The Rise of the Roman Republic

The Rise of the Roman Republic The Republic 265 BCE-133BCE

Objectives • Through what enterprise did Rome come in contact with Carthage in the 3rd Century BCE • How did the military exemplify the importance of citizenship? • What were the reasons for the Punic wars?

Expansion/Transformation • Between 265 and 133 BCE the success of Rome could be attributed to its Army • Army of the Republic – made up of citizens • Freeholders thought the territory – tax paying men between the ages of 17-46 had to report when called • Red Flag – significance? • Army was organized into legions (4000) - 40 companies of 100 men. • Soldiers took an oath • Discipline was the strength of the army, Decimation • Food of the Roman soldier (Wheat bread, water, vinegar)

Expansion/Transformation • Victorious Legion/soldier returned after a season of fighting with a few gold coins and pride of victory • By 265 BCE Rome had unified the whole peninsula. It would be the growing wealth and power of the republic clashed with new foes outside of Italy.

Expansion/Transformation • Wars of the Mediterranean • Confrontation of Carthage was next on the agenda • Carthage had been founded by the Phoenician colonists around 800 BCE • Became a prosperous and diverse cosmopolitan city • Population at its height was about 400,000, about 100,000 were from Phoenician heritage • Skilled sailors and traded along the western coast of Africa • Unique modes of trading and trust with the African tribes.

First Punic War • Rome’s clash with Carthage began over who would control the Sicilian city of Messana, and areas that the Roman’s saw as strategically vital to the security of southern Italy. • Carthage resented Rome’s presence in Sicily, in 264 BCE both sides sent troops in an effort to conquer the disputed island • It became a Sea war, Rome invaded and concluded an alliance with Syracuse in 263 BCE,

First Punic War • Rome learns to be a Sea Power, taking a wrecked Carthaginian ship and constructed 20 fast chips build on the models, propelled by 200 oarsmen to ram and sink ships. • Invented a new sea warfare, won impressive victories but could not deliver a knockout for more than 20 years • Key to survival was how the Romans survived in the aftermath of storms of their naval Fleets • 241 BCE, Rome forced Carthaginian commander HamilarBarca to surrender

First Punic War • Results of 1st Punic • Carthage paid huge indemnity • It had to abandon Sicily, Syracuse, Messina • Aftermath of War • Roman Legions were kept busy for next 2 decades in the North • Defeating the Ligurian, on the northeast coast, Celtic Gauls south of the Alps, and the Illyrians along the Adriatic • Carthage caught in internal battles with mercenary armies • Carthage expanded empire into Spain, trading with Rome reached a height, tow had weary peace but not friendship • The 241 Treaty was merely a pause.

Second Punic War • The Success of Hasdrubal and Hannibal in Spain. • War breaks out in 218 BCE, Hannibal marches north out of Spain along Mediterranean coast, across the Alps, with elephants. • Transported 23,000 Troops 18 war elephants into the plains of Northern Italy • Trebia River in the Po Valley, the Romans lost 20,000 men, 2/3 of their army • Political success of the Carthaginian forces brought allies from Roman subjugated powers.

Second Punic War • Commanders chosen by Patrician dominated Senate. Plebs dissatisfied with how the war was going • Quintus FabiusMaximus, appointed Dictator • Used delaying tactics to slow advance, nickname the Cunctator. • New Dictator elected by popular assembly, Gaius Terentius Varrow, elected counsel led the army to the greatest defeat in Roman history at Canne (216 BCE)

Second Punic War • What saved Roman State • Majority of Roman Armies held firm, Rome’s tradition of sharing fruits of victory with allies, extended the rights of Roman citizenship. • Second, the social orders remained amazingly united. Strong family/patronage ties • Publius Cornelius Scipio, (aka Scipio the Elder), commander who forced Hannibal from Italy, Later earned title Africanus. • Africanus defeated Hannibal by taking the war to the enemy, in Spain and in Africa. These victories drew Hannibal home, where at Zama in 202 BCE the Roman commander destroyed the Carthaginian army

Second Punic War • End of the War • Carthage forced to pay a large indemnity • Carthage ceded its colonies to ROME

Third Punic War • Final Destruction of Carthage • Weakened Carthage was not enough, Senator wanted to completely destroy the enemy to keep the Plebs under senatorial control. • Cato the Elder; aka Marcus Porcius Cato, ended his speech “Delendaest Carthago” • 149 BCE war was renewed. • 3rd war was unevenly matched. Rome’s power far surpassed Carthage • 146 BCE Scipio Aemilianus, Scipio the Younger adopted grandson of Scipio Africanas (the elder) overwhelmed Carthage • Destruction was total, those who survived were sold into slavery, the entire city was destroyed, plowed, leveled, cursed. Hinterland became the property of wealthy Roman Senators.

Roman Expansion • Roman armies conquered the great center of Mediterranean commerce, Corinth, in the same year it destroyed Carthage. • Expanded into Greece and the rest of the Hellenistic world • Greek states were in a state of disarray and and asked the Roman Senate to arbitrate their disputes.

