queen Dido -  established the city of Carthage.

The Greeks influenced the proto-Romans whether they be Latins, Etruscans and Umbrian or Italiac peoples.  And the Near Eastern peoples of the Levant and modern day Iraq influenced the Greeks.   There is evidence that Ishtar is Isis and Isis is Aphrodite (Julius Caesar's great great great granny - Venus goddess of love.)  That is not clear what is clear is that these peoples traded amongst each other and that ideas as far away as the Indus river valley influenced the Greco-Roman world.

They did not worship astrology.  Worship is when you sacrifice something to a deity.  Religion, as it is today, the nexus of science, politics, philosophy, trade and culture.  The word culture derives itself from the word cult.  Priests studied the stars and astrological charts in order to give farmers accurate information about the seasons and when to have feast days. Politicians who were also priests interpreted star charts and delayed political votes to garner the opinions of the Gods.  These priests had intramural debates amongst themselves.  They organized colleges of priests and developed a hierarchy.

Omens factored into their lives.  Astrology, dreams, the auspices these are the communication that occurred with the physical world and the mystical world of beyond. 

If the omens were bad, someone else would take them until they were good or they went somewhere else.  It did influence their decisions as prayer does today.  They also prayed.  

Here is a picture I took of the Getty Villa a replica of the destroyed villa in Herculaneum, a neo-Greek playground in the Campagnia province for the Rich and Famous.  Think Roman Vegas!

The Romans had a personal relationship with the gods.  They refer to them often.

Polytheistic religions tend to be additive.  When two civilizations meet their gods would marry each other.  They would conquer peoples who had different gods and the conquered peoples gods would find their way into the public square as one generation would be raised by the enemy in the form of a slave.  They kidnapped gods.  They invited gods into their cities which the Romans did with Venus Eryx when Hannibal threatened to annihilate Rome.

They didn't make these gods up like the god of finding lost stuff or the god of the nice smelling latrine.  These gods were either historical persons who achieved greatness like Hercules or the twin horsemen deemed to the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) in resisting Tarquin the Proud.  Or they were foreign gods who gave the Romans favor like the Temple to the Unknown God.  

Caesar worship was a crass political calculation as Julius Caesar was the most crass politician in the history of the Republic.

A comment about the Republic

 Would it be fair to say that Rome transitioned from a monarchy to an aristocracy to an oligarchy to some form of a representative democracy by the late Republic?

No.

Rome was a monarchy from 753 to 509 BC.  Even among the seven kings of Rome, the Romans moved toward a Constitutional Monarchy with important enfranchisements from Servius Tullius that Tarquin repealed with his high handed autocratic rule.  Tullius had established the Assembly of the Centuries.  The people had a voice and representatives.  They also had their patron client relationships and in 494 BC they had the tribune.  With the publication of the 12 Tables in 451 BC, their rights had been codified and everyone knew them.

The soldiers of the Roman Army even in the late Republican Army when Marius armed scum and dregs, soldiers could read.

You always had representative democracy in Rome even in the days of the Roman monarchy.

A comment about the Roman Constitution

 The Roman Constitution is confusing because it coalesced over time.  The Roman gravitated toward conservatism because of the innovations in their lives.  Roman state was not conceived, deliberated over,  debated and compromised as our written Constitution.  The Romans, like all military men, improvised when the situation required it.  

We know that the Romans had contact with the Near East, the Greeks, the Gauls and other peoples of letters yet their Constitution has a unique stamp to it.

Also because their Constitution was unwritten it was easy to change.  All it required was a majority at the time or to merely violate the Constitution slightly if you will forgive the modern parlance "nudge."

I cannot emphasis enough how much innovation or improvisation had on the Roman mind.  The office of Consul invented in 509 BC. The Romans invented the office of Censor in 443 BC,  Praetor in 336 BC, Quaestor roughly 420 BC, Tribune and Aedile in 494 BC.  

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Under what conditions and circumstances might Rome have appointed dictators with practically unlimited governing powers?

