The Plebeians Push into Power

Podcast Archives - The Partial Historians

We jump into the year 400 BCE which has more excitement than you may have anticipated. Could this be the year we have evidence for a plebeian break-through into the important magisterial position of military tribune with consular power?

Episode 153 – The Plebeians Push into Power

Now, as always with this period of Rome’s early republican history, we need to keep into mind that the extant records are sketchy and we’re relying on writers living centuries in the future for their interpretation of whatever information they could scrounge together. And yet, if we look at the names that are put forward for the top job in 400 BCE, we notice some folk we’ve never heard of before – not just individuals, but extended family groups (gens), which is worth considering in more depth. You know we can’t resist a good thorny mystery when it comes to the evidence!

What is the senate and how did it work?

The entry of Calvus into the position of military tribune with consular power is a bit of a cat amongst the pigeons. But it might be Livy’s details about Calvus’ position as a member of the senate that makes this even more intriguing. We consider what the structure of the very early senate might have been (largely in the absence of strong evidence from the period in question). Where did the senate come from? How did it emerge as a feature of the republic? What might make sense given the senate is later understood as an advisory body? Was there a third socio-political class in the early republic? We explore some potential scenarios.

Things to listen our for

• Our transition into nineteenth century German scholars
• The difference between segregation and what was happening in the early republic
• Discussion of the abuse of power by the powerful
• The character of our plebeian hero Calvus
• The tribune of soldiers
• The fragmentary writer Licinius Macer
• Updates on the state of play in Sicily and their conflict with Carthage
• Igor taking a short break????

Our Players for 400 BCE

Military Tribunes with Consular Power

• Publius Licinius P. f. P. n. Calvus Esquilinus (NOT a patrician?????)
• Publius Manlius M. f. Cn. n. Vulso (Pat)
• Lucius Titinius L. f. M’. n. Pansa Saccus (Not a patrician?????)
• Publius Maelius Sp. f. C. n. Capitolinus (Not a patrician?????)
• Spurius Furius L. f. Sp. n. Medullinus (Pat)
• Lucius Publilius L. f. Voler. n. Philo Vulscus (Not a patrician?????)

Our Sources

• Dr Rad reads Livy
• Dr G reads Diodorus Siculus; and Fasti Capitolini.
• Bradley, G. 2020. Early Rome to 290 BC (Edinburgh University Press). Broughton, T. R. S., Patterson, M. L. 1951. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic Volume 1: 509 B.C. – 100 B.C. (The American Philological Association)
• Cornell, T. J. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC) (Taylor & Francis) Forsythe, G. 2006. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War(University of California Press)
• Lomas, Kathryn (2018). The rise of Rome. History of the Ancient World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/9780674919938. ISBN978-0-674-65965-0. S2CID239349186.
• Mommsen, T. 1894-1908. Römische Geschichte
• Münzer, F. ‘Licinius 43’ in Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft
• Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5 (Clarendon Press).
• Raaflaub, K. A. 2006. Social struggles in archaic Rome: new perspectives on the conflict of the orders (2nd ed). (Wiley).
• Smith, C. 2019. ‘Furius Camillus and Veii’, in Taboli, J., Cerasuolo, O. (eds.) Veii (University of Texas Press), 219-224.

Sound Credits

Our music is by the amazing Bettina Joy de Guzman. Sound effects courtesy of BBC Sounds and Orange Free Sound.

A photograph of the Roman forum by Felix Bonfils in the 19th century. Source: Picryl.

Automated Transcript

Lightly edited for the Latin and our wonderful Australian accents!

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles wage and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:55
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr G.

Dr Rad 1:03
And I am Dr Rad.

Dr G 1:05
And we are super thrilled to be here for what is the cusp; the very moment of transition. We’re going to be talking about 400 BCE.

Dr Rad 1:18
I know. Do you remember when we were young and we started this podcast, and now we’re middle aged, and we not even at the better known parts of Roman history yet.

Dr G 1:27
Goodness me, oh, you know, I like being in these lands of Rome’s just developing. What is it? Why is it? Nobody really knows.

Dr Rad 1:38
I know. Yeah, well, it’s easy to do a bit of a recap of where we were at last time in ancient Rome. Dr, G, because in 401 we hit a momentous milestone for ancient Rome. That’s right after all this conflicting of the orders that we’ve had going on for, oh, I don’t know, maybe like 85 years. Maybe longer, plenty, actually, no, 95 years. Yeah, 95 years. After 95 years of having conflict of the orders dominating our narrative, we finally got a plebeian elected due to serve in 400 BCE as a military tribune with consular power, which, okay, it’s not the consulship, but it is the most powerful magistracy that will exist at this moment in time.

Dr G 2:30
And let’s not disparage this position, because a military tribune with consular power has all of the effective means of the consul role, plus all of the added bonus of the military, I suppose, which exactly the consul had already, I don’t know.

Dr Rad 2:50
Yeah, they just don’t get the snooty patrician ability to be like, we’re patrician and you’re not, and we do the religious rights in this particular realm, and you don’t, and we have fancy shoes and you don’t!

Dr G 3:06
Ah, it’s the fancy shoes that get you every time it is.

Dr Rad 3:10
Manolo Blahnik should be all over that one ancient Rome, yeah.

Dr G 3:16
Well, I think this is because it’s such a momentous occasion. I think we need to dive in because I’m not sure that our source material is necessarily agreeing with each other, Dr. Rad.

Dr Rad 3:29
Controversy. All right, let’s do it. Dr, G, let’s dive in to 400 BCE.

I’m dancing. I’m dancing.

Dr G 4:04
It’s 400 BCE, and we have six military tribunes with consular power.