Roman Expansion • Philip of Macedon forced into war, due to his role in a treaty, defeated in 197 BCE • Seleucid Antiochus III of Syria suffered same fate, Rome declared free the Greek cities of Asia • The Greeks venerated the Roman commander as a God (Titus Quinctius Flaminius). In reality the control for the cities lay in the hands of local oligarchs • Corinth falls in 146 BCE, same year as Zama • By 146 BCE Roman Republic controlled whole rim of the Mediterranean from Rhodes in the east across Greece, Dalmatia, Italy, southern Gaul, and North Africa, Even Syria and Egypt.

Republican Civilization • Farmers and Soldiers • Sudden conquest , influx of unprecedented riches • Limitations prevented the republic from resolving its internal social tensions and the external problems caused by the burden of empire • Most Roman farmers were small farmers with as few as 10 acres of land, (hogs, beans, wheat/grain, Hogs) • Most important crop: Roman soldier, allies provided reconnaissance

Republican Civilization • Roman Infantry: the Main Roman fighter • Greek Phalanx transformed into Roman Legion • A flexible unit composed of 30 companies of 120 men each, Legions maneuvered in three rows of squares of men, each containing 120 soldiers • Constant training, and execution was the mainstay • Engineers, bridges, siege machines, catapults, by the late republic Roman armies could construct identical camps each night, and build a strong square fort 2150 feet long on each side. Camps were reconstructed exactly • Hardships of Roman Soldier • War became international expeditions lasting years • Men unable to work land while gone, or mortgaged farm to support family while gone • Aristocrats, amassed vast landed estates worked by imported slaves, • Ordinary Romans and Italians lacked small family farm capable of supporting themselves • Without land, their sons excluded from military service, became disenfranchised citizens.

Republican Civilization • Roman Family, Basic unit of society • Paterfamilias, master of the family – women children, slaves- • Authority lasted until death, only then could sons achieve financial independence • Women were never free from paternal authority, divorce • Women had informal authority, moral education of children, direction of household, control over dowries. Widows might have greater, if informal authority in the raising of children

Republican Civilization • Paternal authority over children, Absolute • All children born into a marriage became members of the family • 12 tables allowed defective children to be killed for good of family • Infants had to be accepted by father • Life and death of children was up to father • Abandoned Children would go to childless couples, often ended as slaves or prostitutes • Not all sons born into family: adoption trademark

Republican Civilization • Slaves • Part of the household property w/o personal rights • Paterfamilias had authority over the slaves • Paterfamilias could free salve, slaves would still have obligations to owner for life • Domus • Center of Roman family the home, early Etruscan architecture • Houses looked inward, presenting nothing but blank walls to the outside world • Visitors entered through Atrium, with a collecting pool in which rain water for household use flowed from the roof through terra cotta drains • Niches or nooks stood wax or terra cotta busts of ancestors or statues, the walls constructed of stone blocks, and were often painted in bands of different colors to imitate marble

Expansion • Social Effects • Family environment changes after many conquests • Women began to take a more active role in public life • Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus, after husbands’ death refused to remarry, devoting herself to raising her children, administering their inheritance, directing their political careers • Some women escaped authority of their husbands, whose fathers did not transfer authority

Expansion • Upon their father’s death, some women could become independent w/o the consent of their husbands • Women had weaker sentimental bonds, it meant that a wife’s relationship to her children was also weak, Roman mothers had never been legally related to their children • Wives/mothers not fully apart of their husband’s families, brothers’ families were natural heirs • Marriage to daughters sealed alliances between men. Fathers could force daughters to divorce. • By second century women became temporary visitors in their husbands’ homes.

Expansion • Overtime the Atrium in the home would grow and be more lavish among the rich • Frescos, mosaics and painting would decorate walls/floors • Not everyone could afford a Domus, in aftermath of great conquests, the Romans had a housing shortage for the poor, Shopkeepers began to have homes attached to shops, peasants forced into cities and off land. • The small buildings for the poorer were structures that families would crowd into 10 x 10 rooms, shared common enclosed courtyard, these buildings were not hidden away and ere often side by side with shops and other multistory apartment buildings • Rich and poor rubbed elbows everyday making the tensions ever present

Expansion • Roman Religion • Worshipped many Gods, the more the better, reverence for authority and order • Gods were Anthropomorphic • Outside the home Gods were worshipped and future readings were done • Roman priests, however, were not a special caste, but important members of society of the elite who held priesthoods in addition to other public offices • As Rome expanded so did the absorption of the Roman Gods • Absorption only went so far, as the secret rituals of Dionysus, later to be called Bacchus, caused a stir as Livy tells us.

Expansion • Roman Letters • Rome absorbed many things from Etruscans, Alphabet, the one that Most Western Languages use today • Birth began with Rome’s exposure to Greek civilization • Timaeus was the first Greek historian serious about the new western power, wrote a Roman history up to the Pyrrhic war. Interviewed Roman and Greek witnesses • Polybius was the Greek historian to record Rome’s rise to power, gathered information first hand, • Polybius’ history is both the culmination of the traditions of Greek historiography and its transformation.

The Rise of the Roman Republic