Social War Research Articles

An Allied View of the Social War

Previous articleNext article No AccessAn Allied View of the Social WarD. Brendan NagleD. Brendan Nagle Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 77, Number 4October 1973 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 6Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/503306 Views: 6Total views on this site Copyright © 1973 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus

In 88 B.C. the dying embers of the Social War kindled an even more dangerous civil war. Violence with gangs was no longer the final solution in Roman political struggles, but war with a regular army took its place. The link between the two wars and the critical escalation of political conflict was created by the tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus. Most modern accounts differ little in describing the sequence of events in his tribunate, though they vary in the interpretation of his motives and policy. They agree because they accept the common basis to the narratives of Appian, Plutarch, and Velleius as true, even though they usually discard the Tendenz in these authors, through which Sulpicius is portrayed as an unscrupulous man who put his services at Marius’ disposal. It is the aim of this paper to propose that the wheat in these authors cannot be so easily separated from the chaff: that in fact the bias, which is most obvious in Plutarch’s Lives, and there can be largely ascribed to the influence of Sulla’s fjown memoirs, has not only distorted motives but misplaced and misrepresented facts. Important inconsistencies in Appian, when taken in conjunction with the little information we have outside these sources, suggest a different outline for Sulpicius’ tribunate—one which involves more uncertainties than the commonly accepted view, because it is obtained by rejecting the validity of more of our scanty source material, but which may enable us to judge more fairly not only Sulpicius and Marius but also Sulla himself.

The psychology of conflict and international relations : a course plan and bibliography

I suppose I was like many other psychologists in feeling that what we had to say about significant social conflict and war was not worth much. This may have been due to the rather superficial treatments of these topics in many texts, and certainly was also due to a genuine underdevelopment of this area of study. While the area remains underdeveloped, it is rapidly improving and several notable texts have appeared to aid the teacher wishing to explore this material with his students without apology: two examples are Ross Stagner's Psychological Aspects of International Conflict and Jerome Frank's Sanity and Survival. Stagner emphasizes the perceptual aspects of international relations. Frank emphasizes the psychological implications of nuclear weapons for world peace. Both books treat a broad range of topics and make use of a wide variety of behavioral science literature, and both are available in paperback. The course which I developed was for undergraduates. In this case attempts to limit enrollment to a manageable size led to the requirement that students have earned a grade of A or B in the general social psychology course for admission to the seminar. While the grade prerequisite is perhaps unnecessary, I do think the course requirement is pedagogically useful. Students who understand determinism, social influence and conformity processes, attitudes and attitude change will more readily grasp the application of such basic processes to complex real world issues.

The Campanian Villas of C. Marius and the Sullan Confiscations

By the end of the Republic the Bay of Naples had become a preferred setting for the pleasure villas of wealthy Romans, a centre of fashion and of cultivated ease. The villa of C. Marius at Misenum, though not the first of which we hear, is the earliest coastal Campanian estate whose appointments are explicitly described as having been luxurious. In an epistle of Seneca (Ep. 51. 11) Marius is said to have built the villa, and on a height; of the location Seneca says, vaguely, in regione Baiana, for the subject of the epistle is the depravity of Baiae, and the author took pleasure in contrasting the character of the early villas in the area with the moral decadence of the imperial resort; the elder Pliny locates the site of Marius' villa more precisely: in Misenensi. From Plutarch's somewhat fuller account come a first indication of date, a different impression of architectural character, and the names of two subsequent owners of the property. He states that after the Social War, when Sulpicius proposed Marius, others Sulla, for command in the Mithridatic War, the detractors of Marius urged him to look after his failing health and to go to the warm baths at Baiae:

Italian Aims at the Time of the Social War

The Social war broke out when Rome refused to grant the allies' demand for citizenship. Any explanation of this refusal is conjectural; on this subject I have nothing new to say. This paper is concerned rather with the attitude of the Italians. I shall argue, like Professor Gabba, that they sought a share in political power, though not only, if at all, for the reasons he suggested; and that their desire to become Romans reflects the success of Rome in unifying them in sentiment and was stimulated by the Cimbric war and by the career of Marius and other novi homines of his time.

The Republican Municipal Laws: Errors and Drafts

Any knowledge of the municipal system evolved in Italy after the Social War must turn, however we might wish it otherwise, upon the four bronze inscriptions found respectively at Tarentum, Veleia, Ateste and Heraclea. They have been much discussed, and it may seem that there is nothing more useful to be said; but the present state of opinion leaves room for doubt. To Mommsen and scholars of his generation they were at least ingenuous documents, but poorly engraved and in places obscure and inexplicable. Even that was challenged by Gradenwitz, who in a remarkable series of articles turned upon them an eye sharpened in the pursuit of interpolation in legal texts, and declared that at least two—the Lex Rubria and the Tabula Heracleensis—were products of inept draftsmen who inserted glosses and interpolations in defiance of style and sense. A. von Premerstein went further; like the Spanish charter from Urso, the Heraclea inscription was an unfinished draft of Caesar's published, after his murder, by Antony with reckless additions of his own; and more recently, the same has been urged by G. Beseler, F. Schulz and others of the Lex Rubria. The internal problems of these inscriptions are thus met by questioning their evidential value, but this seems, like a conjuror's explanation, to raise deeper mysteries than it solves.

