287 Bc Decrees Of The Plebeian Assembly example essay topic

The Romans, like the Greeks, initially relied on a citizen-soldiery. In the course of the Punic Wars (3rd and 2nd century BC), the Roman army became a professional force. Drill and discipline were the keystones of Roman military power; the individual foot soldier was skilled in the use of heavy javelins and the short sword. Roman siege techniques were highly developed and the supply service well organized. To analyze the concept of farmer-warrior we should first analyze the social, political and economic realities of the period from the First Punic War to the Imperial era. At the start of the First Punic War Rome had just passed (from historical perspective) from monarchy to the republic.

But this transformation imposed an internal political conflict within the Roman society. Under the monarchy, the primary social distinction was between landholding nobles, called patricians, and their peasant workers known as the plebs or plebeians. Probably few patricians had great wealth, since popular stories portray patrician generals as returning from the battlefield to plow their fields, but they did hold substantial political power. Since Roman society excluded the plebs from all political offices and priesthoods, their demands for more privileges produced a struggle between the orders which lasted for centuries.

In 475 BC, the Etruscans threatened Rome and the newly independent city had to recruit infantry for its army. The need to draw soldiers from the plebs gave these downtrodden people their first opportunity to secure power for themselves. Plebs refused to do military or agricultural work until the Senate agreed to recognize them as a distinct element within the Roman state, with rights to an assembly and their own officials called tribunes. The result was the tribune pleb is, or peoples tribunes, who could veto decrees of the Senate or proposals of magistrates. The plebs were particularly angry at the arbitrary use of unwritten custom by aristocratic officials, so the Senate made an important concession with the publication of a code of Roman law, known as the Law of the Twelve Tables, in 451-450 BC. But the law remained harsh to debtors, and intermarriage between plebeians and patricians was still forbidden.

It took further social unrest over the next two centuries to produce additional reforms. Eventually, Rome admitted plebeians to all offices including the consulship and the priesthoods. From 287 BC decrees of the plebeian assembly (plebiscite) had the force of law over the entire state. Thus, the struggle between the orders concluded with the apparent triumph of the plebs. Roman families forever remained either patrician or plebeian, but the practical importance of the division slowly diminished, since the widening gap between the rich and the poor became more significant.

Soon, the popular assembly was organized into classes on the basis of wealth. Further class conflict lay primarily in the future, however, and Rome experienced its first extended period of social peace between 287 and 133 BC. Roman writers like Livy took patriotic pride in recounting Romes rise to domination of the entire Mediterranean world, which they portrayed as part of a divine plan. Romes conquests began with the defeat of the Etruscans and Romes other Latin neighbors, whose lands were placed under Roman rule. Eventually Rome conquered the communities in the central mountains, the Greek cities of the south, and the Gauls of the Po River valley.

And since the winners write history, little is known of how the defeated peoples viewed these wars. Early Rome was a small city, but it had inherited a tradition of expansion from the Etruscans. The drive for expansion and acquisition of new territory was fueled by a growing population, the need for land grants for the plebeians, a competitive ethic among the leading families, and their need for property to give to their sons. Rome was able to expand in part because it was more politically stable than its enemies.

Despite the social turmoil of the early republic, the Romans usually settled conflict by compromise as increasingly empowered plebs provided the manpower for Romes armies.