Social history of the Roman Empire

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This article deals with the development of the social history of the Roman Empire .

The imperial state constitution and the development of the Roman state after 31 BC Chr.

After the Battle of Actium (31 BC) Octavian returned victorious to Rome and declared the end of the civil wars and a renewed peace. 27 BC Octavian put down all his exceptional powers. The Senate calls on him to continue to protect the state and gave him all his power back. Octavian then established the principle that initially maintained the appearance of the res publica restituta. At the head of the imperial state stood the princeps . From a formal point of view, he was not part of the state apparatus, but had a special status; His power was not based on the offices assigned to him, but on the associated official powers:

Outwardly, the constitution of the principate was almost the same as that of the republic. In fact, however, the Princeps directed all the state's operations, since he combined the administrative powers of the individual control organs in one person. The office of the people's tribune disappeared completely, and the popular assemblies rapidly lost their importance and eventually disappeared as well. The principate was shaped by the strong position of the army, which led to a crisis after Nero's death (68 AD) because there was no designated new ruler and both the army and the senate each proclaimed their own emperors (year of four emperors ). So that such crises could not happen more often, the adoptive emperorship was introduced. The empire flourished under the adoptive emperors. The army, however, finally caused another violent crisis: the costs were no longer bearable and caused such losses that the economic decline of the empire began. Between 235 and 284 the soldier emperors - emperors appointed by the army - ruled over the empire (see Imperial Crisis of the 3rd Century ). Then the principle of tetrarchy prevailed (two emperors and one sub-emperor each).

The social structure in the Roman Empire and the importance of the individual layers

Basically, one can divide Roman society into two strata: lower and upper strata, or normal people (plebs) and nobility (nobilitas). The plebs are further divided into freeborns ( ingenui ), freedmen ( liberti ) and slaves ( servi ), while the upper class is again divided into the knightly class ( ordo equester ), the senatorial class ( ordo senatorius ) and the princeps and his family ( domus imperatoria ) divided.

The senatorial class in the imperial era

At the beginning of the Principate, the Senate had lost its sole decision-making power, but was allowed to act as an advisor to the Prinzeps, was even responsible for the legitimation of the emperor and army and even still had some of its old rights. The further the imperial era progressed, the more the rights of the senate were restricted, which always depended on the respective ruling emperor. The Senate was granted the basic rights of the people's assembly to decide the election of magistrates and laws. The Senate was allowed to continue to administer the pacified provinces, while the contested provinces occupied by legions were directly subordinate to the emperor. In contrast to the times of the republic, one did not automatically become a member of the senatorial class when one became a magistrate. Rather, you needed a minimum fortune of one million sesterces and had to be elected or appointed directly to the state (members of the senatorial state were not necessarily also senators). In order for the emperor to be able to promote a favorite to the senatorial rank, he had three options: he could either provide someone with the status mark and thus raise him to the senatorial rank - but this was not a member of the senate - or he could directly add beneficiaries to the senate ( adlectio ) or make the minimum assets available to impoverished class members. The fact that the Senate did not disappear immediately after the establishment of the Empire is due to the need for the expertise of the Senators in the leadership and administration of the Empire. It was not until the 3rd century AD, when even the highest administrative offices were occupied by knights and no longer belonged solely to the members of the ordo senatorius , that the senate and the senatorial rank sank into insignificance. In addition, by deliberately exterminating entire senatorial families, hardly any senator could invoke a long tradition, which at the same time diminished the influence.

The knighthood in the imperial era

The knights did not survive the beginning of the age of the emperors because of their indispensability in the state, as was the case with the senators. Since the citizen's property appraisal was omitted, the knight's class was also deprived of its actual livelihood. In the republic there was automatically a knight who had a fortune of at least 400,000 sesterces. The fact that knighthood did not disappear was solely due to the fact that the emperor wanted to create a layer that was dependent on him from the knightly class and thus an antipole to the senate. Therefore only one could become a knight whom the emperor himself appointed; the dependence on the emperor was also evident from the fact that the class was not hereditary. In contrast to the times of the Republic, appointments to the knighthood were no longer carried out at certain times, but when the emperor liked it. Here, too, he was bound to the minimum wealth when selecting the people he considered suitable, but he could give it to his beneficiary. The knighthood also owes its existence to the fact that the emperor used it to fill new administrative posts, for example in the financial administration, in order to become more independent from the senatorial class. Since the emperor alone determined who belonged to the class and thus also to the administration, he created an apparatus of officials loyal to him. Most of the knightly civil servants began their careers in the army because the emperor could take special care of them there. Only after completing a military career is it possible to take on community service. Finally, the knights also got into the highest administrative offices of the empire when the senate aristocracy stood in opposition to the emperors of the time. But when the Senate was finally overthrown, the knights also lost their importance as a counterbalance, as a rich class subordinate to the emperor, and disappeared almost completely.

After both the knighthood and the senatorial class had almost completely disappeared, a "new aristocracy" emerged. On the one hand, it consisted of high-ranking officers, which meant that acts of war were the main criterion for performance. Gradually, the entire apparatus of officials was also replaced by soldiers. The other part of the new aristocracy consisted of large landowners who owned vast areas of land. Most of the free, "small" farmers were forced to make themselves dependent on the large landowner in a kind of serfdom. Since the power of the large landowners came almost exclusively from their wealth, one can speak of timocracy here.

Roman citizens, slaves and freedmen

Even in the early days of the imperial era, the Roman citizens had their prominent status compared to the non-Roman imperial residents. On the one hand, they paid no taxes - taxes were seen as a tribute to the inferior peoples - and only Romans were involved in the division of the spoils of war. They also had the right to be tried only in one court in Rome. Poor citizens were assured annonae and alimentatio (grain allocation and care for needy children) to alleviate the hardship . However, during the imperial era, more and more areas within the empire were granted citizen status, until finally in 212 AD this status was granted to the entire Roman Empire. For the slaves, however, the imperial era brought largely positive changes with it. They were protected by laws from the arbitrariness of their master, who could even be forced to sell the slaves again. Meanwhile, the number of slaves decreased rapidly, mainly because the peace in the empire meant that the supply of slaves dried up. Releases also became more frequent, as the educated - and thus richer - strata granted slaves a human right and therefore considered it moral to abolish slave status. Freedmen, however, were not exactly alike to freeborns. She still had a respectful relationship with her masters. Usually equality with ingenui was only achieved after a few generations .

literature

  • Géza Alföldy : Roman social history . 3rd edition Wiesbaden 1984.
  • Jochen Bleicken : Constitutional and social history of the Roman Empire . UTB Schöningh, 1978.