The Lex Varia

The outbreak of the Social War brought in its wake a furious succession of criminal prosecutions with important political implications. The wheels of ‘justice’ were set in motion by the notorious lex Varia, a criminal law passed on the motion of the tribune Q. Varius Severus Hybrida. It was not long before numerous prominent individuals came under attack and the Roman political scene was thrown into turmoil. The lex Varia will repay close scrutiny.Modern scholarship has been content with the analysis of this measure delivered by Appian. Some time after the death of M. Livius Drusus, the tribune of 91 B.C., the equites endeavoured to make his liberal policy towards the Italians a ground for malicious prosecution of their enemies, and to this end they induced Q. Varius to pass his law. The purpose was to bring the entire senatorial oligarchy under the odious charge of sympathy with the Italian insurgents and to entrench equestrian control of the state. Such is the version of Appian. It is certainly true that, as was by now customary, external crises were made the pretext for attacks upon political opponents. The charge of bearing responsibility, in some sense, for the outbreak of war could be stretched to fit a wide variety of activities. But a careful examination of the lex Varia and of the cases heard under it will demonstrate that Appian's judgment leaves much to be desired. Legal and political consequences have never yet been fully understood or analysed, and the law can shed much light on Roman internal struggles in this period.

Phocis in the Social War of 220-217 B. C.

Phocis in the Social War of 220-217 B. C.

The Cause of the Social War

OF ALL THE MANY WARS fought by Rome few surpass in importance Social War of 91 to 87 B.C.x It brought about unification of Italy and made her Roman; it provided Roman empire with a solid, central heartland, without which later great expansion and remarkable longevity would scarcely have been possible; and it led to substitution of Latin for various local tongues of Italy and to its adoption by much of West. If today wide areas of globe, including much of Canada, speak Latin in one or other of its various forms, then Social War should be regarded as primarily responsible. Manifestly this was a conflict with enduring consequences. Yet Social War is also a poorly documented war. The loss of relevant books of Livy means that we have to rely for most part on Appian, and first book of his Civil Wars is a somewhat sketchy and none too well organized account. Consequently, to many of questions that concern war and demand a reply, only conjectural answers can be supplied; and this happens to be true even about cause of war. True, in broad general terms it is not difficult to account for its outbreak. For, like other great conflicts, it had its underlying reason as well as its immediate casus belli; and, whereas usually it is former that is more difficult to divine and define, for Social War curiously enough it is one thing about which there is substantial agreement. The refusal of Romans to grant Roman citizenship to their Italian allies was, to use Thucydides' famous expression, the truest explanation. But what was immediate casus belli? The uprising of Picentes at Asculum, following hard on heels of murder of Livius Drusus, in latter part of 91 B.c. is often regarded as spark that detonated explosion. Yet this should more properly be regarded as beginning of actual hostilities, and that is precisely how Livy (Per. 72) describes it,

Plutarch's Style in the Marius

In writing on Plutarch as a literary artist there is a tendency to confuse Plutarch's personality, which appears from his writings as ingenuous and somewhat naïve, with his style, which has all the sophistication of the classical renaissance of which his writings form a part. Actually, extensive acquaintance with many aspects of literary craftsmanship is visible in his work. His careful avoidance of hiatus was noticed as long ago as 1841 by Benseler. More recently it has been discovered that Plutarch writes rhythmical prose, with a great preference for certain definite forms. He is thoroughly versed in the various schemata for the presentation of material. Boissonade termed his style a mosaic because it is so well adapted for dealing with the various themes occurring in theLives;Plutarch has in fact perfect command over matter and form as a result of a thorough acquaintance with a rich literary tradition.The metaphors and similes which appear in thisLifeseem on a first reading in ill accord with the sophistication of its general craftsmanship. They are stereotyped into the thought-content, and even the diction, traditional for the symbolism they express. Their infrequency and the elaboration of the metaphors in particular makes them stand out starkly. This conspicuousness and careful articulation is significant. The metaphors and similes are in fact strikingly put so that they emphasise the passages in which they occur, and recall one another vividly to mind. Analysis reveals that they are used in two ways: as points of reference and emphasis (they occur only at important junctures) and to indicate the unity of lengthy passages. Long and elaborate metaphors occur at 11.1, 35.1, and 46.4, marking respectively the Germanic war, the civil war, and Marius' fate and death. A metaphor and simile grouped together, at 23.1 and at 32.1, 3 respectively, tell of Catulus' reverse and the Social War; two similes commence the developments which are to lead to Marius' death at 45.1–2. Less striking metaphors anticipate the civil war (10.5) and the Marian massacre (43.4).

