First Assessment (Rome of Augustus)

social class (in order)

1. senatorial class (including magistrates)

2. patricians

3. plebeians (included EQUESTRIAN class)

4. freed-persons

5. enslaved persons

consulship

• 1 year term

• 2 consuls a year

• head of government and commanders-in-chief of Roman legions

praetorship

• elected each year

• maintained authority among foreign people

• administration of justice

censorship

• 2 elected for 18 months every 5 years

• former consuls

• took census of citizens

• established an album sanatorium (official list of senatorial class)

• rented out the ager publics

aedileship

• 2

• markets, public orders/games

quaestorship

• 4

• managed public funds and taxation of provinces

non-elected offices?

• dictatorship

• interrex

dictatorship

• appointed by consuls in case of emergency

• no more than 6 months

interrex

• appointed by Senate in event of 2 consuls dying

• five days

Tribune of the Plebs

• sacrosanct

• represented the people

• only plebeians

• power of veto

• power of auxilium (safeguard any citizen)

Timeline of Rome’s beginnings

8th century - founding

509 BCE - monarchy overthrown

Conflict of Orders - 451

• patricians vs. plebeians

• resulted in the forming of the republic and Twelve Tables

Why were the voting assemblies unfair?

• wealthier = more influence

• if the comitia centuriata gain a majority vote, voting closes to the other two assemblies

comitia centuriata

• 1st class

• wealthiest

• elect officials, leaders, censors

second and third assembly?

comitia tributa

comitia plebis

the senate

• former magistrates

• advisors

Who was Polybius?

• gospel of founding fathers

• wrote about 2nd century

• lived in Rome during successful wars against Carthage

• believed in anacyclosis

anacyclosis

• Polybius’ idea of a timeline of constitution

• monarchy → tyranny → aristocracy →oligarchy → democracy → mob-rule/anarchy

Why did Polybius believe Rome had a successful constitution?

blend of aristocracy, democracy, and monarchy

How did Polybius compare Rome to Sparta (city in Greece, war-driven enemy of Athens) ?

Sparta’s society = concord

• communal/communist

• equal division of property

• lack of surplus and cannot expand

How did Polybius compare Rome to Athens?

• radical democracy

• unified in times of conflict/international affair/war

• not unified in central rule → civil war and ANARCHY/MOB-RULE

• anyone can have power, no matter their experience

  • Rome = system of assemblies and climbing ranks in magistracy

How did Polybius compare Rome to Carthage (ancestral enemy of Rome, punic wars) ?

• referenced anaculosis (reaching peak then going downhill)

• During the Punic Wars, Rome was at its peak and Carthage wasn’t (they had peaked earlier and were going downhill in terms of manpower)

What three forms of simple constitution did Polybius believe in?

monarchy

aristocracy

democracy

What was the Catiline conspiracy? (63 BCE)

1. patrician Catiline ran for consul

2. defeated by Cicero

3. conspiracy plotted to overthrow republic and assassinate Cicero

4. gathered supporters → failed

5. conspirators killed

What were Sallust’s opinions on what the Conspiracy of Catiline revealed about Rome?

• Roman morals declining after destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE

• greed plagued Rome after expanding and achieving so much

• people began to act on their own desires rather than for the republic

• believed Catiline to be vicious and depraved due to his desire for power

Livy’s myth of foundation (order of events):

1. Troy burns to the ground

2. Trojan exiles go to Lavinium, founded by hero Aeneas

3. Aeneas founds city, Alba Longa

4. Rhea Silva is a vestal virgin violated by Mars

5. Rhea Silva thrown in prison by King Amulius and orders her newborn twins, Romulus and Remus, to be killed

6. Twins thrown in the Tiber River

7. She-wolf discovers twins and nurses them → shepherd finds twins and raises them as his own

8. Twins grow a band of young men to do righteous violence (COMMUNAL community, no leader)

9. Twins found a community and fight over the name

10.  Romulus kills Remus

What is the moral of Livy’s foundation myth?

Romans are doomed by the “curse of grandsires” and the “greed of kingly power”

Elements in foundation myths:

• irregular birth involving a god

• child ordered to be killed after being abandoned

• intervention of an animal

• rescued by a shepherd

What do the foundation myth say about Rome’s future?