Dr Rad 4:12
Alright. Dr, G, tell me who they are, because I believe there is some confusion around the names for this year.

Dr G 4:19
There may very well be, and I put it to you that there’s a whole bunch of names in here that don’t sound patrician. First of all, we have Publius Licinius Calvus Esquilinus, question mark, not a patrician. We haven’t had a Calvus before.

Dr Rad 4:39
No, this is definitely, this is the guy. THIS is the guy. Dr G, this is the one.

Dr G 4:44
Oh okay, he’s not my only one though

Dr Rad 4:46
He’s definitely the plebeian, yeah.

Dr G 4:49
We also have Publius Manlius Vulso. Sounds very patrician. Whatever.

Dr Rad 4:55
I was gonna say, I think I’ve heard that name a number of times.

Dr G 4:58
But wait, there’s more. We have Lucius Titinius Pansa Saccus.

Dr Rad 5:07
That is a weird name, if ever I heard one.

Dr G 5:10
Not a patrician.

Dr Rad 5:13
hmhmhmhmhmmmmm

Dr G 5:13
Doesn’t sound like it. This is his first appearance. But we will see more of this guy later. We then have Publius Maelius Capitolinus. Now you would think patrician sounds pretty patrician.

Dr Rad 5:27
Well we’ve heard, we’ve heard of the family before. That’s that’s all, yeah.

Dr G 5:30
But there are some question marks around this guy as well.

Dr Rad 5:34
Hmmmm.

Dr G 5:34
Maybe not a patrician.

Dr Rad 5:35
Maybe not.

Dr G 5:37
Spurius Furius Medullinus.

Dr Rad 5:40
I know he is definitely, definitely a patrician.

Dr G 5:42
Yeah, we’ve got, yeah, back on solid patrician territory.

Dr Rad 5:45
The Furii.

Dr G 5:46
Very elite family come back from the dead, just to let us all know how good they are. And Lucius Publius, or Publilius, there seems to be, you know, some controversy. Maybe there’s an extra L in there somewhere. Voler Philo Vulscus.

Dr Rad 6:05
Another unusual name, Dr G.

Dr G 6:08
Very, very, potentially, not a patrician. So that would leave us with potentially three or four of these military tribunes with consular power as being non elite patrician holders of the role, which is pretty huge.

Dr Rad 6:31
Not the very cream of the crop.

Dr G 6:33
Well, has everybody died? Have the elite just had a specific plague that’s affected only them? Who can say? But I think there is room to be very cautious in this moment as a good historian-

Dr Rad 6:47
Sure

Dr G 6:47
Because having never seen hide nor hair of a non patrician in any of these roles for years and years, ever since the beginning, since 509, so over, over 100 years to then, all of a sudden, have at least half, and maybe more than half, all of a sudden be non patrician. It seems to be significant.

Dr Rad 7:16
It is. It’s like they’re pulling the old switcheroo on us, Dr G.

Dr G 7:21
Find the lies.

Dr Rad 7:23
That’s right, yeah. Well, look, all I can tell you is that, according to my narrative source, Livy, only one of them is a plebeian.

Dr G 7:35
Truly a plebeian. The others are just pretending by changing their names to get onto the role.

Dr Rad 7:40
Clever sleight of hand. You know, just when you think they’re gonna zig, they zag.

Dr G 7:45
Classic patrician move. Now, why does Livy think that only one of them might be a plebeian and the rest are patricians, but of unknown families?

Dr Rad 7:57
He gives me no such reason, Dr G, he just tells me. He just tells me that the plebeians are shocked and amazed that they have finally done it, that they have finally taken the plunge and elected one of their own to serve in the supreme magistracy, which technically they have been able to do according to our narrative for almost 50 years now.

Dr G 8:26
I was going to say, so this ties in very particularly to what we know about the legal aspect of the lex Canuleia or Canuleia of 445 BCE.

Dr Rad 8:40
Yes

Dr G 8:41
which was the official moment where they were like, oh, yeah, plebeians could hold the position. I suppose it’s kind of done a little bit under like duress.

Dr Rad 8:52
Oh, they definitely did not want them to have the consulship. They would keep your dirty little contaminated paws off the consulship. That’s for the very, very special people that are patricians. We’ll come up with this other ridiculous office with an insanely long name instead. And you can, you can maybe have that one. Maybe.

Dr G 9:09
Exactly. You could be a tribute of the plebs, nothing more, nothing less.

Dr Rad 9:13
Yeah. But they’re not even thrilled about that.

Dr G 9:16
Well, I mean, sometimes and the patricians try to get they try to muscle in on that as well. So there’s a lot going on there, but this lex Canuleia is that idea of there should be permissible intermarriage between patrician clans and plebeian families. So you would expect that there would be a bridging of the two groups, and as the generations move down, you would see more mixed class Romans, as it were, and it’s like, is it the case that it’s taken 45 years for all of those intermarriages that were permissible to produce the kind of children who can stand up and say, Look, I don’t have a patrician name, but I got what it takes to take on the role of military tribune with consular power.

Dr Rad 10:06
Well, this is the thing that Livy has constantly been driving home throughout the narrative, is that the plebeians couldn’t bring themselves to vote for plebeian candidates. And there are various different reasons given, but it kind of always comes down to the fact that, oh, the patricians are just so amazing, they can’t possibly not vote for them all the plebeians are rubbish. Or, you know, there’s always some reason why the plebeians think that their own kind are not somehow as suitable or as good for the job, and why they don’t end up voting for their own candidates. But I agree it is intriguing to think that maybe there has been a generational shift.

Dr G 10:47
Well, I wonder, because I do have some questions about this. So we know that this came into play in 445. So the first question is, how likely would it have been that any patrician-plebeian unions are happening from that point onwards? Because I imagine there might have some resistance to that. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean people want to do it.

