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2021 Lect 36 Roman Republic 2 — Transcript

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0:07we're going to talk about today the
0:09transformation of rome from a republic
0:11to an empire and one of the things that
0:14happens
0:15is the expansion geographically of rome
0:18from
0:19central italy throughout the peninsula
0:21and then eventually throughout the
0:23mediterranean world
0:24so we'll talk about some of the reasons
0:26why they might have been able to
0:28accomplish that and you can see from my
0:30quote here on the screen this is
0:31something that people were asking even
0:33at the time
0:34the historian polybius in the second
0:36century bce
0:38gives his own answer to the question why
0:40is it that the romans were able to
0:42conquer
0:42all of these different cultures and
0:44civilizations
0:46and you can see from the quote that he
0:47he places the answer
0:49pretty firmly within what's going on in
0:51the military so we will spend some time
0:53talking about
0:54the formation of the legions and the
0:57importance of the military
0:58to roman culture today too so let's get
1:00started
1:05did rome set out to build an empire
1:08there's
1:08evidence to suggest that a series of
1:11conflicts
1:12resulted in often unintentional
1:15territorial expansions rather than a
1:18really
1:19formed well-formed imperial plan since
1:22the beginning
1:23however i think that it's worth noting
1:26that rome doesn't
1:27hesitate to jump in when these
1:29opportunities present themselves and in
1:31fact turn them into territorial
1:33expansion so many historians talk about
1:36rome as kind of backing into
1:38their empire but i think it's also
1:40important to understand
1:42that they certainly jump at the chance
1:44to do so
1:45remember that going back all the way to
1:47the time of romulus
1:49you have periods of expansion that are
1:53made possible by both conquest and
1:55forming alliances with other major
1:58cities in central italy by the time we
2:01reach the 4th century
2:03we're going to see another wave of
2:06conquest
2:13in 390 bc the romans suffer a very
2:16important defeat that actually ends up
2:18staying in the cultural memory for
2:20hundreds of years
2:22and this is the golic sack
2:25and it comes from a number of celtic
2:27tribes that are pushing down
2:29from northern italy and they're able to
2:32surround the city of rome
2:33and to attack it and their leader
2:35brennis actually manages to lead a
2:37successful assault against the city
2:40and take everything but the capitoline
2:42hill they have to
2:43pay them to leave they can't defeat them
2:45militarily so they end up paying them
2:47about a thousand pieces of gold the
2:49historians
2:50tell us to leave and they do retreat but
2:52it leaves
2:53rome with this very important this very
2:56important sense that they need to begin
2:58to
2:59build a strong military and to build the
3:02walls to defend the city
3:04and they seem to have done a fairly good
3:06job because it won't be
3:07until 4 10 ce so we're looking at about
3:11you know 800 years later that any
3:13foreign power is
3:14is able to take the city of rome itself
3:18so rome is both centralizing its power
3:21and then it also has the opportunity in
3:24the third century
3:25to expand southward as well and this
3:28comes
3:29because of a city torentum who had
3:33become nervous
3:34about these expanding romans to the
3:36north
3:37and they asked a upcoming greek
3:40general um paris to come and help to
3:44defend themselves against the romans and
3:46pierce
3:46as happy to oblige he brings about 25
3:49000 troops over as the historians tell
3:51us
3:52and engages himself in a battle with
3:55rome
3:56the interesting thing about this battle
3:58is pierce appears to have win
4:00at one at two separate different as two
4:02separate locations
4:04however he has lost so many men and
4:07suffered so many casualties
4:09that he really isn't able to make that
4:11victory stick and he ends up
4:13retreating and and centering himself
4:15across
4:16across the channel in carthage instead
4:19and what's left
4:20is the the torentum
4:23ends up actually being occupied by the
4:25romans and so the romans have now
4:26stretched from the central northern part
4:29of italy all the way down
4:30into parts of southern italy we also get
4:33a nice
4:35phrase for our lexicon which is a
4:37pyrrhic victory
4:38and if you hear someone say that that
4:40generally means that
4:42you've won the battle but you've lost
4:44the war is another way of saying that
4:46the victory was so devastating
4:49that they weren't really able to do
4:50anything with it it's kind of an empty
