Abstract
The expansion of the Roman Empire in the third and second centuries b.c. was not only rapid and continuous, it was also unpremeditated and to some extent undesired. The Romans were carried along without any clear perception of the responsibilities involved in their new acquisitions, and they were slow to observe and control the inevitable reactions of their conquests upon their domestic affairs. In fact they were caught unprepared in much the same way as the modern world has been taken by surprise by the Industrial Revolution and by the changes of the last hundred years in methods of communication. The domestic history of the later Republic is largely a record of successive crises resulting from this failure of adaptation to a quickly changing environment.
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Notes and References
On the Tribal Assembly see L. R. Taylor, The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic (1960).
E. S. Staveley (AI Phil. 1953, 1 ff.) argues that by the reform the nobles tried to restrict the influence of the wealthy traders who were enrolled in the urban tribes.
On the voting power of freedmen see S. Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (1969), 37 ff.
On the fundamental importance of the decay of the Comitia see W. E. Heitland, The Roman Fate (1900).
On the lex Aelia and lex Fufia see A. E. Astin, Latomus 1964, 421 ff.; A. K. Michels, The Calendar of the Roman Republic (1967), 94 ff.
On the lex Aelia and lex Fufia see A. E. Astin, Latomus 1964, 421 ff.; A. K. Michels, The Calendar of the Roman Republic (1967), 94 ff.
According to P. Willems, Le Sénat de la république romaine (1878), i, 308 ff., the Senate of 179 B.c. contained 99 patricians and 216 plebeians.
For the ideas and ideals of the nobles see D. Earl, The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (1967); quotation from p. 21.
The details of the ‘Scipionic trials’ are very obscure. See Scullard, Roman Politics, 290 ff., and (more briefly) Scipio Africanus (1970), 216 ff. On the control which a general was allowed over the disposal of booty see I. Schatzman, Historia 1972, 177 ff.
See A. E. Astin, The Lex Annalis before Sulla (1958).
lus gentium did not mean ‘international law’ (as in the seventeenth century), but it was that part of the revised Roman law which was open to citizens and non-citizens alike. This is the practical significance of the phrase, but it was also used in a wider theoretical sense which corresponded with ius naturale, envisaged as an ideal and universally valid set of precepts. See J. K. B. M. Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law (1962), 54 ff. The ius gentium was compounded of Italian rather than Greek or Carthaginian elements.
Details of the Leges Porciae are uncertain; see A. H. McDonald, JRS 1944, 19 ff., and A. H. M. Jones, Criminal Courts of the Roman Republic and Principate (1972), 22 ff. The first of the three laws is commemorated on a coin, a denarius of the end of the second century, issued by a namesake of the proposer of the bill: Sydenham, CRR, n. 571.
Details of the Leges Porciae are uncertain; see A. H. McDonald, JRS 1944, 19 ff., and A. H. M. Jones, Criminal Courts of the Roman Republic and Principate (1972), 22 ff. The first of the three laws is commemorated on a coin, a denarius of the end of the second century, issued by a namesake of the proposer of the bill: Sydenham, CRR, n. 571.
On the procedure of the quaestiones perpetuae see A. H. J. Greenidge, The Legal Procedure off Cicero’s Time (1901), 441 ff. The usual number of jurors in these courts was about thirty until 122 B.c., from fifty to seventy after that date.
On Roman policy to the Latins see E. T. Salmon, JRS 1936, 47 ff.; A. H. McDonald, Cambr. Historical Journal 1938, 125 ff.; JRS 1944, 11 ff.;
A. J.Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy (1965), ch. iv; A. N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship’ (1973), 96 ff.
Polybius, vi. 11 ff. On Roman probity see Polybius, vi. 56. On imperial expansion and the decline of the Roman Republic see A. W. Lintott, Historia 1972, 626 ff.
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© 1975 The representatives of the estate of the late M. Cary and H. H. Scullard
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Cary, M., Scullard, H.H. (1975). Domestic Politics in the Second Century. In: A History of Rome. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02415-5_18
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