Dr Rad 11:08
This is true.

Dr G 11:09
And then who of those unions, if indeed so, let’s say a patrician and a plebeian got together. They had a bit of a marriage.

Dr Rad 11:18
Romeo and Juliet.

Dr G 11:19
It was cute. Yeah, crossing the divide. You’re from the fields, I’m from the city, and when I saw you from my balcony, I thought to myself, he is one hot plebeian, and I will marry him and have his babies. And they did that. Let’s say that they did hypothetically, would those children be considered patrician or plebeian or neither? Now I suspect from a Roman perspective, it’s going to depend on what the class of the father was.

Dr Rad 11:49
I agree, yes.

Dr G 11:50
But that leads us to more complicated questions as well, because let’s say you were in that first crop. You were very excited. Finally, you were able to, like, get together with your plebeian love and as a patrician, you might expect your children to have come of age in the 420s or at the latest, the 410s if things were going a little bit more slowly for you. So where have these people been in terms of holding positions of power? And it’s like it’s taking a long time for them to for the wheel to turn. So I feel like there’s a narrative element here, because there’s conveniently, 45 years between the introduction of this intermarriage law and people who seem to be from a plebeian background, coming into a position which would suggest that if they were the first crop and everything happened like: the law comes in; somebody has a baby; 45 years later, they’re old enough to hold the role of military tribune with consular power. You’ve got to be relatively senior.

Dr Rad 12:50
The Romans do like older men in charge.

Dr G 12:54
They do. They have a – seem to have – a preference for the salt and pepper, as it were.

Dr Rad 13:00
I’m going to call it the George Clooney paradox.

Dr G 13:05
And the more gray there is, the more attractive he becomes.

Dr Rad 13:08
Exactly. It’s very intriguing.

Dr G 13:11
Doesn’t happen for all men, but definitely happens for some and so I feel like this whole situation invites more questions than it answers, which, frankly, listeners will not be surprised about.

Dr Rad 13:23
Yeah. I mean, this is the thing, obviously, that’s the narrative that we’re given. How true any of this actually is is definitely out for debate. We’ve already, I think, highlighted in many episodes on conflict of the orders that we’re really not entirely sure that there is quite the hard and fast divide between patricians and plebeians that our sources would like us to believe, and therefore the motivations for these groups is not always going to make sense.

Dr G 13:53
Oh, come on.

Dr Rad 13:55
But let me, shall I tell you a little bit about this guy? Shall I tell you about the guy?

Dr G 14:00
Oh, this Calvus Esquilinus

Dr Rad 14:02
yep

Dr G 14:02
character, yes. I would love to know more about this plebeian.

Dr Rad 14:07
Yes. Okay, so the plebeians are shocked and amazed. They’ve finally done it. That’s where we’re at. However, the candidate that has been the one to break the barrier is a little bit puzzling even to the Romans themselves, and that’s because we have never heard of like any as calvis before, because he had never held any offices. So he’s never been like a tribune of the plebs, which I guess is what you might expect for someone who is then going to, you know, take a jump, take a run at the senior magistracy of Rome, however, and this is where we get this little detail, which I couldn’t resist telling you last time. Livy says all he was, was a senator of long standing now well on in years, which blew my mind. It still blows my mind, this idea that, oh yeah, by the way, in spite of all this stuff I’ve been feeding you about the Conflict of the Orders, by the way, plebeians are allowed to be in the Senate. Didn’t mention it. Didn’t mention it up until now, but, by the way, bombshell.

Dr G 15:12
Just in case you haven’t been paying attention.

Dr Rad 15:15
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All this bitterness.

Dr G 15:18
Turns out they’ve been there all along.So I think this gives us a moment to think about like, what is the Senate in this period of time? Because we don’t know a lot about its structure. Really

Dr Rad 15:32
Clearly

Dr G 15:33
We know very little about it. And the thing about the Roman Senate that we tend to hold on to is this idea that they’re they’ve got this traditional role. So thinking about how the Senate is represented in later periods of Roman history, they’ve got an advisory role that’s considered traditional. They sit outside of legislation. In some respects, they’re supposed to be advisors, and they’re drawn from significant, powerful families. And there’s usually some sort of like monetary entry level as well. So there’s both seniority in age and position, and also there’s a wealth aspect. And then there’s kind of like the sense in which they’re not legally bound to be followed either this weird kind of overhang.

Dr Rad 16:26
Not until later. That does eventually happen, but not for a long time.

Dr G 16:31
Not for a long time and so and then we’re in this period of history where we’re on the cusp of shifting into a new century. The Republic has been at play for about a century, so this advisory body has probably taken slightly different shapes across the course of that century, none of which we’re very aware of or could pinpoint in any way, because they just kind of get referred to every now and then. But the idea that there are plebeians in this group does run very counter to most of the things that we assume about the Senate, and assume we know about the Senate, even from, say, 200 years from now in Roman history. So I think this is a really fascinating point where how stable is this republic, and what does it really look like to function in this century, in this very early period? And it sounds like we’re not really sure, and Livy has just dropped a bomb.

