The Angst of Rome

Again, the opening sentence of the first chapter in Brooks Adams's The Law of Civilization and Decay:

When the Romans first emerged from the mist of fable, they were already a race of land-owners who held their property in severalty, and, as the right of alienation was established, the formation of relatively large estates had begun. 

The "right of alienation" means you can legally buy and sell land. Ownership "in severalty" means you can do it. When people own land, and can buy and sell it, you would expect to see some "relatively large estates" arise, as Brooks Adams describes, as part of a natural process, the concentration of wealth. A natural or, at any rate, a legal process.

Among the first facts we know of ancient Rome, Adams says, is that the concentration of wealth was already under way. When we get past the myths and legends, he says, the first thing we know about Rome is concentration of wealth. 

When some people are acquiring land, others are becoming landless; in Rome's agricultural economy, landless and poor.

 

Branko Milanovic, a few years back, read and took notes on Francis Fukuyama's book The Origins of Political Order. He writes:

I noticed among my notes a number of Fukuyama’s views on economics, many directly critical of some mainstream nostrums... I decided to bring up Fukuyama’s several economic statements, with only minimal commentary from me.

First among these economic statements is "Against 'property rights fetishism' (Fukuyama’s term)". Milanovic quotes Fukuyama:

In a Malthusian economy where intensive growth is not possible, strong property rights simply reinforce the existing distribution of resources.

Milanovic covers more of Fukuyama's economic statements. Then, wrapping things up, he writes:

At the end, another concept that I really liked, handsomly-termed,  “the iron law of latifundia” or large real estates: “the rich tend to get richer in the absence of state intervention” (p. 368)

Today we consider the time that begins with Brooks Adams's "When the Romans first emerged from the mist of fable, [the ordinary family] held perhaps twelve acres", and ends with evidence supporting Fukuyama's "iron law of latifundia".

 

The angst of the poor

I don't use the word angst and I don't know anyone who does. But the word popped into my head while I was writing this, so I looked it up. It looks like the right word:

"a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general."

Like Jimmy Carter's malaise, but a stronger dose.

 

Over time, "the formation of relatively large estates" in ancient Rome progressed to the point where the wealthy were getting hungry for power and the poor were growing restless. The angst of the poor turned the popular mood against the king. The rich would take advantage of the popular mood to gain support for regime change, crush the kingdom, and establish a republic. Wikipedia's Conflict of the Orders page confirms that there was class struggle:

The Conflict of the Orders, sometimes referred to as the Struggle of the Orders, was a political struggle between the plebeians (commoners) and patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient Roman Republic lasting from 500 BC to 287 BC in which the plebeians sought political equality with the patricians.

The Roman Kingdom was a thing of the past. The Conflict of the Orders occurred in the Roman Republic. It was not resolved quickly because the underlying problem was so deeply troubling.

But the Conflict of the Orders arose almost immediately after establishment of the Republic. It did not arise from problems created by the Republic. It arose from problems that had developed in the time of the Kingdom. It arose after the regime change because regime change did not solve the problems, and people had to take action.

The angst that found vent in the Conflict was the same angst that had turned people against the king in the days of the last king (or kings) of Rome. The fact that the Conflict arose so soon after the regime change is evidence that the angst of Rome arose during the monarchy, turned the popular mood against the king, and created a political environment in which revolution could succeed. Angst led to revolution, not revolution to angst.

You will notice that the Conflict of the Orders is described as a political struggle for political equality. The angst, however, had economic roots. The Conflict was class struggle. Yet it is described today, and it was doubtless described at the time, as a political struggle.

Political solutions cannot solve economic problems. That is why the Conflict of the Orders lasted more than 200 years. My guess, it was the Roman nobility that insisted on calling the Conflict a political issue. If the poor knew better, their voice was muffled by the wealthy.

The two rapes

The Roman "mist of fable" extends back not to the Empire nor to the Republic but before them to the Kingdom founded by Romulus at the age of 18, the story goes, and after killing his twin brother. 

Wikipedia points out that "no contemporary records of the kingdom" survive. So the story (not the history) is that Romulus was Rome's first king. And Tarquin (Lucius Tarquinius Superbus) was the seventh and final king of Rome.

Something else from Wikipedia's Roman Kingdom page: Apparently the first king and the last king have something in common: rape. Regarding Romulus, Rome's first king, they write:

Romulus was behind one of the most notorious acts in Roman history, the incident commonly known as the rape of the Sabine women. To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighbouring tribes to a festival in Rome where the Romans committed a mass abduction of young women from among the attendees.

Regarding Tarquin, the last king, they write:

The seventh and final king of Rome was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus... Tarquin's reign is remembered for his use of violence and intimidation to control Rome, and his disrespect for Roman custom and the Roman Senate.

Things were not going well in Tarquin's time. Wikipedia doesn't say, but I would bet the economy was in trouble. And then things got worse:

Tensions came to a head when the king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, raped Lucretia, wife and daughter to powerful Roman nobles. Lucretia told her relatives about the attack, and committed suicide to avoid the dishonour of the episode.

