Plebs Romana E-Book

Peter Jones

• Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 306

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'Jones has an eagle's high eye for the history of Rome' The Timestt 'Jones makes the classical world feel both beguiling and fresh' Sunday Times The untold story of the real people who built an empire The plebs were the backbone of Roman civilization. They were the farmers who fed the city, the soldiers who conquered the Mediterranean, and the craftsmen who built the monuments we still admire today. In Plebs Romana, renowned classicist and bestselling author Peter Jones takes us through the twists and turns of Rome's turbulent history - from bloody conquests and civil wars to street riots and shocking scandals - to reveal how this disparate, downtrodden underclass evolved into a political force that challenged the ruling elite and transformed the Roman Republic. From debt crises to dinner parties, graffiti to gladiators, slaves to strikes, Jones provides fascinating insights into every aspect of ordinary Roman life. It is an extraordinary and entertaining account that, for the first time, places at the heart of the story Rome's working people, who unwittingly helped to lay the foundations of our political system.

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First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2025 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Peter Jones, 2025

The moral right of Peter Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

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Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Map artwork by Jeff Edwards.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 80546 510 2

E-book ISBN: 978 1 80546 511 9

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The book is dedicated to Lindsay and our family, sine quibus non:Philippa (White), Phoebe, Tom and Jill (Hurworth), and Paul (White),Charlotte, Toby and Helena.

CONTENTS

Maps

Foreword

Introduction

1 The First Four Kings of Rome: 753–616 BC

2 The Last of the Kings: 616–509 BC

3 The Founding of the Republic: 509–473 BC

4 A New Law-Code and the Rule of the Ten: 473–449 BC

5 Further Plebeian Success and the Emergence of Camillus: 449–390 BC

6 The Coming of the Gauls and Destruction of Rome: 390–350 BC

7 The Conquest of Italy and the Triumph of the Plebs: 350–280 BC

8 The Beginning of Empire: 280–167 BC

9 From Triumph to Disaster: 167–27 BC

10 The Augustan Revolution: An Overview

11 Pompeii: AD

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index

MAPS

FOREWORD

If you were among the richest half a per cent of the Roman population, you might think that the world owed you a living. All other free Romans – the plebs – knew that the world did not. For the poor among them, simple survival was the bottom line.

There were four constants:

Nearly 90 per cent of Romans were peasant farmers, living off what their farm could produce. A bad harvest could be the end of them. Most of the remaining 10 per cent were city dwellers, e.g. artisans, labourers, etc. The remaining minority were the extremely wealthy elite. Slaves, of course, did not count as Romans. They made up about 10 per cent of the total population, nearer 20 per cent in the cities.

The welfare state did not exist. Only a famine would cause the state to step in, at least for those living in the city.

Of children born, half would be dead by the age of five. Only one in three of those would make it to forty.

The best that most plebs could hope for – though some were wealthy – was a degree of security. That began with the family but extended to friends and, more widely, the local community. It was up to you to ensure your relationships with those three groupings were productive. If they weren’t, you were in serious trouble.

The Greek peasant poet-farmer Hesiod (d. c. 680 BC, contemporary with early Rome), gave a picture of the peasant farmer’s priorities. In his poem ‘Works and Days’, he sees farming as a matter of survival, when men ‘will never cease from toil and misery by day and night’.

His advice makes clear what is needed to succeed. ‘Do not put things off till tomorrow and the next day. That man never fills his granary. It is application that produces increase. The man who puts off work wrestles with ruin.’

Look after what you produce, he recommends: ‘If you lay down even a little on a little, and do this often, that could well grow big; he who adds to what is there keeps hunger at bay.’ Protect what you have: ‘What is stored away at home is never a worry; better to have things there in the house than outside.’

The consequences could be dramatic: ‘It is through work that men become rich in flocks and wealthy, and a working man is much dearer to the immortals. Work is no disgrace, but idleness is; and if you work, you will soon find the idle man will envy you as you enrich yourself – for wealth is accompanied by honour and prestige.’ The sentiment is very Greek: nothing beats people looking up to you.

There was a degree of community cooperation in all this: ‘It is good to take a measure from your neighbour and good to pay him back the same, or better, so that if you are in need afterwards, you can rely on him for help.’