• Romulus vs. Remus:

  • Rome will swing through a pendulum of a a concord communal society and a discord of civil wars

  • political crisis of the 1st century: Rome fights a mirror image of itself

Roman expansion (5th century)

• War against the Latins

• War against the Volsci

• War agains the Sabines

• Siege of Veii

Roman expansion (4th century)

First, Second, and Third Samnite War

Roman expansion (3rd century)

• War against Pyrrhus in Epirus

  • completed Rome’s grasp on Southern Italy

  • allowed Rome to face Carthage

Roman expansion (CARTHAGE) (264-146)

• First Punic War (264-241)

• Second Punic War (218-201)

• Third Punic War (146)

  • by the end, Carthage was completely destroyed

Roman expansion (Macedonian Wars) (214-167)

• First, Second, and Third War

• ended with Macedonia and Illyria paying tribute to Rome

• Achaean league dissolved after destruction of Corinth (146)

Roman expansion (by the 1st century)

• war against Jugurtha →control of African trade

• gains Egypt as Roman province

• War against Mithridates

• Conquest of Gaul

How were farmers impacted by Roman expansion in the Second Century?

• more land = soldiers stationed long-term in provinces

  • soldiers who are farmers cannot tend to land and lose it

  • become homeless and move to city

  • become proletarian (easily influenced and dissatisfied with Rome)

How were land owners impacted by Roman expansion in the Second Century?

• landowners gain land from farmers who lose it

• own slaves that tend to land while they’re stationed at a province

How were provincials impacted by Roman expansion in the Second Century?

• territories conquered become Roman provinces

• provincials (those who live in conquered territories) lose independence, pay taxes and tribute

How were Roman allies impacted by Roman expansion in the Second Century?

• expansion can be attributed to their lending of manpower

  • however MINOR share of profit from expansion

How were equites impacted by Roman expansion in the Second Century?

• become merchants with the role of collecting provincial taxes

Gaius Marius Reforms (107 BC)

• created a professional standing army

• funded army with equipment

• regular pay and standard services

• no property requirements, ALL can serve

• land grants to veterans

Tiberius Gracchus (133 BCE)

• agrarian reform

  • limit on land ownership (ager publicus)

Gaius Gracchus (123 BCE)

• foundation of new colonies

• lex frumentaria (corn law that gave out food rations)

• lex de asia (knits can exploit province of Asia

• lex calpurnia (excluded senators from juries of standing courts try governors for extortion)

What was the fate of the Gracchi brothers and what did it reveal?

• assassinated by Senate

• Senate disliked reforms which threatened the oligarchy

What did the new military reforms do for generals?

• reliance on military generals

  • they now have power to given spoils of war to soldiers and veterans

  • military generals gain economic power and loyalty

What did the new military reforms do for the Senate?

• reduced their power because they lacked a loyal army

• they start to side with the general who is weaker and easily manipulated against the stronger general who threatens their power

What was the first form of poetry/written art?

epic

• shares cultural values by retelling stories of heroes

What was poetry like prior to the 1st century (in terms of subject matter within the higher class)?

• revolved around historical or political matter

• written about public > private matters

How did poetry shift in the 1st century?

• private > public subject

  • writing about emotions or opinions

How was Catullus an example of the poetry shift in the 1st century? (“Catullus and Lesbia”)

• an elite figure yet he writes about emotions and sexual desires

• writes short poems (epics are supposed to be long)

• aware of novel ideas

• wants to immortalize his poems

Who was in the First Triumvirate?

Pompey

Crassus

Caesar

What was the function of the First Triumvirate?

• shadow government

• overrules Roman republic

• private office → informal pact between the three

Why do tensions grow between Caesar and Pompey around 53 BCE?

• Crassus dies in Parthia

• marriage alliance between Caesar’s daughter and Pompey broken

Order of events during the civil war between Pompey and Caesar?

1. Pompey aligns with the Senate

2. Pompey + Senate deny Caesar extension of generalship in Gaul

3. Caesar crosses the Rubicon River with army to Rome (NO Roman legion is allowed to cross the Rubicon River! → declaration of war)

4. Battle of Pharsalus (48 BCE) → Pompey defeated by Caesar

How did Caesar depict the Civil war as just and useful and Pompey as an enemy? (3 ways)

1. “I sacrifice my honor for my republic”

   • shows that Caesar values public > private life → ideal Roman values

2. West (frugal) under Caesar vs. East (luxury) under Pompey

   • war against the East, a separate region to the region of the West which holds Roman standards of frugality 

   • NOT a civil war

3. Republic vs. Pompey’s monarchy

   • Pompey is known as “Pompey the Great” and tries to align himself with great war conqueror Alexander the Great

   • Caesar claims he is the real Alexander the Great and compares his battle with Pompey with Alexander the Great’s successful campaign against a Persian king (who he compares to Pompey)

What did the Coin of Brutus resemble and what features helped emphasize that?

