Expert: Maria - 3/9/2005

Question
Hello Maria,
I have an essay to write with the title:
'were the problems of the second century BC all about land?'.
the research i have done so far hasnt been very productive. i have sort of go the answer that: no, they weren't all about land but they all tend to be linked to it in some way, e.g. slavery and the impoverished peoples of Rome through taxation, conscription and poverty, all of which lead to the ultimate crisis of 133 BC with Tiberius Gracchus and the Lex Agraria.  
but i dont really seem to have enough content to write 2000 words on.
Any pointers will be great, thanks v much.
lucy.

Answer
Hello,

First  of all the problems of the second century BC in Roman Republic were not all about land, though it's true that slavery, taxation, conscription and poverty, all of which linked to land  and then  to the crisis of 133 BC with Tiberius Gracchus and the Lex Agraria, were nodal points at that time.

There were however other problems you must consider.

So here are some more topics you could enlarge:

1-POLITICAL CRISIS, as a result of an enormous territorial expansion of Rome which after the third Punic War (149-146 B.C.) with the  destruction of Carthage , and after the wars in Eastern Mediterranean with the annexation of Greece, Macedonia  and Asia Minor to the Roman world in 146 BC, controlled all of Spain, France, Italy, and most of North Africa.
This political crisis broke out because Rome  thought it was possible to  govern  all these  regions on basis of its old city government. But  this was impossible by then,  given the enormous  extension of the Roman Republic. So the Romans had to create new rules, since  the constitution, government, social structure, and values, adapted well to the governing of Italy, but not to such a great state.

2-MORAL CRISIS,  as the Romans came into contact with  several peoples and different  usages and customs that caused internal difficulties.
Rome in fact had begun as a small city-state. It's constitution, its government, its social structure, and mostly its moral values were therefore those of a small, mainly agrarian state. So these contacts provoked a profound crisis in Roman society and morals.

3-ECONOMIC CRISIS as the conquests  of new lands created vast disparities in wealth. In fact the wealthy, who had grown wealthier because of the spoils of war, bought up the farmlands so that by the middle of the second century BC, Roman agriculture was dominated by large plantations owned by  wealthy landowners, while the plebeians who before were farmers, craftsmen, or labourers and farm their own land, had their farmlands and houses destroyed by Hannibal for example, so that they had no land ,no work and therefore began to flood the cities.

This in short, of course, as it's your  job to develop these topics.

Hope however this can be helpful to you.

Good work!
Maria