The Beginnings of Rome

The Senatorial Governmen.

Behind both senate and mag istrates, lay the whole power and influence of the new nobility. These nobiles were essentially distinct from the older and more legitimate patrician aristocracy. Every patrician was of course noble, but the majority of the "noble families" in 146 were not patrician but plebeian. The title had been gradually appropriated, since the opening of the magistracies, by those families whose members had held the consulship. It was thus in theory within the reach of any citizen who could win this office, and, moreover, it carried with it no legal privileges whatsoever. Gradually, how ever, the ennobled plebeian families drew together, and combined with the older patrician genies to form a distinct order. Office brought wealth and prestige, and both wealth and prestige were liberally employed in securing for this select circle a monopoly of political power, and excluding new men. Already by the close of the period it was rare for anyone but a noble to find his way into high office or into the senate. The senate and magistrates were the mouthpieces of this order, and identified with it in policy and interest. Lastly, it must be allowed that both the senate and the nobility had to some extent justified their power by the use they made of it. It was their tenacity of purpose and devoted patriotism which had carried Rome through the dark days of the Hannibalic War. The heroes of the struggle with Carthage belonged to the leading families ; the disasters at the Trasimene lake and at Cannae were associated with the blunders of popular favourites.

From the first, however, there was an inherent weakness in this senatorial government. It had no sound constitutional basis, and with the removal of its accidental supports it fell to the ground. Legally the senate had no positive authority. It could merely advise the magistrate when asked to do so, and its de crees were strictly only suggestions to the magistrate, which he was at liberty to accept or reject as he chose. It had, it is true, become customary for the magistrate not only to ask the senate's advice on all important points, but to follow it when given. But it was obvious that if this custom were weakened, and the magis trates chose to act independently, the senate was powerless. It might indeed anathematize the refractory official, or hamper him if it could by setting in motion against him a colleague or the tribunes, but it could do no more, and these measures failed just where the senate's control was most needed and most difficult to maintain—in its relations with the generals and governors of provinces abroad. The virtual independence of the proconsul was before 146 already exciting the jealousy of the senate and endangering its supremacy. Nor again had the senate any legal hold over the assembly. Except in certain specified cases, it rested with the magistrate to decide whether any question should be set tled by a decree of the senate or a vote of the assembly. If he decided to make a proposal to the assembly, he was not bound ex cept by custom to obtain the previous approval of the senate, and the constitution set no limits to the power of the assembly to decide any question whatsoever that was laid before it.

From 15o, at least, onwards, there were increasing indications that both the acquiescence of the people in senatorial govern ment and the loyalty of the magistrates to the senate were fail ing. The rich landowners were not only taking possession of the public lands but were buying out the small farmers. And since the Government took little interest in commerce and industry, the poor were drifting idly to the cities or migrating to the Po valley. Slaves were being brought in to do the work of citizens, and the levies for the wars, which never ceased, fell more and more upon a decreasing citizenry. Between 165 and 135 the number of citizens, which should have increased by at least i oo,000, actually dropped 20,000. The populace began to object to the constant levies and to criticize the regime which seemed only to be in terested in foreign policies.

It is possible that these constitutional and administrative dif ficulties would not have proved so rapidly fatal to the republic had not its very foundations been sapped by the changes which followed more or less directly on the conquests of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. For the opening of the world to Rome, and of Rome to the world, produced a radical change in the structure of Roman society. The subjugation of the Mediterranean countries, by placing at the disposal of Rome the vast natural resources of the West and the accumulated treasures of the East, caused a rapid rise in the standard of wealth and a marked change in its dis tribution. The Roman State was enabled to dispense with the direct taxation of its citizens, since it derived all the revenue which it needed from the subject countries. But this wealth enticed the Romans away from a beneficial development of their own resources into a dangerous parasitism. In time generals and soldiers learned to depend upon the profits of wars, governors to provide for their estates out of illegitimate perquisites of office far away from the vigilant eyes of magistrates at home. Speculators learned to place mortgages in the provinces where interest rates were high, to profit by the protection of Rome's armies, and secure the high return of their investments from lenient governors. Roman no bles, engaged all their lives in the expensive civil and military service, unable to devote any attention to developing their own properties for a livelihood, excused their own and their fellows' exploitation of the subjects. Compelled to find leisure from financial concerns, they disregarded the needs of industry and commerce that might have employed citizens and developed the resources of Italy. Instead they acquiesced in the slave-driven culture of large estates which yielded meagre returns and begot out of war captives a body of citizens bred in servility, ignorance and hatred. Surely the great successes of the 2nd century had come too speedily.