By
Sampson I.M Onwuka
Juvenal describes “Rome is supported on Pipe Stems match
sticks; it’s cheaper thus for the landlord to shore up his ruins, patch up the
old cracked walls, and notify all the tenants. They are expected to sleep
secure through the beams are about to crash above them.” The promotion to power
which Rome experienced in later half of the last century before Christ merit interesting
historical contention, but it serves little purpose for what happened in the years
leading from the rise of optimates and the Counselors to primus inter-alia
(land owners), leaves us what the real vintage of Roman character – that it was
revolutionary in many ways than one, especially in psychology of voting and
deciding their leadership. For all intent of history – even if the laws are
added to history – that Greeks are oversized as those who champion modern democracy;
such claims make sense in the light of the cultural and military exploitations
of Rome. For if we place the histories of the Greeks to the rest of world, the privilege
seeded to Greeks and the Athenians pale to other Easterners including Africa.
Once, we compare the facts Rome is military by privilege, the politics of
popular citizens and the deeds of those in frontier leaves us with a hint of
the years that Julius Caesar led Rome – both politically and militarily. For
Sulla – one of the earliest Normads (Africans) and Roman General to have
reached Rome, crossed the Rubicon with the might of the stations in the
so-called East, he was not at least publicly interested in transforming land
laws and agrarian rules that divided Rome in his time.
The other Nomad of an adopted familiar would be Cornelius
Scipo whose reforms were tempered by politics and land laws in Rome. It could
be said that these were spared the contagion of murder and conspiracies that
will dominate Julius Caesar reign. But neither Scipio or his counterpart Marius
were reform minded, they may perpetuated the class problem that developed from
the conflicts – even when Jurguthen, his Nomads and Rio Tinto (Tarteus) – or what
would become Spain were Tiberius
Gracchus - The Elder – father to Tiberius S. Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus – was
historically believed to have taken a side against one of the two Sons of
Scipio – one was Scipio Africanus who is badly said to have gotten his name
from the continent which he conquered. But this is not far from the tree; since
these were trading tackles over the Red Sea and Mediterranean made Syria a must
have for Barbarians, a problem that Roman faced centuries earlier, a problem of
empire, accumulation and wealth angst to migration and demographic. Africa was and is still an Island in what is
now Tunisia and the story the connection of Publius Cornelius Scipo to Cornelia
Africana more than sealed the support of Tiberius Gracchus, and impresses that
the reason for the opposition against Hannibal and Cartage was the problem of
Rights and Responsibility.
For Juneval – he presents the argument that the Plebs and
proletariats, “has no standing in court…Men do not easily rise whose property
hinders their merit.” this remained the case in Rome till the 2nd century –B.C
when more lands were acquired by Roman Citizens and war veteran. The tribunes
were appointed to deputize on their behalf and Roman Senators were in central
position to question some of the more daring petition over. If Roman fractured
during Caesar official reign, it was not the power that he showed in office but
on why the end could be dragged by the Republic that offered as many leaders as
they were politically dangerous and desperate men and women. Rome following the
multiple graces they share abroad and the expansion of troupes were faced with
a large and powerful numbers of immigrants – some from conquered territories
and others part of what could be classified as Nomads and Barbarian. Unlike
others, we may begin to see that Caesar’s problem was partly a matter of
experience and knowledge of Roman power which the dusty and narrow paths of the
City and the frontiers of the empires were not ready or brooded for. Yet it was
gradually an empire – for sure Sulla could have handed Rome the East - created
the pathways into Europe and made Rome a military station for than one nation.
Why Caesar’s views was not easily available, the tension in Rome was reaching
reasonable proportions, for sure, these land owners or rulers were not amazed
at the end of their days – they were partly accepting the idea of new Rome.
According to Michael Parenti, “In 121, in response to
Gaius’s initiatives, the Senate passed what was later called the Senatus
Consultum utimum, a decree that allowed for a suspension of republican rights
“in defense of the defense.” It gave magistrates license to discharge
absolutist power, including political repression and mass murder.” I shall
heretofore state that the informed consent that Gaius material information
about the right to self-defense includes the security that the Senators offered,
excludes the premise of military leadership including those who ventured in
areas long reserved for others. The 2nd
century is not what it was at the time of Roman partisanship but there are
obvious clauses that tend to suggest that the defense or right to defense was
not only for States against the States but the States against the power of
private military.
