Rome's Problems: Unemployment, Corruption, and Rebellion
- Rome was facing numerous challenges including high unemployment, corruption among elected officials, and rebellions within the army and the city.
- Thousands of unemployed men crowded the streets, unable to find work due to competition from foreign slaves and land loss to aristocrats.
- The elected officials prioritized their personal interests over the welfare of Rome and its people, leading to bribery and corruption.
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お願いします (4) Rome was suddenly rich and powerful. But it was also suddenly full of problems. Thousands of unemployed men hung around on the streets of the city, hoping to find work. Many had lost their jobs to foreign slaves, who didn't have to be paid for their labor. Others in the street crowds were poor farmers whose land had been bought by wealthy aristocrats. These men could no longer farm. They couldn't join the army, either─only men who owned land could become soldiers. So what could they do? How could they feed themselves and their families? (5) Rome's elected officials didn't do much to improve the situation. More and more, they concentrated on what would be best for them instead of thinking about the common good. Instead of asking how they could help Rome and its people, they looked for ways to gain money and importance for themselves. Many fought their way to the top through bribery and corruption. Writing in the first century BCE, Sallust─a historian and a senator─describes his country's crisis: “Our country had grown great through hard work and the practice of justice... but then greed destroyed honor, integrity, and all other noble qualities; and intheir place came... cruelty, neglect of the gods, and a belief that everything has a price.” (6) The army became unruly. Rebellious mobs roamed the city. Yet the Senate ignored these problems and tried to govern the sprawling empire as if it were still a small city-state.Rome's leaders seemed to be asking for trouble, and they got it. Trouble's name was Tiberius Gracchus, the older of the two Gracchi brothers.
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(4) ローマは、突然、豊かな強国になりました。しかし、ローマはまた、突然、問題も山積することになりました。何千もの失業者が、仕事を見つけたいと願って、都市の通りをうろつきました。多くの人々が、労働に対して給料を支払う必要のない外国の奴隷のために、彼らの仕事を失っていました。通り群衆の中の他の人たちは、裕福な貴族によって土地を買われてしまった貧しい農民でした。これらの人々は、もはや耕作することができませんでした。彼らは、軍に加わることもできませんでした、 土地を所有する人だけが、兵士になることができたからです。それでは、彼らは何をすることができたでしょうか？どのようにして、彼らは彼ら自身と彼らの家族を養うことができたでしょうか？ (5) ローマの選挙によって選ばれた役人は、状況を改善するのにあまり役立ちませんでした。ますます、公益について考えるどころか、自分にとって最善であることに、彼らは集中しました。どのようにしてローマとその人民を助けることができるか尋ねる代わりに、彼ら自身のためにお金や大切なものを得る方法を、彼らは探しました。 多くの人が、贈収賄と汚職を通して高い地位へ昇ろうと奮闘していました。紀元前1世紀に著作をあらわした、歴史家で元老院議員のサッルスティウスは、彼の国の危機について次のように記述しています：「我々の国は、勤勉と正義の実行を通して偉大になった... だが、貪欲が、名誉や高潔さや他の全ての高貴な性質を破壊した; そして、それらに代わって、到来したのは ... 残忍さ、神の軽視、万物に値段がつくという信仰であった。 (6) 軍は、手に負えなくなりました。反抗的な暴徒が、都市を徘徊しました。それでも、元老院は、これらの問題を無視し、まるで帝国がまだ小さな都市国家であるかのように拡大する帝国を統治しようとしました。ローマの指導者は、困難を求めているようでした、そして、実際、彼らは困難を抱えることになりました。困難の名前は、チベリウス・グラックス、すなわち、グラックス兄弟の兄でした。
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お願いします (13) Marius defeated the foreign invaders, but the victory turned into a disaster for the Republic. Men who had once roamed the city in angry mobs now eagerly joined the army. There, they would be fed and paid. And they knew that after the war was over, their generals would give them a reward of land or money. No wonder the soldiers felt a greater loyalty to their generals than to the Roman state that had failed them! Ruthless generals took advantage of the situation. They led their armies against one another, each hoping to gain control of the city. These civil wars rocked the Republic again and again. (14) Cicero was determined to save the Roman Republic. He gathered strong allies, especially men who could recruit soldiers. One of the men whom he enlisted in the cause was Pompey, a powerful general. Pompey and Cicero had been friends since they were both 17 years old, and they had helped each other over the years. Cicero's orations in the Forum helped Pompey to gain support for his military ambitious. After Cicero spoke on Pompey's behalf, the Assembly gave Pompey a fleet of 500 ships and an army of 125,000 men to command against the pirates who threatened Rome in the eastern Mediterranean. He was victorious within a few months and became Rome's leading commander─thanks to Cicero's speech.
