The Roman republic was formed on the backbone of having a formidable army, consisting of several legions that pooled their numbers from all parts of the Republic. The sheer size of the Roman army, approximately 300,000 soldiers, made them unrivalled in the region. This numerical superiority significantly aided them in their conquests, leading to victories more often than not. The triumphant conquest of territories strengthened the power of Rome’s ruling elites, and brought about an increase in wealth of the Patricians. Landless peasants could also now colonize the new territories, reducing the pressure to redistribute land in Rome. Bolstered by the strength of the armed forces, it seemed unfathomable that the Republic could face threats to
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After the third Punic war in 146 BC, there was an influx of slaves from the Carthaginians, bringing the total number of slaves in Rome to more than a million. With the vast and seemingly endless supply of slaves, the readily available nature of slaves made during Roman slavery “an impersonal and brutal institution, more than it had than in any other ancient civilisation” . The slaves were deemed as expendables and it was ‘standard’ policy to make the most out of them until they died of exhaustion or were simply too old to handle the tasks given to them physically. Although there were accounts of slaves who managed to break free from this cycle by buying their freedom and gaining enough favour, the general state of slavery was still a horrible business, with some slaves being trained for gladiatorial combat to be mauled by the wild animals or for the amusement of the people . Such atrocities were clearly in contradiction with the definition of an ideal Roman, where Gaius Lucilius mentions in some of his works that one of the values of an ideal Roman was of virtus, whereby a true Roman male would encompass the virtue of “knowing what is wrong, good, evil, useless, shameful or dishonourable” . The fact that the Romans were toying around with human lives reflected the bestial and barbaric side of the Romans which was in true contradiction with the …show more content…
He wanted a more equal distribution of grain among the people by having more reasonable prices for grain. The senate reasoned that this would place a huge burden on the treasury, when in actual fact they felt threatened as before, they could manipulate prices through private distribution and thus increase their social affluence. Furthermore, Gaius diluted the power held by senators when he allowed equestrians to be appointed as jurymen in court, where previously such positions could only be held by senators, which resulted in prevalence of extortion and exploitation. Another significant reform introduced by Gaius was that he extended citizenship beyond that of only Romans to include Latin allies, encountering resistance from the senate. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Gaius met the same fate as his brother Tiberius when the nobles rallied against him and his supporters, resulting in their deaths. This conflict and violence was unprecedented in Rome before, as Roman constitution had no written rule for their laws, but rather relied on a tradition in which those in power would come to an agreement through compromise, as opposed to engaging in a power struggle. The clash between the Gracchus brothers and the senates proved the impracticality of the Roman Republic in having vastly different classes of people in power, despite its success over the years, as a clash of interest was
After the third Punic war in 146 BC, there was an influx of slaves from the Carthaginians, bringing the total number of slaves in Rome to more than a million. With the vast and seemingly endless supply of slaves, the readily available nature of slaves made during Roman slavery “an impersonal and brutal institution, more than it had than in any other ancient civilisation” . The slaves were deemed as expendables and it was ‘standard’ policy to make the most out of them until they died of exhaustion or were simply too old to handle the tasks given to them physically. Although there were accounts of slaves who managed to break free from this cycle by buying their freedom and gaining enough favour, the general state of slavery was still a horrible business, with some slaves being trained for gladiatorial combat to be mauled by the wild animals or for the amusement of the people . Such atrocities were clearly in contradiction with the definition of an ideal Roman, where Gaius Lucilius mentions in some of his works that one of the values of an ideal Roman was of virtus, whereby a true Roman male would encompass the virtue of “knowing what is wrong, good, evil, useless, shameful or dishonourable” . The fact that the Romans were toying around with human lives reflected the bestial and barbaric side of the Romans which was in true contradiction with the …show more content…
He wanted a more equal distribution of grain among the people by having more reasonable prices for grain. The senate reasoned that this would place a huge burden on the treasury, when in actual fact they felt threatened as before, they could manipulate prices through private distribution and thus increase their social affluence. Furthermore, Gaius diluted the power held by senators when he allowed equestrians to be appointed as jurymen in court, where previously such positions could only be held by senators, which resulted in prevalence of extortion and exploitation. Another significant reform introduced by Gaius was that he extended citizenship beyond that of only Romans to include Latin allies, encountering resistance from the senate. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Gaius met the same fate as his brother Tiberius when the nobles rallied against him and his supporters, resulting in their deaths. This conflict and violence was unprecedented in Rome before, as Roman constitution had no written rule for their laws, but rather relied on a tradition in which those in power would come to an agreement through compromise, as opposed to engaging in a power struggle. The clash between the Gracchus brothers and the senates proved the impracticality of the Roman Republic in having vastly different classes of people in power, despite its success over the years, as a clash of interest was