Notes on the Social War

Notes on the Social War

Violence in Roman Politics

To speak of Roman politics in the late Republic without touching on violence would hardly be possible. But my real theme is concerned with methods of interpreting Roman history. We have seen in the last hundred years some three general attitudes or schools of thought about the study of the later Republic. It all begins with Mommsen, of course. First there were those who, following Mommsen, tended to explain Roman history in terms of the nineteenth century. The conflict of Optimates and Populares tended to be assimilated to the forms of conflict in parliamentary countries; parties, programmes, even democrats and conservatives were brought in. Then came a swing away. The stress was laid more and more on the generals and their ambitions. The terminology of parliamentary democracy was discarded as unsuitable, and the history of the late Republic was seen as an inevitable procession of great Imperatores, each foreshadowing the next. Even the Scipios were involved, then Marius, Sulla and so forth. Much less stress was laid on the popular movement. Apart from the Gracchi the tribunes were treated as tools of the Imperators and nothing more. The politics of the generation before the Social War were explained in terms of the Ciceronian age. One might cite the great chapters of the Cambridge Ancient History, and Meyer's Caesars Monarchie as characteristic.

Athens after the Social War

The period of Demosthenes has a special interest for the student of Greek politics; more evidence exists, in the form of speeches, for the actual working of Athenian affairs in this period than in any other. It should therefore provide the starting-point in any attempt to find out the presuppositions of Athenian politics, to find what sort of behaviour is habitually expected of politicians and what motives are taken for granted as the normal motives of public men. Here the political scene at the entry of Demosthenes into politics will be examined in the hope of contributing towards answering these questions. For the ascertainable facts, preserved mainly in Speeches xx, xxii and xxiv of Demosthenes; are comparatively plentiful, and so they may be used in order to criticise current assumptions about the nature of political parties and conflicts in ancient Athens.A preliminary question concerns the dates of these three speeches. Dionysius of Halicarnassus assigns Speeches xx and xxii to 355/4 and Speech xxiv to 353/2. It is hoped to defend elsewhere the general credibility of the Dionysian dates for the Demosthenic speeches. That for Speech xxii has been seriously questioned by Mr. D. M. Lewis.

The Enfranchisement of Cisalpine Gaul

At the time of the outbreak of the Social War in 91 B.C. there were many types of political organisation in Cisalpine Gaul. First, there were the Roman colonies of Mutina, Parma, and Eporedia. Secondly, there were the large areas of land south of the Po in Liguria and centred on the chief highway in Aemilia which were already occupied by Roman citizens in the Pollia tribe, but where urbanisation was a more or less spontaneous development and where there was certainly not the elaborate political organisation of the colonies. Thirdly, there were the Latin colonies of Ariminum, Placentia, Cremona, Bononia, and Aquileia. We may say that all this territory was occupied by settlers of Roman or Latin origin, with the reservation that in Liguria, where the colonised land was probably not so extensive or so continuous as in Aemilia, there may still have been a considerable number of the former inhabitants living in association with the Romans. Archaeological investigation has not yet told us whether there were two separate inhabited sites in each case, but the doubling of place-names (Industria—Bodincomagus, Potentia—Carreum, Sedulia?—Vardagate) may indicate that the Ligures were allowed some kind of separate political organisation and local centres near to, but distinct from, the centres created by the Romans to serve the needs of their ager. If there were two separate inhabited sites and organisations, however, these did not remain independent of each other for long. Certainly after 89 B.C. Romans and native peoples formed single communities.

Social Needs and Modern War

Social Needs and Modern War

Social Participation and Totalitarian War

Total war requires planning of civilian as well as military activities. Yet our social control is unstable because of antiquated conceptions regarding individual participation. Citizens are more specialized in their interests and outlooks than traditional theory assumes, yet they are also more capable of individual resourcefulness, within the framework of a plan, than government practices encourage. Total war and also post-war society will demand greater use of this individual creativity, and also the adjustment of conflicting interests through group action and compromise rather than through unrealistic, emotional identification.

The Message of the Post-Exilic Prophets for Our Day

THIS PAPER is based upon three assumptions, none of which can be examined here. It affirms, first, the recognition by both Jews and Christians of the authority of the Bible for religion. The second assumption affirms the continuity of the historical process. Today belongs to yesterday. The social struggle, war, economic conflict, and uneven progress which characterize history are experienced by all generations alike, for they express the same basic urges that determine human conduct. Our modern life, even our faith, is continuous with that of the Bible. Thirdly, history is an organic whole whose meaning is derived, not from the peculiarities of timeperiods, but from the character of the God who is revealed by it. The God of the Biblical revelation is also the God at work in our world.

The Social Environment and War Problems

The Social Environment and War Problems

The Background of the Social War of 220-217 B. C.

The Background of the Social War of 220-217 B. C.

Social Services and War

Social Services and War