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お願いします (1) It was 493 BCE, and Rome's wealthy landowners were in a panic. They had held the reins of government of the new Republic while the workers (also called plebeians─or plebs, for short) farmed the land. The workers claimed that the rich were useless─that they did nothing except wait for the hardworking poor to feed and serve them. The landowners ignored these complaints at first. (2) But the plebeians began to abandon their plows and move into the city. There they became craftsmen, traders, and hired workers. As city folk, they no longer had to depend completely upon the landowners for survival. Now they were free to complain and demand greater equality between rich and poor. Justice, they believed, should be the same for everyone. And so they took action. They left the city in huge number and went to the Sacred Mount, a hilltop several Miles northeast of Rome. This got the landowners' attention! (3) Suddenly, the fear of war loomed large. What if an enemy attacked Rome? The landowners, also called patricians, could provide the generals to lead an army. But what good is a general with no men to command, no soldiers to fight? What’s more: with the workers gone, who would make sandals, weave cloth, tend chickens, and sell fish? Who would run the roadside inns, bake bread, drive mules, load wagons, and dye cloth for beautiful clothes? Rome couldn't survive without the work of ordinary citizens, and the aristocrats knew it. (4) The historian Livy tells how Rome's leaders solved the crisis of the workers' walkout. They sent Agrippa Menenius, a smooth talker who was popular with the people, to the Sacred Mount to talk to the rebels. Menenius told them a story about an imaginary time when each body part had its own ideas and could talk to one another. But the body parts didn't always agree and sometimes refused to work together. For example, the hands of this strange body sometimes argued with the feet, and the mouth sometimes disagreed with the teeth.
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お願いします (17) Gaius had fought for the rights of Rome's Italian allies, saying that they deserved citizenship. The allies agreed. They had helped Rome to conquer the Mediterranean and yet they didn't have the rights that Roman citizens enjoyed. In 90 BCE, more than thirty years after Gaius's death, Rome's Italian allies rebelled. (This revolution is usually called the Social War, but its other name, the War of the Allies, describes it better.) The non-Roman Italians established their own capital and issued coins showing the Italian bull goring the Roman wolf. The war came to an end when Rome granted citizenship to all free, male inhabitants of Italy. (18) Although the Gracchi brothers had made some progress toward their goals, neither had solved the problems of the poor. Much of the distributed land was soon bought up by the wealthy. The poor lost ground, sliding back to where they had been before the reforms. When the Gracchi's reforms failed, the poor people of Rome became even more dissatisfied. It was as though the taste of hope had made them impatient for the feast they believed should be theirs. In the years that followed the deaths of the Gracchi, a new group of politicians appeared in Rome: the populares. Like Tiberius and Gaius, the populares spoke for the common people. These politicians played an important role in the conflicts that ended the Roman Republic.
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お願いします (26) In the end, he was killed at the height of the powers by men he thought were his friends. It was particularly sad that Brutus was among the assassins. According to Suetonius, Caesar, as he wasdying, turned to Brutus and said, “You too, my son?” (27) Brutus didn't feel guilty about betraying Caesar. He was proud of it. His ancestor was the Brutus who had expelled the last King, Tarquin the Proud, from Rome. Brutus issued a coin to celebrate the Ides of March as Caesar's assassination day. The coin shows the deadly daggers that had killed Caesar and the “cap of liberty” traditionally worn by slaves after they were freed. Brutus bragged that he had saved Rome from slavery. (28) But the murder of Julius Caesar did Rome no good. The city faced another 13 years of civil unrest and war. Assassination did help Caesar's reputation, though. In his will, Caesar left a gift of money to every Roman citizen. More that ever, he was the common man's hero, so admired that later rules of Rome adopted the name Caesar. (29) Brutus and his friends thought they were serving Rome and saving the Republic by killing a man who had become too powerful, a man they feared might make himself king. They were shortsighted. The Republic was already dying...almost dead. Rome would soon be dominated by a single ruler. That man would be Caesar's great-nephew and heir, Augustus Caesar.
