The latter is related to my scholarly interests on the phenomenon of populism, which often represents a lower class uprising against the elites who benefit from expansion and openness to trade. As we will see, the fact that this pattern can be observed during antiquity, in a civilization dramatically different from our own, and in the present, highlights the recurring and structural character of certain political patterns: the geographical and economic expansion of great powers, followed by the unequal distribution of gains, and the resulting political opposition from those who do not benefit, or are disadvantaged, by the system.
Empire without End
Rome’s openness can be traced to its very beginnings, in 753 B.C. According to the mythology of the nation’s origins, it was founded by foreigners escaping hostile lands in the East (here we see echoes of America’s original settlers), and when Rome’s founding fathers, the brothers Romulo and Remo, announced the new polity, they welcomed rejects, refugees, and reprobates from other parts of the Italic peninsula (more echoes of America here, as displayed on the Statue of Liberty: “give me your tired, your poor…masses yearning to breathe free…the wretched refuse of your teeming shore”). Unlike in America, however, the polity was initially a traditional monarchy. It transitioned to the republican system of government in part because of the corruption of the king Lucius Tarquinius “the Arrogant.” The general assembly voted to replace the office of the king with that of the consoles—who had many of the same powers but were elected to serve 1 year terms. Now, power was divided between the Senate, composed of members of the aristocracy, and the consoles, elected directly by the people. The Senate and the People were Rome’s constituting elements, hence the appellation Senatus Populus Que(is) Rome, or SPQR, and title of the book under review.
Consoles were magistrates who often came from the privileged classes, but they eagerly courted voters, giving the latter sway in political outcomes. Electoral campaigns in which candidates competed by making promises, replete with slogans displayed on busy streets, and tactics devised by professionals to increase the vote, were a regular feature. As recognized by the Greek writer Publius, the genius of this constitution was that it combined elements of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, leading to checks and balances which avoided excesses, created stability, emanating outwards and allowing Rome’s prodigious expansion, especially in the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.
Another key feature was Rome’s conception of citizenship. It granted all the rights inscribed in Roman legislation, was gradually extended to vast numbers of people, and was a major instrument of social stability and power. Emblematic is the social war composed of disgruntled legionaries and slaves, in the early fist century B.C. Rome replied by granting citizenship to almost all inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. Stability was established by the decision to include them in the polity, rather than relying exclusively on military might. The highest expression of this policy occurred in 212 A.D., when the emperor Caracalla granted citizenship to the entire empire, which by then was vast: 65 million people, or 21% of the world’s population.
One of the revolutionary aspects of this openness was that it separated citizenship from territory and blood relations. Unlike, say, in Athens, where citizenship was restricted to local inhabitants and their off-spring, who were believed to be connected to the land since time immemorial, Roman citizenship was an idea, or an identity, not organically tied to the city of Rome that could co-exist with local identities in a complimentary way; thus, for example, a citizen in a Roman province such as Egypt could consider himself Roman while speaking the local language (at the time, Greek), and practicing local customs. Along with other Roman technologies such as roads, aqueducts, and architecture, citizenship diffused Roman civilization around the Mediterranean and would set the stage for the entity we now call Europe and, eventually, the Americas.
Roman religion was also open, or, in the more contemporary verbiage, “inclusive.” There was no single religious book or document, or single god for that matter; there were multiple gods, and different ones were related to distinct peoples and/or their territories. For example, Jews believed in Jehovah, Egyptians in Isis, and Persians in Mithras, and few seemed to question the general idea that different people had different divinities. During Rome’s expansion, there was no attempt to extirpate local gods and impose those of the Romans. Subjects' and territories’ gods were incorporated into the empire’s pantheon. This occurred, in part, because for Romans, belief in gods was not connected to any concept of individual salvation or personal morality, nor was it that important as a theoretical question; rather, it was the social and practical functions of religion that mattered, such as participation in the sacred rituals and festivals which marked the calendar. (Here, we see echoes of the contemporary Catholic church, which not uncoincidentally has been key in preserving many aspects of the Roman legacy in the West).
This relative openness of citizenship and religion should not be conflated with liberalism as it is understood today. Rome, for example, was very militaristic, and this was manifest in culture, institutions, and practices. Romulo and Remo, the founding fathers, were believed to be offspring of Mars, the god of war. Democracy, understood as the right to vote, was granted to free (i.e. non-slave) males, in part because as soldiers they bore the brunt of Rome’s wars, and because wars often required majority approval. Women did not participate in the fighting at the time, which mostly relied on brute physical force and endurance rather than, as today, on technologies that have reduced the importance of face-to-face combat. Other conditions militated against more female participation: in a world without contraception, and where up to half of children died before their 10th birthday, the estimated birthrate, just to preserve the stability of the population, was 5-6 children per woman. Only the wealthy—a small minority—had slaves and servants to help with child-rearing and household labour.
