Rome One Could Be Important in Roman

Rome

One could be important in Roman society either by doing something great, or simply by being born into high status. In other words, Romans valued both accomplishment and privilege. Which of these two do you think was more prominent in Roman society? Argue for one over against the other. Your argument must incorporate an analysis of two things: a specific historical event or institution, and the point-of-view of a Roman writer.

Polybius, was a Greek military commander in Roman service who spent many years on campaign with the Roman Republican armies in the second century B.C.E. The core values are the descendant of Greek views on virtue and the Greek value of competitive individual excellence. In Polybius' opinion, this excellence was exhibited repeatedly and most excellently in the Roman military organization.

His emphasis upon the importance of the Roman Army and individual achievement there frames his entire concept of an individual's achievement in accordance with traditional Roman virtue. He remarked repeatedly upon the superiority of Roman ways in the military arena. The military virtues are evident in his actual account of battle as one repeatedly reads in Polybius' writings on the Punic Wars.

One can see the minute documentation in the history that he had written, inspired as he was by Thucydides. Whether it was about the operations of the Mamertines during the First Punic War, It was obvious that Polybius was not alive at the time (Mellor 24). However, one could be certain that he had never spoken with any of the principles. However, one can be sure that he did the next best thing and checked and double checked the information. This caused him to read, analyze and write his history according to the works of Philinus and Fabius (ibid., 26).

Polybius's continued accounts of the Roman military camp speaks volumes about of the type of top-down, centrally-planned and highly regimented life of civic purpose and virtue that he favors in his writings. He credits the mixed Roman political constitution with giving the blessings of checks and balances to Rome. These great rewards and punishments were handed out to the Romans by the soldiers. For Rome to continue succeeding as a society, it had to continue to be virtuous in order to keep drawing the favor of the gods. Rome's deeply entrenched and highly superstitious religious beliefs for promoting and maintaining civic virtue were tied to its success in the international arena and on the battlefield as it was delivered by the moral and virtuous Army. Since virtue is linked with concepts of political and military greatness, then also is vice linked with political and military weakness that would lead to Rome's decline and fall. This is why he is beginning the story of the first Punic War "Where the History of Timaeus left off, and it falls in the 129th Olypiad..." (ibid, 20). The new games of accurate history have now begun.

This commitment or drive for virtue and morality imbued a passion of self honor, sacrifice, duty and a commitment to end ones' own life in the service of the state rather than go home in disgrace. It was either win or lose. Using this philosophy was a committed army, that led the centurions who Rome wanted to lead the nation in its quest to spread civilization in the Mediterranean world. This was a successful deployment of Roman virtue in the cause of Rome's rise in a barbaric time of history in the crusade to spread "Western Civilization" to the non-Roman world.

According to Polybius, it was easy to see why successful nations flourished. The main (but not the only) factor was their political constitution. Polybius explains this in his sixth book where he explicates upon the superiority and anatomy of the Roman constitution. This book was placed in the text after Hannibal's glorious victories at the Trebia, Lake Trasimene, Cannae and after the treaty had been concluded between Carthage and Macedonia. At this time, Rome's fortunes had certainly reached their lowest point. Polybius' long digression into the grounds of constitutional and political science in an attempt to explain why the Romans could successfully recover from such a series of disasters that would have resulted in the termination of any other nation's existence. This portion of Polybius contains the now famous description of the Roman army and the equally famous description of the inner political workings of the Roman Republic (ibid., 50-53).

Polybius believed that the Roman Republic balanced out the various virtues of monarchy, aristocracy and also democracy. However, he emphasized and further wrote about the need for a broad base of public support. When one examines Polybius in detail, one learns of his opinion that the victory of the Romans in their quest for Mediterranean conquest was dependent upon the accomplishments of the Romans that came from the accomplishments of their citizen soldiers.

We must remember the time that Polybius the Greek historian lived, that is in the second-century BCE Roman Republic. He therefore provides a contemporary perspective of the Roman Republic in the Histories. According to him, Rome had a "mixed" constitution, incorporating the best of various forms of government.

Polybius concludes that the Romans are the preeminent power because they are a diverse society in which much of the public has a voice and can contribute. Therefore, a society's thinking becomes more varied and thereby sparks more individuality and creativity. This ultimately contributed to the greater good and glory of Rome.

