It was not only the structure and composition of Roman society that underwent a transformation. The victory of Rome in her struggle for supremacy in the Medi terranean basin had been largely due to the powerful conservative forces by which her institutions were preserved from decay. Respect for the mos maiorum, or ancestral custom, imposed an effective check on the desire for innovation. Though personal re ligion, in the deeper sense, was foreign to the Roman tempera ment, there was a genuine belief in the gods whose favour had made Rome great in the past and would uphold her in the future so long as she trod in the old paths of loyalty and devotion. Above all, the healthy moral traditions of early Rome were maintained by the discipline of the family, resting on the supreme authority of the father—the patria potestas—and the powerful influence of the mother, to whom the early training of the child was en trusted. Finally, the institution of the censorship, backed as it was by the mighty force of public opinion, provided a deterrent which prevented any flagrant deviation from the accepted standard of morals. All this was changed by the influence of Greek civili zation, with which Rome was first brought face to face in the 3rd century B.C. owing to her relations with Magna Graecia. At first the results of contact with the older and more brilliant cul ture of Hellas were on the whole good. In the 2nd century B.C., when constant intercourse was established with the communities of Greece proper and of Asia Minor, "philhellenism" became a passion, which was strongest in the best minds of the day and re sulted in a quickened intellectual activity, wider sympathies and a more humane life. But at the same time the "new learning" was a disturbing and unsettling force. The Roman citizen was con fronted with new doctrines in politics and religion, and initiated into the speculations of critical philosophy. Under the influence of this powerful solvent the fabric of tradition embodied in the mos maiorum fell to pieces; a revolt set in against Roman disci pline and Roman traditions of self-effacement, and the craving for individual distinction asserted itself with irresistible vehemence. As it had been in the days of the "sophistic" movement at Athens, so it was now with Rome; a higher education, which, owing to its expense, was necessarily confined to the wealthier classes, in terposed between the upper and lower ranks of society a barrier even more effectual than that set up by differences of material condition, and by releasing the individual from the trammels of traditional morality, gave his ambition free course. The effect on private morals may be gauged by the vehemence with which the reactionary opposition, headed by M. Porcius Cato (consul, 195 B.C. ; censor, 184 B.c.), inveighed against the new fashions, and by the list of measures passed to check the growth of luxury and licence, and to exclude the foreign teachers of the new learning. It was all in vain. The art of rhetoric, which was studied through the medium of Greek treatises and Greek models, furnished the Roman noble with weapons of attack and defence of which he was not slow to avail himself in the forum and the senate-house. In the science of money-making which had been elaborated under the Hellenistic monarchies, the Roman capitalists proved apt pupils of their Greek teachers. Among the lower classes, contact with foreign slaves and freedmen, with foreign worships and foreign vices, produced a love of novelty which no legislation could check. Even amongst women there were symptoms of re volt against the old order, which showed itself in a growing free dom of manners and impatience of control, the marriage tie was relaxed, and the respect for mother and wife which had been so powerful a factor in the maintenance of the Roman standard of morals, was grievously diminished. Thus Rome was at length brought face to face with a moral and economic crisis which a modern historian has described in the words : "Italy was living through the fever of moral disintegration and incoherence which assails all civilized societies that are rich in the manifold resources of culture and enjoyment, but tolerate few or no restraints on the feverish struggle of contending appetites." In this struggle the Roman republic perished, and personal government took its place. The world had outgrown the city-state and its political machinery, and as representative government, tried in Thessaly and Mace donia, was out of the question in a heterogeneous empire, no solu tion of the problem was possible save that of absolutism. But a far stronger resistance would have been opposed to political revolution by the republican system had not public morals been sapped by the influences above described. Political corruption was reduced to a science for the benefit of individuals who were often faced with the alternatives of ruin or revolution; there was no longer any body of sound public opinion to which, in the last resort, appeal could be made; and, long before the final catas trophe took place, Roman society itself had become, in structure and temper, thoroughly unrepublican.
The first systematic attack upon the senatorial government is connected with the names of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (qq.v.) and its immediate occasion was an at tempt to deal with no less a danger than the threatened disap pearance of the class to which of all others Rome owed most in the past. The small landholders throughout the greater part of Italy were sinking deeper into ruin under the pressure of accum ulated difficulties. The Hannibalic war had laid waste their fields and thinned their numbers, nor when peace returned to Italy did it bring with it any revival of prosperity. The heavy burden of military service still pressed ruinously upon them, and in addi tion they were called upon to compete with the foreign corn im ported from beyond the sea, and with the foreign slave-labour purchased by the capital of wealthier men. Farming became un profitable, and the hard laborious life with its scanty returns was thrown into still darker relief when compared with the stirring life of the camps with its opportunities of booty, or with the cheap provisions, frequent largesses and gay spectacles to be had in the large towns. The small-holders went off to follow the eagles to try fortune in some province, or swell the proletariat of the cities, and their holdings were left to run waste or merged in the vine yards, olive-yards and above all in the great cattle farms of the rich, and their own place was taken by slaves. The evil was worst in Etruria and in southern Italy ; but everywhere it was serious enough to demand the earnest attention of Roman statesmen. Of its existence the Government had received plenty of warning in the declining numbers of able-bodied males returned at the cen sus, in the increasing difficulties of recruiting for the legions, in servile outbreaks in Etruria and Apulia, and between 200 and 16o a good deal was attempted by way of remedy. In addition to the
foundation of 20 colonies, there were frequent allotments of land to veteran soldiers, especially in Apulia and Samnium. In 18o, 40, 00o Ligurians were removed from their homes and settled on vacant lands once the property of a Samnite tribe, and in 16o the Pomptine marshes were drained for the purpose of cultivation.
