| Abstrakt: |
After the Second Punic War (218-201 b.c.e.), the Roman Republic became a great empire divided by a gulf between the wealthy classes (the senatorial land owners and merchant knights) and a teeming Mediterranean population of slaves, exploited provincials, and underemployed citizens dependent on the largesse of the wealthy. Attempts by the tribal assembly to alleviate the situation of the poor citizens, the populares, in the late second century failed and gave rise to powerful demagogic generals. The First Civil War (88-82 b.c.e.) between the senatorial and populare parties was a long, bloody struggle won by the senatorial general Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 b.c.e.). Sulla, in an extraordinary one-year dictatorship, introduced several laws in favor of the land-owning class. The senate, also as a result of the civil war, placed a ban on generals keeping their armies in Italy. |