The term Dictator did not the hold the same two bit Latin American sleaze ball connotation that we regard today.  I think in examining our forbearers it is important to keep a sense of perspective of who these people were and how different they were from us.
Until Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, the term Dictator marked a man of reverence and respect.  Think Father of Our Country style reverence.  They believe this because the Romans invested absolute power in one man to solve one problem for sixth month at a time.

The Romans hated the idea of Kingship.  They were jealous of their liberty.  They held their liberty in reverence and awe.  It marked his superiority against those people still subject to the whims of kings - read tyrant.

Athenian concepts of liberty and tyranny rested firmly in the breasts of the Romans.  The man who wielded dictatorial power only did it for a number of months.  From 509 to 83 BC, a period of 426 years, the Senate invoked the Roman office of dictator a mere 85 times and from the years 202 to 83 BC, the Senate had no need to convoke a dictator.

Famous men who held the office of dictator include men like Fabius Maximus, Lucius Papirius Cursor - twice consul during the Samnite Wars, Marcus Valerius Corvus, Marcus Furius Camillus five times Dictator and known as the Second Founder of Rome,  but the most famous dictator of them all was Cincinnatus.  Cincinnatus, who was living a type of political exile on his farm as his son had been convicted in absencia for political violence committed in defense of senatorial prerogative.  Messengers found Cincinnatus at his plow when called to service.  Cincinnatus mustered an Army and rescued the besieged Army personally by leading the infantry into battle and resigned from the office a mere 16 days in office.

By 202, the Senate replaced the office of Dictator with the Senatus consultum ultimum (the Final Act of the Senate) which empowered the Consuls with dictatorial power for a short window of time.
 

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What was the role of the proconsul as Rome expanded?

Prior to Hannibal, "a Consul had to become a General, because it was his business to look after the welfare of the State.  . . . [After Hannibal] a man became a Consul in order that he might be a General. The toga was made to give way to the sword, and the noise of the Forum to the trumpets."

- Anthony Trollope The Life of Cicero

A proconsul means a couple of things.  It means general and it also could mean governor.  The word in Latin means roughly "for the consul."  It meant that he who held such a title wielded power on behalf of the consul.  He acted with the highest trust of the state.

Prior to Hannibal, the resistance of the Etruscans, the neutralization of the Latins, the conquest of the Aequians, the Volscii, the dreaded Samnites, the resistance of Epirius and the first Punic War, few men held proconsular rank and held proconsular authority for any extended period of time.

After Hannibal, the Romans changed.  They stopped being a regional power and became a superpower.  A superpower being a nation that can impose its will through military operations beyond its borders.

A nation under siege is different in so many ways than a nation that can project its military might through the use of expeditionary conquest.  This difference is true in so ways that we cannot imagine because for so long this nation has been an expeditionary power for almost three generations.

After Hannibal, Rome depended more on its navy to transport troops in war and goods and services in peace.  Colonists in pre-Hannibalic Rome served as first lines of defense against Samnite or Gaullic incursions.  Colonists post-Hannibal brought luxuries and wealth.  Further the experience of Hannibal changed the Romans forever.

A parent imprints their person, their character, their nature in part through discipline, pain and correction.  In a sense, the greatest Roman who perhaps ever lived was never a Roman at all for Hannibal inflicted many losses in blood and treasure against the Romans that the Romans adopted Hannibal's person, their character, their nature.  They sacked cities, enslaved entire populations, they engaged in theft and rapine with reckless abandon.  Just as Hannibal did against them.

The practice of total war, war without mercy or humanity that Hannibal engaged with the Romans while NOTABLY exempting Rome's allies meant that Romans did not make treaties of equality with conquered or subjected powers.  Instead Romans sent an army and so many armies.  These armies would conquer and thus become rich off the spoils and then the Senate would appointed a governor who with the publicans (professional tax farmers) to go off an extort the province for more money.
In common parlance, it just too good to be bad.

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