As Polybius remarks, the Romans were able to conquer the majority of the know world in 53 years (Mellor 51). This was based upon the participation and accomplishments of the people who supported their republican leaders as a counter to the old privileged kingship. Underlying Polybius' Histories is the idea of the cyclical nature of constitutions. Polybius believed that a nation's government, left alone its own devises and free from outside influences, it will gradually change from first monarchy, to aristocracy, to democracy and the back to monarchy again.

It was not uncommon to discern three types of constitution and their degenerate counterparts: monarchy and despotism, aristocracy and oligarchy, democracy and ochlocracy (rule by the masses). It was not uncommon at that time to maintain that successful states had mixed constitutions. Polybius' innovation was the mixed constitution, which he explained were better. Assuming that every ruler will one day start to regard his special position as a personal privilege and will make the interests of the state subject to his own, Polybius postulates that monarchy will inevitably become tyrannical.

A revolution will give power to the aristocracy, which in turn corrupts to oligarchy. This is replaced by a democracy, and once populists have taken over, people ask for a "strong man": the cycle has returned to its beginning. Rome's mixed political constitution combined monarchical consuls, aristocratic senators and democratic assemblies. It was therefore immune to this cycle. This explains Rome's success.

This idea of a mixed constitution devised by Polybius incorporated the best of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy in an attempt to break the cycle. Polybius maintained that the mixed constitution would provide a system of checks and balances where no single man, group of elite or the mob would have power by themselves but shared it simultaneously. In his opinion, he felt that only the Roman Republic fulfilled this ideal. Certainly, privilege was not the basis, but merit (ibid 50-52).

However, what Polybius and his contemporary readers considered "democratic" is very remote from our modern definition. Most citizens had no direct say in public affairs and certainly no say in the voting assemblies such as the Senate. In addition, large numbers of the population (women, slaves, foreigners) were excluded from the franchise. Polybius is vague about what he sees as the democratic element in a state. Rome had a mixed constitution by Polybius' standard.

Nothing made by humans, not even that stable Roman constitution, could last forever. In the end, even the most powerful nations were doomed. / The wise man was moderate when things were going well, understanding that one day, things might be different, and that he might find himself in the hands of those whom he had once treated mildly. Hopefully, they would treat him with the same prudent mildness.

2. In the early Republic, how did foreign affairs (Rome's expansion) shape the social order at home (the struggle of the orders), and vice versa? Include examples of specific events to in your answer, drawing from Livy.

Livy was engrossed with foreign affairs and feels that they reflect Rome's virtue and standing in history. The study of the Punic Wars are the beginning of this . Livy 31.1.3-5 says that: "The 63 years from the First Punic War to the end of the Second have taken up as many volumes as the 488 years from the foundation of the city to the consulship of Appius Claudius, who began the first hostilities against the Carthaginians. And when this fact comes home to me, I feel like someone who has been introduced into shallow waters near the shore and is now advancing into the sea. I picture myself being led on into vaster...depths with every forward step. The task undertaken seemed to grow less with the completion of the early stages; now, in anticipation, it seems almost to increase as I proceed (ibid., 288)"

Foreign affairs (Rome's expansion) shaped the social order at home (the struggle of the orders), and vice versa. For instance, in Mellor, Livy, ambassadors were sent out from Rome to Athens to study their laws, a situation that led directly to the formation of a law code in Rome which helped to quell domestic disturbances (ibid., 215-217). Livy's thesis of a struggle of the orders is an over- simplification of a highly complex series of events that had no single cause. This can be seen as well in the consultation of the fetiales before going to war with Phillip of Macedon in 200 B.C. (ibid. 293-294). Domestic events were tied to foreign affairs and the fetiales were a part of the social order that could not be ignored.

We have to remember that Livy was writing during the time of Caesar Augustus when the Roman domestic political situation was being quelled and the foreign conquests were being consolidated. While his attachment to the Republic could not be entirely quelled, he certainly could only go so far in portraying its freedmen in a positive light. The status of freedmen developed throughout the Republic as their number increased. Livy states that the freedmen in the early Roman Republic mainly joined the lower classes of the plebeians. During the Empire Livy describes freedmen who had been accepted into the equestrian class. This could not have helped the social situation in Rome. However his relating of Roman virtue would have keep him out of trouble

Freedmen were often highly educated and made up the bulk of the civil service during the early Empire. This freedom was advanced and born from service in the civil service and the Army. In this way, the lower orders had their way to improve their situation.

