- Speak wide variety of languages
- Fixed agricultural populations
- Center urban areas formed around hill top fortifications
Early Roman Involvement
- P. Scipio cos. 218 takes army there at start of Hannibalic war
- P. Scipio (Africanus) ejects Carthaginians
- After Scipio leaves to become cos. 205, special elections held to choose new commanders
- Spain pacified by 199
- In 198 decision made to maintain permanent Roman presence
- Two new provinces
- Further Spain (Hispania ulterior
- Nearer (Closer) Spain (Hispania citerior)
- Two new praetorships to provide governors
- Two new provinces
Start of Endless Revolts (199-179)
- Reduction of Roman forces ca. 199
- Revolts soon break out
- M. Porcius Cato ("Cato the Elder") cos. 195 sent out to restore order
- Supposedly wins major victories
- Wars go on
- Ti. Sempronius Gracchus pr. 180
- Makes long-lasting political settlement
- Peace for 20 yrs.
- Roman consolidation
- Native exhausted
- Peace for 20 yrs.
- Makes long-lasting political settlement
Major Wars Resume (155-134)
- Major revolts in both provinces
- Bad faith on part of Romans
- Magistrates make unjustified attacks
- Senate rejects agreements made in the field
- Outgoing magistrates want glory of ending war
- New magistrates want war to go on
- Unprovoked attack on Lusitani leads to creation of court of provincial extortion (149)
- Impossible to curb imperium as such
- Attempt made to restrain greed (major cause of misuse of imperium)
- Cos. 137 forced to surrender army to Numantines
- P. Scipio Aemilianus illegally elected cos. 134
- As in 169 and 147, voters in centuriate assembly demand trusted commander after defeats
- Numantia captured 134
- In 130s major resistance to conscription for wars in Spain
- After capture of Numantia, minor wars continue but no major resistance
Constitutional Developments
- Second praetorship created in 242
- Peregrine praetor
- Deals with legal cases involving foreigners
- Four more created to provide governors
- Sicily, Sardinia (237)
- Two Spains (198)
- Now many more praetors than consuls
- Tribes added as Roman territory extended in Italy
- 31 rural, 4 urban
- Final reorganization of centuriate assembly
- Dominance of first census class slightly reduced
- Very complicated correlation of tribes and centuries instituted
- Electoral system in Rome becomes fossilized
- Nobility knows how to run system for own benefit
- No motive for change
- Career patterns finalized in 200s
- New ethos of stable oligarchy
- Everyone in nobility should get a shot at "15 mins. of fame" as consul
- Top offices not to be hogged by most prominent members of oligarchy
- No more dictatorship
- Restriction on repeated consulship
- First ten-year interval between repeated consulship
- After 153, repetition prohibited
- Fixed order of offices
- Quaestor, then praetor, then consul
- Minimumum age requirements
- Age of 42 for consulship
- New ethos of stable oligarchy
Troubles Caused by Conquest
- Military service detrimental to class of rural small holders
- Soldiery mainly members of fifth (lowest) census class
- Eagerness to serve in short, profitable wars in East or against Carthage (146)
- Increasing reluctance to serve in Spain
- Long service
- Little reward
- Good chance of getting killed
- Long absence/death abroad of head of household undermines viability of small holdings
- Huge influx of wealth
- Commanders keep large percentage of plunder
- Offices also make large sums
- Wealthy non-senators (equites) make money from providing services to state
- Land main long-term investment
- No paper investments like stocks, bonds
- Trade a risky investment
- Wealthy buy out small holders
- Sometimes voluntary
- sometimes not
- Wealthy occupy empty stretches of publicly owned land (ager publicus) in excess of legal limits
- Large migration of small holders to Rome
- Large farms worked with slave labor
- Weakened class of small holders perceived as threat to military system
- Large numbers of agricultural slaves considered dangerous
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