Quiz Notes

Quiz #1

1. The term paterfamilias refers to

a. “the ways of our ancestors”: traditional Roman behavior and customs

b. “the father of the family”: the elder male with life and death authority over the household(true)

c. “the high priest”: the priest in charge of the Vestal Virgins and other priests

d. “the crunchy frog”: the small honeyed amphibians wealthy Romans ate as a delicacy

The paterfamilias was the senior male figure in an extended family (all those connected by a vertical male bloodline). According to custom and law, the paterfamilias was the owner of all the family’s property, and the sole representative of its interests to the public. All that happened within the family—private matters, as contrasted with public matters (res publica)—were entirely in the hands of the paterfamilias, who had complete power (patria potestas) of justice and disposition over all the men, women, children, freedmen, slaves, and possessions of his bloodline, up to an including the right to execute or sell into slavery.

2. Roman religious officials included all of the following EXCEPT:

a. flamens (high priests dedicated to a particular god or goddess)

b. ciceros (responsible for archiving speeches)(not true)

c. fetials (involved in issues of peace and war)

d. augurs (consulted the will of the gods)

Roman religious officials included pontiffs, flames, fetials, and augurs. (The magi were Persian Zoroastrian religious officials.)

3. The senate differed from the assemblies in that the senate

a. consisted entirely of old men retired from politics

b. could only be convened by a firstborn son

c. operated independently of religion and the gods

d. could not pass laws(true)

The senate was an advisory body consisting of an elder from the most important Roman families, especially the priesthood-holding families that became the patricians. The senate had no political power; it could only issue advisory decrees (called senatus consultum). But their collective prestige and their members’ role in providing religious advice provided them with great influence, gaining them a sense of responsibility for protecting Rome’s customs and traditions. In addition, because the elected magistrates served for only one year and so were largely focused on short-term needs and crises, it fell to the senate to consider long-term policy, especially concerning foreign affairs.

Roman assemblies were meetings of the citizen body, with the power to vote on laws and elect magistrates. Unlike the senate, these assemblies had sovereign constitutional power to govern Rome. Nonetheless, these assemblies were weighted to favor the wealthiest classes.

They voted in special groups, each group getting one vote. The centuriate assembly was essentially the citizen army meeting as a legislature. Vote was by century, and the 193 centuries were ordered and weighted by census class (the poorest with little or no landed property were lumped into a single century, the proletariat, while the upper centuries were populated by the richest citizens). For these reasons, measures could pass solely with the support of the elite.

(The tribal assembly met in the Forum and had power over domestic affairs and election of the other magistracies. Vote was by tribe, and the 35 tribes were ordered and weighted by census class—the lower classes were lumped into the four “urban tribes”, leaving the “rural tribes” in the hands of the rich estate-holders—so that measures could pass solely with the support of the elite.)

4. All of the following are true of the Struggle of the Orders EXCEPT:

a. It arose through stress between landed patrician families and less empowered families and clans (farmers, shopkeepers, artisans, etc.)

b. According to the text, the details of the Struggle of the Orders were deliberately exaggerated and oversimplified in later Roman accounts

c. Despite constant pressure to create them, no plebeian-only offices existed in the Republic(not true)

d. Class tension was alleviated through such gains as the Plebeian Council and the lex Hortensia

The Struggle of the Orders was a conflict between the patricians—members of a small set of old families that controlled offices in both the state religion and in government—and the plebeians, which was essentially all nonpatricians. Plebeian families that were wealthy and powerful, and so members of the elite, fought the patricians’ strangehold on power in the early Republic; legend says they even went on strike in a way, removing themselves from Rome and organizing their own assembly and leaders.

Out of this came (a) the plebeian assembly, a subset of the tribal assembly consisting only of plebeians, which eventually was able to make laws binding on all Romans; (b) the tribunes of the plebs, a board of ten elected officials with a duty to protect plebeians’ rights against the state and possessing a veto power and a sacrosanct person; and (c) the concession to allow plebeians to be elected to the major magistracies, including consul. (Most priesthoods, however, remained in the hands of patricians throughout the Republic.)—By the mid-fourth century the plebeians were able to push through a series of reforms, most notably the Licinian-Sextian Laws (366 BCE) requiring (among other things) that one of the two consduls be plebeian. The Struggle of the Orders effectively ended with the Hortensian laws (287 BCE) which made all Roman citizens subject to laws passed by the Plebeian Council.