The tension between those who ruled by force of arms left
many at mercy of foreign legions and those who ruled through the court reached
entertaining levels, that policies created did not acknowledge those in the
front, some wounded and other stabbed to death in line of conflict and certain instance,
a compromise rendered and reached between Romans and the confrontations was
resolved through unhappy exchange. One of the confrontations was in later years
the powers that forced Julius Caesar to remain outside Rome for very long
period of time – and in one period, it narrowed down to his stay in Brittany
where he couched up as a woman for reasons not very clear. Perhaps he was not an absolute ruler and the privilege
of his juniors at war vested to transform their leagues of nations reached
proportion that required actions in Egypt under the shadows of the Pharaohs.
In Parenti account of the transition that was possible at
this time, he considered the reasons why Gaius an earlier reform minded
politician faced death, that “After repeated threats against his life, Gaius
and 250 supporters including another popularis, Fulvius Flaccus, were massacred
by the Optimates’ death squads in 121 B.C. These assassins then rounded up and
summarily executed an additional 3000 democrats. The victims’ relatives were
forbidden to mourn publicly for the dead.” It leads here that the rooms for
democracy in room and the power that judges were vested on to exercise merited
a consideration, which policies failed to transform the exploitation of the soldiers
who return from war, and the exploitation that governed the possession of
lands. For Gaius and his brothers, their popularity was not a small container
but their wealth was no match for the later saviors such as Sulla who nearly
confiscated all land in Rome, no match for Julius Caesar who was directly
influenced by the reactionary wars of Sulla and against the rise of Spartacus.
With the increase of population, it was a question of time
that Rome began to expand the Agrarian laws between 121 B.C – 111 B.C. Rome
entered period of street fights and blood baths and according to Cicero, and
the people could not tolerate the ‘King-like power’ exhibited by Tiberius
Gracchus and by consequent others such as his brother Gaius Gracchus and
Flavius Flacca.
Using a similar argument by Michael Parenti, he noted that
popularity led to street fights and it was the optimates and the people who
backed Rome sought to remove by sword or by prinile thus in the words of Otto
Kieter…”Gracchi perished in furious street fighting” “That the Senatus
consultum ultimum was used to cut down Gaius Gracchus and thousands of his
followers” that, that some of the legislative intent of Gracchi was riddled
with reforms that stepped on the privileges of the few. It was his
understanding as well many that the age of Rome following a hundred years of
wars with Samnite was a society politically and religiously divided and direct
military and autocratic leadership was necessary. Thus the faith of the young empire depended
on this very premise of a collective and oval office and a Maximus Pontiff as
elected by the people of Rome. Parenti marginalized this view by citing an
alternative reason that the so-called highest law was ‘often a cloak for the
lowest deeds.’ In the next ten years, the selective process and the reform
perpetrated a decade earlier brought Lucius Saturninus to an end, following
long spells of disagreement and fights in the street.
P.A Brunt interpretation of Gracchi reforms was that the
division created problems of stability and the Senate had little power over the
mobs and middle men and the reforms was a disregard for the magistrate but on
the premise that “…the highest law was
the public safety’ and perhaps nothing more. The Eastward expansion of Rome to
Africa and Asia Minor swelled the number of poor and placed people, whose lands
were collateral for the survival of the Senate. It soon fetches problems for
Rome and it was tethered against the wish of the State towards Civil war as
earlier as 120 B.C.
But these were popular lives and not military men, local
champions with long held family values – some with some military or war
experience and other not - including Sulpicius Rufus who dies in 88 B.C during
next City-wide bloodshed. Popularity was important, protection of personal and
inherited property was also necessary but above, Rome had some strange to
Persia where they inherited their earliest attitude to life and where the
customs of Republic of opinionated elders without Kings and excessive entitlement
was prominent.
The question that we may not likely ask is if the Gracchi
reforms were a form of ‘endangerment’ to the old established society or that
the power of few who held Rome in its balls were threatened? Or could the
reforms of Tiberius and those of his brother, Gaius, considered a threat to
Roman ancient regime and therefore placed Senate and the magistrate under
unusual conditions? Or was it some it something else, that Gracchus saw a
future that demanded the central authority – perhaps no necessarily a dictator
who would direct the affairs of the State and who’s birth will coincide in
lesser affairs of Rome in 100 B.C, a decade after the death of Gaius
In the words of Michael Parenti, the pressing needs for land
reforms, housing authority, agrarian and grain reforms was in the end between
121 B.C and 111 B.C could not have force the reaction from the public saving
for the reason that Tiberius Gracchus was not only the leader of Roman Society,
that his rules were initiated for his good and perhaps in the name of good and
goodwill for Rome. In spite of the temptation to handle the question of welfare
in Rome and the transformation of voting in popular election and by the elects,
the pressing issues of the day including housing and reform of the least
approach to growing population sponsored the nerve to act out the frustration
on both the Romans and their counselors and those who reasons not certain led
their lives in the Eternal City. There was hardly any protection for these
Plebes as they were described that even in Nero periods, lands were forcefully
taken by some politically connected gangs – centurions for their property and
the trials took forever and in the end, both Judges and politicians were bribed
out of the censorship or many cases died away.
