Land for the Poor!
Slavery, Politics,
and Soldiers in the
Roman Republic
Lecture 30
Rome’s victories over Carthage
and Corinth in the mid-2nd
century B.C. brought an influx of
thousands of slaves back into
Italy.
Roman
Slavery
Imagined
European scholarship
and painting of the
nineteenth century
sometimes presented
Roman slavery in a
highly apologetic and
even eroticized light.
The Reality of
Roman Slavery
The reality of Roman slavery was
very different. Here, a slave’s iron
collar from third or fourth-century
Italy with a Latin tag ordering that
the slave be forcibly returned if he
attempted to run away.
Cleaning up
after the
master
Slaves frequently attended to the
daily needs of their masters. They
fetched food, cooked and served
daily meals, and hauled away the
excrement at the end of the day.
Here, an Italian mosaic depicting a
slave working at the public baths.
Household slaves faced conditions that were usually
less brutal than in the fields. But they still waited
on their masters and mistresses from dawn to
dusk — and could be beaten or other wise
physically abused at the whim of their owners.
Here, in a painting from Pompeii, a Roman matron
looks on as a household slave helps the matron’s
older daughter get dressed.
The radical
populists Tiberius
and Gaius
Gracchus were
themselves of
aristocratic
lineage. After the
death of their
father, their
mother Cornelia
refused to
remarry and
devoted herself to
their education.
In one famous
story, she
explained why she
did not need
jewelry, since her
sons were her
adornment.
“Here are my jewels”
Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi
Marius, late Republican
strongman (157-86 B.C.)
- from equestrian class
of central Italy
- military service paved path
to consulship in 107 B.C.
- Elected unprecedented seven
times in all.
Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) was not the first
Roman general to challenge the traditional
power-sharing mechanisms of the Roman
Republic. At the end of the second century
B.C., Gaius Marius rose from modest Italian
origins to hold the consulship an
unprecedented seven times. His military
career paved his path to power. He first
served with distinction in Spain and later
reorganized the Roman army by authorizing
the recruitment of landless soldiers.
Enter the next general: Cornelius Sulla
-- military officer under Marius in North Africa
-- suppressed revolt of Latin allies in 90s-80s
-- After king of Pontus executes Roman merchants
of Asia Minor, Sulla expels Marius from Rome
-- elected dictator, 82-79 B.C.
-- proscription lists (paying off his troops)
-- Senate, now 600 men, stocked with Sulla’s allies
Marius’ use of his military career as a stepping stone to
political power was repeated by his former protege and
eventual rival, Cornelius Sulla. But Sulla upped the ante by
marching his soldiers directly into Rome, a step Marius never
took. Sulla’s activities in the East, as proconsul of the region
of Cilicia (SE Turkey), foreshadowed the more aggressive tactics
of Pompey t wenty years later.
Images of Crassus
- as depicted by
Lawrence Olivier in
Spartacus
- in a contemporary
marble bust
A former ally of Sulla, Crassus grew rich during
the proscriptions. He further enhanced his
status by crushing in 71 B.C. the slave revolt led
by Spartacus. In the 1960 movie “Spartacus” (4
academy awards), Lawrence Olivier portrays
Crassus as a representative of the alleged
“decadence” of the Roman elite. Crassus’
portraiture, by contrast, deliberately evoked the
stern mos maiorum (“traditions of the fathers”).
Crassus
(as played by
Lawrence Olivier)
- crusher of
the slave revolt
led by Spartacus
- 6000 slaves
crucified along the
Via Appia