Crisis of the Roman Republic

The Crisis of the Roman Republic refers to an extended period of political instability and social unrest that culminated in the demise of the Roman Republic and the advent of the Roman Empire, from about 134 BC to 44 BC.

The exact dates of the Crisis are unclear because, "Rome teetered between normalcy and crisis" for many decades.^[1]

Likewise, the causes and attributes of the crises changed throughout the decades, including the forms of slavery, brigandage, wars internal and external, land reform, the invention of literally excruciating new punishments,^[2] the expansion of Roman citizenship, and even the changing composition of the Roman army.^[3]

Modern scholars also disagree about the nature of the crisis. Traditionally, the expansion of citizenship (with its all rights, privileges, and duties) was looked upon negatively by Sallust, Gibbon, and others of their schools, because it caused internal dissension, disputes with Rome's Italian allies, slave revolts, and riots.^[4] However, today's scholars point out that the whole purpose of the Republic was to be res publica – the essential thing of the people – and thus poor people can not be blamed for trying to redress their legitimate and legal grievances.^[4]

Dating the crisis

The Roman Republic at 100 BC.

For centuries, historians have argued about the start, specific crises involved, and end date for the Crisis of the Roman Republic. As a culture (or "web of institutions"), Florence Dupont and Christopher Woodall wrote, "no distiction is made between different periods."^[5] However, without question, the Romans lost liberty through plunder, by "their morally undermining consequences."^[6]

Arguments for an earlier start date (c. 134 to 73 BC)

Harriet I. Flower and Jurgen Von Ungern-Sternberg argue for an exact start date of 10 December 134 BC, with the inauguration of Gracchus as tribune,^[7] or alternately, when he first issued his proposal for land reform in 133 BC.^[8] Appian of Alexander wrote that this political crisis was "the preface to ... the Roman civil wars."^[9] Velleius commentated that it was Gacchus' unprecedented standing for re-election as tribune in 132 BC, and the riots and controversy it engendered as the start of this Crisis:

This was the beginning of civil bloodshed and of the free reign [sic] of swords in the city of Rome. From then on justice was overthrown by force and the strongest was preeminent.

—Velleius, Vell. Pat. 2.3.3-4, translated and cited by Harriet I. Flower ^[10]

In any case, the assassination of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC was "a turning point in Roman history and the beginning of the crisis of the Roman Republic."^[11]

Barbette S. Spaeth specifically calls it "the Gracchan crisis at the beginning of the Late Roman Republic"...^[12]

Nic Fields, in his popular history of Spartacus, argues for a start date of 135 BC with the beginning of the First Slave War in Sicily.^[13] Fields asserts:

The rebellion of the slaves in Italy under Spartacus may have been the best organized, but it was not the first of its kind. There had been other rebellions of slaves that afflicted Rome, and we may assume that Spartacus was wise enough to profit by their mistakes.

—Nic Fields ^[14]

The start of the Social War (91–88 BC), when Rome fought her nearby Italian neighbours, may be thought of as the beginning of the end of the Republic.^[15][16] Fields also suggests that things got much worse with the Samnite War around 82 BC.^[17]

Barry Strauss argues that the crisis really started with The Spartacus War in 73 BC, adding that, because the dangers were unappreciated, "Rome faced the crisis with mediocrities."^[18]

Arguments for a later start date (69 to 44 BC)

Thorton Wilder, in his novel, The Ides of March, focuses on the period ca. 69 BC to 44 BC as the Crisis. Pollio and Ronald Syme date the Crisis only from the time of Julius Caesar in 60 BC.^[19] Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BC has become the clichéd point of no return for the Republic, as noted in many books, including Tom Holland's Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic.^[20]

Arguments for an end date (44 to 27 BC)

The end of the Crisis can likewise either be dated from the Assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC, after he and Sulla did so much "to dismantle the government of the Republic,"^[21] or alternately when Octavian took on the name of Augustus and founded the Roman Empire in 27 BC.^[22]

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus

Tiberius Gracchus from Guillaume Rouillé's Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum (17th c.)

