 Hey, welcome. This is Darius Arya for the American Super-Roman Culture and Ancient Rome Lie. Today, the topic is the mob, riots, and the people of Rome. So the people of Rome, the the Sonata's Papalusque Romanus, the Papalus Romanus was a powerful entity in Rome always, and their presence was felt daily in the assemblies and in voting. And of course, we know through the written sources, they could be fomented, they could be unruly, they could be driven to violence due to political crises, due to famines, due to their observations of their being injustices. And let's take a closer look at the mechanics of riots and violence in ancient Rome. So first of all, let's talk about who's doing the rioting. Okay, so there could be a lot of people that would be rioting. But one of the biggest groups we'll focus on is the people of Rome. And of course, you have this term, the plebs, the plebeians, the commoners, the kind of non-elite. And there are a whole bunch of ways that a lot of the senatorial historians describe them as unruly, as sordid, as common, as riffraff, as ignorant. So not a lot of nice terms here. But the thing is that you're really applying this to this group of people when things go wrong. Because obviously, these are the same group of people, massive people, that are going to be going to the various assemblies and ultimately voting for things that are being put up for deliberation in various places of voting in the forum, in the site, in the Circus Maximus, actually in the campus marches. So you really have, the real issue is when they're not behaving, when they're doing things when they're taking, you know, they have a mind of their own. So that's what we really want to talk about. And explicitly, we can go right to the beginning of the early republic, when we're going to have the voice of the people heard several times, or five famous walkouts, where essentially the whole population from 494 BC through to the end in 287 BC, five occasions, they're leaving, they're withdrawing from the city limits because they're not satisfied, they're not getting their basic needs met. And how do you meet their needs? Well, then the senatorial class form a 10 man board to address their concerns and create a legal code known as the 12 tables. But even that is not going to be enough to establish and guarantee, and I call them exactly in animal rights, but basically to set up a more coherent and clear, clearly stated declaration of what's expected and what the protections are in legal cases for the every man, as it were. And in the end, so we're talking about walkouts, we're not talking about real violence, but think about that when you see from that union of your city, that's a big deal. And if you're the bulk of the population, you know, the body versus the head is the Senate like to think of itself as the head, then you've gotten a suit. So the ultimate, ultimate conclusion of that long period of withdrawal on and on again off again, all the way to 207 is the creation of the Lexport Tensia that established that a plebeian led assembly, the plebiscite was binding to all citizens, including that upper class, that patrician class. And that was supposed to be the end of that real cry of there's a disparity, is an unevenness and unfairness in the system. And that really does for the Romans, close a door on that ongoing conflicts. Think about that 494 BC to 287 BC, that's a long chunk of time. But obviously, that's within our, I think our categorization and conversation today about how that large body that large assembly of people organizing themselves, not officially, but saying we need to exert our own ideas, our own principles, and we're willing to go to an extreme measure, which was in this case, not going to war, but or not sacking the city, but simply leaving the city. Basically, we're out of here, we're going to do our own thing. And then it's being enticed back, no, no, you can do this, you can do that, you can have that quality, and you can come back and they did. So that's one point to look at. See, there's a question. Any questions, put them in the chat. And then let's jump over to, I'm just going to do the grappling. Let's jump on to the Gracchi, because here's another period of reform. And really, it's where you have a key issue. Rome has been acquiring a lot of land through conquest, and that land becomes public land. And the issue is that by this time, all those Roman citizens that are fighting, they're fighting and fighting and fighting, but there's a land requirement. You had to have property to serve in the military. And ultimately, a lot of the Romans are becoming people of the city, the erps, this grand idea of Rome is growing, you're there, you're not tending your fields, you're losing your land, and now at a certain point, I mean, how can you even serve in the military? So this radical idea is to give a lot of that land that belong to the state through conquest and parcel it out to the people. There are two brothers that are involved in this, and they serve as tributes to the plebs between 133 BC and about 121 BC. There's Tiberius and there's Gracchus. And I have a professor when I was TAing in a graduate school class, and he said always, think about them like JFK and RFK, two reformers that had horrible ends. So you already know what's going to happen to Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. They're going to push through reforms, and ultimately, they're going to be killed. And when they're killed, they're going to be killed by the mob. And where's this mob coming from? So in the first case for Tiberius, it's basically, in both cases, Tiberius and Gaius, the issue is these individuals are overstepping their bounds, which they did. And ultimately, the idea is pushed out that these guys don't want to relinquish their power, don't want to end their time in office, and ultimately are trying to regain the status of kingship. They want to become kings, they want to be autocrats. And that's one way where you can foment a lot of people in the public to get rid of them. And that's what's going to happen. So about 300 men go over and club Tiberius and 300 of his supporters are clubbed to death. So that's an awful way to go. Later on, Gaius is pushing even more reform, trying to give more support to the people, and ultimately, he is going to be forced to commit suicide. So his end is near and he's committing