DECADENCE OF REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS
Destruction of the Peasantry.—The old Roman people consisted of small proprietors who cultivated their own land. These honest and robust peasants constituted at once the army and the assembly of the people. Though still numerous in 221 and during the Second Punic War, in 133 there were no more of them. Many without doubt had perished in the foreign wars; but the special reason for their disappearance was that it had become impossible for them to subsist.
The peasants lived by the culture of grain. When Rome received the grain of Sicily and Africa, the grain of Italy fell to so low a price that laborers could not raise enough to support their families and pay the military tax. They were compelled to sell their land and this was bought by a rich neighbor. Of many small fields he made a great domain; he laid the land down to grazing, and to protect his herds or to cultivate it he sent shepherds and slave laborers. On the soil of Italy at that time there were only great proprietors and troops of slaves. "Great domains," said Pliny the Elder, "are the ruin of Italy."
It was, in fact, the great domains that drove the free peasants from the country districts. The old proprietor who sold his land could no longer remain a farmer; he had to yield the place to slaves, and he himself wandered forth without work. "The majority of these heads of families," says Varro in his treatise on agriculture, "have slipped within our walls, leaving the scythe and the plough; they prefer clapping their hands at the circus to working in their fields and their vineyards." Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, exclaimed in a moment of indignation, "The wild beasts of Italy have at least their lairs, but the men who offer their blood for Italy have only the light and the air that they breathe; they wander about without shelter, without a dwelling, with their wives and their children. Those generals do but mock them who exhort them to fight for their tombs and their temples. Is there one of them who still possesses the sacred altar of his house and the tomb of his ancestors? They are called the masters of the world while they have not for themselves a single foot of earth."
The City Plebs.—While the farms were being drained, the city of Rome was being filled with a new population. They were the descendants of the ruined peasants whom misery had driven to the city; besides these, there were the freedmen and their children. They came from all the corners of the world—Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Asiatics, Africans, Spaniards, Gauls—torn from their homes, and sold as slaves; later freed by their masters and made citizens, they massed themselves in the city. It was an entirely new people that bore the name Roman. One day Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage and of Numantia, haranguing the people in the forum, was interrupted by the cries of the mob. "Silence! false sons of Italy," he cried; "do as you like; those whom I brought to Rome in chains will never frighten me even if they are no longer slaves." The populace preserved quiet, but these "false sons of Italy," the sons of the vanquished, had already taken the place of the old Romans.
This new plebeian order could not make a livelihood for itself, and so the state had to provide food for it. A beginning was made in 123 with furnishing corn at half price to all citizens, and this grain was imported from Sicily and Africa. Since the year 63[140] corn was distributed gratuitously and oil was also provided. There were registers and an administration expressly for these distributions, a special service for furnishing provisions (the Annona). In 46 Cæsar found 320,000 citizens enrolled for these distributions.
Electoral Corruption.—This miserable and lazy populace filled the forum on election days and made the laws and the magistrates. The candidates sought to win its favors by giving shows and public feasts, and by dispensing provisions. They even bought votes. This sale took place on a large scale and in broad day; money was given to distributers who divided it among the voters. Once the Senate endeavored to stop this trade; but when Piso, the consul, proposed a law to prohibit the sale of suffrages, the distributers excited a riot and drove the consul from the forum. In the time of Cicero no magistrate could be elected without enormous expenditures.
Corruption of the Senate.—Poverty corrupted the populace who formed the assemblies; luxury tainted the men of the old families who composed the Senate. The nobles regarded the state as their property and so divided among themselves the functions of the state and intrigued to exclude the rest of the citizens from them. When Cicero was elected magistrate, he was for thirty years the first "new man" to enter the succession of offices.
Accustomed to exercise power, some of the senators believed themselves to be above the law. When Scipio was accused of embezzlement, he refused even to exonerate himself and said at the tribune, "Romans, it was on this day that I conquered Hannibal and the Carthaginians. Follow me to the Capitol to render thanks to the gods and to beseech them always to provide generals like myself."
To support their pretensions at home, the majority of the nobles required a large amount of money. Many used their power to get it for themselves: some sent as governors plundered the subjects of Rome; others compelled foreign or hostile kings to pay for the peace granted them, or even for letting their army be beaten. It was in this way that Jugurtha bribed a Roman general. Cited to Rome to answer for a murder, he escaped trial by buying up a tribune who forbade him to speak. It was related that in leaving Rome he had said, "O city for sale, if thou only couldst find a purchaser!"