5. The Twelve Tables

a. actually consisted of thirteen tables, accounting for the later notoriety of the number 13

b. were compiled by a special panel of six white-bearded men called a coven

c. publicly established in principle the equality of all free citizens before the law(true)

d. survives today entirely intact thanks to centuries of careful preservation of every word of the text

The Twelve Tables are a set of laws that were laid down by the board of ten lawmakers in the mid-fifth century, providing rules on dealing with disputes over property, marriage, debt, and injury. These laws established both specific precedents and the general precedent that justice in Rome was to be according to established rules and past decisions, as well as public and transparent.

Optional Extra Credit

EC. Name an official of the Roman Republic and briefly describe what they did and how they were elected.

Roman state officials included censors (2, responsible for census and contracts), consuls (2, generals and chief executives), praetors (6, administrators and judges), aediles (4, temples and games), and quaestors (20, treasury and audits); tribunes of the plebs (10 protectors of the plebs); military tribunes (junior military officers); and special offices such as the dictator (crisis management) and the interrex (elections).

Quiz #2

1. An early Roman success that brought much-needed land wealth to Rome and made possible its first expansions into central Italy was

a. the Conquest of Veii (396 BCE)(true)

b. the Sack of Rome (390 BCE)

c. the First Samnite War (343–341 BCE)

d. the Pyrrhic War (280–275 BCE)

Roman expansion was made possible by a number of factors. First, the greatly increased wealth that came from the capture of Veii meant Rome had more economic resources. Second, increased territory meant more peoples were subject to taxation and military service, which meant larger armies of Romans and allies could be put in the field. Third, poltical reforms stabilized the conflict between the patricians and the plebeians, allowing more unified action. Finally, military reforms, including the advent of the manipular army in place of the hoplite phalanx, meant more versatile armies and a greater wealth of tactics and strategies.

2. According to Roman accounts, the first three dictators laid down all of the following precedents for future dictators EXCEPT:

a. A dictator’s power was limited to the specific need or crisis that had led to their appointment

b. A dictator resigned at the end of his crisis

c. Dictators were champions of the Roman nobility, to be used against foreigners and the lower classes alike(not true)

d. The dictatorship was used to resolve crises both military and domestic

The first three dictators were appointed in response to a public perception that a crisis needed emergency resolution by the man most qualified to do so. The first dictators therefore saw their total power as bound to that specific need only, and each resigned immediately in the resolution of the crisis. All future dictators understood the office as bound to a specific mandate and resigned at the earliest moment, restoring normalcy to Rome. The first dictators also appointed a magister equitum as their first act.

3. The Roman system of alliances and citizen communities in Italy included all of the following EXCEPT:

a. Municipia (cities granted full or partial Roman citizenship)

b. Socii (Italian and Greek-Italian cities having mutual defensive pacts with Rome)

c. Canes felesque (cities treated affectionately by Rome and given regular food allowances)(not true)

d. Latin allies (cities allowed intermarriage and binding contracts with Romans)

The Roman apparatus of alliances and citizen communities in Italy included municipia, socii, and Latin allies. Cats and dogs (canes felesque) were not a formal part of the system.

4. Ways that expansion into central Italy impacted on Rome included all of the following EXCEPT:

a. Public works: Paved highways and aqueducts in Italy, plus a major building boom in Rome

b. Trade and manufacturing: Early coinage and increased production of manufactured goods

c. Agriculture: Conquered land redistributed to poor but also amassed into large estates

d. Art: Development of a new Greek-inspired medium involving humanlike forms with round, tinted faces depicting a range of strong emotions(not true)

Some of the ways expansion into central Italy impacted on Rome included: Trade and manufacturing: Increased production of manufactured goods (pottery and bronzes) and expansion of its markets in Italy and the west; early coinage; Public works: Paved highways and aqueducts in Italy, plus major building boom in Rome, including many new temples; Agriculture: Conquered land was redistributed to the poor but also amassed into large estates, producing lucrative crops for export and a demand for slaves; Urban: Increased urban population, free, slave, and ex-slave, from countryside and Italian cities; greater class tension as patricians defend prerogatives; Art: New temples and homes reflecting success in war; appropriation and Romanization of Greek art forms, especially literature and theater.