Tiberius Gracchus took office as a tribune of the plebs in late 134 BC while "everything in the Roman Republic seemed to be in fine working order."^[23] There were a few apparently minor problems, such as "the annoyance of a slave revolt in Sicily ...."^[24]

At the same time, Roman society was a highly stratified class system whose divisions were bubbling below the surface. This system consisted of noble families of the senatorial rank, the knight or equestrian class, citizens (grouped into two or three classes depending on the time period - self-governing allies of Rome, landowners, and plebs or tenant freemen), non-citizens who lived outside of southwestern Italy, and at the bottom, slaves^[25][26] By law, only men who were citizens could vote in certain assemblies, and only those men who owned a certain amount of real property could serve in the military, which would gain them social prestige and additional benefits of citizenship.^[27] The government owned large tracts of farm land that it had gained through invasion or escheat, and rented out to large landowners, whose slaves tilled their land, or who sub-leased to small tenant farmers.^[28] There was some social mobility and limited suffrage.^[29] The plebs (or plebeians) were a socio-economic class, but also had possible origins as an ethnic group with its own cult to the goddess Ceres, and ultimately, were a political party during much of the Roman Republic.^[30]

Normally, the Senate had the sole power to pass legislation, and only members of the upper classes, such as former magistrates, were eligible to run for and serve in the Senate.^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in 133 BC, Gracchus tried to redress the grievances of displaced smallholders. He bypassed the Roman senate and passed a law limiting the amount of land belonging to the state that any individual could farm.^[31] This would have resulted in the breakup of the large plantations maintained by the rich on public land and worked by slaves.^[31]

Gracchus' moderate plan of agrarian reform was motivated "to increase the number of Roman citizens who owned land and consequently the number who would qualify as soldiers according to their census rating."^[31] The plan included a method to quiet title, and had a goal of increasing the efficiency of farmland, while doling out small parcels of land to tenant farmers, his populist constituency.^[31] Gracchus knew of a loophole -- the lex Hortensia of 287 BC allowed the assembly of plebs to bypass the Senate.^[31] However, another tribune, Marcus Octavius, used his veto to scuttle the plan.^[31]

The crisis escalated: Gracchus pushed the assembly to impeach and remove Octavius; the Senate denied funds to the commission needed for land reform; Gracchus then tried to use money out of a trust fund left by Attalus III of Pergamum; and the Senate blocked that, too.^[32] At one point, Gracchus had "one of his freedmen ... drag Octavius from the speaker's platform."^[33] This assault violated the Lex sacrata, which prohibited people of lower status from violating the person of a person of higher class.^[33] Rome's unwritten constitution hampered reform.^[31] So Gracchus sought re-election to his one-year term, which was unprecedented in an era of strict term limits.^[34] The oligarchic nobles responded by murdering Gracchus,^[35][36] and mass riots broke out in the city in reaction to the assassination.^[37]

Barbette S. Spaeth asserts that Ceres' roles as (a) patron and protector of plebeian laws, rights and Tribunes and (b) "normative/liminal" crimes, continued throughout the Republican era.^[12] These roles were "exploited for the purposes of political propaganda during the Gracchan crisis ...."^[12]

Ceres' Aventine Temple served the plebeians as cult centre, legal archive, treasury, and court of law, founded contemporaneously with the passage of the Lex sacrata;^[12] the lives and property of those who violated this law were forfeit to Ceres, whose judgment was expressed by her aediles.^[38] The official decrees of the Senate (senatus consulta) were placed in her Temple, under her guardianship; Livy bluntly states this was done so that the consuls could no longer arbitrarily tamper with the laws of Rome.^[39] The Temple might also have offered asylum for those threatened with arbitrary arrest by patrician magistrates.^[40] Ceres was thus the patron goddess of Rome's written laws; the poet Vergil later calls her legifera Ceres (Law-bearing Ceres), a translation of Demeter's Greek epithet, thesmophoros.^[41] Those who approved the murder of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC justified his death as punishment for his offense against the Lex sacrata of the goddess Ceres: those who deplored this as murder appealed to Gracchus' sancrosanct status as tribune under Ceres' protection.^[12] In 70 BC, Cicero refers to this killing in connection with Ceres' laws and cults.^[12][42][43]

Spaeth believed that he was killed because:

Tiberius Gracchus had transgressed the laws that protected the equilibrium of the social and political order, the laws on the tribunician sacrosanctitas and attempted tyrrany, and hence was subject to the punishment they prescribed, consecration of his goods and person [to Ceres].

