The growth of the state in republican Rome went beyond expansion of its territory or institutions. Instruments that were created on behalf of war were used for new functions, increasing the scope of the involvement of the state in society. In that sense, many state functions - in antiquity as well as later times - can be seen as the spin-offs of war. Three examples of this will be discussed: (1) the food supply of the capital, (2) the creation of “provinces,” and (3) intervention in local affairs.
Feeding Rome
In 123 bc, C. Gracchus introduced the grain dole in Rome, which meant that cheap grain was distributed to part of the capital’s populace. Some scholars assume that the food supply of the city of Rome had always been regarded as a responsibility of the state. Hence, it is thought that Rome took control of the provinces’ food surpluses in order to feed the capital. However, feeding the capital was only a secondary use of provincial grain.
The first instances of the distribution of grain occurred at the end of the Second Punic War. In the years 203-200 and again in 196 bc, grain was shipped from Sicily, Sardinia, Hispaniae, and Africa to Rome and sold there at low prices. All these shipments can be related to the end of large-scale operations (in Iberia in 204 bc, in Africa in 202 bc, and in Greece in 197 bc), which led to military reserves becoming available, army demands diminishing, and levies taken from vanquished peoples increasing. In other words, these shipments were not the result of a structural policy to supply Rome.
During the decades preceding Gracchus’ measure, two developments occurred. First, due to its expansion, Rome’s income in money and kind increased, while at the same time the number of troops did not significantly grow. The annexation of Africa in 146 bc in particular turned one of the major corn-producing regions of the Mediterranean into a tax-paying province. Undoubtedly this increase of Rome’s annual tribute opened up the opportunity in peaceful years to divert some tax-corn to the ever-growing multitudes in Rome. Second, the involvement of the Senate and magistrates in the provisioning of the capital city gained its own momentum, as it showed Roman politicians a way to popularity and raised expectations in the Roman populace. In 129 bc, an aedile purchased supplies in Thessaly. A governor of Hispaniae gathered grain in his province in 124 or 123 bc and sent it to Rome (Plutarch, C. Grace. 6.2). In short, Gracchus’ law was not as revolutionary as it might seem. It was meant to regularize the ad hoc actions that individual magistrates had taken and which were unintended side-effects of the state’s control of grain.20
Provinces
At the end of the first century bc, the Romans had turned most of the lands bordering on the Mediterranean into provinces. Egypt, which was put under direct Roman control after Actium and the death of Cleopatra (32 bc), was the last acquisition of the republic. However, when the first provinces were created in the aftermath of the First Punic War, “province” had been a totally different concept.
Originally, the term “provincia” referred to the task of a magistrate. The provincia of the praetor peregrinus, for instance, was the jurisdiction between Romans and foreigners (peregrini). At first, provincia did not have a territorial meaning. The first provinces were little more than campaigns assigned to army commanders. Due to the stressed situation after the First Punic War, Rome stationed troops under the command of a Roman magistrate on Sardinia and in the western part of Sicily. In this way, the first “provinces” were created.
The case of Iberia, which became a war zone at the start of the Second Punic War, was no different. The troops remained there after Carthage had been defeated, because the internal division between many hostile tribes in Iberia made it impossible to impose a final solution on the entire region that would allow withdrawal of all Roman troops. In contrast, the armies operating in Africa and Greece were withdrawn after the Carthaginian Senate and Philip of Macedon surrendered. Even after Macedon had been defeated for the second time, ending the Third Macedonian War, no direct control was imposed, even though the kingdom was broken up into four separate states. In short, Rome had no desire to retain troops or magistrates in every war zone.
In the mid-second century bc, the attitude of the Roman rulers changed. The continuous presence in Sicily, Sardinia, and Iberia resulted in the emergence of fixed solutions and the regularization of relations between the army commanders and the “provincials.” Army commanders had become governors and provinces had become subjected territories. Experience had shown that provinces offered material resources that could be utilized in war and politics. Hence, wars were deliberately sought in Africa and Greece in mid-century, and provinces were established in both regions in 146 bc. Further provinces were created in Asia Minor (129 bc) and southern Gaul (125 bc). In short, when provinces, which had originally been no more than war zones, were turned into institutionalized instruments of control, the creation of such provinces gained its own momentum.21
Local intervention
The sovereignty that the Roman state claimed for its provincial governors was at first limited to strictly military affairs and was only gradually widened in scope. A similar development occurred in Italy, which in theory remained a military alliance of self-governing states. The matter of sovereignty, which was unclear to begin with, was made even less clear in the second century bc by the growing presence of Roman citizens throughout Italy as a result of commerce, migration, and the founding of Roman colonies. Under these conditions, it was inevitable that Roman influence in local affairs increased, even if Roman rulers did not seek it. There is little evidence that the Roman government deliberately encroached upon local sovereignty, but the authority of Roman representatives naturally superseded that of the local magistrates. Allied states could not settle land disputes between themselves on the battlefield anymore, and turned to Rome.22 The same applies to the provinces, where communities involved in local disputes would approach the highest Roman official. Maintaining local peace meant solving local conflicts. In one of his letters, Cicero is proud to have solved a local food shortage during his governorship of Cilicia (51 bc):
Wherever I went, without force, without legal process, without hard words, by my
Personal influence and exhortations, I induced Greeks and Roman citizens, who had
Stored corn, to promise a large quantity to the people. (Cicero, Att. 5.21.8)
Even if idealized and one-sided, this passage shows that the governor was not merely an army commander anymore. The relationship between rulers and the ruled changed, which is best reflected in the measures taken by the Senate to curb the governors’ abuse of power in the provinces. Already in 171 bc, embassies from Hispaniae objected in Rome to the greed and behavior of some of their governors. As part of the institutionalization of provinces, the way Rome dealt with such complaints was regularized in 149 bc, when a permanent court was established to hear cases against magistrates and promagistrates. Many laws on such cases followed, whose importance is not diminished by the fact that the courts did not function well in practice. These courts show that, as Roman sovereignty de facto increased, Roman rulers became more and more involved in local affairs. New institutions were created to deal with the provinces.23
World History