Dr Rad 17:36
Look he has. And part of the issue comes from Livy himself, I admit it. He tends to use patrician interchangeably with Senate. You know, he constantly is assuming in his language choices that they are one and the same in terms of their perspective. And so throughout the narrative that I have been providing in this podcast, the Senate comes across, therefore, as a very patrician, quite conservative, quite elite body. Now, two of those things may be true. I would say that, yeah, they probably are pretty elite, regardless of what social class they come from. And look, they probably are fairly conservative as well, because they’re a bunch of old guys. But I, there have been questions that we’ve had raised in the scholarship that have highlighted that we don’t really know how people become senators at this point in time, because later on, the Senate is mostly made up of people who have held magistracies. But obviously that doesn’t work when you’re starting a republic. You wouldn’t – you’d only have, like a guy and and we don’t ever get a sense that the Senate starts with like two guys, and then you get a few more, and then you get a few more. And, like, it’s this math game where gradually we’re building up the numbers, because there just aren’t that many positions going around. It would be a very slow, tortuous process, and I don’t think that they’d be fulfilling that advisory body capacity if it’s just like a bunch of five guys for a while. So it does raise questions of, Well, where did they initially come from?

Dr G 19:08
Yeah, and this is where I think playing around with, like the possibilities, like what would make sense, what might be plausible in this context, and the idea that there may be delegates sent by families, and there is a request for an advisory body. So where that request might come from? I think it would be coming from families themselves, being like, okay, if we’re doing this system differently, and we don’t have kings anymore, where we’d like to have a bit of a sense of what’s going on and getting people together. So not just having a couple of magistracies, like the consulship and the tribune of the plans, but having a family network where people get together and they send a representative into a situation where they can come together to talk at issues. And try to provide advice. And this might be taking the place of the idea of, well, if there was a king in charge, it was all pretty down the line. But for a king to rule, they kind of have to have consent of the people there. Has there has to be some sort of social support there? So the families are involved anyway, but maybe not in the same kind of way. And if the kings are operating with some advisors, and we do get hints about that, then maybe this sort of carries over into this new Republican experiment where they’re like, Well, we still need to be here to provide some advice. You know, everybody’s got a perspective. And if you’re going to make legislation that affects all of us, then we do want to have a say in how that’s going down and what that might look like. And then the number could be quite flexible at that point, depending on who’s involved, depending on how many delegates might be sent, depending on the agreement amongst that group about how many people are appropriate. And as some plebeian families become more significant, and particularly after the advent of the tribune of the plebs, it might be the case that you’ve got some quite powerful plebeian groups who are like, well, we would like to have a seat at that table as well. And that’s interesting,

Dr Rad 21:22
Yeah, well, this, yeah, this is exactly, I think, what we’ve been trying to highlight this whole time. There is this real tendency to see the patricians as the wealthy guys and the plebeians as the poor guys. And that’s because of, I think, the connotations that we have when we use the word “pleb” to describe somebody these days, but it also is because of the kinds of issues that the plebeians are often concerned about in the sources, you know, money and debt is sometimes one of them, land ownership is another one. So you can understand why you’d get that impression that these people are not, you know, as well off as they’d like to be, and that sort of thing. But one of the things that we have highlighted is that it’s not really like that in practice, we can definitely detect that there are some plebeian families that are obviously quite wealthy, and with wealth tends to come power and influence, even if it’s not official, like not because you’re holding a particular office, it’s just because, obviously you have The ability to grant favors, and you know, your opinion is maybe noted a little bit more. So I completely agree it would be really interesting, particularly given the whole warlord aspect that we’ve been noticing in this century, that it does seem to be a collection of powerful families that have stepped into the power vacuum potentially left by the office of king, perhaps. And it seems to be almost much more feudal in nature, in that they each obviously hold territory in particular areas. And it seems that they are protecting, representing, calling on the people who live in that area, and maybe sort of representing them, so they’re able to, you know, raise private armies from amongst their area. So I love the idea that you’ve just proposed that maybe it is a family run affair, to a certain extent, where they’re sending representatives.

Dr G 23:14
Look, I think it’s a potential, and I think it’s definitely worth thinking about, like, how does this emerge? Because, I mean, they’re referred to as the fathers. So there’s that masculine implication already, but there’s also that idea of seniority in terms of family position, and the way that that sort of translates into a political advisory body, I think, is really quite fascinating. So, yeah, I’m, I’m not sure, and we don’t have good evidence, like, as we’ve seen, Livy has just dropped this on on us.

Dr Rad 23:46
I know I couldn’t believe it when I read it, because I don’t actually have a huge amount of detail for this year, which seems criminal given how long we’ve been waiting to get to this point. But that detail alone just sent me whirling, you know, in terms of all the thoughts that are running through my head. And it also brought me back to something which we probably haven’t talked about in a while, but that is this name that is sometimes used to refer to the Senate, the ‘patres conscripti’. Now there’s been a lot of ink spilt over what exactly this means and how we should interpret it. I mean, we know what the literal meaning of those words is, but what are the implications of those words? So “patres” meaning the fathers, which makes sense, because we do have this group of older men who are holding an advisory role. That makes sense. And then there’s been some debate about what the “conscripti” part is exactly actually referring to. Could it be that the conscripti were people who were, like, conscripted to the Senate, or like were enlisted into the Senate somehow, and therefore, maybe were representatives of, say, plebeian families. So maybe the part raised were maybe some sort of advisors to the king or. You know, families that the king gave particular rights and privileges to, who knows, and that’s why they got this identity as part raise. And then we have this potentially separate group that are somehow, maybe slightly second tier, but the idea that they are, yeah, the conscripted ones into this senatorial body.

Dr G 25:21
Yeah and these are the things that we just we wish we knew about this early period of the Republic, because it would change everything if we knew how they were selected, and what were the kind of Terms of Reference they were operating under. Like, was it a role that you held for life? Was it something that was a sort of a time limited opportunity, and you did it for a little while, and then a different conscripted person came into that to fill the space. We just don’t know.

Dr Rad 25:50
Yeah, I mean, there’s even been suggestions that the conscripti are neither patrician or plebeian, and that this would neatly explain, I know, this would neatly explain, why we have-

Dr G 26:01
There’s a third group in Rome? No! No!