suicide on the Aventine Hill. And in each of these cases, unfortunately, it's you think about when you're looking at it, how else could these ideas have been solved? Coming in to the assemblies and addressing these issues, having fears allayed and so on and so forth. But so much so was the radicalization or the large agenda that was pushed by these two reformers. There is a lot of pushback from we can call the establishment from the members of the Senate and didn't like what was going on in this assembly. This is the same assembly of the plebs that we talked about initially, where that large mass of the general population says we need more recognition, we need more of our own voice. Eventually by 287 BC, they get that voice with their own from Kiliam plebis, their own assembly of the plebs. And now within that system, looking forward into 133 to 121 BC, you have two reformers that are going to push that situation even further, trying to change grain laws, trying to continue to enforce more wealth, more power to the average person. And there's just going to be a lot of pushback in that. And again, it's not organized military that's curtailing these men's ambitions or drive. It's a lot of people within the public are organized rather quickly to stop an imminent threat. Okay, so why are people rioting? Why are people fomenting? So initially we're talking about its representation. And of course, we're talking about also this idea of pushing into the area of the auto crap that's going to happen time and time again. And the Romans, we just have to think of names like Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, and Octavian and Mark Antony. So that's going to be a big one. What about food? Food is going to be a big one as well. One of the major concerns, the well-being of the Romans, this mega city, this consumer city, is that it's dependent upon huge amounts of grain imports. So therefore, if there's a chance of famine, or if there is a famine, then the people will get riled up and activate, right? And so whoever's in power is going to be out of power if they can't solve that issue of a food shortage. There's taxes, the people complaining about their safety, such as after the fire of 64, people are plenty mad because the city is burnt down and looking for someone to blame. Okay, where are they fomenting? Where are they protesting? So right behind me, there's the Roman Forum. Of course, you've probably heard that term bread and circuses. If you think about how ultimately under the emperors, you have that situation of the people of Rome not being able to vote anymore under the emperors, where do they complain? Well, they're going to complain in big public venues like the circus. They're also going to want their entertainment. They're going to want to pacify them, but they definitely want their bread. They want the handouts. They want what's guaranteed to them as Roman citizens. Ultimately, grain is going to be subsidized and then handed out once a month to the citizens of Rome. It's a big deal. Do not mess that up. Make sure you have both of those two mechanisms in place, otherwise you're going to be in big trouble. And people will be protesting in places like where a lot of people can assemble. So a circus, an amphitheater, a theater, the stadium. Okay, and you also have places of concern where there are the assemblies where you're going to be voting. And that can be the Forum. It can be the Circus Feminis. It can be the Psychda. And there are going to be a lot of upheavals. In particular, we can focus on the Republic and we can focus on a lot of issues that are taking place. And we'll get to food use as a power play, as an halting shipments of grain to run me out. We will definitely get there. We're definitely going to carry into the grain issue, which is always going to be a big factor. Kind of one of the Achilles heels of Imperial Rome. But let's think first, first, second of the gangs. I always think about the gangs in New York, but the gangs of Clodius Milo in the 50s B.C. Let's think of the impact then, even earlier, with Sola marching in the city and leaving his guys in charge of the city while he goes off to fight in the east and come back. Well, in the meantime, there's a lot of rioting and ultimately fighting. And let's think of the Catalanian conspiracy and the people that he's rounded up to try to overtake Rome and then he's going to be summarily executed and his followers executed by Cicero. A little bit of a no-no, because there was no due process. That's why Cicero himself gets exiled. But ultimately, in all these situations, we're having masses of people that are participating. Again, with a lot of piracy in the 70s, Pompey the Great is then sent out to rid the Mediterranean of the pirates. But already then, you had the reality of the grain shortage always hanging over the Romans. So it's a really volatile period in the last 50 years of the Republic. But we can even go back a little sooner. And we have the Servile Wars from about 101 B.C. all the way down to the Spartacus. And you had the Social War in the 80s when the Italians are fighting for citizenship and things come to a boil. But within all these different famous circumstances, you have unrest within the city itself and the people are going to be exerting in their own way their voice, not always under the lead of some patrician or direction of some tribune, but even just willful amongst themselves. When Julius Caesar famously was assassinated, and he wasn't supposed to be cremated in the Roman form right behind you there, you can see in the distance the remains of the Temple of Divine Julius Caesar. But it's there that the people gathered and made a funerary pyre of benches and whatever they can find and cremated that body right there in the form itself that was eventually succeeded by there being a column marking the spot. And then finally the Temple built between 42 and 29 B.C. So that was not orchestrated by Mark Antony, it was not orchestrated by anybody. It was something that spontaneously was put into action. And it's incredible, but so many times we read about this and read about the unruliness within the city, but of course it's within a very, very volatile period of time. So let me turn here to a couple of points then as well to keep in mind that when we do have, it's all said and done, and we have the calm, let's say relatively