5. A favorite Roman story of the old days when Roman leaders valued humility over ambition was the tale of

a. Cincinnatus called to the dictatorship from his plow(true)

b. Claudius Pulcher naming his humble servant Glicia to the dictatorship

c. The first dictator, Larcius, being chosen for his impressive, Hercules-like appearance

d. The later-abandoned custom of granting dictators the cognomina Humilis Maximus (“humblest of men”) on their departure from office

Dictators were appointed by the consuls in response to a public perception of need. The duty of the consul was to choose the needed man for any crisis, regardless of family or status. Cincinnatus was chosen for his utter humility, representing core Roman values and rejecting any thought of glory, power, or wealth from office as un-Roman. Glicia was the wrong choice because the consul, Claudius Pulcher, deliberately chose him as the most unsuitable person he could think of to take command of the fleet out of sheer pique. Both cases illustrate that the dictatorship depended on the honor of the consuls choosing them as much as that of the dictators themselves.

Optional Extra Credit

EC. What set the manipular army apart from the hoplite-style armies Rome had used before?

The Romans reshaped their military in the 4th century by replacing their old-fashioned Greek/Etruscan style hoplite army with the manipular army, which operated in smaller, more maneuverable bands (maniple = fist). This change allowed fighting on many kinds of terrain and against a variety of enemies, but required more drilling and training, further militarizing Rome.

Quiz #3

1. Carthage was known for

a. a focus on farming with no interest in trade

b. incompetence in sailing and shipbuilding

c. its descent from the Phoenicians of Tyre(true)

d. succeeding despite being situated in a place of little strategic importance

Carthage controlled vital mining resources around the western Med, giving them access to lead, zinc, copper, tin, iron, and silver. They also controlled quantities of highly-prized grains, olive oil, wine, and fruit. As with their Phoenician forebears, they leveraged wealth in natural resources into lucrative luxury trade, including pottery, textiles, and jewelry.

The Phoenician seafaring tradition and the excellent harbors at Carthage ensured superior shipbuilding and expertise in sea trade. Carthage was also able to establish a powerful navy to protect its ships, ports, and land resources.

Not unlike Rome, Carthage was governed by its landholding familes via an assembly, a senate, and elected magistrates.

2. All of the following are true of the First Punic War EXCEPT:

a. The war came out of a conflict over Sicily, which both Rome and Carthage coveted

b. The call for aid from the Mamertines was backed by all Romans as a just and noble cause (not true)

c. Lacking in naval power to fight Carthage, Rome used a captured Carthaginian warship as a model for a new 100-ship armada

d. Rome’s win resulted in a punitive treaty and Rome’s first provincial territories

At the outset of the first war, Carthage was an established military power at sea, experienced in the building of ships, the equipping and operating them at sea, and naval strategy and tactics; on land, by contrast, they tended to rely on mercenary armies. Rome, however, had neither the inclination nor the expertise to be a naval power; by this time Rome had become expert at land warfare and tended to be suspicious of the sea, where their vast skills in land warfare were moot.

Now that the enemy was, for the first time, overseas, and because the object was the island of Sicily between Italy and north Africa, it was suddenly imperative to be able to fight at sea. Characteristically Rome approached this by both adapting to alien ideas and Romanizing them. A captured Carthaginian quinquireme was reverse-engineered and a contingent of merchant sailors and new recruits trained in using these speedy, maneuverable warships. Instead of relying on ramming, the primary naval tactic of the time, the Romans devised a free-turning grappling gangplank, the corvus, that enabled Roman soldiers aboard their ships to board the enemy and fight in the way Romans knew best—infantry combat.

3. Before the Second Punic War, the river Ebro was the boundary between

a. Carthaginian and Roman territory in Spain(true)

b. Carthage and Egypt

c. Italy and Gaul

d. the worlds of the living and of the dead

A treaty between Carthage and Rome marked the Ebro River in Spain as the boundary between the influence of Rome (from the north) and Carthage (from the south) in the Iberian peninsula. The deliberate violation of this agreement resulting from Rome’s interference in Saguntum (south of the Ebro, in Carthaginian territory) helped lead to the war.