Dr Rad 26:05
We can’t handle it, but yeah, maybe the fact the idea of them being a third body who does not technically belong to either, would explain the weird names that we get in the lists of consuls and in the lists of the military tribunes with a consular power and that sort of thing, where it doesn’t seem like it’s the right kind of name for the families that we know, you know what we think we know should be holding those offices. So it might explain the confusing nature of all the list of magistrates that we’ve had in this century, when there’s supposedly this big conflict of the orders going on, and therefore that, that’s why we have that particular sort of setup. And then maybe the plebs gradually become involved with certain groups as clients, or, you know, through other means. And so obviously there’s more blurring of the lines going on, perhaps in terms of who is, who’s part of these groups, or who is represented by these groups. It’s incredibly confusing, obviously.

Dr G 27:07
The more it gets confusing, yeah, and this is not the first moment where we have a plebeian or a suspected plebeian in a position of power. So that’s the other thing. This seems to be the, maybe the most plausible moment. But there are some other candidates earlier on. So there is the suggestion that in 444 Atilius may have been a plebeian, and in 422 Antonius, in that year may have been a plebeian. And these are arguments that are put forward by very respected German scholars of the 19th century, Momsen and Munzer. So we don’t want to discount them out of hand, because I would love to be as good as a German scholar from the 19th century.

Dr Rad 28:01
100% it’s the dream.

Dr G 28:03
That is the dream, just grow me a beard, sit at a desk, have seven children, just never talk to them.

Dr Rad 28:08
Give me a pretzel and call me Dr Greenfield.

Dr G 28:12
Please do. But there is this sort of suggestion, like, really early on, after that 445 law on the potential for intermarriage, that there may have been some early figures who, quite possibly, and we’re not sure, may have been plebeian as well.

Dr Rad 28:31
Yeah, yeah.

Dr G 28:32
So that puts us in a kind of situation where the lack of surety that we have about anything is just being reinforced at every opportunity.

Dr Rad 28:42
Yeah, well, I mean, I guess I sometimes kind of imagine this situation if, as if Ancient Rome was the American South prior to the Civil Rights Movement, just because it kind of helps me remember that even with much more clearly, I think, delineated lines of segregation as existed in the south, even in a situation where you have laws and unofficial practices and violence and terror and all of that kind of stuff going on to try and keep two groups apart, even then it’s not always successful. You know, there are those exceptions where you hear of people mixing anyway or behaving in ways that are dangerous, or, you know, whatever. And then, of course, you have the Civil Rights Movement, which, of course, is, you know, daring to push back against this kind of segregation. And Ancient Rome is obviously not like that. So to me, it makes sense that obviously there would be much more blurring of the lines between these two groups than it sometimes would appear because of the nature of our source material. It makes sense that it’d be far messier, because we’re not talking about a society that is segregated. So this is about access to opportunity, access to wealth, access to privilege, access to knowledge, like about the laws and that sort of thing. But on a day to day level, I don’t think that they would live these like super segregated lives.

Dr G 30:16
Yeah. And I think the way that we think about, for instance, the big ticket item that has often been at the center of this conflict has been use of public land. Might be a bit of a retrojection from our written sources, but the absolutely the idea at the heart of that is that some families have land and control land, and some families don’t.

Dr Rad 30:41
Yeah.

Dr G 30:42
Or they don’t have enough land to do the subsistence farming that would allow them to take care of themselves. And they’re looking for another opportunity to rectify that. And so this idea of the sort of the haves and the have nots within a society, and the kind of infighting that might be generated by that of people pushing for opportunity, people resisting changes to the status quo that suits them, and then the sort of complexities that happen within that where people in power often abuse that power.

Dr Rad 31:19
Yes, absolutely. And that’s what rings true, I think, about the conflict of the orders, and why you and I get fired up about it, because it does seem to be this age old story that people with power will not voluntarily give up that power, and will often it will often lead to situations where there is an abuse of that power and that privilege, yeah.

Dr G 31:40
For sure.

Dr Rad 31:42
Anyway, so let’s get back to Licinius Calvus.

Dr G 31:45
Oh yeah, what’s this guy up to? What’s he doing in the role? Surely he’s a mover and a shaker.

Dr Rad 31:50
Oh. Dr, G, you gonna be so disappointed. So Livy does not tell me why he thinks the other guys are patricians, and why he thinks this guy is a plebeian. He doesn’t go into that, but he does ask the question, why was this guy the guy? Why is he the one that finally broke that barrier? And there are a couple of reasons that he moots about for me. One of them is that he had apparently a connection to a guy called Gnaeus Cornelius, who had been a tribune of the soldiers and had been involved in raising the pay of the cavalrymen. So yeah, we’d be talking about equestrian pay, and, yeah, pay for soldiers and that sort of thing. Allegedly, this guy obviously had some sort of renown due to this, and that maybe the connection, but it is not obviously the most obvious line into a magistracy.

Dr G 32:53
I was gonna say, I’m like, we don’t really ever talk about the tribunes of the soldiers…

Dr Rad 32:59
No. And that’s just it. It’s, yeah, it’s, it’s a bit confusing as to why this would be such a big deal.

Dr G 33:09
Yeah, interesting, interesting move, Livy. Interesting move.

Dr Rad 33:13
And look, Livy doesn’t say this is the reason. He just says this is maybe one of the reasons we know that also one of Livy sources, at times, is Licinius Macer or Macer, if you prefer, so potentially, is this the influence of a source that Livy is using, who is writing with maybe a slightly favorable bent towards his own family and that is seeping into our source material? But even this is confusing, because we’re not obviously always sure when Livy is relying on Licinius Macer, he doesn’t always tell us, and there are other sources that we know he’s relying on. We can’t tell for sure if that’s what it is that he’s using at this point in time.

