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The Gracchi brothers were two brothers who lived during the beginning of the late Roman Republic: Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus. They served in the plebeian tribunates of 133 BC and 122–121 BC, respectively. They have been received as well-born and eloquent advocates for social reform who were both killed by a reactionary political system; their terms in the tribunate precipitated a series of domestic crises which are viewed as unsettling the Roman Republic and contributing to its collapse.
Marcus Opellius Macrinus was a Roman emperor who reigned from April 217 to June 218, jointly with his young son Diadumenianus. Born in Caesarea in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis to an equestrian family of Berber origins, he became the first emperor who did not hail from the senatorial class and also the first emperor who never visited Rome during his reign. Before becoming emperor, Macrinus served under Emperor Caracalla as a praetorian prefect and dealt with Rome's civil affairs. He later conspired against Caracalla and had him murdered in a bid to protect his own life and succeeded Caracalla as emperor.
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Romans conquered most of this during the Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of effective sole rule in 27 BC. The western empire collapsed in 476 AD, but the eastern empire lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The Roman Republic was the era of classical Roman civilization beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.
The patricians were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders. By the time of the late Republic and Empire, membership in the patriciate was of only nominal significance. The social structure of ancient Rome revolved around the distinction between the patricians and the plebeians. The status of patricians gave them more political power than the plebeians, but the relationship between the groups eventually caused the Conflict of the Orders. This time period resulted in changing of the social structure of ancient Rome.
The toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between 12 and 20 feet in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tradition, it is said to have been the favored dress of Romulus, Rome's founder; it was also thought to have originally been worn by both sexes, and by the citizen-military. As Roman women gradually adopted the stola, the toga was recognized as formal wear for male Roman citizens. Women found guilty of adultery and women engaged in prostitution might have provided the main exceptions to this rule.
In ancient Rome, the plebeians or plebs were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary.
The Samnites were an ancient Italic people who lived in Samnium, which is located in modern inland Abruzzo, Molise, and Campania in south-central Italy.
In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.
The Marian reforms were putative changes to the composition and operation of the Roman army during the late Roman republic usually attributed to Gaius Marius. The most important of those putative changes concerned the altering of the socio-economic background of the soldiery. Other changes were supposed to have included the introduction of the cohort; the institution of a single form of heavy infantry with uniform equipment; the universal adoption of the eagle standard; and the abolition of the citizen cavalry. It was commonly believed that Marius changed the soldiers' socio-economic background by allowing citizens without property to join the Roman army, a process called "proletarianisation". This was thought to have created a semi-professional class of soldiers motivated by land grants; these soldiers in turn became clients of their generals, who then used them to overthrow the republic.
The practices of ancient Roman finance, while originally rooted in Greek models, evolved in the second century BC with the expansion of Roman monetization. Roman elites engaged in private lending for various purposes, and various banking models arose to serve different lending needs.
Social class in ancient Rome was hierarchical, with multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. An individual's relative position in one might be higher or lower than in another, which complicated the social composition of Rome.
The term accensi is applied to two different groups. Originally, the accensi were light infantry in the armies of the early Roman Republic. They were the poorest men in the legion, and could not afford much equipment. They did not wear armour or carry shields, and their usual position was part of the third battle line. They fought in a loose formation, supporting the heavier troops. They were eventually phased out by the time of Second Punic War. In the later Roman Republic the term was used for civil servants who assisted the elected magistrates, particularly in the courts, where they acted as ushers and clerks.
Triarii were one of the elements of the early Roman military manipular legions of the early Roman Republic. They were the oldest and among the wealthiest men in the army and could afford high quality equipment. They wore heavy metal armor and carried large shields, their usual position being the third battle line. They were equipped with spears and were considered to be elite soldiers among the legion.
A commoner, also known as the common man, commoners, the common people or the masses, was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither royalty, nobility, nor any part of the aristocracy. Depending on culture and period, other elevated persons may have had higher social status in their own right, or were regarded as commoners if lacking an aristocratic background.