—Barbette S. Spaeth, The Roman godess Ceres, p. 74.^[44]

Rather than attempting to atone for the murder, the Senate used a mission to Ceres' temple at Henna (in Sicily) to justify his execution.^[44] The agrarian reforms were only partially implemented by the commission; yet Gracchi colonies were set up both Italy and Carthage.^[45]

Gaius Gracchus flees after the senate passes a senatus consultum ultimum.

About nine years later Tiberius's younger brother, Gaius, passed more radical reforms. In addition to settling the poor in colonies on land conquered by Rome, he passed the Corn Laws (lex frumentaria), which gave the poor the right to buy grain at subsidized prices.^[46]

In the past, the senate eliminated political rivals either by establishing special judicial commissions or by passing a senatus consultum ultimum ("ultimate decree of the senate").^[47][48] Both devices allowed the senate to bypass the ordinary due process rights that all citizens had.^[49]

Some of Gaius' followers caused the death of a man, which allowed his political rival, Lucius Opimius, to suspend the constitution again with another senatus consultum ultimum.^[50]

Gaius fled, but he was also probably murdered by the oligarchs.^[35] According to one ancient source, Gaius was not killed directly by them, but ordered his slave Philocrates to do the deed in a murder-suicide.^[51]

Gaius Marius and Sulla

The next major reformer of the time was Gaius Marius, who like the Gracchi, was a populist.^[4] Unlike them, he was also a general.^[4][52] He abolished the property requirement for becoming a soldier.^[4][52] The poor enlisted in large numbers.^[52][4] This opening of the Army's ranks to the capite censii enfranchised the plebs, thus creating an esprit de corps in the enlarged army.^[4][53] Some elites complained that the army now became unruly due to the commoners in its ranks, but this is without good cause:^[4][53]

Marius stands accused of paving the way for the so-called lawless, greedy soldiery whose activities were thought to have contributed largely to the decline and fall of the Republic a few generations later. Yet we should not lose sight of the fact that Marius was not the first to enrol the capite censi. Rome was ruled by an aristocratic oligarchy embedded in the Senate.... Thus at times of extreme crisis in the past the Senate had impressed them, along with convicts and slaves, for service as legionaries.

—Nic Fields ^[4]

Marius employed his soldiers to defeat an invasion by the Germanic Cimbri and Teutons.^[52] His political influence and military leadership allowed him to obtain six terms as consul in 107, and 103 to 99 BC.^[52] In 99 BC, the senate used renewed violence to declare another senatus consultum ultimum.^[52]

Sulla, one of Marius's subordinates, contested with him for supreme power. After the senate awarded Sulla the lucrative and powerful post of commander in the war against Mithridates, Marius's politicking resulted in his being appointed commander in Sulla's stead. Sulla seized power and marched to the east with his soldiers. Marius himself launched a coup in Sulla's absence and put to death some of his enemies. He instituted a populist regime, but died soon after.^{[citation needed]}

When Sulla returned from the wars, his victorious army defeated the forces of Cinna, Marius's populist successor. He began a dictatorship and purged the state of many populists. A reign of terror followed in which some innocents were denounced just so their property could be seized for the benefit Sulla's followers. Sulla's coup resulted in a major victory for the oligarchs. He reversed the reforms of the Gracchi and other populists, stripped the tribunes of the people of much of their power and returned authority over the courts to the senators.^{[citation needed]}

Pompey

Bust of Pompey the Great in the Residenz, Munich

Main article: Pompey

Pompey the Great, the next major leader who aggravated the crisis, was born Gnaeus Pomeius, but took his own cognomen of Magnus ("the Great").^[54] Pompey as a young man was allied to Sulla,^[55] but in the consular elections of 78 BC, he supported Lepidus against Sulla's wishes.^{[citation needed]} When Sulla died later that year, Lepidus revolted, and Pompey suppressed him on behalf of the senate.^{[citation needed]} Then he asked for proconsular imperium in Hispania, to deal with the populares general Quintus Sertorius, who had held out for the past three years against Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's most able generals.^[56]