Dr G 33:57
All right, so that potential to be relying on family narratives, potentially.

Dr Rad 34:04
Potentially, yeah, but it doesn’t. It’s not 100% a convincing story, because at this point in time, it doesn’t really seem that. It doesn’t seem like what Livy is writing is that pro this family, like, there’s other points where you can see it more clearly that, you know, he’s glorifying the Licinii or something like that. And so it’s not really clear that that is what is going on here exactly. There is another reason, and this is the reason that’s going to really disappoint you. Uh oh, it may have been because of a speech that Licinius Calvus apparently gave where he talked about wanting peace between the patricians and the plebeians, essentially saying, can’t we all just get along, guys and everyone really responded positively to this fence sitting, non-committal position.

Dr G 35:03
His way into power!

Dr Rad 35:06
He did, I think that, and look, to be honest, disappointing as it sounds, that kind of, that kind of checks.

Dr G 35:12
You’re telling me he made a palatable plebeian for a patrician to get into power?

Dr Rad 35:20
I know, and that’s why I kind of believe it. Because I’m like, Well, of course, of course, the patricians let in the guy that’s not going to make waves and just get it. It’s going to be like, You know what, guys, I’m just really happy to be here. I’m happy to be included.

Dr G 35:34
We’ve taken our soft core plebeian and we’ve placed him in power. It’s going to be fine. I mean, the plebeians have wanted this for a long time, yeah, so basically, they put in the least plebeian guy they could find and be like, but we did it.

Dr Rad 35:48
I think that that’s the case. Yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s the case. And apparently, the tribune of the plebs are finally happy. You know, they’ve been feeling really bitter that they fought so hard to win the right for plebeians to hold these offices, and then nobody ever elected anyone that was really starting to make them feel like there was no point to their existence. And why should they even go on? And so they therefore stop objecting to the tax which we talked about last episode. So remember, there was this mention that there had to be a special war tax to fund all these military operations, like military pay and pay for the equestrians.

Dr G 36:27
Yeah, now that you mention it, it feels very circular. We got to pay the soldiers, so we need to tax the soldiers.

Dr Rad 36:33
Well, it was causing a massive problem, because people had been promised this pay and then they weren’t receiving the pay because the money wasn’t coming through, because the tax wasn’t being paid, and the tax was only something that was only something that was just mentioned, and the tribunes were opposing that because they thought it was obscene that the patricians would ask for money to do all of this. And now, however, they’re just as happy as Larry, so everything kind of clicks along. The tax gets paid, it’s sent to the army. The army is happy. Because the army is happy. Guess what? Anxur is retaken from the Volscians, who seem to have not learnt from the example the Romans set. They’re off having a lovely holiday somewhere, allowing the Romans to just swoop in and take it back, which is weird, because that’s literally how they got it back from the Romans in the first place. It’s a little bit of history repeating.

Dr G 37:24
I’m suspicious.

Dr Rad 37:28
Yeah, I would definitely lean into those suspicions.

Dr G 37:32
All right. I mean, so this is not the plebeian hero that we’ve been waiting for.

Dr Rad 37:37
Nope. Livy explicitly says that his presence makes the plebeians happy. They are okay with him, and the patricians are not too upset by him. So it’s a win win situation, that is literally what Livy tells me.

Dr G 37:49
And it seems problematic in some respects for the tribune of the plebs as a cohort to just sort of roll over be like we finally got where we wanted, guys, everything’s great now. And I was like, the least plebeian dude ever got in as a plebeian.

Dr Rad 38:08
What I’m going to use a couple of modern day analogies, if you will. Again, I think about, for example, when in Australia, Julia Gillard got, well, I was going to say, got elected. But that’s not exactly how it happened. But let’s just say, happened. But let’s just say we had our first female prime minister, Julia Gillard. We also have, obviously, Obama becoming the first African American president of the United States. It obviously is not the case that just because you have a person of color or a woman finally holding this prestigious position, that everything magically gets solved for those groups that are experiencing problems being obviously women and African American people. But sometimes people talk about it like it is, hmm, you know, like they’ll say, well, what more do you want? You got a woman in office. What more do you want? There’s an African American man who’s serving as president. Clearly, everything is fine in this country. There are no problems for women, there are no problems for people of color, because the most important position in this country is held by someone from that group. Case closed, so I can kind of see why there might be that reaction after so many years of waiting.

Dr G 39:19
Well, okay, let’sgrant the tribune of the plebs some grace in this moment. Yeah, for being excited that they’ve finally broken through the patrician ceiling, as it were.

Dr Rad 39:35
Yeah.

Dr G 39:36
And it’s like, well, you know, now that it’s broken, they should be able we can get the real rebels in there, yes, but for now, let’s just be grateful that we got something at all.

Dr Rad 39:48
Yeah, and I know it sounds a bit ridiculous and but we know that the tribunes aren’t going to remain passive. I mean, we know there’s plenty more trouble to come from that group, so we know it’s just a temporary reprieve.

Dr G 40:00
I’m so sad.

Dr Rad 40:01
Yeah, and that’s basically all the detail that I have, apart from the fact that the Romans had a very cold and snowy winter, and it made the roads and the Tiber impassable. However, corn did not go up in price because they had enough stockpiled.

Dr G 40:21
Oh, that’s convenient.

Dr Rad 40:22
Yeah, that’s really all I have, yeah.

Dr G 40:25
Updates on weather conditions and the state of the harvest.