4. All of the following are battles in which the Romans suffered disastrous defeats at the hands of Carthaginian forces EXCEPT:

a. Battle of Zama (202 BCE)(not true)

b. Battle of Lake Trasimene (217 BCE)

c. Battle of the Trebia (218 BCE)

d. Battle of Cannæ (216 BCE)

Hannibal inflicted a succession of devastating victories on Rome at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae, all of which are in Italy. Carthage was finally defeated at the Battle of Zama, in the Carthaginian home territory in north Africa.

5. Fabius Maximus was known as Cunctator (the Delayer) because he

a. stalled Rome’s entry into the Second Punic War

b. avoided battle with Hannibal’s superior forces(true)

c. conducted his morning rituals in the afternoon

d. made annoyingly long speeches in the Senate

After the defeat at Trasimene, Fabius was made dictator in order to save Rome from Hannibal. His strategy of drawing Hannibal out and avoiding battle while Rome rebuilt its forces was extremely divisive among Romans at first, but was soon vindicated. Fabius was thereafter accounted one of the key heroes of the war with Hannibal.

Optional Extra Credit

EC. Explain one key thing that you think either (a) Rome did to win, or (b) Hannibal did to lose, the Second Punic War.

Hannibal had considerable advantages at the outset. In his march toward Italy through Spain and Gaul, and later in Italy itself, Hannibal collected allies from among the local peoples who marched with him to end the looming threat of Rome. This gave him great numbers as well as making parts of Italy itself hostile territory. Two successive annihilations of Roman forces, at Lake Trasimene and at Cannae, demoralized the leadership and terrified the populace.

While the Romans were so stricken and divided over the best response to Hannibal, however, Hannibal did not capitalize on this advantage by attacking Rome directly. Instead he allowed Rome to gain time to rebuild its nerve and its strength. The dictator Fabius pursued a strategy of avoiding battle and harassing Hannibal’s marching army, earning him the nickname Delayer, while attacking, taking, and punishing Italian, Sicilian, and Spanish cities allied with Hannibal one by one. Slowly Hannibal was hemmed in to the south, where his army was depleted and softened. Finally Scipio won support for a bold stroke against Carthage itself while its armies were holed up in Italy.

The militarization of Roman society and their deep reserve of manpower (which the invader Hannibal did not have) meant that even after the destruction of its forces it was able to equip, assemble, and field new armies for the next year’s campaign. Perhaps just as importantly, Roman military leadership was not pegged to a single mastermind like Hannibal; every year a new pair of trained and experienced generals was elected consul, allowing continued leadership even if consuls were killed in battle (as at Trasimene and Cannae); and dictators like Fabius could be appointed at need from the most seasoned and admired of Rome’s nobility. The senate was the repository of all Rome’s experience, including all the ex-magistrates. Thus, as it had against Pyrrhus and against the Samnites, Rome’s capacity for perseverance, recovery, and adaptation meant that even costly defeat in battle was only the latest crisis to be overcome.

Quiz #4

1. The expression “drawing a line in the sand” comes from the incident in which a Roman envoy named C. Popillius Laenas successfully

a. drew a circle around Antiochus IV and demanded he not invade Egypt(true)

b. drew a rectangle around Hannibal and demanded he behead himself

c. drew a pentagon around Philip V and summoned the shade of Hercules

d. drew a sudoku around Eumenes II and solved it in only three minutes

Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid empire, amassed his forces on the border of Egypt in 168 BCE, wanting to take it from his fellow hellenistic monarch, the underage Ptolemy VI Philometor. Roman interests lay in preventing the Seleucids from gaining more power, so a delegation was sent led by a senator, C. Popillius Laenas to demand his withdrawal from Egypt and Cyprus. Antiochus said he would discuss it with his council, whereupon the Roman envoy drew a line in the sand around Antiochus and said: “Before you leave this circle, give me a reply that I can take back to the Roman Senate.” Not prepared for war with Rome, Antiochus withdrew.

2. Ways the acquisition of empire transformed Roman life included all of the following EXCEPT:

a. Larger, slave-worked farms feeding the growing population of Rome and other cities

b. Low tax collection and benevolent governors ensuring vibrant provincial economies(not true)

c. The influence of foreign art and ideas clashing with conservative Roman culture

d. Italian allies resenting fighting harder in Rome’s armies for less reward

Economically, large and small farmers as a whole benefited from the conquests. It was easier for the wealthy to establish large slave-worked estates, especially in central and southern Italy. Farmers began to produce commercially for Italy’s rapidly growing cities, which grew from the influx of wealth from Rome’s conquests and increased trade and commerce. The inflow of precious metals helped to create a stable monetary system, and the minting of millions of coins to pay soldiers helped to monetize the economy. Wealthy Romans increased their fortunes through war booty, overseas commerce, and lucrative public contracts.