Pompey's career seems to have been driven by desire for military glory and disregard for traditional political constraints.^[57] The Roman aristocracy turned him down—they were beginning to fear the young, popular and successful general, but Pompey refused to disband his legions until his request was granted.^[58] The senate acceded, reluctantly granted him the title of proconsul and powers equal to those of Metellus, and sent him to Hispania.^[59]

Pompey infamously wiped out what remained of Spartacus' troops in 71 BC, who had been pinned down by Marcus Crassus.^[60] He received Rome's highest honor, the triumph, while Crassus only received the honorable mention of an ovation, which hurt Crassus' pride.^[61]

In 69 BC, he conquered Syria, defeated King Tigranes of Armenia, and replaced one puppet king, Seleucus VII Philometor with his brother Antiochus XIII Asiaticus.^[54] Four years later, he deposed the monarchy, replacing it with a governor.^[54] This not only finished off the Seleucids,^[62] but brought in thousands of slaves and strange peoples, including the Judeans, to Rome, thus creating the Jewish diaspora.^[55] This generated swarms of refugees, which can only have created its own discord.

While many of Pompey's reckless actions ultimately increased discord in Rome, his unlucky alliance with Crassus and Caesar is cited as being especially dangerous to the Republic.^[19]

Institution of Slavery

Main article: Slavery in ancient Rome

See also: Slavery in antiquity

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The "background noise" of the institution of slavery in the Roman Republic was both a cause and a result of the Crisis, for at least three reasons.^[26] Specifically, the endless competition, litigation, obligations, temptations, and humiliations of daily life in ancient Rome were constantly on everyone's mind.^[63] Romans were also particularly in grave danger of being harmed by their slaves' hatred and resentments.^[64] Finally, the wars of the Crisis brought in yet more slaves.^[64][25][65]

The cruelty and ubiquity of slavery in the ancient world, including Rome, can not be overstated, and was a reason that the Republic always seemed to be in crisis.^[26] The freeborn had certain honors,^[66] while "children, women, and slaves were soulless bodies."^[67] Slaves were men lacking animus, were dependent on their owners, were living in degrading servility, and were looked upon merely as "doubles" of their owners.^[26] In fact, according to Roman thought, slaves had somehow consented to their slavery by going after their passions rather than liberty:^[26]

Slaves were human, but they were the lowest kind of humans, because they were not free, either in their bodies or in their hearts. The adjective 'servile' in Roman usage degraded everything it qualified: hunting was a servile occupation, love a servile passion, Egypt a servile nation, because the hunter, the man in love and the Egyptian failed to behave as free men, impelled by honor alone, with no masters but themselves. They had given up their freedom to chase after an animal, a woman or life.

—Florence Dupont, tr. Christopher Woodall, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, p. 62 ^[68]

The proposed agrarian reforms of 133 BC would have broken up the inefficient slave plantations, with which the elite in their conservatism and privilege could not agree.^[31] There were an estimated 100,000 slaves in Rome, and "2 million in all of Italy."^[25] Other authors give a figure of nearly 1 Million slaves at that time and place,^[35] but in any case it was a huge number, with an ideal of one slave minimum per free man.^[26] Slaves mostly worked in menial jobs,^[35] from prostitutes and cleaners to miners, shepherds, collectiong rubbish, mining, and oarsmen;^[26] a few worked in comfort such as a secretary,^[25] or a family physician.^[69] Slaves "had no right to refuse their masters' sexual advances."^[25] However, the myth of sex slaves was just that, because the virtuous Roman would restrain his basest urges.^[26] Nonetheless, the fact that slaves attended to freemen meant that their masters were constantly in grave risk of harm -- they were in perennial fear for themselves and the Republic for which they had worked so hard:

The longing for freedom provided the Romans with a way of averting slave revolts and diffusing the hatred of domestic servants who might otherwise poison family life - either literally or figuratively. Many slaves were indeed prisoners-of-war and not a few of them, even the barbarian captors, had been brought up in freedom, as had for example the Gauls, the Iberians and the Tracians. Romans feared for their slaves' despair. After all, citizens ate food prepared by slaves, tendered their throats to a slave barber, drifted off to sleep in a house staffed by servants. It was not enough to mete out exemplary punishment to the comrades of Sparticus, to line the Appian Way with grisly crosses, to deny burial to the rebellious slave, or to send him to die in the mines.