What Sulla brought was a sense of order to Rome and the
Republic but the Republic with growing expansion, was a victim of trials and
reforms placed the angst beseech elders of the Republic against the newer class
of Romans and others. The public reception of military politician Gaius Marius
and one of the great Roman general – perhaps responsible for the spread of
Rome’s influence in the East - Lucius Cornelius Sulla. But as more Plebs
entered Rome and more lands confiscated abroad, the State experienced bigger
problems of control, and some of the older families could not held accountable
for any deeds performed against the State.
If we compare the last years of Julius Caesar and the
problems that the Romans faced, we can be eager to claim that his early years including
the long years of Cicero were a testimonial to the power of oratory and rule of
law – pursuant to Roman past – pursuant to Greek orthodoxy. But it yielded something,
a gangster with career in military whose idea of self-defense and defense of
defense was mainly military, but was faced with Rome that must change or
perish. In Plutarch words “Caesar achieved great popularity at Rome through his
skill as a speaker, while the Common people loved him because of his
friendliness in dealing with them. He was most endearing for someone so young.”
But the youth after many years at the war front, especially a crucial decade,
was no longer a charming servant of the society and friends of both the common
and not so common people; he had what is believed to a job to do and had to do
it. He was no longer a friend yet his popularity waxed easily inviting veterans
to justify his power and himself. Would he play the game like others before
him, if he didn’t, would he take leadership from the magistrates’ undue power
over Rome and endangered even those at the war front for Rome?
The other issue which was not expected was the presence of
military veteran from the East, who were now resident in Rome, who participated
in Roman politics and goodwill but whose lands were appropriated by less
members of the Senate – especially among totally corrupt families that placed
too much emphasis on Agrarian land policies. There were those who were blocked
from political authority – some seasoned for many reasons other than military –
some of where not Romans by birth others were. Although the stated path of
honor for Roman leaders in politics required them to attempt military prowess
as Tribune then tribute to Plebs or Aedile (as argued by experts) then the
Praetor and then an elective process that determined the Consul. The process is
not different from world polities in recent years, between the local, the
states and the national election as issues of polities, decided no different
Romans, but earned their rights in history through Augustus. Many of these
would be politics followed rules that were not new but could have made it until
the reforms.
What can we consider an example in Roman Civilization was
not how many wars they won under exceptional leaders, but on how the Republic
handled their own problems – in terms of Agrarian laws and the promising defense
of welfare of Citizens. Take into account the information from Lucian Canfora’s
Julius Caesar – that ‘acute need more money determined series of political steps’
taken by Julius Caesar – gives us impression that Romans held to everything
they had largely out of the concern for poverty. The Class structure was open
and arbitrary – the wealth was severe and smaller than the tax from a century
proved, and the desperate search for power was an escape. He mentions that
after the long and tutored career in the military – Julius Caesar being a
father to Rome was forced by necessity to abandon certain old ways which
endangered his personal career and made in a case study for optimates - his party that propelled his addiction to
influence and popularity, so to speak, he stated that “…in the end he had to
renounce it account of “the opposition of the aristocratic party (optimates)”.
For it need not to be said that the year 63 B.C may been the
beginning of Rome the Command power in the East but in the larger world, it was
a year that the Caesar’s Agrarian propaganda pitched between in an open
political conflict – if not warfare between the Optimates and the Populares – including
the Plebs. It seems doubtful the civil consequences that led to him to power
was based on the understanding, that the reforms were necessary – especially protection
of rights of citizens but also with understanding that “…the change of course;
once installed in power he would not promulgate any “agrarian laws” or “cancellations
of debt”, but instead extend the Rights of citizens…” Whether or not his
actions deferred from the expectation is second matter but with time, it was an
understanding that the visions for empire would thaw and perhaps prosper….
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