Socially, imperial expansion benefited upper-class Romans, but created numerous discontented social groups. Many provincials resented their loss of independence and felt oppressed by often corrupt and rapacious Roman governors and tax collectors. Even Rome’s Italian allies came to feel abused. They did much of the fighting, but Rome kept most of victory’s fruits and treated them more like subjects.

Successful wars flooded Italy with slaves. While some skilled slaves came to work as household servants, tens of thousands ended up in far more dangerous and hostile conditions in mines, large workshops, and the fields of great estates. In the 140s and 130s, several dangerous slave revolts broke out, particularly in Italy and Sicily.

Meanwhile poorer citizens, especially the rural and urban plebs, faced desperate social and economic conditions by the late second century. Wealthy nonsenators who made up the equestrian class resented the difficulties placed in the way of equites who sought to rise into the ranks of the consular nobility.

Culturally, the values and methods of foreign art and cultural expression, experienced by many in wars away from home and at home through immigration, the presence of foreign slaves, war booty, and burgeoning international commerce, created dissonance with the more reserved Roman culture. The process of adaptation to resolve this cultureal conflict included the use of Greek artistic tools, including epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, histiry, and philosophy, to create art that emphasized the ideals and identity of Rome.

Politically, imperial expansion strained the Republic’s system of government. The rewards that came from holding high office and commanding conquering armies greatly increased, and this in turn raised political competition among the leaders of noble or would-be-noble families in the senate to destructive levels. The expansion of the lower offices of the cursus honorum only intensified the competition for the two consulships at the top. Attempts to rein in ambitious individuals by legislating what had been traditional norms and by instituting punishments for those who violated them only produced greater efforts to evade them. At the same time, fear that someone might gain political advantage by sponsoring needed reforms prevented the senate from solving the problems that others could manipulate to their benefit. While Rome’s empire grew, the competing oligarchs who controlled it became less and less able to solve the problems it created.

3. Individuals or firms known as publicani were so called because they

a. tended bar in pubs

b. handled public contracts(true)

c. tried to “influence” the public

d. were a form of lycan or werewolf

One key element of Roman provincial government was tax farming. Because the governors had no supporting bureaucracy, tax collection was outsourced to for-profit corporations run by Roman middle class businessmen (publicani). These corporations gouged the populace by collecting as much money as they could, handing over to the Roman state the fixed amount the senate decreed for that province and pocketing the rest. This resulted in resentment, rebellion, and increased need for Roman military presence and oppression in the provinces.

4. Romans who adapted Greek forms to create art that strengthened the Roman identity included all of the following EXCEPT:

a. Ennius, a master of tragic, comic, and epic poetry

b. Plautus and Terence, who adapted Greek comedy to reflect a Roman audience

c. Metellus Numidicus, who composed a tragic play called Carthage: Judgment Day(not true)

d. Cato the Elder, the first Roman to write an important history in Latin

Roman authors, including Ennius, Plautus, Terence, and Cato the Elder, used Greek tools to write Latin works to strengthen Roman identity.

5. The alarming ambition of men like Scipio Africanus and Flamininus in the years after the war with Hannibal led to

a. Romans who wanted more power being installed as kings in nations Rome ruled over

b. laws imposing minimum ages and secret ballots(true)

c. good nobles fleeing the cesspool of Rome for the provinces, where virtue prevailed

d. calls for women to be allowed to run for office, since they would do a better job

In the decades after the Second Punic War, new laws were passed governing the minimum age for elected office, bribery, and the need for secret ballots.

Optional Extra Credit

EC. In your opinion, why did Rome decide that, defeated and weakened as it was, Carthage must be destroyed?

There are a number of factors that could be mentioned. The terrifying threat to Rome following the disasters at Trasimene and Cannae had created a visceral and lasting irrational fear of the Carthaginians, much as with the Gauls sacking Rome two centuries before, such that the mere continued existence of the city was disquieting. Also, the Romans had already experienced Carthage having been vanquished only to rise again.

