Gaius’ second friend, Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, boasted a distinguished ancestry. He traced his lineage to the splendid, mysterious Etruscan civilization, based in today’s Tuscany, which dominated central Italy before the rise of Rome. The Etruscans were believed by some to be immigrants from Lydia in Asia Minor. Maecenas was of regal stock, descending on his mother’s side from the Cilnii, who many centuries before ruled the Etruscan town of Arretium (today’s Arezzo). By the first century B.C., though, the family had come down somewhat in the world: they were now equites.
If one may judge by their later careers, Agrippa was likely a tough, down-to-earth boy who enjoyed physical exercise and warlike pursuits, while Maecenas had a more pacific, even feminine temperament and was especially interested in literature and the arts. They grew into adulthood alongside Gaius, learning to accord him total trust and forming a lasting, loving bond with him.
As his teens proceeded, an able upper-class adolescent moved from his secondary school to the ancient equivalent of a higher education. Leading politicians would often house writers and thinkers in their capacious homes. Young men were able to spend time there, learning from the conversation and watching the political career of their host. As a form of military service, they would also join the staff of a leading general.
For most of his life, Gaius had seen little or nothing of his astonishing great-uncle, Julius Caesar, who had spent ten years conquering Gaul. Soon the triumphant general would be back in Rome and able to provide the eager teenager with the most remarkable introduction to the twin arts of politics and war in the history of western civilization. That finishing school finished off the Roman Republic for good.
II
THE GREAT-UNCLE
48–47 B.C.
What were the causes of the crisis? It was partly the product of stubborn political, military, and economic facts, and partly of colorful but obstinate personalities.
It was also the inadvertent outcome of astonishing success. As the patricians and the plebs fought for constitutional mastery, Rome’s legions slowly fought their way through Italy in war after war until they controlled the peninsula. After a titanic struggle with Carthage in northern Africa, the Republic emerged as a Mediterranean power by the beginning of the second century B.C.
From then on, Rome increasingly acted as an international “policeman,” sending its legions to right wrongs in foreign countries—especially the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Middle East. Invited to intervene by some Greek cities, it vanquished Macedonia and eventually annexed it as a Roman province. It went on to defeat Antiochus, king of Syria, who unwisely challenged Rome to a fight. In 133 B.C., the king of Pergamum (in today’s western Turkey) died, leaving his kingdom to Rome, which renamed it the province of Asia.
The Republic was now the leading power not only in the western Mediterranean but also in the Middle East. It commanded an empire stretching from Spain (which it had inherited from the Carthaginians nearly a century before) to western Turkey. A band of client kingdoms marked the boundary with the Parthian empire (today’s Iraq and Iran).
The triumph of Rome has puzzled historians down the centuries. Of the many factors that accounted for the city’s emergence on the world stage, the most important was that from their earliest beginnings Romans lived in a permanent state of struggle—with their enemies abroad and with one another at home. Tempered in that fire, they became formidable soldiers as well as learning the political arts of negotiation, compromise, and anger resolution. Flexible and skilled at improvisation, they developed a practical imagination. They usually tried to settle a dispute, if they could, without violence, but when military force became necessary they applied it with a ruthless vigor.
Three important consequences followed Rome’s emergence as a superpower. The first was a huge influx of wealth and slaves. Direct taxation for Roman citizens living in Italy was abolished. The lives of the ruling class became more and more opulent, the frequent festivals and gladiatorial games increasingly elaborate. With the opening up of foreign markets, cheap grain flooded into Italy, driving the native smallholder out of business and replacing him with large livestock ranches often run with slave labor.
The rural unemployed fled to the big city, which became yet bigger. Unfortunately, the job market could not expand to soak up the refugees from the countryside. The authorities began to provide free grain to quiet a febrile and uncontrollable urban population.
Second, to manage such extensive dominions demanded substantial military forces. In the old days, country smallholders were called up to fight short campaigns as and when necessary. Now standing armies were required, with soldiers serving for long periods. These soldiers depended on their generals to persuade the Senate to allocate farms to them when they retired, either in Italy or further afield. These farms would be their “pensions.”
Largely as a result of conquest, the state owned a good deal of land. However, rich landowners, among whom were many senators, had quietly appropriated much of it without payment. These noble squatters were, to put it mildly, disinclined to disgorge their ill-gotten gains. So the legionaries depended on their generals to bully, finesse, or persuade the Senate to free up land for their retirement farms. They developed a loyalty to their generals rather than to Rome.
The third consequence of empire was the strain that its administration placed on the ruling class, and indeed on the Republic’s constitution. So large was the throughput of elected officials that it is hardly surprising that their caliber was variable. A good number were corrupt and incompetent.
Many Romans believed that their traditional virtues of austere duty and healthy poverty were being eroded, and that this decadence explained the growing violence and selfishness of political life. The picture was not quite so bleak as it was depicted, for some nobiles worked hard to maintain standards. However, others did live in extravagant, irresponsible, and self-indulgent ways, and it was they who set the tone.
A tribune of the people, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (from one of Rome’s oldest families), wanted to reform Italian agriculture by providing small plots of land for would-be peasant farmers. The Senate turned down the idea, but it was approved by the people and became law. In 133 B.C., Gracchus was murdered in the street by a group of angry senators, who claimed that he wanted to set up a tyranny. Ten years later, Gracchus’ younger brother, Gaius, was elected tribune and proposed further reforms. He was either killed or took his life after being cornered in a street riot.
These acts of violence were a turning point in the fortunes of the Republic. A historian writing in the following century said: “From now onward, political disputes that had been resolved by agreement were decided by the sword.”
The ruling class’s long habit of cooperation was breaking down. Many leading Romans forgot that public office was meant to be held for the public good. Also, and more seriously, everyone could see that the Roman system of government was too unwieldy to manage an empire and needed drastic streamlining.
Crises came crashing in one after another, like waves against a storm-battered ship. For the first time in three centuries, hordes of invading Celts poured into Italy; they were destroyed only with great difficulty.
Italy was governed through a network of alliances, but its communities and tribes did not have full civic rights and had long pressed for Roman citizenship. In 91 B.C. they lost patience and revolted in what became known as the War of the Allies. Rome wisely gave them what they wanted, but too late to avoid much bitterness and bloodshed.