The two rape stories have very different endings. For Rome's first king:

War broke out when Romulus refused to return the captives. After the Sabines made three unsuccessful attempts to invade the hill settlements of Rome, the women themselves intervened during the Battle of the Lacus Curtius to end the war. The two peoples were united in a joint kingdom, with Romulus and the Sabine king Titus Tatius sharing the throne.

The Romulus story has a happy ending: The victims intervened to stop the war. The warring parties joined forces. The warring kings shared the throne. Things went well for the first king of Rome. Things went even better a few years later, when the Sabine king died and Romulus was again the only king.

The ending was not so happy for Rome's last king:

Four men, led by Lucius Junius Brutus, and including Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, Publius Valerius Poplicola, and Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus incited a revolution that deposed and expelled Tarquinius and his family from Rome in 509 BC...

Brutus and Collatinus became Rome's first consuls, marking the beginning of the Roman Republic.

Not a happy ending for Tarquin. My first thought, reading that tale: It is funny that Wikipedia says

Four men, led by the first one and including the other three incited a revolution...

But then I noticed that Brutus and Collatinus, who became the first consuls, were two of the four who incited the revolution. Brutus and Collatinus profited by their act by becoming consuls. That is as unacceptable, in my view, as President Nixon appointing his own successor, and that successor granting Nixon a Presidential pardon.

Thinking about this further, it occurs to me that means, motive, and opportunity were present:

• Means -- the ability to commit this crime against the king -- was the angst of the poor, which created the environment needed for the revolution to be successful.
• Motive -- the reason for committing this crime against the king -- was the hunger for power among the rich.
• Opportunity -- the chance to commit this crime against the king -- was the rape of Lucretia by the king's son Sextus.
  

The Sabine rape story ends with the victims intervening and the kingdoms merging. The story has a happy ending for Romulus and Rome.

The Lucretia rape story ends with Lucretia stabbing herself to death. Brutus was prepared:

According to legend, Brutus grabbed the dagger from Lucretia's breast after her death and immediately shouted for the overthrow of the Tarquins.

It makes a good story. But no one immediately calls for the overthrow of government unless it suits his plan. 

I find means, motive, and opportunity behind the fall of the kingdom and the rise of the Roman Republic.

 

From the Start

Consider again what Brooks Adams said: "When the Romans first emerged from the mist of fable, they were already a race of land-owners..."

If we take myth, legend, and the mood of the people as evidence, we can say with some confidence that the concentration of wealth was under way since the time of Rome's first king, and that it had become problematic by the time of Rome's last king.

Romulus, first king of Rome,

established the senate as an advisory council with the appointment of 100 of the most noble men in the community.

So there was inequality from the start. There were nobles in power, from the start. And land was held "in severalty" with the "right of alienation" from the start (or soon after).

In the time of the Roman Kingdom, nobility had a presence and inequality was growing.

Over time, "the formation of relatively large estates" progressed to the point where the wealthy were getting hungry for power and the poor were growing restless. The angst of the poor turned the popular mood against the king. The rich took advantage of the popular mood to gain support for regime change, to crush the kingdom, to establish the republic, and to put themselves in charge.

The Moment of Breakdown

The historian Arnold J. Toynbee defined "breakdown" as the point at which the disintegration of civilization begins. Toynbee wrote

the ... schism of a society along lines of class is not only peculiar to civilizations but is also a phenomenon which appears at the moment of their breakdowns and which is a distinctive mark of the periods of breakdown and disintegration, by contrast with its absence during the phases of genesis and growth.

Toynbee said

the fundamental cause of the breakdowns which precede disintegrations is an outbreak of internal discords...

Internal discord -- class conflict -- is the cause of the breakdown and disintegration of civilization.

Among the first facts we know of ancient Rome, Adams says, is that "the formation of relatively large estates had begun."

By the time the Roman Kingdom gave way to the Roman Republic, internal discord and class conflict were rampant. The fact that Rome's last king was unpopular is evidence that inequality and poverty had been problematic for a long time. 

The fact that the revolution was successful is evidence that Rome's people supported the change in government. The fact that Rome's people supported the change in government is evidence of their dissatisfaction with existing conditions, and of their angst.

Angst does not arise overnight, not to the point where it supports revolution. The Roman Kingdom started angst-free, with a popular king. Conditions were so good that the Romans could kidnap the women of the neighboring town, and the women said "that's okay." Conditions were so good that the neighboring town and its king wanted to join up with Rome. Conditions were that good.

That was the beginning.

At the end, at the time of the rape of Lucretia, conditions were so bad that when Brutus grabbed the dagger and called for the overthrow of the king, the people were okay with it.

Somewhere between the first king and the last king, internal discord arose. Class conflict arose. It was the first indication of the breakdown of civilization. Yes, it was the nobility that profited by inequality, not the king. But the king got the blame.