4:52victory so um the romans however
4:55are going to be able to use that again
4:57to their advantage
4:59and to expand throughout the italian
5:01peninsula
5:06perhaps the most important expansion
5:07during the republican period is known as
5:09the carthaginian
5:10wars or the punic wars so we're going to
5:13run
5:14through the punic wars relatively
5:16quickly
5:17for the purposes of the exams i would
5:19want you to know that
5:20the punic wars were a step in roman
5:23expansion and that they are
5:25a battle between the big powers of rome
5:28and carthage
5:29but i will give you a few more details
5:31to fill that out
5:32that you can take away with you out of
5:35this class
5:37first of all let's talk about the name
5:38punic because there's a lot in that if
5:40they're fighting carthage then why is it
5:42called the punic war
5:43well remember several weeks ago when we
5:46were talking about the growth of the
5:48phoenician
5:49empire in the earlier ancient period and
5:52that the phoenicians were particularly
5:53good
5:54sailors and that they had been able to
5:56colonize fairly remote locations
5:59and one of the areas that they colonized
6:01was carthage
6:02in north africa so the word punic
6:05actually has its roots with that
6:07phoenician uh city it's an ancient root
6:10so you'll hear it sometimes called the
6:12punic meaning phoenician or the
6:14carthaginian war
6:17now we've just talked about the fact
6:18that rome had managed to
6:20expand throughout most of the italian
6:22peninsula
6:23however there are areas in the south
6:25which they don't control
6:27and they also do not have control of the
6:30islands so if you think about italy as a
6:32boot
6:33which i always do and it looks like the
6:35boot of italy
6:36is kicking sicily which i always thought
6:38was a great a great
6:40fitting um idea for italy since they're
6:42so big into
6:43football soccer so they're kicking
6:46sicily and they don't have control
6:48of that island which is obviously very
6:49close to them
6:51they also do not have control of
6:53sardinia so i just wanted to show you
6:55that map the purple area
6:57represents carthage and the red area
7:01um represents the roman republic and you
7:03can see as these two superpowers are
7:05edging closer and closer together
7:07it makes sense that there's going to be
7:10friction at some point
7:11and that some point happens um in 264 bc
7:16with the eruption of the first punic war
7:19so we're going to go over that pretty
7:21quickly um
7:23the outcome of that is kind of an
7:27unsatisfactory treaty for both sides
7:30rome is battling carthage for control
7:33over those areas that it doesn't have in
7:35southern italy and sicily
7:37and they are going to gain a modicum of
7:39control and and rule those
7:41areas as a province now carthage is
7:44really sore that they have that they've
7:46lost control of these
7:47areas rome is not entirely satisfied
7:50because they'd like to have more
7:52so it shouldn't be a surprise to us that
7:54we're going to war is going to reignite
7:56fairly quickly with the second punic war
8:00the other thing i want to just mention
8:01briefly is the importance of the navy
8:04so up until this point all of the
8:06conflicts that we've talked about have
8:08really been
8:09land-based for the romans and just as
8:12the sack of gaul
8:13showed them that it was important for
8:14them to begin fortifying their civil
8:16city the punic wars are going to enforce
8:20for them that they really have to get a
8:21handle on building a strong and
8:23effective navy
8:24and that begins to happen during the
8:27punic war
8:43there are a few things happening in the
8:44second century bce which are going to
8:46contribute to
8:47the war between carthage and rome being
8:50reignited
8:51the first is a series of revolts in
8:53sardinia
8:54which the romans are forced to intervene
8:56there
8:57and the second is probably more dramatic
8:59which is the carthaginian general
9:01hannibal
9:02has moved into the iberian peninsula and
9:06some of the territories
9:08that were held by carthage there and is
9:11going to start leading a campaign
9:13across the alps in the across the
9:15pyrenees and then the elves and down
9:17into northern italy
9:19so they're really bringing the fight to
9:21central italy at this point
9:24we'll talk a little bit more about this
9:26famous trip across the alps with his
9:28elephants
9:29on the next slide but the
9:32the impact of hannibal's invasion
9:36is felt right away even though his
9:39forces are depleted when he first
9:41crosses the alps due to starvation
9:44he had to um cross the pyrenees a little
9:46bit later than he had thought and so