During the Roman Republic, there were watchmen that served as firefighters. They used water buckets to put out fires and axes to tear down buildings near the fire in order to prevent the fire from spreading. The aediles and tresviri nocturni were also employed to fight fires. Roman Emperor Augustus created the Vigiles. The Vigiles were an organization of freedmen that fought fires. They would use buckets and water pumps. Emperor Nero also created "bucket brigades" to help fight fires.
Freedmen in ancient Rome existed as a distinct social class (liberti or libertini), with former slaves granted freedom and rights through the legal process of manumission. The Roman practice of slavery utilized slaves for both production and domestic labour, overseen by their wealthy masters. Urban and domestic slaves especially could achieve high levels of education, acting as agents and representatives of their masters' affairs and finances. Within Roman law there was a set of practices for freeing trusted slaves, granting them a limited form of Roman citizenship or Latin rights. These freed slaves were known in Latin as liberti (freedmen), and formed a class set apart from freeborn Romans. While freedmen were barred from some forms of social mobility in Roman society, many achieved high levels of wealth and status. Liberti were an important part of the "most economically active and innovative entrepreneurial class" in the Roman Empire. The legal and social status of freedmen remained a point of cultural and legal contention throughout the Republic and Empire.
In Ancient Rome, there were four primary kinds of taxation: a cattle tax, a land tax, customs, and a tax on the profits of any profession. These taxes were typically collected by local aristocrats. The Roman state would set a fixed amount of money each region needed to provide in taxes, and the local officials would decide who paid the taxes and how much they paid. Once collected the taxes would be used to fund the military, create public works, establish trade networks, stimulate the economy, and to fund the cursus publicum.
In ancient Rome there were a variety of officials tasked with banking. These were the argentarii, mensarii, coactores, and nummulari. The argentarii were money changers. The role of the mensarii was to help people through economic hardships, the coactores were hired to collect money and give it to their employer, and the nummulari minted and tested currency. They offered credit systems and loans. Between 260 and the fourth century CE, Roman bankers disappear from the historical record, likely because of economic difficulties caused by the debasement of the currency.
Poverty in ancient Rome is challenging to define as much of the Roman population lived in conditions resembling modern poverty. Roman society was largely agrarian and afflictions such as low literacy rates, high infant mortality, and poor diets were widespread throughout the populace. Poverty can be defined through landlessness; the majority of land in ancient Rome was concentrated in the hands of a small class of wealthy people, leaving the rest of the population with little land. However, people in urban settings likely could have lived well without owning land. Ancient Roman poverty can also be viewed through the lens of political disenfranchisement; the poor were less able to access political offices, had increased difficulty casting ballots, had votes of lesser significance, and had higher tax rates. The Codex Theodosianus, a late Roman legal document, describes various laws in which the poor were to be punished differently from the rich. Estimates of the GDP per capita in ancient Rome suggest that the majority of the population was living at subsistence levels, with enough money to live securely but not comfortably.
References
- ↑ Dillon, Matthew; Garland, Lynda (2013-10-28). Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook. Routledge. p. 242. ISBN 978-1-136-76143-0.
- ↑ Phang, Sara Elise (2022-03-31). Daily Life of Women in Ancient Rome. ABC-CLIO. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-4408-7169-6.
- ↑ Oakes, Peter (2009). Reading Romans in Pompeii. Fortress Press. pp. 54–57. ISBN 978-1-4514-1593-3.
- ↑ Mongstad-Kvammen, Ingeborg (2013-01-01), "Social and Cultural Texture: A Short Overview of Roman Political History and Markers of Social Affiliation", Toward a Postcolonial Reading of the Epistle of James, Brill, pp. 75–76, ISBN 978-90-04-25187-8 , retrieved 2023-12-05
- ↑ Livy (2013-04-04). Rome's Italian Wars: Books 6-10. OUP Oxford. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0-19-164083-4.
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