But there was also a strong sense of competition: ‘A man is keen to work when he sees his rich neighbour ploughing and planting and putting his house in order, and neighbour vies with neighbour as he hurries after wealth… potter competes with potter, and craftsman with craftsman.’

That world was not going to change. No one ever thought it could, or would, or even should. But one could always hope for a slice of luck – and for that one had better keep men and gods on side.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS STORY

But when it came to politics and rich people telling you what to do in their interests and not in yours… that was a very different matter altogether. It is no coincidence that that one of the most regularly repeated aphorisms in the ancient world was ‘do good to your friends and harm to your enemies’.

The subject of this book – and it is an eye-opener – is the Romans’ story of how the plebs, over some 700 years from Rome’s foundation in 753 BC, managed to turn themselves into a significant body in opposition to the elite, changing the whole political landscape, and in the process acting as the driving force that resulted in Rome becoming the master of Italy and beginning a gradual expansion into North Africa, Gaul, much of the Mediterranean, and the Greek and Near Eastern worlds.

But what happened next? On the one hand, civil war and the end of the republic in 27 BC; on the other, 450 years of rule by emperors – even a pleb could become an emperor – and an even larger empire that finally collapsed in AD 476. It is fair to say that if the plebs had not achieved what they did in reforming the relationship between rich and poor during the republican period, chipping away at elite structures and gradually carving out influence for themselves, it is most unlikely that any of this could have happened. And the consequences for our political world have been dramatic.

This story, up to the end of the republic, will be the one told by the Roman historian Livy. Selecting the most significant incidents and moments from his surviving Roman history, we shall follow closely the ups and downs of the plebs’ many battles for political power, in a way that I am not aware has ever been done before, and end with a general assessment of the place of the plebs in the new world that emerged under the emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14), with a particular focus on Pompeii.

I

THE FIRST FOUR KINGS OF ROME:

753–616 BC

THE SACK OF TROY

The traditional date for the foundation of Rome is 753 BC, but the Romans’ story about themselves actually started in a murky past long before that, with a Greek epic about the Trojan War. This – if there really was a Trojan War – probably happened around 1200 BC, when the Greeks laid siege to Troy to win back Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, who had been seduced back there by the Trojan prince, Paris.

The story of Rome – the Romans believed – began with the successful Greek sack of Troy. That was the moment when the Trojan hero Aeneas managed to escape the slaughter and, after many adventures across the Mediterranean, finally landed in Italy.

There, it was claimed, he was destined to found not Rome but the Latin race – ‘Latin’ because the area in which they landed was called Latium, its inhabitants were called Latini, and they all spoke – you’ve guessed it – Latin.

ROMULUS: THE MYTHICAL BACKGROUND

So who actually founded Rome? The answer is, of course, Romulus. But how does he fit into the Aeneas story?

When Aeneas arrived in Italy, he had to fight his way to power. He founded the city of Alba Longa, and his male descendants became its kings. The last king of Alba Longa was Numitor, who had a daughter, Rhea Silvia. But Amulius, Numitor’s brother, deposed him and promptly made Rhea a Vestal Virgin to prevent her continuing Numitor’s line.

Rhea was raped by the god Mars, however, and produced twins. Wicked Amulius gave orders for them to be put in a basket and floated off down the Tiber to the sea (rather like Moses). But the basket came ashore near what would be the site of Rome. There the twins crawled out and were suckled by a she-wolf.

They were eventually found by a herdsman, a good, honest pleb, who named them Romulus and Remus. They grew up under his loving care, discovered who their real father was, overthrew wicked Amulius and restored Numitor to the throne.

THE FOUNDING OF ROME

The twins then decided to leave Alba Longa to found a new city on the very spot where they had come ashore. Being twins, neither had priority, so they invoked the gods to reveal who should rule. When Romulus claimed victory, a quarrel broke out between the brothers and he killed Remus. But Livy adds that there is another version of the story: Romulus killed Remus because he mocked the pathetic size of the walls that Romulus was building.

So the new city was called Roma – Rome – after Romulus.

STRONGMAN ROME

Romans greatly admired almost everything about the ancient Greeks (except their democracy, which they saw as mob rule) and loved to make as many connections as they could with them. It is not surprising that some Romans pointed out that Roma sounded rather like rhômê, the Greek word for ‘strength’.

The Romulus tale looks to be a pretty grim foundation story. But the Roman world was very different from ours. Having the god of war as your founder’s father, who was suckled by a wolf, surely gave you licence to ruthlessly conquer in a world in which the ownership and control of territory were the keys to power.