9:48they're
9:49going over some really snowy peaks some
9:51very difficult conditions
9:53and remember that the military is really
9:55only ever as good as its supply line
9:58so you have a number of uh soldiers that
10:01need to eat as well as their entire
10:03retinue which needs to be fed and so
10:06right away
10:06what hannibal begins to do is a pretty
10:08brilliant strategy
10:10he knows that many of these communities
10:12had not necessarily been
10:14excited about coming under roman control
10:16and so he really paints himself as a
10:18liberator as he comes down into northern
10:21italy
10:21and he encourages various cities to join
10:24him
10:25and he begins to pick up more soldiers
10:27to replace those that may have
10:29fallen ill or indeed died on his trips
10:32so there are gulls there are council
10:34librarians that are serving alongside
10:36him
10:37and then he begins to go across the
10:39roman uh countryside
10:41um he's successful amid a couple of
10:43pitch battles against roman generals
10:47but i think it's his really devastating
10:48campaign of beginning to pick off some
10:51of these cities and have them join his
10:53side
10:54and then also practice some um raising
10:57of villages meaning that he burns them
10:59to the ground he burns some resources to
11:01the ground
11:02that the military the roman military
11:03could have used
11:05the definitive battle uh for hannibal's
11:07campaign happens at canai which you can
11:10see on the map there is
11:11is kind of toward the ankle if you think
11:13of italy as a boot
11:14up it's kind of the ankle of italy and
11:17the roman generals
11:19were very confident at this point the
11:21senatorial
11:22um people were convinced that the romans
11:25were going to achieve a fairly easy
11:27victory over
11:28them at this point but unfortunately
11:31that's not what happens unfortunately
11:32for the romans
11:34through some interesting tactics in
11:36which hannibal
11:37manages to encircle the roman
11:40forces at that point he's able to
11:43achieve a really stunning victory
11:45and the casualties on the roman side are
11:47really were really
11:48overwhelming some of the ancient
11:50historians put the numbers as high as 70
11:53000
11:54men that were lost and at that point
11:56you're really getting into modern battle
11:58figures you're looking at um you know
11:59the kinds of figures that you wouldn't
12:01see
12:01until gettysburg or world war one
12:04however um even at the conservative
12:06range you're looking at a probably 25
12:08000 men
12:10who many people have estimated was
12:12probably
12:1320 percent of roman men between the ages
12:16of 20 and 50. so this is a significant
12:19part
12:20of the roman society
12:23so despite this really stunning victory
12:25that hannibal wins
12:27he doesn't seem to be able to take in
12:29full advantage of it
12:31he's reluctant to engage in another
12:33pitch battle
12:34and again i think we can understand that
12:36he had suffered losses too
12:38probably in the thousands and he's been
12:40rowing around italy
12:42for quite some time so at this point
12:45the um the romans are going to decide
12:48that they need to
12:48take the battle to the carthaginians in
12:52order to rid themselves
12:53of hannibal and his forces
13:00almost as famous as hannibal himself are
13:03the elephants
13:04he used in battle
13:08these were the carthaginians terror
13:10weapon small numbers of elephants could
13:12have a massive effect
13:15it's not hard to imagine why the sight
13:17of charging elephants would strike fear
13:20into any right thinking person facing
13:22them
13:23elephants are mainly terror weapons they
13:25scare the living daylights out of the
13:26enemy make them run away
13:28they're big they're grey they make
13:30strange noises they're smelly
13:32they frighten people there's something
13:34that no one's ever seen before
13:36particularly for a roman
13:37you've never seen an animal that's that
13:38sort of size and you certainly haven't
13:40seen one bearing down on you in great
13:42numbers
13:42so what it has to do is turn up and come
13:44charging towards you and you're already
13:46pretty scared
13:49you cannot imagine how fast an elephant
13:52can be
13:52if you if he goes wild
13:56the most people they think an elephant
13:58is very slow
13:59and because he's so big he's like 40
14:0245 kilometers per hour he can move
14:06very very fast so i think it's a very
14:08effective weapon
14:10in the war the elephants used by the
14:12carthaginians
14:13were a smaller now extinct breed of
14:15african elephant
14:17from the foothills of north africa's
14:18atlas mountains
14:20the deployment of the battle elephant