More practically, wealth Romans like Cato the Elder had a strong interest in increasing Roman sea trade, which a resurgent but peaceful Carthage would still threaten. Uncontested control of the extremely important grain harvests of Sicily and Sardinia were potentially even more of a factor.

Quiz #5

1. All of the following are true of Tiberius Gracchus’s land-reform bill EXCEPT:

a. It was designed to break up large estates made up of public land and divide them among landless Roman citizens

b. Tiberius’s failure to consult the senate before presenting the bill to the assembly was unprecedented and illegal(not true)

c. The pontifex maximus, Scipio Nasica, led an angry mob of senators to club Tiberius and his supporters to death

d. The land commission to break up the estates was set up anyway despite Tiberius’s death

The Gracchan laws affected the Italian public lands (ager publicus)—vast amounts of lands taken by Rome in war. These lands had been settled by citizens in small freeholds still technically owned by the state but farmed by generations of Roman citizen farmers. But the shifting of the rural economy in the third and second centuries meant that more and more of this land was ending up as part of the large estates of the rich. Tiberius Gracchus’s law proposed enforcing an old law saying no one could have more than 300 acres; he hoped to redistribute the land to recreate a large population of citizen farmers out of the landless poor teeming in Rome. This was taken by the rich as a rabble-rousing attack on behalf of the poor.

Gracchus also bypassed the senate and proposed his law directly to the people. Over time it had become customary to present laws first to the senate, which would debate them and offer a resolution supporting it if they approved. Since the conservative senate contained many rich landholders and their friends, and were moreover averse to radical change that would upset customs and traditions of the Republic (which they felt duty-bound to protect), Gracchus knew his law would be opposed by the senate. But bypassing the senate angered the elite, and since Gracchus broke no laws in doing so the response to Gracchus was personal and outside of the system.

Gracchus also had the Assembly vote to remove a tribune who had threatened to veto the bill if it passed, and funded the land commission created by the law by diverting the bequest of the king of Pergamum, scorning the senate’s traditional control over foreign policy. In bypassing the senate, acting against a (pro-senate) tribune, and diverting the Pergamene bequest, Gracchus asserted a more extreme idea of the power of the People (without reference to the state) than most in the ruling class could withstand.

2. The Social War (90–88 BCE) refers to the armed conflict between

a. Facebook and MySpace

b. the optimates and the populares

c. the patricians and the plebeians

d. the Italian allies and Rome(true)

After the assassination of Drusus, the Italians gave up on a political solution for their demand to be made full citizens of Rome, and seceded, creating a new confederate state called Italia. Since the Italians were well trained Roman soldiers, they knew all the Romans’ tactics and defeated them crushingly on several occasions. Ultimately, the Romans won by offering amnesty and full citizenship to those Italian peoples who laid down their arms; those who did not were brutally suppressed. The result was most of Italy gaining Roman citizenship.

3. Gaius Marius’s impact on Roman history includes all of the following EXCEPT:

a. swiftly defeating Jugurtha after a long war conducted by his optimate enemy, Metellus

b. reforming the army to defeat the Cimbri and Teutones after a disastrous Roman defeat under optimate generals

c. marrying Julius Caesar’s aunt

d. winning his seventh consulship during a period of peace and good will between the factions(not true)

Marius, a “new man” who married into the presigious Julius Caesar clan (and thus becoming the future dictator’s uncle), rose to popularity after bringing a swift end to the Jugurthine War, which had dragged on under optimate leadership. He was then called on to save Rome from the Cimbri and Teutiones. The main issue with recruiting soldiers to fight Rome’s wars in the Middle Republic was that there was a minimum property requirement. In order to create an army large enough to fend off the massive Cimbri/Teutones invasion, Marius did away with this requirement, creating what is known as the “volunteer army” or the “proletarian army.” With these forces, Marius was able to defeat the invaders, and this became the model for all Roman armies going forward.

The problem with the volunteer army is that with no wealth and no homestead of their own to return to, these soldiers were dependent on their general to ensure they had land to return on and a share in the spoils of war. This helped ensure that Roman legions were loyal to their generals rather than to the central government that protected the homesteads of the landed families, making possible the general’s march on Rome that brought Sulla, Caesar, and later many emperors to power.

