The change in agrarian conditions in Italy was also advantageous to large estates. The cheapness of Sicilian grain rendered it more profitable in Italy to cultivate vineyards and olive orchards, and to raise cattle and sheep on a large scale. For the latter wide acreages were needed: a summer pasturage in the mountains and a winter one in the lowlands of the coast. Abundant capital and cheap labor were other requisites. And slaves were to be had in such numbers that their labor was exploited without regard for their lives. Cato the Elder, who exemplified the vices as well as the virtues of the old Roman character, treated his slaves like cattle and recommended that they be disposed of when no longer fit for work. Often the [pg 116]slaves worked in irons, and were housed in underground prisons (ergastula). The dangers of the presence of such masses of slaves so brutally treated came to light in the Sicilian Slave War which broke out in 136 B. C., when over 200,000 of them rebelled and defied the Roman arms for a period of four years.
The decline of the free peasantry. Partly a cause and partly a result of the spread of the latifundia was the decline of the free Italian peasantry. As we have seen, the competition of the slave plantations proved ruinous to those who tilled their own land. But another very potent cause contributing to this result was the burden imposed by Rome’s foreign wars. Since only those who had a property assessment of at least 4000 asses were liable to military service, and since the majority of Roman citizens were engaged in agricultural occupations, the Roman armies were chiefly recruited from the country population. And no longer for a part of each year only, but for a number of consecutive years, was the peasant soldier kept from his home to the inevitable detriment of his fields and his finances. Furthermore, a long period of military service with the chances of gaining temporary riches from the spoils of war unfitted men for the steady, laborious life of the farm. And so many discharged soldiers, returning to find that their lands had been mortgaged in their absence for the support of their families, and being unable or unwilling to gain a livelihood on their small estates, let these pass into the hands of their wealthier neighbors and flocked to Rome to swell the mob of idlers there. Then came the heavy losses of the Second Punic and the Spanish Wars. Although the census list of Roman citizens eligible for military service shows an increase in the first half of the second century B. C., between 164 and 136 it sank from 337,000 to 317,000. Yet the levies had to be raised, even if, as we have seen, they were unpopular enough to induce the tribunes to intercede against them. The Latin and Italian allies felt the same drain as the Roman citizens, but had no recourse to the tribunician intercession. The Senate was consequently brought face to face with a very serious military problem. The provinces, once occupied, had to be kept in subjection and defended. Since the Roman government would not, or dare not, raise armies in the provinces, it had to meet increasing military obligations with declining resources.
The urban proletariat. Another difficulty was destined to arise from the growth of a turbulent mob in Rome itself. This was in [pg 117]large measure due to Rome’s position as the political and commercial center of the Mediterranean world. By the end of this period of expansion the city had a population of at least half a million, rivalling Alexandria and Antioch, the great Hellenistic capitals. Although not a manufacturing city, Rome had always been important as a market, and now her streets were thronged with traders from all lands, and with persons who could cater in any way to the wants and the appetites of an imperial city. There was a large proportion of slaves belonging to the mansions of the wealthy, and of freedmen engaged in business for themselves or for their patrons. Hither flocked also the peasants who for various reasons had abandoned their agricultural pursuits to pick up a precarious living in the city or to depend upon the bounty of the patron to whom they attached themselves. Owing to the slowness of transportation by land and its uncertainties by sea, the congestion of population in Rome made the problem of supplying the city with food one of great difficulty, since a rise in the price of grain, or a delay in the arrival of the Sicilian wheat convoy would bring the proletariat to the verge of starvation. And upon the popular assemblies the presence of this unstable element had an unwholesome effect. Dominated as these assemblies were by those who resided in the city, their actions were bound to be determined by the particular interests and passions of this portion of the citizen body. Furthermore, in the contiones or mass meetings for political purposes, non-citizens as well as citizens could attend, and this afforded a ready means for evoking the mob spirit in the hope of overawing the Comitia. This danger would not have been present if the Roman constitution had provided adequate means for policing the city. As it was, however, beyond the magistrates and their personal attendants, there were no persons authorized to maintain order in the city. And since the consuls lacked military authority within the pomerium, there were no armed forces at their disposal.
