Threats Without, Tensions Within
With the expulsion of the last king, Tarquin the Proud, the Romans immediately found themselves fighting for their lives. Tarquin and his Etruscan allies organized a co-ordinated attack on them, and hill-tribes such as the Sabines and Volsci raided their territory. The Romans beat off these attacks, but from now on they were continually at war with their neighbours – Latin, Sabine, Volscian and Etruscan.
What made matters worse was that there were grave tensions within the Roman community itself, of precisely the kind that we meet with in Greek city-states. As the traditions recorded by later Roman historians have it, the mass of the people, the plebs, resented the way in which the patricians ruled. The former felt that the latter were, through their dominance of the law courts, interpreting customs to their own advantage, allowing them (powerful, patrician and wealthy) to act towards their debtors (poor, plebeian and powerless) in a harsh and arbitrary way. Unlike in many Greek states, however, the plebeians did not call for a re-distribution of land, nor did they violently attack the patricians and try to seize power. Instead, they went on strike (or “secessio” – technically they temporarily “seceded” from the state under their own chosen leaders, called tribunes) and refused to pay their taxes or fight in the army.
The Twelve Tables
They did this for several years before the patricians, realizing that something had to give, agreed to set out the laws in a written form. A commission of both plebeians and patricians duly produced twelve tables of laws to be set up in public in the forum (c. 450 BC). These twelve tables set out a fairly harsh code of law, but Romans of all stripes felt it was fair, and they won the support of the community as a whole. The orginal Twelve Tables formed the basis of all subsequent Roman law, possibly the greatest distinctive contribution to future history that the Romans made.
Rome gradually prevailed over her Latin neighbours, and became recognized as the leading city-state within Latium.
Rome and her Neighbours
In c. 406 BC, after a fierce ten-year war with Veii, her nearest Etruscan neighbour (only ten miles away), she was victorious, and destroyed the city, settling her own citizens on the land that had belonged to her enemy. This put her in an even stronger position with her neighbours, but then disaster struck. A powerful raiding party of Gauls, coming down the Italian peninsula from northern Italy, defeated the Roman army and burnt the city, narrowly failing to take the Citadel and destroy the city altogether (c. 390 BC).
It took many years for Rome to regain her leading position within Latium. Tensions between patricians and plebeians continued, gradually taking on a different character. Some plebeians had, over the years, become wealthy landowners, and they were becoming increasingly resentful about having no share in the leadership of the state. These rich plebeians used the massed power of their poorer fellows not only to guarantee the rights of the plebeians, but also to gain power for themselves.
Tensions Resolved
They succeeded in both these aims (mostly in two “packages” of measures, in 366 and 287 BC), with all Roman citizens enjoying the protection of law against oppression, and with the office of tribune recognized as an official magistracy within the Roman political system. The office had wide-ranging powers to act against abuses of power by other magistrates. They also won seats in the senate, the ruling council of Rome; and finally, they won the right to be elected consul, or chief magistrate of Rome (two of these being elected each year to act as joint chiefs of state).
From this time forward, the leading plebeian families gradually merged with those of the patricians to form a single ruling class of Rome, and the tension between the patrician and plebeian orders faded (though it by no means vanished). The comparatively successful resolution of this conflict gave Roman society a stability and cohesion that stood it in good stead for the next century and a half.
Next:
The History of Ancient Rome, Part 3: Expansion In Italy
Article © TimeMaps 2007.
Last updated: 13th August 2007