—Florence Dupont, tr. Christopher Woodall, Daily Life in Ancient Rome, p. 63 ^[64]

Roman slaves came from many sources.^[25] In his Insitutiones (161 AD), Caius wrote that:

Slavery is a human invention and not found in nature. Indeed, it was that other human invention, war, which provided the bulk of slaves, but they were also the bounty of piracy ... or the product of breeding.

—Caius, as translated and quoted by Nic Fields ^[70]

The Roman military brought back captives as the booty of war,^{[64] [25]} and ancient sources cite anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of such slaves captured in each war.^[71] These wars included every war of conquest from 177-101 BC, as well as the Social and Samnite wars (91-88 and 82 BC, respectively).^[72] The prisoners taken or re-taken after the three Roman Servile Wars (135-132, 104-100, and 73-71 BC, respectively) contributed to this number.^[65] The Thracian slave traffic added many more numbers of imported persons, including perhaps the most famous Roman slave of all, Spartacus.^[65][35] Later generations of slaves worshiped the genius of Spartacus.^[35]

Piracy has a long history of adding to the slave trade, and the Roman Republic was no different.^[25][70] Piracy was one of the many crises with which the Republic had to contend, at least until 85 BC.^[73] In those days, an increase in piracy always led to an increase in slavery.^[74] Both piracy and war lead to increases in slavery,^[25] which in turn resulted in new forms of punishment, such as crucifixion and gladiator contests.^[75]

Crucifixion was the capital punishment meted out specifically to slaves, traitors, and bandits.^{[35][76][77][78]} Any "dangerous subversion of the Roman order ... for the lower classes, meant crucifixion."^[79] The "notorious prisoner" Barabbas was supposed to be crucified, but was released.^[80] In any case, "two bandits" were crucified along with Jesus of Nazareth, but the Greek name for them, lestes, also "means pirate or looter."^[81] Jesus' crucifixion was the same punishment as that of a slave.^[35][78]

Spartacus by Denis Foyatier, 1830

Originally, a gladiatorial contest was a form of human sacrifice used as punishment after capture as a war slave or along with a funeral rite.^[82] That soon changed, in part to its emergence as a form of entertainment or "bread and circuses" event, and from conspicuous consumption of the highest classes of Romans.^[75] It was a "competition of skill",^[83] which did little to improve law and order: Fields writes, "Beginning as a grandiousity occasionally added to an aristocratic funeral, the gladiators themselves being taken amongst the personal slaves of the deceased and equipped in makeshift fashion, over time the combats were extended to public celebrations." ^[84]

Pastoral slaves who kept goats and sheep often used brigandage—stealing and raiding—as a means of supporting themselves off the land, because their "owners" would not supply them with sufficient food and supplies.^[85] The banditry of these enslaved herdsmen came back to haunt the Romans when many sheepherders joined the revolts in Sicily and of Spartacus.^[86]

Rarely, slaves were also bred,^[25][70] although the law of the peoples forbade it.

In the ancient patriarchical society of Rome, the pater familias (fathers) could abandon their children that were unacceptable to them, to slavery or infanticide.^[25][87] The Twelve Tables of Roman law obliged him to put to death a child that was visibly deformed.

