Why Rome?

[jimmy olsen]

Ah, I haven't had avatars turned on in like five years.

[Razgovory]

Oh.  Then let me describe mine to you.  It's a promotional photo of Conrad Veidt from the movie "The Man who Laughs".

[Admiral Yi]

The question is was Roman citizenship widespread and inclusive when Rome was fighting near equals?

I would say the proper question is was Roman citizenship widespread and inclusive enough to generate a large manpower advantage over its adversaries.  And I think the answer is yes.  Roman citizenship was required for acceptance into the legions.  Hannibal beat the living shit out of Rome, but they always managed to form new legions.  Granted, half of the legions were allied legions of non Roman Italy, but that still leaves half of the enormous forces raised during the 2nd Punic as Roman citizens.  Then of course after the Social Wars all those Italian allies gained citizenship, as you mentioned.

You are trying to raise controversy over how kind and nice the Romans were; that's not the point we have been addressing, which is the source of Rome's advantage over its rivals.  It's irrelevant for that discussion whether the allies were granted citizenship under duress or not.

[Agelastus]

The question is was Roman citizenship widespread and inclusive when Rome was fighting near equals?  I don't see any reason to think so.  Citizenship was not the tool of conquest but the tool of maintaining power.  The Latin rights were granted to the Italians in the late Republic after they revolted as a way to appease them.  It was long after Macedonia and Carthage had been brought down.

Latin Rights go back to the early Republic (as does simple Allied status), originating in the aftermath of Rome's ascension to a hegemonic position over the Latins in the period 338-335 from their earlier status as a simple, albeit increasingly dominant, League member. Don't confuse them with full Roman citizenship.

As for how widespread it was? I think that that's slightly the wrong question; it would be better to ask how widespread the "hope" of it was. It was the gradual closing off of paths to the citizenship, of the hope of citizenship (with the reduction of communal grants, general tightening up of the rules regarding which Latin and Allied magistracies conferred full citizenship and active campaigns by censors and the Senate to find and prosecute people falsely claiming the citizenship even if said original false claim had been made generations ago and accepted since) that actually pushed Italy into the Social War. In the decades immediately preceding the Social War Rome had been moving towards a more exclusive citizenship, echoing the mistake the Athenians made when they tightened their own citizenship laws up under Pericles (who under the revised rules would not have been able to claim citizenship of Athens had he not already been one!) The Social War shocked Rome's elite out of this mindset and it was a mistake they never made again.

As for widespread citizenship at the time of the wars against Macedon, Carthage and the Seleucids? The map on Wikipedia is from 100BC but the major differences to the situation in, say, 250BC would be in the valley of the Po and Campania (IIRC that they planted Roman colonies in Campania where none had been before due to the defections to Hannibal.) Oh, and Tarentum as well, also due to the defection to Hannibal.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/The_Growth_of_Roman_Power_in_Italy.jpg

Not forgetting of course that there would have been a percentage of full citizens even in the territories under the Latin Right or with Allied status.

[grumbler]

The question is was Roman citizenship widespread and inclusive when Rome was fighting near equals?  I don't see any reason to think so.  Citizenship was not the tool of conquest but the tool of maintaining power.  The Latin rights were granted to the Italians in the late Republic after they revolted as a way to appease them.  It was long after Macedonia and Carthage had been brought down.

Latin Rights go back to the early Republic (as does simple Allied status), originating in the aftermath of Rome's ascension to a hegemonic position over the Latins in the period 338-335 from their earlier status as a simple, albeit increasingly dominant, League member. Don't confuse them with full Roman citizenship.

As for how widespread it was? I think that that's slightly the wrong question; it would be better to ask how widespread the "hope" of it was. It was the gradual closing off of paths to the citizenship, of the hope of citizenship (with the reduction of communal grants, general tightening up of the rules regarding which Latin and Allied magistracies conferred full citizenship and active campaigns by censors and the Senate to find and prosecute people falsely claiming the citizenship even if said original false claim had been made generations ago and accepted since) that actually pushed Italy into the Social War. In the decades immediately preceding the Social War Rome had been moving towards a more exclusive citizenship, echoing the mistake the Athenians made when they tightened their own citizenship laws up under Pericles (who under the revised rules would not have been able to claim citizenship of Athens had he not already been one!) The Social War shocked Rome's elite out of this mindset and it was a mistake they never made again.

As for widespread citizenship at the time of the wars against Macedon, Carthage and the Seleucids? The map on Wikipedia is from 100BC but the major differences to the situation in, say, 250BC would be in the valley of the Po and Campania (IIRC that they planted Roman colonies in Campania where none had been before due to the defections to Hannibal.) Oh, and Tarentum as well, also due to the defection to Hannibal.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/The_Growth_of_Roman_Power_in_Italy.jpg

Not forgetting of course that there would have been a percentage of full citizens even in the territories under the Latin Right or with Allied status.

Yeah, I think that Raz is missing the point - the Romans granted a higher percentage of citizenship to their own people than other contemporary states did.  It wasn't a tool of conquest, but a tool of mobilization.  Roman soldiers were fighting for their own interests to a far higher degree than the soldiers of most other states, and the higher levels of citizenship allowed them to mobilize a far higher percentage of their citizenry without creating an apathetic mob of troops.

[crazy canuck]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

[Eddie Teach]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

The gods favored them.

[DGuller]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

War dogs.

[crazy canuck]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

The gods favored them.

I knew I was missing something.

[Agelastus]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

Stubborness.

"We have food for 10 years; we laugh at your pathetic siege."
"Then I will take you in the eleventh year."
"We surrender..."

[Viking]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

War dogs.

Flaming Pigs

[Agelastus]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

War dogs.

Flaming Pigs

Well, anything's better than anti-elephant Ox-carts...

[grumbler]

Ok, so other than roads, peace, citizenship, population density, urbanization, aqueducts, law, discipline and an ability to quickly adapt new technology what did the Romans really have going for them?

War dogs.

Flaming Pigs

One of those ideas that sounds good until you think about it for a second.

[Siege]

Why, in your view, did Rome rise to become the preeminent state in the Mediterranean?

The same reason China has risen to world domination.
Instead of having a one man dictatorship, like every kingdom and empire before Rome, they had a one party rule and enforceable rules of succession.
The roman senatorial families shared power just like the factions in the Chinese central committee.
There was a career path, and limited time as consul, and more importantly, as provincial pro-consul, which is how they made their campaign money back.
When the senatorial balance of power got out of whack, the whole republic suffered.

Hopefully at some point China will get a one man dictatorship and become like the Soviet Union and lose to next Cold War.

Rome lasted as an empire with one man rule because at the beginning of the imperial phase it did not have any serious opposition.

In other words, one-man rule always loses against the shared power of a ruling elite.
I don't mean it loses just as direct confrontation, but rather as a performance comparison.
The roman republic, had it corrected its intrinsic weaknesses and maintained its core republican values, it would have far outlasted the roman empire.

Sorry for the grammatical mistakes.

[Valmy]

Yeah, unlike many other ancient cultures (including the Greeks), Romans practiced what we today call diversity. Even their women had more rights than women in other cultures of the era.

The head of Roman family could kill his wife and sell his daughters into slavery.  That's not exactly strong women's rights.  The rights of women in surrounding cultures is extremely unclear since not a lot of records are left from German tribes or the city of Carthage.

He could also do the same to his sons though, even ones who were grown men.  At least there was equality.