Eventually, he won his seventh consulship by violently seizing Rome while Sulla was away in the east, performing a purge of his enemies and having their heads mounted on spikes in the forum for all to see.

4. Mithridates’s prearranged massacre of thousands of Italians in Asia Minor sparked a chain of events that led to the consul Sulla doing all of the following EXCEPT:

a. being given the commission to wage war against Mithridates

b. marching his army on Rome to restore order after riots in favor of replacing him with Marius

c. staying in Rome to protect the government and not marching east to fight Mithridates (not true)

d. having himself declared dictator to reconstitute the state after the Marian disruption

Mithridates’s massacre of Romans and Italians in Asia province forced Rome to go to war actively against him, after years of little action against Mithridates’s casual expansionism in Anatolia. This led to a Roman effort to take direct control in a region Rome had been leaving partly to itself, which was part of what moved Rome toward taking a greater and more assertive role in controlling the east.

At home, the need for war against Mithridates was seized as an opportunity by the supporters of Marius, who got the command against Mithridates taken away from the pro-senate consul, Sulla. In the riot that followed, Sulla restored order by marching on Rome with his army, establishing a terrible precedent of generals using the army against the Roman state. He then went to the east to fight Mithridates, eventually returning after Marius seized power to fight a Marian army before the gates of Rome.

5. The ultimate decree of the senate (senatus consultum ultimum) called on

a. the gods to punish Roman nobles who rose against their own city

b. the consuls to take any necessary action to preserve the state(true)

c. posterity to witness the justice of the senate’s actions

d. architects to design comfier benches for senators to sit on

The senatus consultum ultimum, or “ultimate decree,” was a Senate vote to instruct the consul and other top magistrates to defend the Republic and see that no harm came to the state. It enabled the state to use violence against Roman citizens, depriving them of provocatio (a citizen’s right of appeal to the People) and other protections.

It could be wielded by a faction in the Senate (in this case, the most conservative of the “optimates”). It was used to justify killing C. Gracchus and thousands of his supporters, and was later invoked against other populist leaders (including Julius Caesar).

Optional Extra Credit

EC. In your opinion, what did the populares stand for?

There are a number of possible answers here; one of the key elements is opposition to the systems and institutions of the Republic that kept the same people and policies in place despite the drastic changes in Rome’s circumstances.

Quiz #6

1. Cicero, in his long career, was known for all of the following EXCEPT:

a. as a lawyer, successfully prosecuting a corrupt governor, Verres

b. as a general, engineering the defeat of Marius’s ally, Sertorius, in Spain (not true)

c. as consul, openly denouncing the conspirator Catiline in a meeting of the senate

d. as an ex-consul, suffering exile for executing the Catilinarian conspirators

Cicero was a noted orator and attorney from Arpinium who made his mark in several famous cases, including the very effective prosecution of the corrupt governor, Verres, shortly after the reign of Sulla. Later, as consul, he called Catiline out to his face during a meeting of the senate. After Catiline got away, he summarily executed the other conspirators without trial, leading to an exile engineered by Caesar through the firebrand, Clodius.

2. “Crossing the Rubicon” was such a fateful decision for Caesar because it involved

a. recklessly defying the Roman god of vengeance, Rubicon

b. stirring up a nation of vicious Gallic warriors, the Rubicon tribe

c. crucifying a beloved ally of the senate, Sextus Maenius Rubicon

d. illegally violating the boundary between Gaul and Italy, the river Rubicon(true)

In 49 BCE Caesar and Pompey’s increasing power as warlords personally controlling great swaths of the Roman empire led senate extremists to attempt to pass the “ultimate decree” against Caesar and have him declared a public enemy. Though vetoed by Caesar’s ally Antony, who held a plebeian tribuneship that year, this move by the senate spurred Caesar to action. The tribunes were forced to flee, and Caesar used the defense of the sacred rights of the tribunes as his pretext to end the current government of Rome.

Caesar took the nearby city of Rimini, across the boundary between his province (Cisalpine Gaul) and Italy proper. This boundary was a minor river called the Rubicon. Caesar knew that this would be understood as him invading Italy, and that there was no turning back. Thus his famous use of the quote from Menander, “The die is cast.”

