Ancient Civ: Fractured Greece and Republican Rome

Now that Alexander has died and his empire fractured, we see the Peloponnesian and Attican Greeks breaking away from the Antigonid realm. Sparta is in a pinch, thanks to the severe lack of landed Spartiates. A mere handful of families are left and these own all the land, so any new recruits from the Spartan’s other subject peoples cannot get that fundamental necessity for citizenship. Athens has her own problems. Seeing the growing power of Syracuse, the Antigonids return to Athens to revitalize her strength at sea, accomplishing this by forcing an aristocratic government upon the city-state. After an enraged uprising, yet another league is formed (the first of several) to maintain independence. These are largely ineffectual as tyrannies slowly take center stage, pushing oligarchies and aristocracies into the background.

To the west, Rome has expelled her kings and is rising as a power in Latium. But with the kings gone, the Romans must determine who shall have Imperium, that all-important power. Imperium becomes divided into several different offices: Consuls are granted power over the military and Comitia Centuriata and act as supreme judges, the Senate controls social and economic power, the Rex Sacrorum watches over the state’s religious life while the Pontifext Maximus represents all the gods before the government, and in the case of public danger a Dictator is granted total power until the threat is passed. To consolidate power, the growing Roman state forms the Latin League to defend trade from the marauding hill folk. However, once the Romans advance into the southern Po valley, they become the most powerful force in Italy overnight, alarming their neighbors. Seeing a group of uneasy Latins to their south, the Romans set about dividing and conquering the other states by making individual treaties with them and requiring only a tithe of soldiers for their armies. Moreover, the Roman strategy of building settlements in the uninhabited lands between cities further break up the unity of their allies. At last, Rome is master of the peninsula, leaving only the Greek southern boot outside their influence. But once they are weakened by Alexander’s havoc rousing in the Greek homeland, they will be open to Roman control.

But there are costs to this strategy as the lines between aristocracy and commoners blur. Patricians close the “box” of aristocracy to protect their longtime status, but the rising plebeians are furious and seek an outlet for their own voice. They find this voice on Aventine Hill, where the guards discover that they can be the patrons to the new movement and facilitate easy and safe meetings. The Senate finally recognizes the new assembly and allows for elected Tribunes to sit in on Senate meetings, each one armed with a veto that may be applied to those actions taken by the consuls that directly affect the city of Rome. In addition, it is established that one of the consuls must be a plebian. And finally, in 287, the new Hortinsian Laws recognize the council of Plebs as the legislative body of Rome.

This concludes the Ancient Civ shorts!