14:22wasn't particularly subtle
14:24immediately before the battle the
14:26elephants were first plied with wine
14:29i can imagine he used some alcohol
14:32because elephants they like alcohol
14:34like beer or wine or something like this
14:36they will they will drink it
14:38and it's like the effect it's like for
14:40people
14:41some people are very shy so
14:45they drink some alcohol and the biggest
14:47fighter in the world
14:48and this is with an elephant you can
14:51turn
14:52the the character with alcohol the
14:55elephants would then be prodded in their
14:57ankles
14:59in their inebriated state this would
15:01have made them as mad as hell
15:04then it was simply a matter of pointing
15:06them at the enemy and charging
15:08and hanging on the elephant is very big
15:11and very large and it's just going to
15:12trample its way through any formation
15:14so they're very formidable they can
15:16break up particularly dense bodies of
15:18troops
15:18and cavalry they're just frightened by
15:20terrifying the horses
15:22hardly a weapon of surgical precision
15:24the idea was that they would batter the
15:26enemy
15:27breaking their lines when an elephant
15:30attack people
15:31he will use his whole body
15:35so first of all they will roll
15:38the trunk in they get down with the head
15:41and they attack with the trunk and hit
15:42very hard
15:44if they have tusk and use the tusk you
15:46will maybe
15:47already be dead by it by a hit from a
15:50tusk
15:51and the feet they they go
15:54on and smash
15:57everything under the feet they go like
16:00tomato juice
16:03however there was a fundamental flaw to
16:05this weapon system
16:07they were inherently unpredictable the
16:10problem is
16:11that they're temperamental creatures
16:13they really don't naturally do this sort
16:15of thing and they don't want to be in a
16:16noisy colorful swirling battle
16:19by and large if you have a five ton
16:21fighting machine it is better if it
16:23isn't temperamental
16:24drunk and knows who its enemies are
16:28since running a mock is something an
16:30elephant can also do very well
16:33you don't know the difference between
16:35roman people and carthaginians
16:37they only learn to attack people and
16:40it's
16:40don't matter what black white yellow
16:43green
16:44they go and attack everything
16:53so after the battle of canai both armies
16:56are in a pretty
16:57bad position rome has been defeated by
17:01hannibal's army however hannibal's army
17:03is particularly
17:04weakened also and so there begins to be
17:07pressure in the senate to take
17:09the battle to carthage out of its own
17:12soil and in fact that's what they do
17:15uh scipio africanus a general is given
17:18proconsular
17:19power in sicily and he's this is an
17:23important point because remember i
17:24talked about
17:25the idea that consoles were limited in
17:28their power because they had a very
17:30short term limit and there were also two
17:33of them to kind of balance
17:34the power of each one and this is always
17:37to prevent
17:37one person from getting too much power
17:40in rome remember that the romans hate
17:42kings
17:43but this proconsular power begins to
17:46expand during the republican period
17:48and it expands out of necessity it's
17:51very difficult to give
17:52someone control over a province which
17:54might be quite far away
17:56at this point and then expect them to
17:58return every year
18:00and if this is particularly true if you
18:02are leading
18:03troops within the field you know
18:04stopping in the middle of your campaign
18:06to run home
18:08is not very pragmatic so this office of
18:11pro council is going to allow generals
18:14such as scipio africanus
18:16to lead troops for a number of years if
18:19they need to in the field
18:21and scipio travels across the uh
18:23mediterranean
18:24into north africa and he is victorious
18:28um they're able to uh hannibal is
18:31reforced to return to carthage and he's
18:34defeated
18:35and the romans win a somewhat limited
18:38victory again the story is still not
18:40completely
18:42done carthage's independence is
18:44preserved they're still
18:46autonomous but they have lost most of
18:48the territory that they had
18:49ruled within the mediterranean
18:55as you can already tell i'm leading up
18:56to the fact that the second punic war is
18:58not going to be the end of this conflict
19:00there will be a third and final part of
19:02the war
19:04but at the end of the second punic war
19:06there really are
19:07um some really devastating impacts
19:11for example italy has become very
19:13fragmented there were areas which had
19:15defected
