The Storm Before the Storm полностью

The Senate was not thrilled at the rise of these publicani corporations. Senators were themselves prohibited from participating in commercial enterprises, so they naturally considered base commerce beneath the dignity of a reputable man and distrusted the publicani as greedy parasites. After the conquest of Macedonia in 168, the Senate intentionally withheld its extensive mines, forests, and infrastructure from the publicani. It was a deliberate attempt to block the further ascendency of the publicani, but it didn’t last long. Five years later the province was opened and the money started rolling in. From that point on, wherever Rome went, so too came the publicani. And publicani conduct in the rich province of Asia would become a special source of future conflict.³⁷

WHILE ASIA WAS proving itself to be a major source of conflict abroad, the seeds of an even more disastrous conflict were being sewn back home as the work of the agrarian commission exposed major fault lines in the social and political landscape of Italy.

Italy in the second century was not a unified state, but rather a stratified confederation of cities, each with different social and political rights depending on when and how they fell under the Roman umbrella. At the top of the citizenship hierarchy were, of course, full Roman citizens. There was no wealth requirement to be a citizen—the wealthiest senator and the poorest beggar both shared equally in the rights of citizenship, rights that collectively established their libertas, or civil liberty. The most important of these liberties was the right to vote in the Assembly and protection from abuse by senior magistrates.³⁸

Below the full Roman citizens in the hierarchy were the communities or individuals who held so-called Latin Rights. After unilaterally annexing Latium in 338, the Senate did not offer full citizenship for their new Latin citizens but instead granted them a set of rights that allowed them to operate on a semi-equal footing with true Romans. Latins could marry, enter into contracts, and engage in land claims with a full Roman citizen. They even had the right to vote in the Assembly, though the Senate was not going to give too much of a voice: the Latins were collectively lumped into just one of the thirty-five voting tribes.³⁹

Eventually the concept of Latin Rights outgrew its original etÚic origin. When Rome planted new colonies around Italy, the Roman colonists were downgraded to holding mere Latin Rights in exchange for the free plot of land and place in the colony they were about to receive. Individual Italians could also win Latin Rights by special grant by the Senate or senior Roman magistrate—often as a reward for battlefield heroics or rendering some special service to Rome. Holding Latin Rights soon became a civil distinction rather than an etÚic one.⁴⁰

Finally, at the bottom of the hierarchy were the foederati or socii—known collectively as the “Allies.” As Rome had spread across Italy they forced defeated cities and tribes to sign mutual defense pacts with Rome that required both sides to come to the other’s aid. But those defeated cities were never formally annexed, hence they remained merely “Allies” of Rome. The majority of inhabitants in Italy were Allies with only limited civil and political rights. But as a trade-off they also had few responsibilities. Rome demanded no regular taxes and left local administration to local magistrates. All Rome asked was that the Allies provide troops to fill the ranks of the legions. The hierarchical, confederal relationship that defined Roman Italy worked tolerably well for two centuries. It was now coming undone.⁴¹

BY 129, ONLY young Gaius Gracchus remained of the original land commissioners. Tiberius had died on the Capitoline Hill and his successor Mucianus had been killed in Asia. Mucianus’s seat was filled by Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, the friend of the Gracchi who had helped drive the hated Nasica out of Rome. Now in his mid-thirties, Flaccus was gearing up for a run at the consulship when he joined the commission. Then in 129, the old princeps senatus Claudius died and his seat went to Gaius Papirius Carbo, the tribune who had introduced the secret ballot law in 131 and clashed with Aemilianus over the legacy of Tiberius’s death. Where once the Gracchan faction had been run by eminent elder statesmen, it was now in the hands of young firebrands.⁴²

The problem facing the new-look agrarian commission was that any ager publicus that was easy to identify and parcel out had already been identified and parceled out. All that remained was disputed property. For every disputed boundary the commission had to undertake a thorough investigation to assess rival claims. This was a process made nearly impossible if owners could not produce deeds, and if sellers could not produce receipts. Hostile ambiguity often reigned and the work of the commission slowed considerably.⁴³