Whats wrong with Rome?
- Soilders/ farmers who fought in Rome's wars often lost their farms when they returned to Italy and were reduced to the lowest" proletarian" citizen status
- War profiteers abounded and traded in slaves, weapons, and often bought abandoned farms to create large plantations(latifundia)
- "Just grab some land!" Tiberus Gracchus is not cool with that
Hey, Its Living
- War Profiteers
- used their wealth to buy up ruined farms
- small lots were merged into large estates for use as vineyards, olive gorves, or pastureland for livestock
- displaced farmers could not compete with the low cost of hiring slaves(Carthage)
- In 150 BC, slaves made up one third of the population of Italy
- The Gracchi attempt to Reform
- In the second century B.C, the Gracchi brothers attempted to carve out special rights for the poor, bu their attempts were opposed and they were eventually murdered by their enemies in the Senate
- Plan:
- resettle many of the city's poor(including army veterans) on small farms
- Provide a public subsidy of grain(welfare) for those who remained in Rome
- This would raise the number of independent, self sufficient farmers
- Would also reduce the gap between rich and poor
- With Tiberius in the assembly as a tribune, this woulda shoulda coulda worked
- ...The Best laid Plans...sometimes run out of time
- Tribunes only served one year, so Tiberius came up short
- His( possibly illegal) re-election simply enraged his enemies
- It didn't help that the Senate already saw him as a dangerous troublemaker
- they killed Tiberus, and over 300 of his supporters
- his younger brother Gaius, meanwhile....
- Its gross, but heres what happened to Gaius after he was killed by the senate
- Graius head was cut off, as Opimius had announced that whomever brought back the head would be paid its weight in gold. When the head measured an astonishing seventeen and two thirds pounds, it was discovered that Septimuleius, who brought the head, committed fraud by removing the brain and pouring in molten leas and therefore recieved no reward at all. The bodies of Gaius was thrown into the river Tiber.
- Rise of Julius C
- A talented patrician, formed a unique government with two former Sulla allies, Pompey and Crassus, known as the triumvirate
- Pompey was an accomplished general, Crassus the richest man in Rome( and one of the richest men in history)
- Julius was named proconsul of so. Gual, and within eight years conquered the rest of it, as well as parts of Britian and Germany, giving him great wealth, power and influence
- Power and Ambition
- Pompey is jealous, and the Senate is worried
- They tell Caesar to disband his army before returning to Rome
- instead he and his army cross the Rubicon and make a grand, heroic entrance
- this causes a near civil war between Caesar's forces and Pompey's troops
- Pompey is defeated in Greece, and is killed in Egypt where he had taken refuge
- today crossing the Rebricon means if you are going to do something or not
- Large and in Charge
- 46 BC: Caesar returned to Rome in triumph and was declared "Father of the Fatherland"( an awesome title invented just for him)
- JC had hiself appointed tribune, supreme pontiff, consul, and dictator- some at the same time
- why not shoot the works?- he had the senate name him dictator for life
- we have now come full circle since the days of Tarquin the Proud
- Whatcha gonna do with all that power
- resettle war veterans on farmlands in Italy and i nthe provinces
- extend Roman citizenship to parts of Gual and Spain
- appointed citizens from the provinces to the Senate
- build spledid buildings and roads
- introduce reform into every department of adminstration
- Julius Caesar was murdered on the Ides of MArch on March 15 in 44BC
- aftermath ti the murder
- Mark Antony and Octavian each got some of Caesar's troops, and formed a new truimvirate with another warlord- Lepidus
- Mark Antony and Octavian battled each other, then joined forces against JC's assassins, then became rivals again
- Antony has a love affair with Cleopatra, ruler of Eygpt, which is unpopular in Rome
- Octavian pushes out Lepidus, then defeats Antony and Clea in the naval battle of Actium
- When the dust settles...
- Octavian is the supreme warlord
- he runs a military dictorship
- he is named "Augustus' which means 'revered one"
- He is in charge of the greatest empire in the world
- he was 18 when Caesar was killed(44BC)
- now less than two decades later (27BC) he is the most powerful man in the world
- beginning of Pax Romana(Roman Peace)
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