Livy's reluctance to veer off the main course of narrating Rome's major domestic and foreign affairs is quite evident from later historians who were much more biting in their analysis (Mellor 13) Tensions certainly have existed and no state can experience 200 years of history without some degree of social conflict and economic unrest. In fact, legal sources indicate that the law of debt in early Rome was extremely harsh and must have sometimes created much hardship. Yet it is impossible to believe that all aspects of early Rome's internal political development resulted from one cause. Early documents, if available, would have told the later annalistic historians little more than that a certain office had been created or some law passed. An explanation of causality could have been supplied only by folklore or by the imagination of the historian himself, neither of which can be relied upon.

Livy's descriptions of early republican political crises reflect the political rhetoric and tactics of the late republic and therefore cannot be given credence without justification. Unfortunately for Augustus, this caused confusion as to what to do with Livy. Allegiances could change overnight. Wars, civil and foreign bled together and political fortunes at home were linked to success on the battlefield. The young Roman Republic frequently found itself at war, not only with foreigners but also with its Republican self.

3. Discuss three individuals from this section who embody Roman values. Explain your selections. In your explanation, single one of them out as best representative of Roman values more than the other two, and defend your choice.

One figure who came to symbolize Roman values was Scipio Africanus. Elements of the legend surrounding Scipio present him as a devoutly religious man or even in mystical terms. He regularly called upon the gods for their divine favor. It was said that he spent long hours in the temples meditating deeply before his decisions. The myth had it that the gods arranged miracles for him based upon this merit in order to bring him victory on the battlefield. The war that he won required superhuman efforts of virtue, as Livy states in general 21.1 "For never did any other states or nations with mightier resources join in combat, nor did these nations in question possess, at any other time, such vast power and energy as then (ibid. 242).'"

This legend existed in Scipio's own day and he used it to motivate his troops in battle and to later gain political advantage and support from the Roman people. Whatever the legend, he was probably a pious man by Roman standards or at least as pious as the average Roman of the time. For instance, he later became a Salian priest of Mars. While this may not justify him as a mystic, it certainly brands him as pious. He certainly was a Stoic, an advocate of that philosophy of dealing with the pain that the human being almost inevitably runs into in life.

Whatever his motivation, it would be no surprise that fighting and war would make Scipio religious. Many successful soldiers and generals have religious experiences. There are truly few atheists in foxholes. Even if this were not true, it would have been foolish for Scipio not to encourage the beliefs. In the superstitious Roman culture, piety would bring good luck as well, something that the battle hardened troops would have savored in a general who led from the front. Obviously, this was a virtue that he fostered and spread among his men.

His young age would not have been a hindrance to his acquiring a piety and adherence to Roman values. Many young men who see their comrades die in battle "grow up" early and become responsible young adults. He displayed emotion in front of his troops. In other words, he was a man who embodied the values and ethics of a good Roman citizen in defending the Republic against its enemies.

One attribute he certainly had in abundance was leadership. This is something that he had to exhibit not just on the battlefield, but at home as well. This was leadership that in North Africa was able to command Gallic auxiliaries and Numidians that had formerly fought for Hannibal (ibid. 242).

Augustus' life was built upon and fueled by Roman tradition and values. During the long life he rebuilt many of the public areas of Rome. Upon these values, he improved the provincial administration, tried to ensure a return to traditional Roman beliefs and values and encouraged such patriotic writers as Virgil, Horace and Livy. By the time that he died, he had been given the title 'Father of the Country' and, especially in the east, was regarded as a semi-divine figure. After his death he was declared a god.

Augustus' reputation as a virtuous Roman allowed him carte blanche to engage in many vital public projects and to command the respect of the people. For more than 50 years, Augustus was the dominant figure of ancient Rome. During this time he reorganized the empire won by the generals of the republic, by Pompey, and by Caesar, and he made great additions to the Roman domain. Augustus restored peace and order after 100 years of civil war. He maintained honest government, a sound currency system, and free trade among the provinces. Augustus developed an efficient imperial postal system, improved harbors, and established colonies. He extended the elaborate highway system that connected Rome to remote parts of the empire. His moral reputation gave him the authority to whip Rome into line (ibid., 322-328).