But these efforts were only partially successful. The colonies planted in Cisalpine Gaul and in Picenum flourished, but of the others the majority slowly dwindled away, and two required re colonizing only eight years after their foundation. The veterans who received land were unfitted to make good farmers; and large numbers, on the first opportunity, gladly returned as volunteers to a soldier's life. Moreover, after 16o even these efforts ceased, and with the single exception of the colony of Auximum in Pice num (157) nothing was done to check the spread of the evil, until in 133 Tiberius Gracchus, on his election to the tribunate, set his hand to the work.
The remedy proposed by Gracchus amounted in effect to the resumption by the State of as much of the "common land" as was not held in occupation by authorized persons and conformably to the provisions of the Licinian law, and the distribution in allotments of the land thus rescued for the community from the monopoly of a few. It was a scheme which could quote in its favour ancient precedent as well as urgent necessity. Of the causes which led to its ultimate failure something will be said later on ; for the present we must turn to the constitutional con flict which it provoked. The senate from the first identified itself with the interests of the wealthy occupiers, and Tiberius found himself forced into a struggle with that body, which had been no part of his original plan. He fell back on the legislative sov ereignty of the assembly; he resuscitated the half-forgotten pow ers of interference vested in the tribunate in order to paralyse the action of the senatorial magistrates, and finally lost his life in an attempt to make good one of the weak points in the tribune's position by securing his own re-election for a second year. But the conflict did not end with his death. It was renewed on a wider scale and with a more deliberate aim by his brother Gaius, who on his election to the tribunate (123) at once came forward with a vast programme of legislation. He shrewdly began by weakening the influence of the senate. Since his followers had every reason to dread the senates consultum ultimum, the senate's chief weapon of attack against opponents, his first plebiscite re asserted the "right of appeal." He then destroyed the senate's prerogative to assign the provinces to its partisans, took away the jury panels from the senators, and also claimed for the assembly the right to assign public contracts and to control the budget so far as it desired. Thus the senate lost control of the gifts by which it cajoled and the lashes by which it compelled obedience. Very early also he gave doles of grain to the poor. This later led to great evils, but it must have been instituted as a temporary measure since he intended soon to distribute the needy in colo nies. The evils of the dole must be accredited to the senate which stopped the colonization and did not have the courage to stop the dole. The jury panels he now made up of knights instead of sena tors. Gracchus wished, it seems, to give official recognition through civil service to men of business, in whom he had great faith. He would thus widen the group interest in public con cerns and build up an influential order as a balance to the old nobility. Later it proved a disadvantage that publicans could sit in judgment over provincial governors who had to hold the publi cans in check, but this difficulty could hardly have been fore seen since publicans did not yet have provincial contracts. In or der to secure larger returns from the Asiatic province, recently inherited by Rome, Gracchus permitted the knights to form cor porations of limited liability (such corporations were otherwise prohibited) with the privilege of taking contracts to gather and dispose of the Asiatic tithe. The advantages would be that the State would receive in advance the sums bid, would not have to build up a large taxing bureau in order to get all that was due, and the taxpayers could pay the tithe in kind according to the yield of each year. Since this system had not been tried before by Rome, its inherent evils were probably not yet known. In time it led not only to harsh exactions because of collusion between governors and publicans, but also to costly exploitation, because the publicans lent money to delinquents at high rates and engaged generally in unseemly speculation. Gracchus used the money in such public works as the assembly at his bidding authorized. The colonies which Gracchus founded—it was only the beginning of a large project—were well selected. Two were planted in southern Italy where many allotments had recently been made to small farmers—at Tarentum and Scylacium. For these, men specially selected for their capacity were chosen. Then 6,000 hardy farmers were sent to the province of Africa which had been lying desolate for a generation, and which had had to depend upon the Punic city of Utica for its harbour and its praetorian residence. Not even then did the senate comprehend its duty to its provincials, but cancelled the colonial charter, though it dared not cancel the allotments. And now though Gracchus lost his re-election to the tribunate he attempted his last great reform of giving the f ran chise to the Latins in order that the democracy might rest on a wider and sounder basis. Since Caesar, who took many sug gestions from Gracchus, later proposed to extend balloting through Italy by local polls, it is not unlikely that Gracchus had that in view. That would finally have removed democratic legislation from the control of the urban crowd. Be that as it may, the at tempt to broaden th3 franchise failed, not this time because of senatorial opposition but because of the selfishness of the voters who did not wish to diminish their own prerogatives. Gracchus lost his influence, and soon after when a riot arose the senate de clared martial law and summoned Gracchus to the bar of the senate. He refused to recognize a procedure which the assembly had outlawed the year before. The senate insisting on the legality of its course ordered his arrest and in the riot which ensued he was slain.