1. Patricians compromise with Plebeians: 494?-287 BC ("Conflict of the Orders")

A. Plebeian tactics and achievements

• secessio to the Aventine:
• 494: tribune of the plebs, veto power
• 471: plebeian assembly finally recognized, plebiscite
  
• 449: Twelve Tables; judicial rights; still subject to slavery debt
  
• 287: final say in legislation, right of intermarriage, access to all priesthoods and elected offices, debt slavery abolished
• nb: only the Gracchi ever submitted legislation to the assembly without pre-approval by the Senate/patricians

B. Major reforms:

• Plebeian Assembly (Comitia Tributa)
• New magistrates: Tribunes (gradually 12)
  • power of veto in Senate and to put forward motions
  • inviolability, eternal accessibility
    
• Law of the Twelve Tables
• Consulship open to plebeians
• Plebeian legislation binding on all Romans
• Licinian-Sextian laws: limit amount of land held by individuals
  

 C. Effect

after 367 B.C.: nobilitas = patricians and plebeian elite

novus homo (pl. novi homines): "new man," e.g., Marius, Cicero

 D. The third order: equestrians

2. Similarities and Differences: Rome and Athens

A. Economic and political factors as inducement to reform

B. Codification of law

C. Political outcome

D. Stability vs. instability

3. Factors in Breakdown

A. Decline of social consensus about expansion of empire

B. Breakdown of equilibrium within ruling oligarchy

optimates vs. populares

 C. Soldiers and commanders vs. the "state"

4. The "Roman Revolution"

A. Factors in breakdown of stability: 2nd half, 2C BC

i. Economic problems

landless peasants and veterans

reduction in soldiery

the "Italian problem": land and citizenship

ii. Breakdown of equilibrium among nobilitas

ineffectiveness of Senate

optimates vs. populares

iii. Population increases

Year	Population of Rome (city only)
350 BC	30,000
250	100,000
100	500,000
25	1,000,000
AD 120	1,650,000
330	600,000
530	50,000

B. Major events:

133, 122 BC: Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus attempted land reform, lex frumentaria; murdered

• family tree
• Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi: "These are my jewels"
  

112-78 BC: Marius (#2) vs. Sulla (#2), the Social War:

• Jugurthine War (112-105 BC): Marius and Sulla involved
• Marcus Livius Drusus and the question of allied citizenship
  
• Citizens vs. non-citizens: Social War (91-87 BC)
• Mithridatic War (89-75 BC)
• Sulla: marches on Rome, proscriptions, dictator "for settling the Republic and writing the laws" (82-79 BC)
  
• Cinna
• Sertorius
• Pompey the Great
  

63 BC: Cicero vs. Catilina

• issues: debt relief
• supporters: impoverished, Sullan veterans
• the death penalty: Caesar vs. Cato the Younger
  

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Updated 11-20-06, bolmarcich@mail.utexas.edu