Augustus had a belief Roman morals had been corrupted in the late Republic that led him to initiate legislation to stop this decline. He felt that the increased luxury that came about due to the conquests that made Rome the world dominating hyper power that it became was the cause of this problem. It had undermined traditional simplicity and frugality and caused a decline in morals due to liberalized divorce laws, hedonistic parties and the embarrassing upper class love affairs in Roman society attractive women and fashionable boys . This brought about a low birth rate. Under the imperium, the money that could be spent on public feasts was limited. Adultery was made illegal. Indeed, his own daughter Julia was exiled for adultery (ibid).

Augustus revised the tax code to penalize bachelors, widowers and married persons who had less than three children. Basically, the "Augustan Age" was a lengthy one and extended far beyond Augustus' lifetime and set the tone for the "five good emperors." Even though these emperors did not always live up to the ideal, they certainly inspired faith in the traditional system of Roman virtue. In the opinion of the masses, Augustus spoke to them and the common sense of the "silent majority" of Romans that felt that law and order and morality needed to be reintroduced into Roman life and that Augustus was their law and order man (ibid).

Finally, in the waning days of the empire, Julian is a man dedicated to traditional Roman values. Julian was a an emperor and a man of unusually complex character. He combined military commander, philosopher, social reformer and the man of letters. He was the last non-Christian leader of the Roman Empire and it was his goal to bring the Empire back to the ancient Roman values in order to save it from dissolution. He conducted a purge of the top-heavy state bureaucracy and also attempted to revive traditional Roman religious practices at a cost to Christianity. The rejection of Christianity in favor of Neoplatonic paganism caused him to be know Julian the Apostate.

This was not the way he was himself however. His biographer Ammianus Marcelinus relates that Julian stated before his death as at the hands of the Persians "...honor conferred on me by the gods, I have preserved, as I believe unstained. In civil affairs I have rulled with moderation and, whether carrying on offensive or defensive war, have always been under the influence of deliberate reason. (ibid., 602) "

Julian lived and died for Roman virtues. He took the fight to the enemy and it was there that he lived out as well as rounded out Roman values and virtue, even in death.

4. Identify and discuss significant, meaningful ways in which Livy's treatment of the Punic Wars differs from that of Polybius' treatment.

The writing on war and the view of those wars is presented differently by different historians. This is certainly no different in the variations between the portrayals of the Punic Wars between Livy and Polybius. They lived in different generations and in completely different times with different styles of Roman administration.

The difference between Livy and Polybius was first one of accuracy. Polybius has a reputation for being one of the most accurate of historians. Polybius was also a contemporary of many of the historical events such as the Third Punic War or had interviewed people who had engaged in the Second Punic War. Polybius was a diehard believer in interviewing people who had actually taken part in the events to promote and accurate portrayal of those events.

If Polybius could not talk to the individuals themselves that were involved in an event or time period, then he would go personally to the place where the event had taken place. For instance, Hannibal was already dead when Polybius got old enough to know anything in life. Hannibal had served in exile in Seleucid Syria as an advisor to Antiochus III in that Hellenistic monarch's war against Rome.

After Antiochus was defeated at Magnesia and had to accept a Roman dictated peace, Hannibal fled first to Armenia and then to Bythnia were died of his own hand of poisoning after he had been betrayed to the Romans. Polybius was a small child at the time. This fact did not stop him from obtaining first hand knowledge of Hannibal's invasion route over the Alps and into the Po Valley of Northern Italy. Polybius painstakingly retraced the hazardous invasion route to verify information in secondary sources about the minute planning that Hannibal had to go engage in before crossing the Alps. In this way, he could better see what Hannibal had himself seen as he was crossing through the pass in blinding snow and moving his huge army through terrain that had never been crossed before in order to surprise the enemy.

Livy's congeniality was more appealing to the romanticism of the Romans, but it was not as accurate historically. In addition, he was closer to the Roman censor than Polybius in the days of the Republic during its lifetime. Livy's history was probably not a wholly truthful representation of the actual events. However, the story of Livy's writings give off a huge tribute to human virtue, glory and Stoic honour.