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お願いします (5) Brutus kept his promise. He and Lucretia's husband won the loyalty of the army and drove out Sextus's father, the tyrant Tarquin the Proud―Rome's third Etruscan king. They condemned him and his whole family to life in exile, never again to see Rome. And that was the end of kingship in Rome. From this point on, kingship became so unpopular that rex (king) became a term of hatred and dishonor. The arrogant king Tarquin had always been unpopular. But the Romans prized high morals above all, and his son's attack on a woman's honor was the last straw. (6) The story of Lucretia is one explanation for how kingship ended in Rome. But how had it begun? The Romans believed that Romulus became Rome's first king when he founded the city in 753 BCE. They believed that six more kings ruled Rome until Brutus forced Tarquin the Proud from his throne in 509 BCE. According to tradition, the first three kings who followed Romulus to the throne were Romans. But Roman kingship was not passed down in a royal family, as it is in Great Britain, for example. Instead, when a Roman king died, the Senate―a group of wealthy men who owned land―elected the next ruler. Even a foreigner could rule if he could gather enough support among the senators. And that's exactly what happened when the Senate elected an Etruscan, as the fifth king of Rome. Tarquinius Priscus, later known as Tarquinius the Elder, ruled well and brought Etruscan engineering and artistry to Rome. But his grandson Lucius Tarquinius, also called Tarquin the Proud, was another story. He was the tyrant who ruled as Rome's seventh and last king.
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お願いします Praetors judged lawsuits. Aediles directed road-building projects and managed the city's markets. But no Roman official could serve for two years in a row. The Romans did not want anyone to become too popular. (10) Once a man had served as a magistrate, he automatically became a lifetime member of the Senate, the most powerful“club”in Rome. The Senate controlled Rome's treasury, and no money could be spent without Senate approval. The The senators ordered public buildings to be built or repaired. They also investigated major crimes against the state, made foreign policy, and chose Rome's foreign ambassadors. In theory, the citizens' Assembly was the supreme authority. But since the Senate contained nearly all the experienced ex-magistrates, it usually controlled the Assembly. In reality the Senate, not the Assembly, dominated Rome's political life. (11) The Roman Republic lasted for five centuries. During that time Rome grew from a city of about 35,000 into a huge city, a metropolis with 1 million inhabitants and an empire with 50 million subjects. Such tremendous growth never happens without war and conquest. Rome's armies stayed busy throughout the years of the Republic. But Rome was not always the attacker. Its neighbors often besieged the city as well. (12) In 475 BCE, about 35 years after the Roman army had banished Tarquin the Proud, the Etruscans again threatened Rome. Livy tells the story of a soldier named Horatius Cocles who was guarding a bridge across the Tiber River when the Etruscans suddenly attacked. Horatius saw a huge band of enemy soldiers charging down the hill on the other side of the river. They were heading straight for his bridge─and Rome.
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お願いします (14) Crassus was furious. He armed the men again. Then he divided 500 of the soldiers into 50 groups of 10. In each group, the men drew straws, and one man was chosen. Plutarch says that Crassus ordered the death of these fifty men, that they be executed“with a variety of appalling and terrible methods, performed before the eyes of the whole army, gathered to watch.”Crassus finally led Rome to victory, but only after a long, fierce struggle. Most of the rebels were killed. According to Plutarch, Spartacus refused to give up and fought savagely, even after the last of his men had deserted him. In the end, he died a soldier's death―with his sword in his hand. (15) The Romans crucified 6,000 rebels and left hanging on wooden crosses all along the Appian Way―a road that led to Rome. Their rotting bodies served as a horrible warning to rebellious slaves. (16) Although Rome was cruel to its slaves, not all of them suffered as terribly as the gladiators and mine workers did. Many captured people were skilled craftsmen who were allowed to continue their work as potters, artists, or metal workers. Those who worked in the homes of wealthy aristocrats were also treated fairly well―compared to less fortunate slaves. Household slaves were usually well fed and clothed. And their jobs were much safer and more pleasant. They worked as nannies, cooks, and seamstresses. Welleducated Greek slaves could become household secretaries or tutors for their masters' children. (17) Although slaves might become friendly with the master and his family, they still had to take orders. And if they committed crimes, they could be tortured, burned alive, crucified, or sent to fight wild beasts in the arena while the audience watched and cheered. The upper classes never suffered these violent punishments. Aristocratic criminals were killed with the sword―a quicker, less agonizing way to die.