3. Speaking of crucifixion, whom did Crassus crucify along the Appian Way (the road to Rome)?

a. Spartacus

b. Spartacus’s captured rebel army (but not Spartacus)(true)

c. Athensicus, Spartacus’s estranged brother

d. Yeshua bar Yosef, king of the Jews

When the gladiator Spartacus led a slave revolt against the Roman aristocracy, Rome had great difficulty putting it down. (This is known as the Third Servile War.) Roman troops were mostly busy in other wars away from Italy. The consuls initially assumed the revolt would be easy to quash, not apprehending quickly enough that Spartacus had amassed a great army of slaves, some with military experience. Spartacus racked up victory after victory over the Roman legions sent against them under the consuls’ command.

Finally, the state commissioned Crassus to destroy the revolt. Not underestimating Spartacus as the consuls had, Crassus amassed a powerful Roman force of eight legions and used Spartacus’s weaknesses against him. Pompey was still able to gain credit for Spartacus’s defeat owing to a minor action, but Crassus demonstrated that the victory was of his making by subjecting 6,000 of the slave rebels to crucifixion—the ancient Roman punishment for treason. Spartacus was not included: he died in battle but his body was not found.

4. All of the following are true of Caesar’s dictatorships (49 to 44 BCE) EXCEPT:

a. He was cruel and vengeful to his political opponents, refusing to extend magnanimity and clemency (clementia)(not true)

b. His reforms included weakening the senate, debt relief, free grain, expanded colonization, and calendar reform

c. He spent a lot of this time at war away from Rome, in Thessaly, Egypt, Africa, Spain, and elsewhere

d. Before his death he had himself declared dictator perpetuus (dictator unending)

Caesar was well known for his populist reforms and for his consistent policy of clemency and magnanimity toward his political rivals. During the five years he was dictator, he was away from Rome fighting wars much of the time, before returning to Rome for the last five months of his life. Shortly before his assassination, he declared that his fifth dictatorship, which was just starting, would be self-renewing, and his title thenceforward would be dictator perpetuus.

5. Caesar’s assassins on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, included all of the following EXCEPT:

a. Brutus (M. Iunius Brutus)

b. Cassius (C. Cassius Longinus)

c. Casca (P. Servilius Casca Longus)

d. Antony (M. Antonius)(not true)

Caesar was assassinated at a senate meeting by a small group of nobles led by Cassius, a former dissident whom Caesar had treated with clemency, and Brutus, who was known for his virtue (and whose ancestor had evicted Tarquin Superbus nearly 500 years before). Casca was the first to stab Caesar.

The motivations varied. Some, like Cassius, felt slighted by Caesar. Others, like Brutus, feared for the Republic. Caesar’s reforms were entirely populist, his every action turning the people and the armies against the senate and the conservative elite. The senate had retained a pretense of control over Caesar’s power as they were the ones to grant him his honors, including four successive dictatorships; but when Caesar arranged for an automatically renewing dictatorship (dictator perpetuum) this sense of control was lost.

Cicero was not present but later said he wished he were, and that the assassins should have killed Caesar’s lieutenant, Antony, as well.

Optional Extra Credit

EC. What role does Pompey the Great play in the civil wars? How would you describe his motivations?

After pledging himself and his illegal private army to Sulla, Pompey was then ordered to mop up Sulla’s enemies, including the Marian holdout Sertorius, who controlled part of Roman Spain. He then allied with Crassus, joining him in a consulship that finished the unraveling of Sulla’s pro-senate reforms. Pompey and Crassus then joined with a young Caesar to form the so-called first triumvirate, an informal union of three powerful men to control Roman politics behind the scenes.

The senate, trusting him more than Crassus and Caesar, sent him on more extraordinary commands, first to wipe out the pirates of southern Italy, then to reorganize the Roman east. Pompey’s arrangements in the east were long-lasting, shaping Rome’s relationship with its Hellenistic provinces for centuries to come; but his absence from Rome left it in political disorder, and Caesar strove to match his power as governor of the three Gauls. Finally, the senate called on Pompey to defend Italy against the invasion by Caesar.

Pompey is generally seen as an opportunist, using his advantages (mainly control over an army inherited from his father and the division of the nobles) to establish himself as a warlord who was not to be ignored. Though he joined with Sulla, and later fought for the senate, this was not out of loyalty to their platform, and he was just as happy to work with Crassus to dismantle Sulla’s aristocratic constitution.