There was never a clear separation of the military and the civil polity, and Roman generals made decisions on civil matters. The path to glory was success on the battlefield, and emperors sometimes participated in the wars they waged. Literature which suffused Roman society, like Virgil’s Aeneid, exalted the virtues of self-sacrifice in the pursuit of military success and territorial conquest. This book was widely read and studied and, according to Mary Beard’s SPQR, represented a cultural reference point which was shared among the Roman elite and the masses. Entertainment for Romans of all social classes included gladiatorial fighting between humans, and between humans and animals, to the death. There was no organized police force, and so many had to rely on themselves, or the powerful men of the families, for personal security; when they were insufficient, they relied on vigilantes, who of course were led by brutish men.
Although relatively open by the standards of other ancient civilizations, legal equality did not exist. The major groups were the plebs (in today’s terms, the “people” or the “masses”), the patricians (or the wealthy) and slaves; the last were mostly European in origin (unlike the race-based slavery of the modern period). Greeks, for example, were valued as slaves because of their literacy, and often served as secretaries and other roles which involved mental work such as accountancy, letter-writing, or proof editing drafts of texts to be published by their owners; Germans were also highly represented among slaves in part because of Rome’s constant fighting on its northern frontier, and captured Germans were often brought back to Rome as slaves suited for physical labour. However, unlike in ancient Greece, where slaves had little chance to escape their plight, Roman slaves often became freemen and Roman citizens, because they could either buy their freedom, or the owner could grant it; some evidence suggests that up to half of slaves were freed this way. Overtime, this contributed to Rome’s unique ethnic diversity and mixing (and which is still visible among the peoples of the Mediterranean).
Major conquests occurred from the third to the first centuries B.C. The entire Italian peninsula was subdued with the defeat of the Etruscans ad Sannites by 275 BC. Later, the famous Punic wars against Hannibal, and the eventual destruction of Carthage, gave Rome possession of Spain and North Africa, while Greece was conquered shortly after, in 168 B.C. Caesar conquered Gaul (modern day France) in 50 BC, and Pompey consolidated Roman rule in Judea and Syria (Asia) during the same period. Egypt became a Roman possession after Octavius’s victory in the civil wars.
The increase in territory and population led to an increase in the various sources of wealth. Not only the expropriation of natural resources (precious metals, building materials, grains), but also tribute from locals in either direct taxation, or in soldiers for the Roman army, and expanded commercial opportunities, especially luxury goods from the east. Much of this new wealth financed public projects, such as the still-astounding Colosseum and the timeless Pantheon, which transformed the capital city, giving it its majestic character which continues to dazzle millions of tourists every year. Privileged groups, often through corrupt dealings with authorities in the Senate and in the provinces, had better access to the wealth derived from the newly incorporated territories and peoples. The aristocracy used this wealth to build ever more palatial abodes (many still well preserved), and to purchase and consume more imported luxuries from the east. Meanwhile, many of the inhabitants of the city lived in squalor, or what today we would call shanty towns. Here, Rome was distancing itself from the martial and inclusive ideals of its founders, and from the Republican institutions which were supposed to give voice to the plebs. Many among the masses had fought in Rome’s wars and contributed to the empire’s expansion, only to return to their homes in the Italian peninsula without jobs, land, or the capacity to live a dignified life.
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| The Gracchus Brothers: Ancient Populists |
This led to a feeling of betrayal among many Roman citizens and laid the groundwork for candidates to office who promised justice. In Mary Beard’s SPQR, two are extensively assessed: Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, brothers and war heroes in the wars against Carthage who were outraged by the conditions of the plebs, especially those who had served Rome. Their lives were extensively documented and hence we possess a considerable amount of information about them. Both would be considered “populists” in today’s political lexicon. Their enemies were mostly the aristocratic interests defended by Senators (or, in the language of contemporary populists, the “corrupt elite”). Of the two, Gaius was perhaps the most radical, and proposed reforms to benefit the plebs which included anti-corruption measures, restrictions on application of the death penalty, redistribution of fertile lands, and publicly funded and distributed grains (here we see echoes of many left-wing Latin American populists). Other proposals included granting citizenship to greater numbers of inhabitants of the empire, which of course would increase the numbers who would be beneficiaries of the rights adumbrated above. This last proposal, in particular, highlights how the “people” were not understood in the exclusive and nationalist sense; rather, they included those without Roman citizenship but who were victims of exploitation, which was a violation of the norms upon which Rome was founded.
Gaius won two elections as representative of the plebs, and out of the mentioned proposals, the distribution of grains remained for centuries, and as far as we know, did not have any equivalent elsewhere in the ancient world. The other elements of his agenda never saw the light of day, or were short lived, in part because Gaius was murdered by the aristocratic elements threatened by this populist program.