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お願いします (9) But Spartacus didn't intend to live―or die―as a slave. He secretly organized 200 gladiators in the school and together they planned a daring escape. At the last moment, the managers of the school discovered the plot and captured more than half of the men. But, according to Plutarch, Spartacus and about 70 men escaped with knives and skewers that they stole from the school's kitchen. (10) As the rebels slipped through the darkened streets of Capua, they got a lucky break: they happened upon cart full of weapons, intended for use in the gladiatorial games. The men helped themselves and left the city, armed with swords and daggers.Their first hiding place was in the top of Mt. Vesuvius, an inactive volcano. (11) When the news broke about the slaves' escape, Rome sent 3,000 foot soldiers to surround the slaves and starve them out. Spartacus and his men were outnumbered, but not outwitted. While the Romans guarded the road, the rebels cut some thick vines they found growing near the mouth of the volcano. They twisted the vines into ropes, which they used to climb down the mountain. Surprising their enemies, they seized the Roman camp, and the defeated Romans fled. (12) As word of this astonishing victory spread, thousands of farm slaves left their masters and joined Spartacus. The rebel band grew to nearly 70,000 men who roamed the countryside and broke into slaves' barracks. The rebels freed thousands of men and armed them for battle against Rome and their former masters. (13) The Senate thought it would be easy to defeat Spartacus, but Spartacus's men defeated the Roman forces again and again. Then the senators appointed Crassus, one of Rome's top generals, as commander in chief. Crassus sent a lieutenant named Mummius against the ex-slaves. The rebels crushed Mummius so completely that he lost his soldiers, his tents, and equipment―even his horse. The soldiers who survived the battle saved their own lives by handing over their weapons to the enemy.
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お願いします (9) For about a year, Octavian and Antony battled for control, but they finally became allies. They joined with Caesar's general Lepidus to from a triple alliance, the Second Triumvirate. The three men, called triumvirs, were determined to hunt down Brutus and the other conspirators in Caesar's murder. Some suggested that Brutus be decapitated, and his head brought back to Rome and thrown at the feer of Julius Caesar's statue. (10) Antony and Octavian left Lepidus in charge of the government while they went off with their armies to find the assassins of Julius Caesar. At Philippi in northern Greece, the triumvirs were victorious and Brutus committed suicide. Even though Antony was the more successful general and Octavian was sick during the decisive battle, all three men claimed victory and divided the empire among themselves. (11) Octavian and Antony may have been partners, but they were never friends for long. While Antony was busy reorganizing Roman territories in the East (and meeting Egypt's queen, Cleopatra), Octavian confiscated land in the Italian countryside and gave it to retired soldiers as a reward for their services. Because of these landgrabs, trouble flared again between the two leaders. Antony's wife and brother led a rebellion against Octavian while Antony was away. When Antony heard about it, he had to come home to deal with the crisis. (12) By 30 BCE, the war had ended. Antony was dead, and Octavian had defeated all of his rivals. At 33 years of age, he was suddenly the master of the Roman world.
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お願いします (10) Aulus Gellius, a Roman lawyer of the second century CE, writes about Vesta's priestesses. A girl chosen to be a Vestal Virgin must...be no younger than six and no older than ten years old.... As soon as a girl is chosen, she is taken to the House of Vesta and handed over to the priests. She immediately leaves her father's control. (11) The chief duty of the Vestal Virgins was to keep Vesta's flame burning. If the flame went out, it meant that one of the Vestal Virgins had been careless in her sacred duties or had broken her vow of chastity. Either way, the Romans believed that the city was in great danger and could be destroyed. They dressed the offending priestess in funeral clothes and carried her to an underground cell, leaving her to die. (12) The earliest Romans were farmers who saw the gods in all the forces of nature. They believed that gods ruled the sun, the moon, and the planets and that gods lived within the trees, in wind, and in rivers. These early, simple beliefs played a part in Rome's later religion as well. But as Rome became more connected with other peoples through war and trade, its religion became more complex. (13) The Romans were as quick to borrow language and inventions. If they encountered a new god that they thought might be useful, they adopted him or her. For example, when the Romans attacked the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 BCE, they begged Juno, their enemy's goddess, to help them in battle. “To you, Juno Regina, who now lives in Veii, I pray that after our victory you will accompany us to our city─soon to be your city─to be received in a temple worthy of your greatness.” When the Romans conquered Veii, they assumed that Juno had helped them. To thank the goddess, they built a temple in her honor in Rome.
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