The equestrian order. The Roman custom of depending as much as possible upon individual initiative for the conduct of public business, as in the construction of roads, aqueducts and other public works, the operation of mines, and the collection of taxes of all kinds, had given rise to a class of professional public contractors—the publicani. Their operations, with the allied occupations of banking and money-lending, had been greatly enlarged by the period of war and conquest which followed 265 B. C. through the opportunities [pg 118]it brought for the exploitation of subject peoples. Roman commerce, too, had spread with the extension of Roman political influence. The exclusion of senators from direct participation in these ventures led to the rise of a numerous, wealthy and influential class whose interests differed from and often ran counter to those of the senatorial order. In general they supported an aggressive foreign policy, with the ruthless exploitation of conquered peoples, and they were powerful enough to influence the destruction of Carthage and Corinth. In the course of the second century this class developed into a distinct order in the state—the equestrians. Since the Roman cavalry had practically ceased to serve in the field, the term equites came to be applied to all those whose property would have permitted their serving as cavalry at their own expense. The majority of these was formed by the business class, although under the name of equestrians were still included such members of the senatorial families as had not yet held office.
The new scale of living. In the course of their campaigns in Sicily, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, the Romans came into close contact with a civilization older and higher than their own, where the art of living was practised with a refinement and elegance unknown in Latium. In this respect the conquerors showed themselves only too ready to learn from the conquered, and all the luxurious externals of culture were transplanted to Rome. But the old Periclean motto, “refinement without extravagance,” did not appeal to the Romans who, like typical nouveaux riches vied with one another in the extravagant display of their wealth. The simple Roman house with its one large atrium, serving at once as kitchen, living room, and bed chamber, was completely transformed. The atrium became a pillared reception hall, special rooms were added for the various phases of domestic life; in the rear of the atrium arose a Greek peristyle courtyard, and the house was filled with costly sculptures and other works of art, plundered or purchased in the cities of Hellas. Banquets were served on silver plate and exhibited the rarest and costliest dishes. The homes of the wealthy were thronged with retinues of slaves, each specially trained for some particular task; the looms of the East supplied garments of delicate texture. A wide gulf yawned between the life of the rich and the life of the poor.
Sumptuary legislation. But the change did not come about without vigorous opposition from the champions of the old Roman simplicity of life who saw in the new refinement and luxury a danger to [pg 119]Roman vigor and morality. The spokesman of the reactionaries was Cato the Elder, who in his censorship in 184 B. C. assessed articles of luxury and expensive slaves at ten times their market value and made them liable to taxation at an exceptionally high rate, in case the property tax should be levied. But such action was contrary to the spirit of the age; the next censors let his regulations fall into abeyance. Attempts to check the growth of luxury by legislation were equally futile. The Oppian Law, passed under stress of the need for conservation in 215 B. C., restricting female extravagance in dress and ornaments, was repealed in 195, and subsequent attempts at sumptuary legislation in 181, 161, and 143, were equally in vain.
To resume: in 133 B. C. the Roman state was faced with a bitter contest between the Senate and the equestrians for the control of the government, the Comitia was dominated by an unstable urban proletariat, the provisioning of Rome was a source of anxiety, dissatisfaction was rife among the Latin and Italian allies, the military resources of the state were weakening, while its military burdens were greater than ever, and the ruling circles had begun to display unmistakable signs of a declining public morality. With a constitution adapted to a city-state Rome was now forced to grapple with all the problems of imperial government.
IV. Cultural Progress
Greek influences. In addition to creating new administrative problems and transforming the economic life of Italy, the expansion of Rome gave a tremendous impulse to its cultural development. The chief stimulus thereto was the close contact with Hellenic civilization. We have previously mentioned that Rome had been subject to Greek influences both indirectly through Etruria and directly from the Greek cities of South Italy, but with the conquest of the latter, and the occupation of Sicily, Greece, and part of Asia Minor, these influences became infinitely more immediate and powerful. They were intensified by the number of Greeks who flocked to Rome as ambassadors, teachers, physicians, merchants and artists, and by the multitude of educated Greek slaves employed in Roman households. And as the Hellenic civilization was more ancient and had reached a higher stage than the Latin, it was inevitable that the latter should borrow largely from the former and consciously or unconsciously imitate it [pg 120]in many respects. In fact the intellectual life of Rome never attained the freedom and richness of that of Greece upon which it was always dependent. In this domain, as Horace phrased it, “Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror.”