References

1. ^ Flower, p. 103, n. 58, citing Gruen 1974 and Meier 1997, pp. 7-23.
2. ^ The root of excruciating means from crucifixion. See Fields, pp. 79.
3. ^ Fields, pp. 8, 18-25, 35-37.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Fields, p. 41, citing Sallust, Iugurthinum 86.2.
5. ^ Dupont, p. ix.
6. ^ Dupont, p. x.
7. ^ Flower 2004, p. 89.
8. ^ Flower 2004, pp. 90-92.
9. ^ Flower, p. 89, citing Appian.
10. ^ Flower, p. 91.
11. ^ Flower, p, 92.
12. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Spaeth (1996), p. 73.
13. ^ Fields, p. 7, 8-10.
14. ^ Fields, p. 7.
15. ^ Flower, p. 97.
16. ^ Fields, pp. 12, 24.
17. ^ Fields, pp. 19-20.
18. ^ Strauss, p. 96.
19. ^ ^{a b} Syme, p. 16, wrote that Pollio "made his history of the Civil Wars begin not with the crossing of the Rubicon, but with the compact between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar...." Found at Google Books. Accessed February 7, 2011.
20. ^ Tom Holland, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (Anchor Books 2003). ISBN 1400078970.
21. ^ Flower, pp. 85, 366.
22. ^ Flower, p. 366.
23. ^ Flower, p. 89. Emphasis added for context.
24. ^ Flower, p. 89, see also Fields, pp. 7-10.
25. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Denise Dersin, ed., What Life was Like When Rome Ruled the World: The Roman Empire 100 BC-AD 200, p. 64 (Time-Life Books 1997). ISBN 0-7835-5452-4.
26. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Dupont, pp. 53, 56-69.
27. ^ Fields, p. 41; Flower, pp. 90-91, 93; Dupont, pp. 40-41, 45-48.
28. ^ Flower, pp. 90-91
29. ^ Flower, p. 89, nn. 2, 3, citing various scholars discussions (citations ommitted).
30. ^ For a further discussion of the plebs and Ceres, see Spaeth (1996), pp.6-10, 14-15, and 81-102 (Chapter 4 of that treatise), citing R. Mitchell, Patricians and Plebeians: The Origin of the Roman State (Ithaca and London 1990).
31. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Flower, p. 90.
32. ^ Flower, pp. 90-91.
33. ^ ^{a b} Spaeth (1996), p. 75.
34. ^ Flower, pp. 89, 91.
35. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Strauss, p. 204-205
36. ^ Spaeth (1996), pp. 74-75.
37. ^ Flower, pp. 91-92.
38. ^ For discussion of the duties, legal status and immunities of plebeian tribunes and aediles, see Andrew Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome, Oxford University Press, 1999,pp. 92–101, and Spaeth, pp. 85-90.
39. ^ Livy's proposal that the senatus consulta were placed at the Aventine Temple more or less at its foundation (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, 3.55.13) is implausible. See Spaeth (1996) p.86–87, 90.
40. ^ The evidence for the temple as asylum is inconclusive; discussion is in Spaeth, 1996, p.84.
41. ^ Cornell, T., The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c.1000–264 BC), Routledge, 1995, p. 264, citing vergil, Aeneid, 4.58.
42. ^ David Stockton, Cicero: a political biography, Oxford University Press, 1971, pp. 43–49. Cicero's published account of the case is usually known as In Verrem, or Against Verres.
43. ^ Cicero, Against Verres, Second pleading, 4.49–51:English version available at wikisource.
44. ^ ^{a b} Spaeth (1996), p. 74, fn. 84, pp. 204-205, citing Cicero, Dom. 91, et al..
45. ^ Dupont, pp. 45-46, 48.
46. ^ Flower, p. 93
47. ^ Polybius, 133
48. ^ Polybius, 136
49. ^ Abbott, 98
50. ^ Flower, p. 94, citing J. von Ungern-Sternberg, Unter suchungen: senatus consultum ultimum, pp. 55-57 (Munich 1970) and W. Nippels, Public order in ancient Rome, pp. 57-69 (Cambridge 1995).
51. ^ Dupont, p. 58, n. 29, citing Valerius maximus, Works, VI.8.5.
52. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Flower, pp. 95-96.
53. ^ ^{a b} See also Fields, pp. 12, 46.
54. ^ ^{a b c} Losch, p. 390.
55. ^ ^{a b} Losch, p. 349.
56. ^ Fields, q.v., get p. #
57. ^ Holland, Tom, Rubicon -– The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, pp. 141-42 (Abacus, London, 2004). ISBN 0-349-11563-X.
58. ^ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Pompey, p. 158 (Loeb Classical Library, 1917).
59. ^ Boak, Arthur E.R. A History of Rome to 565 A.D., p. 152 (MacMillan, New York, 1922).
60. ^ Losch, p. 349; Fields, pp. 71-81.
61. ^ Fields, pp. 81-82; Losch, p. 349; Strauss, pp. 195-200.
62. ^ Losch, pp. 379-390, 575.
63. ^ Dupont, pp. 12-15.
64. ^ ^{a b c d} Dupont, p. 63.
65. ^ ^{a b c} Fields, pp. 7, 8-10.
66. ^ Dupont, pp. 7-8.
67. ^ Dupont, p. 10.
68. ^ Dupont, p. 62.
69. ^ For example, St. Luke was a freed slave and a physician.
70. ^ ^{a b c} Fields, p. 18, citing Caius (internal citations ommitted).
71. ^ Fields, pp. 18-24 (internal citations ommitted).
72. ^ Fields, pp. 12, 18, 19-20, 24, 79-81.
73. ^ Fields, p. 20.
74. ^ Fields, p. 18.
75. ^ ^{a b} Fields, pp. 21-22.
76. ^ Strauss, pp. 190-194.
77. ^ Fields, pp. 79-81.
78. ^ ^{a b} Losch, p. 56, n. 1; see also Philippians 2:5-8.
79. ^ John Crossan, The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images, p. 170, citing Matthew 10:38 and Epictetus, Dissertations, 2.2.20. (Castle, 1994, 1998). ISBN 978-0785-80912 or ISBN 0-7858-0901-5.
80. ^ Losch, p. 55-56, citing Matt. 27:15-21, Mark 15:6-15, Luke 23:13-25, and John 18:39-40.
81. ^ Losch, p. 56, n. 1, citing Matt. 27:38 and Luke 23:32-43.
82. ^ Fields, pp. 21-23.
83. ^ Fields, pp. 25.
84. ^ Fields, pp. 23.
85. ^ Fields, pp. 8, 37.
86. ^ Fields, pp. 8, 37, 71-78.
87. ^ John Crossan, The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images, p. 151 (Castle, 1994, 1998). ISBN 978-0785-80912 or ISBN 0-7858-0901-5.