Dr Rad 40:30
I’m going to mention this really gigantic political moment, and I’m going to juxtapose that with a weather report from ancient Rome, which I almost never do unless it involves something, you know, really disastrous, like a flood or something like that. The only other detail I have is something that we probably could surmise without Livy telling us the plebeians were feeling positive and thought that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to get a plebeian in office the next year too. The suspense.

Dr G 41:01
I’m feeling optimistic, guys, yeah, it’s snowing outside, but there’s a plebeian higher office.

Dr Rad 41:07
That’s pretty much it. Yeah, I’m freezing to death, but there’s a plebeian in higher office. My family doesn’t have enough land to survive, but there’s a plebeian in higher office.

Dr G 41:18
Good thing we’ve got all this grain.

Dr Rad 41:22
So yeah, kind of crazy that we don’t have more detail. But then this is partly because, and once again, I’m just going to say this, we think that Livy is somewhat padding the narrative, as we know, because he wants to have this 10 year siege against Veii and so he’s got to make up the numbers somewhere.

Dr G 41:38
He doesn’t mention anything about this siege!

Dr Rad 41:42
Yeah, so that there we know that this has been strung out a little bit from probably a shorter time period to 10 years.

Dr G 41:51
In the background: no news from the siege front.

Dr Rad 41:55
Yeah, I can’t believe they’re not even talking about it, apart from the fact that, you know, the army gets paid, woo hoo.

Dr G 42:02
In breaking news: the army gets paid; there’s a plebeian in highest office, and it’s snowing on the front.

Dr Rad 42:09
That’s basically what 400 BCE was like in ancient Rome. It’s almost as though you’re there. So vivid is the detail.

Dr G 42:18
I do feel like I’m there trying to do my best English radio presenter voice. So I only have Diodorus Siculus as a source for this year. So thin on the ground.

Dr Rad 42:33
Dionysus is a distant memory.

Dr G 42:36
He is. He’s going to return to us at some point. I have his next fragment, waiting in the wings for when it’s appropriate to introduce.

Dr Rad 42:44
Waiting to pounce.

Dr G 42:47
And I’ll move on to new sources soon, at some point, I believe, as well, yeah, but Diodorus Siculus is really focused on what’s going on with the situation in Sicily and the ongoing conflict with Carthage. So news from the south, and he does mention a whole bunch of these military tribunes. Get some of the names right, get some of the names wrong, right? But it’s not his focus. He’s pretty clearly interested in what’s going on and Syracuse and the tyrant Dionysus, who’s starting to gain quite a reputation for himself, he sends a herald to Carthage and says, prepare yourselves. We’re going to attack so, I mean, I think I feel like that’s pretty polite.

Dr Rad 43:35
It’s giving them some warning.

Dr G 43:36
Yeah. He says, Unless you withdraw from the Greek cities of Sicily, I’m coming for you. And they’re like, oh, oh, okay. So the Carthaginians are not happy about that. Obviously it’s a bit of a threat, and there’s the sense of violence there. And they’ve also just endured a plague themselves. So they’re kind of, you know, the messenger turns up, and people are like, lying in the streets and not doing well. The herald reads it out, and everyone’s like, I can’t get up right now. War, you say, eerrrrr.

Dr Rad 44:12
Today is not that day.

Dr G 44:14
Yeah. So they feel pretty unprepared. They’re not having the best day of their lives. And they then start to think, Okay, well, how will we plan for this? There’s no question in their minds that they’re going to withdraw from the Greek colonies in Sicily. They’re like, I might be sick, but I’m not dead. And they decide that they’re going to hire a bunch of mercenaries from Eastern Europe.

Dr Rad 44:42
Okay.

Dr G 44:43
Quick, set sail! And so they’re sending out ships across the Mediterranean, particularly towards the east and the Northeast, to try and recruit as many people as they can for what they know will be the inevitable attack upon Carthage. They want to be ready for that. And they’re happy to pay for that support.

Dr Rad 45:02
Okay, so we’re gearing up for conflict.

Dr G 45:04
We’re gearing up. Everybody’s getting ready. The Carthaginians are ill, but they’re ready to fight. They’re preparing themselves.

Dr Rad 45:13
True dedication.

Dr G 45:15
Indeed indeed.

Dr Rad 45:16
All right, cool. Well, that means Dr G, I think it’s time for the Partial Pick.

Oh, okay, yeah. Does that herald a change of sound effect?

Dr G 45:36
Stay tuned, listeners. All right, so the first category is military clout.

Dr Rad 45:44
Well, I guess we need to give them some credit for retaking Anxur. It doesn’t seem to have been at all difficult, because I have absolutely no detail about the fighting, but they did it okay.

Dr G 45:59
I mean, it’s not very impressive, if they can just walk in there.

Dr Rad 46:02
It isn’t. But on the other hand, they do still have it, and Anxur is a good place to have.

Dr G 46:09
Well, I mean, certainly the Romans have decided that. I’d give them at most a two.

Dr Rad 46:14
What? That seems mean. Come on, three. Like they’ve taken a place, come on. Three!

Dr G 46:23
There’s been no sign of any conflict.

Dr Rad 46:25
Well, I mean…

Dr G 46:26
It’s simply just somebody, you know, in a Roman dress, walking up in, but they’re like, oi, and everybody inside be like, come on.

Dr Rad 46:33
No, okay. No, no. They just said that the Volscians had relaxed their – they’d relaxed the strictness with which they were guarding the city. It doesn’t say that there were no guards anywhere.

Dr G 46:46
But don’t you think that if there had been a military conflict, that Livy would have taken the opportunity to discuss it?

Dr Rad 46:52
Maybe he would, but maybe this is just a very, you know, a filler year, and therefore he’s not going to waste his time. He’s already told the story of how it was taken the first time.

Dr G 47:03
I don’t have the details, you know, I can’t guarantee that anything good happened here.