Celebrated the assassination of Caesar

• head of Brutus → main conspirator

• two daggers → Senators killing tyrant

• freedom hat → worn by freed enslaved persons; shows freedom of the republic

What was the reality of the republic after Caesar’s assassination?

• Senate benefits → no threat to power and no consequences from killing Caesar

• The people are not free → supporters of Caesar forced to hide/flee to avoid death

Context of Octavian and his rise to power?

• adopted son of Caesar due to his lack of a biological heir

• appointed in Caesar’s will

• not born in aristocracy, young, sickly, no political experience

Context of Antony?

• right-hand man and general under Caesar

• thought to inherit will (did not)

Cicero’s Philippics (44 BCE) components:

1. Exordium:

   • compares Antony to Catiline ( “...more audacious than Catiline)

2. Tractatio:

   • lists vices of Antony (“manly gown… to a womanly one” “matron’s robe”)

   • Antony = feminine (big insult for Romans because strength relied on combat and military capability)

   • Antony is a danger to the Roman Republic → trying to take Caesar’s power left behind to become a tyrant

Who was in the Second Triumvirate?

Octavian

Antony

Lepidus

What was different about the Second Triumvirate?

• legal public office awarded by Senate for reestablishing republic

• created to fill power vacuum left by Caesar

What bloody actions did the Second Triumvirate take?

• list of proscriptions

• confiscated land from Italians for veterans

What was the list of proscriptions?

• list of Roman names to be stripped of land and killed without trial

• inspired by Caesar and Pompey’s mistakes of not killing their enemies

• property given to veterans!

What happens after year 36 in Sicily within the Second Triumvirate?

• Sextus Pompeus gathers people to wage war against Octavian

• Octavian marches Sicily

• Pompeus defeated and Lepidus kicked out of triumvirate

What happens right before the civil war between Antony and Octavian?

• Antony claims Octavian is NOT the real heir due to Cleopatra giving birth to Caesar’s child (Caesarion)

• Antony gives land to Egyptian kids

• Octavian denounces Antony

Why was the 31 war declared against Cleopatra instead of Antony?

framed war as a battle against the East, NOT a civil war

Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

• Antony and Cleopatra defeated

  • both kill themselves after

How does Octavian use images or narrative devices to portray himself to Romans?

• commissioned statues resembling features of Alexander the Great

• changed his name to Octavian Son of the Divine to deify Caesar

• avenged Caesar and got rid of his killers

• compared Antony to Dionysius and Heracles

• associated himself with Apollo

Coin “The son of the divine Iulius” :

• star of Caesar

• "divine Julius”

• temple with statue of Caesar

• altar commemorating Caesar’s death

What is the star of Caesar?

Octavian claimed during Caesar’s funeral that after Caesar was killed, he became a star → deified him

Coin of Octavian:

• star of Caesar

• “Divos Iulus”

• beard → Romans only wear in mourning

  • framed Octavian as the grieving son

Coins of Octavian in relation to Aeneas:

• Aeneas = hero of Troy, depicted carrying father on shoulders

• Venus imagery (Venus’ son is Aeneas)

• Octavian is carrying Caesar on shoulders

  • shows piety and filial duty

How and why did Octavian portray a relation to Apollo?

• built his home next to the temple of Apollo

• Apollo is the sun god and the opposite of Dionysius (god of darkness)

  • resembled masculinity and rationality

Coin of Antony and Heracles:

• Heracles = civilizer of the East

  • associated with Dionysius

• compared Antony to Dionysius

• compared Antony to a royal king under the spell of Cleopatra

What about Virgil’s poem on the Battle of Actium created a positive portrayal of Octavian?

• “Senate and Roman people”

  • fight for the republic

• “I have the gods with me”

• united fight for westerners

• “His father’s stars” → Caesar reference

• Antony represented as luxury of the East 

  • “barbaric wealth”

  • “diversity of arms” → his mercenaries weren’t Italian

• our gods vs dark Egyptian gods

• triumph (prisoners paraded in Rome after battle)

  • Octavian seated in Temple of Apollo

    • “threshold of sunny Phoebus, viewed the gifts the nation of the Earth made, and he fitted them”