External links

• Rome:crisis of the State from Washington State University website
• Works by Sallust at Project Gutenberg (Schmitz and Zumpt, 1848): Bellum Iugurthinum

Major sources and further reading

• Abbott, Frank Frost (1901). A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Elibron Classics. ISBN 0-543-92749-0. 
• P.A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) ISBN 9780198148494.
• Florence Dupont (translated by Christoper Woodall), Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Blackwell, 1992) ISBN 0-631-17877-5.
• Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt and Luis Roniger, Patrons, clients, and friends: interpersonal relations and the structure of trust in society, "Themes in the social sciences" series (Cambridge University Press, 1984) ISBN 9780521288903
• Nic Fields, Spartacus and the Slave war 73-71 BC: A gladiator rebels against Rome (Osprey 2009) ISBN 978-1-84603-353-7 (an easy read for young adults and college students)
• Harriet I. Flower, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2004) ISBN 9780521003902 (Found at Google Books). This book includes the essay by Jurgen Von Ungern-Sternberg (translated by Harriet I. Flower), "The Crisis of the Roman Republic," pp. 89–109.
• E. S. Gruen, The last generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley 1974).
• Richard R. Losch, All the People in the Bible: An A-Z Guide to the Saints, Scoundrels and Other Characters in Scripture (William B. Erdmans 2008). ISBN 978-0-8028-2454-7.
• Pamela Marin, Blood in the forum: the struggle for the Roman republic (New York: Continuum 2009) Dewey # 937.07M. ISBN 9781847251671
• Christian Meier, Caesar: A Biography, afterward pp. 481–496 (Basic Books, 1997) ISBN 9780465008957
• Christian Meier, Res publica Amissa: eine Studie zur Verassung und Geschichte der spaten romischen Republik (3rd ed. Frankfort, 1997)
• Polybius (1823). The General History of Polybius: Translated from the Greek. Vol 2 (Fifth Edition ed.). Oxford: Printed by W. Baxter. 
• Robin Seager, ed., Crisis of the Roman Republic: Studies in political and social history (W. Heffner & Sons, Ltd. 1969) ISBN 9780852700259 (soft sover) and ISBN 9780852700242 (hardcover).
• Barbette S. Spaeth, The Roman godess Ceres (U. of Texas press 1996) ISBN 0-292-77693-4.
• Barry Strauss, The Spartacus War (Simon and Schuster 2009) ISBN 978146532057
• Ronald Syme, The provincial at Rome: and, Rome and the Balkans 80BC-AD14 (original ed. Liverpool University Press, 1939) Anthony Birley, ed. (University of Exeter Press, 1999). ISBN 9780859896320.
• Timothy Peter Wiseman, Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford University Press US, 2009) ISBN 9780199239764.

See also

• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon