More on the Republic question...

[Reverend Joe]

I thought of this question while reading through the "What if Rome had remained a Republic?" thread, and I think it could use its own thread.

What would have happened, in your opinion, if the Gracchi (sp? can't sp for sh) bros. had succeeded, whether by force of arms, influence, damn good luck, etc...

Would Rome have lasted longer? Would it have stagnated in Italia and never grown? Would it have never conquered what it did? Would it have burnt out too fast? I have no idea, so please- enlighten me. :shame:

[Tellos Athenaios]

As long as Rome was a republic it needed continual warfare to pay up for (and sometimes to put aside too) the internal struggles.

By the time of Augustus they had conquered nearly all they could to the point where further conquest wouldn't be profitable anymore. Some historians have compared the Roman state at that time with a power within in a vacuum, there is no way of growing any further, as there is nothing to make it grow any more. Given that the Romans weren't exactly good at producing their own surplus (in fact the Eastern, Greek, part of the empire was needed to pay up for the Western, Roman, part after a few centuries after Augustus), the Romans would have collapsed under their own weight: they wouldn't have been able to feed and provide proper jobs for their increasing numbers. (Which is exactly what happened to the Western (part of the) Empire: after some time famine occured for the first time since centuries, the cities slowly depopulated, and basically the whole economy started to crash slowly to the level where you could compare it with their German neighbours.)

So the Gracchi, as they wouldn't have made much of a difference to that point, wouldn't have been able to turn the tide. In fact, what's the real difference between the Gracchi and Julius Caesar except for his loyal legions? I mean both examples of people who were so popular with the masses that the Senatus, one way or another, would have found an excuse to ged rid of them, and kill them.

[Reverend Joe]

My point was that, if the people had been granted land, there would not have been the same pressure from landless people. This is why i wonder whether or not Rome would have ever really expanded all that much, or whether it would have stagnated in Italy, remaining a minor state to be scooped up later.

[Cheexsta]

If the Gracchi had lived, there would have been a reduced chance of a Marian-esque military reform at that point. However, I believe the Roman military probably would have needed reformation anyway; the borders of the republic were simply too far-flung for Roman citizens to really feel the need to join the army, since their main reason for doing so was to protect their own homes from invasion. Without a professional force, I doubt the Romans would have been able to continue expanding beyond what they already had unless another faction directly threatened their homes.

IMHO, it was only a matter of time before the Roman Legions that were recruited on an as-needed basis would become too inefficient as people realised there was little reason to join the army. We could already see the effects of this in Hispania before Scipio (the Younger) took control there shortly before the attempted reforms of the Gracchi; the Romans did not consider it 'their war' and morale was extremely low because of this. Their main motivations for joining the army at that point - protection and plunder - were not satisfied by the war. It was only really with Scipio's inspiring presence and tough drilling that they finally defeated the Numantines and their allies that had plagued them for so long.

Had the Gracchi lived, I think the reforms would have just delayed the inevitable.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Zorba:
It wasn't the poor landless people who were the main reason of the collapse of the Republic, it was a few bickering Senators who were. Whenever a Senator wouldn't get what he wanted and he had some support of the broader public he always could return to the people and ask him for either a show down or just a confirmation (both nearly the same...) of their support for his case. The result would be that the Senate would find itself at stake, or so they saw it. The Marius Reforms only accelerated this, because of the fact that the Patronus Cliens system from then on extended to the military too.

A contemporary writer has critisised the practics of Roman politicians, he basically keeps going on and on about moral decline in the Roman Republic. But besides his constant nagging, there is something quite different, he gives examples of when the political system went wrong. His name is Sallustius.


the borders of the republic were simply too far-flung for Roman citizens to really feel the need to join the army, since their main reason for doing so was to protect their own homes from invasion.

Well the Romans went to war mainly because of their plans to conquer foregn lands. With the exeception of the 2nd Punic war of course - but in that war age and property requirements were lowered so as to enable nearly all Romans to join the army.



Without a professional force, I doubt the Romans would have been able to continue expanding beyond what they already had unless another faction directly threatened their homes.


True, exactly why Marius reformed the army: too enable more men to join it and thereby increase Rome's invasion powers.

[MSB]

If the Gracchi had succeeded in their plans for land, eventually, after they died the same "theft" of land from the poor would happen again. The people (who now owned land henceforth could go to war) would go to war in some far away land and their farms would collapse. Rich business men would then buy the ruined land which the farmers could not afford to maintain and create big farms run by slaves. Exactly the same thing would have eventually happened again. Also the Marian reforms would never have taken place as the poor would have land due to Gracchus' reforms so there would have been no reason to reform the army to incorporate the landless as everybody would have had land at that time. The Marius reforms would probably have happened later when the poor were landless again.

[Watchman]

I was under the impression Marius to a large degree just made the already extant situation official. Or at least by what I've read when he came around the Legions to a considerable degree already consisted of full-timers for the simple reason the ever further campaigns just plain weren't really sustainable with citizen-soldiers who had homes and farms and businesses to look after. Ergo, the rank and file were by that point already mostly people without such baggage-cum-means-of-livelihood, men from the lower rungs of the society for whom a military career may well have been a welcome opportunity to make a living and hopefully better their station.

What they should have been in theory was of course quite irrelevant. Christian knights were theoretically only supposed to fight infidels, pagans and heretics and not each other and Spartans to never flee in battle too.
Fat chance of either, but hot air and lofty aspirations did always come cheap.

One also suspects that the old motivation of civic duty had become increasingly insufficient when Rome's borders were far away in the mountains of Iberia and Anatolia and the edges of Sahara; a man with a life and family in Italy ought to have found it increasingly difficult to grasp why the heck he was supposed to risk life and limb and leave his family and properties unattended for God knows how long for the sake of pushing them even further away, as well as just what exactly he was supposed to gain from it.

The idea of simply paying someone willing to take care of the job in his stead to do so no doubt started looking rather attractive in the circumstances.

'Course, the resulting uncoupling of the civilian and military spheres of life turned out to be permanent to the degree where towards the end of the Empire men were actually willing to maim themselves to avoid conscription into the army (which AFAIK didn't work - the Emperor calmly ordered such cases assigned to supply duties).

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think the biggest problem with Rome was the conflict orientated culture. Status in Rome was always to do with winning, usually militarily. THis obsession with manly virtue meant that when Rome had no external enemies it turned on itself. Its also why Rome never developed a civic culture to rival Greece, or anywhere else.

It was basically a nation of soldiers and lawyers.

[Sarcasm]

It was basically a nation of soldiers and lawyers.
I guess it's true what they say - history does repeat itself.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yes, I was thinking that as I typed.

Ave Bush!