19:16to hannibal's side as he was harrying
19:19the roman
19:20forces around the italian countryside
19:23some of those areas
19:24willingly um went over to hannibal's
19:27side they saw the romans
19:29as oppressors they themselves had
19:31perhaps been conquered by the romans in
19:32this period of unification
19:35and so italy is increasingly fragmented
19:37the others
19:38the other thing that happens which often
19:40does during a protracted war
19:42is um collateral damage and that's a
19:45nice way of saying
19:47that many civilians were impacted by
19:50the fighting in addition to the men that
19:52were killed in battle you have people
19:54that are suffering from
19:56um hunger because their crops have been
19:58destroyed we mentioned that sometimes
19:59you know hannibal's forces had been
20:01burning fields to prevent the roman
20:03military from
20:04eating resupplying itself with food
20:09and in general there really is a
20:11significant drop in the male population
20:13enough people have died in the wars
20:15either through
20:17combat or disease or hunger
20:20that um italy is really limping along
20:23at this point and at the same time
20:26there's this growing kind of animosity
20:28towards
20:29carthage and that is probably best
20:31expressed by the famous senator cato the
20:34elder and you can see
20:35his he looks like a really happy guy
20:38over there
20:39doesn't he um and he is most famous
20:42for addressing the senate on various
20:44matters and then whenever he was done
20:46he would finish whatever speech he was
20:48giving with this phrase carthago de
20:51lenda
20:52s which basically means carthage must
20:55be destroyed so there is this growing
20:58sentiment that
20:59carthage is still a thorn in the side of
21:01the romans
21:02and that the conflict is not really
21:04going to be over
21:05until carthage is entirely destroyed
22:36149 rome gets its reason or its excuse
22:39depending upon
22:40how you see it to finish off these punic
22:42wars and to really put a nail in the
22:44coffin
22:44of the carthaginian empire and they have
22:48they're able to do this because
22:50carthage has gone back on some
22:52agreements they made at the end of the
22:53second trip
22:54punic war in their treaty and they end
22:56up invading numidia which at the time
22:58was a
22:59roman ally in north africa and
23:02historians talk a little bit about maybe
23:04there was some double dealing going on
23:07in here and so if you're interested in
23:08learning more
23:09about the punic wars you can get get
23:11into that
23:12but the end result is that it reignites
23:15this conflict between carthage
23:17and rome and at this point
23:20the young roman proconsul scipio
23:23emilianas
23:24who is who is separate from scipio
23:26africanus scipio emilianus
23:28is going to lead a siege of carthage and
23:32which is
23:32successful and um they are able to
23:36completely
23:37uh overtake carthage they enslave about
23:4050
23:40000 of the carthaginians and as a final
23:44insult they really destroy a lot of
23:47um things within the city and famously
23:51historians tell us that they sew the sea
23:54the fields of carthage with salt so that
23:57nothing can grow there anymore
23:59and that might be a little bit of
24:00hyperbole but i also think it shows the
24:02level of
24:04anger and hatred that had grown up
24:05between these two different
24:07civilizations
24:08and the pride that rome was going to
24:10have in actually
24:11defeating its first real major imperial
24:15power
24:16so rome at this point has expanded you
24:19can see the map that i've provided
24:21um is going to show its level of
24:22expansion by this time
24:24they have taken control of all of those
24:26territories in spain
24:27uh what is today spain on the iberian
24:30peninsula
24:31and not only do they have access to land
24:34i think equally important is that they
24:36have
24:36taken over a lot of those very lucrative
24:39trade routes
24:40that the carthaginian empire had enjoyed
24:44so the navy is going to expand rome is
24:46going to have much more of a maritime
24:49presence and as we mentioned that
24:51proconsular power
24:53the seeds are being sown for someone
24:57such as scipio emiliana such as scipio
24:59africanus
25:00to build a power base in the field
25:04they don't have to return to be
25:06reappointed every year
25:08and they're building relationships with
25:10their military they're in the field with
25:12them they're sitting in the saddle with
25:13them
25:14and as we're see that's going to be an
25:15important thing that happens to
25:17contribute to the death
25:18ultimately of the republic

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