Dr Rad 47:07
We can’t, but we can’t decide points on lack of detail alone. It has to be somewhat on the military objective, otherwise we’re going to be really in trouble.

Dr G 47:16
That’s why I’m giving them a two. I mean, they took it.

Dr Rad 47:19
Fine, fine. I don’t have the energy to fight you,

Dr G 47:25
And that is how Rome will win all of her wars.

Dr Rad 47:29
This is why I’m the Remus and you’re the Romulus.

Dr G 47:30
Oh, no! So so far, they’re scoring two out of a possible 50. Here we go. All right, diplomacy.

Dr Rad 47:42
Huh? No, I don’t really feel like there’s much of that going on. Really. No, that’s got to be a zero diplomacy.

Dr G 47:53
Expansion.

Dr Rad 47:54
Okay, yes, okay, now you have to grant me something. Now I get three.

Dr G 48:00
If you think

Dr Rad 48:01
I think

Dr G 48:01
one measly little city of the Volscians…

Dr Rad 48:04
Hey, how often do they take a city from the Volscians? Not often. Every year back, they fight with them a lot. But how often do they actually take stuff, like take important things? You know, they’re not just taking a sheep. They’re taking the city, man.

Dr G 48:25
Given how stubborn I was on the last one, I’ll let you have this one. I am nothing, if not, benevolent.

Dr Rad 48:33
Ahhh the Augustus is coming through in you. Dr, G, all right. All right. We got a five.

Dr G 48:41
All right. So the next category is virtus.

Dr Rad 48:46
No, definitely none of that. It is a very, very dull year for behavior.

Dr G 48:54
Yeah, it feels like we don’t get quite enough behavior to be able to make a judgment call on it, does it?

Dr Rad 48:59
No, definitely not.

Dr G 49:00
All right, so our final category is the citizen score.

Dr Rad 49:05
Okay. Now this could be good, because whilst it’s cold, they’re not starving to death, and there’s a plebeian in higher office. I mean, sure he seems like a wet blanket, but hey.

Dr G 49:20
Yeah, look. I mean, it’s better than nothing, exactly.

Dr Rad 49:23
I mean, it’s a big deal. It is a – it is a big moment.

Dr G 49:27
It is and I think we should give them some points for that.

Dr Rad 49:30
Yeah, should we say? Is it like a five? Because, as we talked about, doesn’t make magically solve all the problems, and they actually have conceded on having to pay this tax, which they really didn’t want to have to pay.

Dr G 49:40
Well, if you don’t pay the tax, you don’t get paid. So what comes around goes around, I suppose.

Dr Rad 49:44
I know. I mean, I know it’s like, possibly beneficial, but it’s also, you know, who’s funding it, where’s the money? Follow the money.

Dr G 49:52
Follow the money. And the money-

Dr Rad 49:54
Yeah,

Dr G 49:54
-turns out it’s going to the citizens in the end. So that’s nice, yeah, look, I think a five is appropriate.

Dr Rad 49:59
Okay.

Dr G 49:59
This is a landmark moment for plebeians in terms of their representation beyond the tribunate. And I guess we’ll see how things go from here, hopefully it goes up for them.

Dr Rad 50:11
Well, Dr, G, that means that we finish on a grand total of 10 out of 50 golden eagles, which is disappointingly low for a big breakthrough for disenfranchised, I’m going to say, people everywhere.

Dr G 50:29
Yeah, look, it’s a good day for Romans, but maybe a not, not a great day for the Partial Pick.

Dr Rad 50:40
Oh, my God, I just had a thought, what if Livy deliberately made this year boring because he doesn’t like the plebeians?

Dr G 50:49
That would explain everything.

Dr Rad 50:51
It does, it goes all the way to the top.

Dr G 50:55
Well, I’m gonna sit on that thought. And it has been a pleasure.

Dr Rad 51:02
Yeah, it has been a pleasure. And may I say, given that we’re going to be releasing this episode in August of 2024 we are but a few months away from the release of our new book, “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire”, which is available right now for pre order. If you would like to have a laugh whilst also learning a thing or two about ancient Rome. Please pick up a copy wherever good books are sold, and also Amazon, which I don’t put in that category.

Dr G 51:33
Very wise, yeah, this is a really exciting book. This is both historical it’s a little bit humorous in the way that we are, and there’s plenty of like, further readings and a very extensive bibliography. So if you’re if there’s subjects that interest you and take your fancy, you can definitely go off and do further reading and look up the source material as well. So yeah, I think it’s going to be very exciting. So “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire” from Ulysses Press.

Dr Rad 52:06
Yeah. And you can also head to our website to find the details on how to pre order a copy for yourself today. The way that publishing works these days, pre orders are actually super duper important, so that’s why we are spooking it, even though it is not yet a physical reality.

Dr G 52:22
Yeah, I mean, perhaps you’d enjoy it for yourself, but I reckon it will also make a great gift for Christmas, for people who you know, who you’re like, oh, they do like Rome, but they’d like to know more.

Dr Rad 52:35
Yeah, or a light read over Thanksgiving. I believe it will be out in America, for our American cousins. I believe we’ll be out there just in time for Thanksgiving. How exciting. I know a perfect light read for your holiday.

Dr G 52:49
All right. Well, on that note, get reading people. Thankhank you for tuning in to this episode of the Partial Historians. On behalf of Dr Rad and myself, we want to say a huge, huge thank you to all of you for enjoying Ancient Rome with us and a special thank you to our Patreon supporters for loving the show and enabling us to do amazing things like upgrade our audio equipment. So thank you so so much and have a great day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 153 – The Plebeians Push into Power appeared first on The Partial Historians.