This clash between Rome’s poor and the aristocracy was also evident in the more celebrated and known civil conflict in the 1st century B.C., that between Pompey and Caesar. Together with the wealthy Crassus, Caesar, and Pompey collectively ruled Rome via the office of the Triumvirate, but as ever, eventually had a falling out and this sparked civil conflict. The main contenders were Pompey and Caesar, and factions aligned with one or the other fought across the empire. Popular history has cast their conflict as a dispute about democracy and dictatorship, which culminated in the ides of March, when Caesar was stabbed to death in the Senate shortly after being declared dictator for life. Senators, it is widely believed, were defending the republic against a tyrant. Mary Beard’s SPQR highlights another dimension: Caesar was a quasi-populist, promoting reforms similar to those of the Gracchus brothers, such as the redistribution of lands, which threatened the interests of aristocracy, and it was partly for this reason that the available evidence suggests Caesar was loved by Rome’s masses. Pompey’s social base, meanwhile, was more represented among the privileged classes, and his death in Egypt heralded a victory of the Caesarian faction, an intolerable outcome which ultimately led to Caesar's assassination.
The republic, contrary to the pretensions of the perpetrators, was not restored after the assassination, and the civil conflict between the two factions continued. Now, it manifested as the conflict between Caesar’s adopted son, Octavius, and Mark Antony, who was seduced by one of Caesar’s former lovers, and mother of one of Caesar’s children, the Queen of Egypt Cleopatra. They initially shared power in the Triumvirate, but disputes about the empire’s spoils, and about who was Caesar’s legal heir, led to fighting. Octavius’s forces prevailed in the famous battle of Actium, and the humiliated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra fled and eventually committed suicide.
Octavius became Rome’s first official emperor, now known to us as Augustus. Republican institutions still formally existed but they were emptied of substantive power; authority for most major decisions resided in the office of the emperor. Putting an end to the civil wars, and centralizing authority, however, established the conditions for stability and a new golden age. Augustus ruled for 50 years, and during that time invested heavily in public works, while trade expanded across the empire. Homogenization proceeded apace, but not because of a conscious policy similar to France’s missione civilatrice 17 centuries later. It was rather the movement of people, ideas—especially citizenship and education—and goods which helped to radiate Roman civilization across the its vast territories.
As ever, this golden age was temporary, in part because many of Augustus’s successors—most notably, Nero, Caligula, Commodus—were either incompetent or meretricious. Increased wealth, and bad leadership, inevitably led to disputes about the distribution of the spoils. Meanwhile, Rome’s enemies gathered strength. This combination of internal division, and external threat from the now better organized and more numerous Germans, was ultimately fatal.
It was under these conditions that Christianity emerged on the scene. It was in one sense rather populist in that it challenged the "establishment" and elevated the moral purity of the poor and excluded. On the other hand, it did not participate in public life, and had beliefs which violated the Roman moral code. Partly for this reason, Christians were persecuted, as Romans viewed their beliefs as a threat to the moral order. SPQR cites the scholar Pliny the Elder to illuminate how authorities viewed this strange new sect. One element that was puzzling to the Romans was that the Christian deity was not organically tied to any territory or people; it was rather for all people and all time, which implied the utter rejection of all other gods. While Romans exalted the pleasures of this world and of the flesh, Christians viewed them as corrupting and an abomination and looked forward to the happiness of the next world. For this reason, Roman authorities went to great lengths to extinguish Christianity. Very few would have predicted what actually occurred: Christianity would become the official religion of the empire, spread across its territories and replace paganism, and eventually spread to all humanity when Europeans, almost 1500 years later, began to colonize the entire planet.
This is one of the biggest social scientific puzzles of all time, and SPQR does not provide a definitive answer, but it does highlight that Rome’s expansion and openness were necessary conditions for the spread of Christianity. Roman trade, roads, currency, and institutions ensured frequent movements between the farthest parts of the empires, which at the extremes represented vast distances: from Hadrian’s wall in the West (modern day Northern England) to Syria in the East. Proselytizers from Judea, where Christianity was born, often travelled to the capital, and from there, ideas spread to other parts of the empire. And as the empire was falling apart in the 3rd and 4th centuries, where wealth and stability was replaced with foreign invasion, chaos, and poverty, Christianity’s profession of the evils of the world resonated more and more.
Overtime, this led to revolutionary overturning of the moral order. A deeper and more extensive analysis of that will have to wait for a future blogpost, where I will review the work of the historian Tom Holland, who has extensively documented Christianity’s revolutionary impact, and the way it still manifests in secular guises on questions related to human rights, equality, and democracy. Before then, by the end of this summer, I’ll post a review of Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, which focuses more on foreign rather than domestic policy, and which I am presently reading.