At the same time, the hero Aeneas was a connection with the ancient Greek world. This was valuable in the eastern Mediterranean at the time: the famous Greeks had been settling in parts of Italy from the eighth century BC.

Aeneas was also known for his pietas, a word that is the source of our ‘piety’ and ‘pity’. For Romans it meant respect for the family, country and gods – exactly what was needed to justify Rome’s military conquests. Then again, observe the crucial part that was played in Rome’s history by a common herdsman – a pleb if ever there was one – in saving the twins and raising them to become fine men.

THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF ANCIENT ROMAN PRIESTS

As guardians and overseers of religious law, customs and the sacred calendar, priests supervised temples and their staff and property and other sacred spaces and objects. Virtually all of them already existed in the period of the kings, though we cannot be sure of what their precise roles were. Virtually all were male and appointed for life.

But they did not act as beacons of moral virtue, like modern priests, nor as mediators between men and gods. If anyone did that, it was the Senate, which was responsible for banning (or accepting) foreign cults, responding to reports of prodigies and miraculous events, and so on. No surprise, then, that priests were senators and held major public offices. They were deeply entwined with the political world. Julius Caesar (d. 44 BC) is a fine example – he was elected to the post of Pontifex Maximus (see below).

FUNCTIONS

1. Priests conducted religious rituals and public animal sacrifices, libations, etc., to honour the gods, especially at festivals for the gods and times of crisis.

2. They interpreted the will of the gods through auspices (p. 40), omens, and the entrails of animals, as a result of which they advised officials as to the best course of action.

3. They organized regular annual celebrations in honour of the gods, many centred around the agricultural year, and ensured they were properly carried out.

4. They were subject to political manipulation if their activities were felt to threaten the careers of ambitious Romans, especially during the breakdown of the late republic.

SOME PERSONNEL

1. Pontifices (pontiffs), headed by the Pontifex Maximus (chief priest), advised the Senate on all aspects of state religion, the calendar and the law, and kept records of religious events and prodigies. Numbered up to sixteen. Originally co-opted, some were elected.

2. Augures (augurs) offered interpretations of the divine will through bird signs and natural phenomena in relation to public decisions, wars and elections. Numbered up to sixteen. Originally co-opted, some were elected.

3. Flamines (flamens) ran the cults of Jupiter, Mars and minor deities, under strict rules of dress and behaviour. One for each god. Chosen by the Pontifex Maximus.

4. Vestal Virgins: see p. 121.

5. Fetiales (fetials) handled religious protocol in foreign diplomacy, and declared war and concluded treaties with sacred rituals. There were twenty.

6. Quindecimviri sacris faciundis: these ‘fifteen men for performing sacred rites’ were in charge of the Sibylline Books (p. 90) and foreign cults.

ROMULUS 753–716 BC:THE START OF THE STORY

The dates of the early kings are the traditional ones. Given that each of them seems to have ruled for more than thirty years – extremely unlikely! – they bear little connection to reality. Whatever the truth about the very early years of Rome, there is no doubt that by 550 BC Rome was an established, powerful city.

Further, it is simply not the case that Rome was founded in the eighth century BC. Archaeologists have demonstrated beyond any doubt that this part of Italy had already been inhabited for hundreds of years before its traditional foundation date. The whole story of Romulus, then, is an invention, but it gives a fascinating insight into the mentality of those Romans who invented it – whenever that was!

SURVIVAL

The Romans lived in a fiercely competitive world, in which man was constantly fighting for survival against man, and winning meant everything.

Here, then, was Rome, a new boy on the block, attempting to make a space for itself in territory already fought over by many well-established communities. They would be Rome’s prime enemies – the local clans or tribes of Latium (Latins) like the Albans and Gabii, and those who surrounded them, such as the wealthy and powerful Etruscans (and their magnificent towns such as Veii), and others like the Aequi, Sabines, Volsci and Hernici (map, p. xi). They were watching Rome’s development extremely carefully, and saw the advantage in weakening Rome, destroying it or even taking it over, as soon as possible.

EXPANDING THE CITY

Romulus’ first job was to summon his subjects and give them some basic laws, ‘without which there could be no unified body politic’.*

Realizing that he was ruling over a pretty rough collection of plebs