A comparison of the accounts in Polybius and Livy of the actual warfare during the Second Punic War up until Cannae presents serious discrepancies. Livy is trying to focus on older, better times and to appease Augustus by not reflecting badly upon the new Roman imperium. However, his emphasis upon the good done by the Republic caused subtle but real problems for the Roman government under Augustus. However, now one could go against the urbane and friendly Livy who was explicating upon republican values that the Augustan order on the surface gave lip service to. Polybius has the luxury of being more objective. While things were not completely democratic according to our modern view, they were certainly more liberal and less censored than under the imperial rule of Caesar Augustus.

5.

Do you think Appian viewed the Gracchi brothers as martyrs for a good cause or reckless revolutionaries who received their just deserts? Do you agree with Appian? Of course, cite Appian (from the Mellor text) as you explain your answer. (TIP: You need to distinguish between a reformer and a revolutionary. They both want change, so what's the difference?)

At first glance, the portrayal of Appian by the Gracchi brothers in The Civil Wars may seem straight forward. It is arguably the most comprehensive and complete that there is of the social conflict during the time of the Gracchi. If we accept his portrayal, then the brothers were revolutionaries and not reformers.

Appian claims that before them, there was always strife between the Plebians and Senators regarding the passage of laws, but that things never came to blows. Appian claims that the disagreements were always within the limits of the law. These laws were written by convention in consultation between the Plebian Assembly and the Senate. These bodies then negotiated with each other in respect. According to Appian, weapons were never brought into the assembly halls and the mob was never used to settle disputes by force (Mellor 65).

This was not in keeping with the traditional system of checks and balances. This system was built so that political power would not be solely in any on person's hands. According to Appian, this strife grew worse and there was more and more bitterness, with the magistrates displaying stronger animosity to each other from that time on. Mob factions formed as the Senate and Plebeians took political sides. Each came to believe in this use of force and that with it they would prevail (ibid.)

What is more telling is that Appian pins on Tiberius Gracchus not only the charge of being a revolutionary, but also of ushering in the rise of the dictator Sulla indirectly by his actions some fifty years later. According to Appian, what essentially was the crime of Tiberius Gracchus was in a nutshell was the ultimate declaration of Sulla as dictator for life (ibid.).

While it is difficult for a critic to believe all of the propaganda, especially from an author such as Appian who was writing at the height of power of the Imperium which only had the form, but not the substance of the Republic. For this reason, it is more likely that Gracchus was functioning as a reformer. After all, he was an aristocrat and did not want to overthrow the system altogether.

Appian began writing this history of his around the middle of the second century AD. The imperial power had quashed the people's will in the Plebian assembly that it controlled. The Senate which represented the aristocrats had also become a rubber stamp for the power of the emperor well. Given the political reality of Appian's time, it would not be possible for him to express anything else. Indeed, this was a triumph of the imperial system that Augustus had built.

Augustus had usurped and assumed supreme power within Rome and made it an empire. In the process, the system that he had set up was able to have official historians such as Appian label a reformer (Tiberius Gracchus) who was attempting to preserve the system and to check aristocratic excesses with leading to the ultimate desecration of the Republic with the rise of a dictator. In effect, there had been a triumph of "Augustan program." In the "Augustan program," the new imperial order portrayed a resurrection and reinvigoration of Roman moral values that exemplified Roman virtue. Garlinsky called this revitalization was called res publica, that is a program of moral legislation that would revive the moral core of the old Republic and then to tranplant it into the heart of the imperium. It was a propaganda coup that took a century and a half, but one which nevertheless sealed the fate of Tiberius Gracchus in so far as his legacy in history is concerned (Garlinsky 8).

As Hyperbole, Hannibal's personal secretary in 201 BC, you are writing an account of Hannibal's role in the recent Italian campaign. Describe and evaluate (from Hannibal's point-of-view) Hannibal's journey from Spain to Italy, early battles through Cannae, Fabius and Marcellus after Cannae, why Hannibal failed to attack the city of Rome itself. What went wrong with the battle of Zama? You may write this as a journal, diary, letter, or whatever, but make sure this includes a Carthaginian interpretation of events and is not just a neutral narrative. You may "spin" interpretations, but do not "doctor" known facts.