speaking, of Augustus. We're going to have a big change which is you're going to have outside the city the Praetorian Guard, and then you're going to have an urban police force like there was never before seen in Rome. And we're talking about a total of 12,000 soldiers, 9,000 for the emperor and 3,000 under the urban prefect. That number will change a little bit, bumped up by Caligula, even more by Quadius. Then the Spatia brings it back to 9,000 and now up to 4,000 within the urban police force, the urban prefect. And then finally it stabilizes at 10,000 Praetorian Guards for the emperor from the mission and onward, and 4,000 for the urban prefect. Then keep in mind that under Augustus, there are the Vigiles, the kind of fire police force department, and there are 7,000 of these guys distributed in 14 regions. So it just becomes a pretty impressive amount of manpower, of force if you want to think about what's going around the world today, or what's happening right now in the United States with a lot of protests, with a lot of police enforcement. The National Guard is being called out in a lot of states. Think about that kind of situation. Think about Rome now, and we're talking about 12, we're talking over 20,000 soldiers, the Vigiles kind of soldiers, but you know, they're freedmen, but they're still acting as part of that police enforcement. If you can take 20,000 for a population of a million. At any given time, they're there. And the encampment is created. The Castor Pretoria is actually built as a stable structure that's eventually incorporated into the Arianic Wall Circuit that's put in by Tiberius. So we'll go through a couple of instances in the imperial period. Let me read you a real famous passage from Tacitus. Tacitus says, hey, in AD 32, there's this resolution about a problem with the grain supply. A lot of people weren't happy with the resolution, so there were protests that broke out in the theater. Protests directed toward the Amphib. And they were gotten more and more outspoken than usual, says Tacitus. The emperor is really mad, so he's looking around for someone to blame, who blames the Massachusetts and the Senate, because they haven't kept the common people, the plebs, in check with the authority invested in them as public servants. Then he also made it clear from what province he was bringing in grain and how much greater an amount he was bringing in than his predecessor, Augustus had. So you can see this kind of response. Hey, hey, hey, I'm going to show you very clearly. Here's the shipment. It's larger, it's better. Everything's going to be okay. So the emperors had to step in because the Senate wasn't doing its job in his opinion. Got to blame somebody. Many, and then in 51 AD, a shortage of grain and the resulting famine resulted in prodigies. And the complaints of the people were not kept low or private. Instead, they surrounded the emperor Claudius with angry clamoring. When he was in court hearing cases, they pushed and shoved him roughly to the very edge of the forum. He escaped the hostile mob, only with the help of a band of soldiers. And I think there's also one passage that says they're pelting him with old crusty breadcrumbs, you know, just crust of bread. They're throwing in him. The pretty nasty situation here. This again is, you can just imagine, you know, a couple of troops are holding off the big throng of people so he can escape and go back up to the Palatine Palace. I mean, really, you know, touch and go here. And there are many, many examples of this. Let me just remind you of a couple, or if you're not so familiar, then just, you know, inform you and then you can go and check out the sources. I mean, all these things will be ultimately on ancient Rome live. There's a dedicated page per lecture webinar with bibliography and so forth and places to go and books to buy and so on. 41 BC, a big bread riot in Rome. Why? Well, it's all about Octavian and Markanty trying to get along in 41 BC, but then there's a blockade. Who's keeping the grain from coming in from Sicily? A pirate by the name of Sextus Pompey. Not really a pirate, but he's the son of Pompey, the great, and he kind of took over that point. Sicily, which was the bread basket before Egypt, and he's stopping the grain coming into Rome, and it's so nasty in the streets. There's some big riot and Octavian himself is injured. I mean, he could have been killed. Okay, here's another example. AD, and I'll get to your questions in just a second. AD, 19, what happens? Germanicus dies. He's the heir of Tiberius. The people were so distraught because I really liked this guy that they did not really like Tiberius. There's rioting in the streets, a lot of property damage, a lot of just anguish. People were really mad. What are we going to do now? Who's going to be the person we really like this guy that's going to succeed Tiberius that we really don't like? Let's pause here and look at some questions, such as, when the protests are triggered by the plagues, objecting to any restrictions of movement, food, trade, etc. You know, I can't think off the top of my head right now of protests per se associated with the plague, with the Antonine plague. It's really about all this hardship that Rome undergoes because so many people are dying and not so much that people are protesting. Ah, here, Robert says New York City has 36,000 cops. Wow. Okay, that puts a point in the perspective, right? I mean, look at that. 20,000, 20,000 in a given day. We're not even talking cops here. We're talking, we're talking military. We're talking the troops. So it's even a little more daunting, I would say, than even like that, just the Vigilace kind of attitude or, you know, kind of definition of who's protecting the emperor. Please put the Xamber of the Vigilace and the Pyramid of Cestius on your list of places to take us to. Absolutely. Xamber of the Vigilace is closed right now. It's a great site. Where are towns and other cities that there were riots? Jerusalem and unrest? Not because of food, other food riots elsewhere? Absolutely. We could, there are zillions of examples of riots and unrest. Oh yeah. And then, of course, the Romans were some of the troops in. The governor has to exert his authority, and so forth. The Judea's obviously going to be one of the hotspots, but there are tons of hotspots. Alexandria. Then we get into the Christian era. Think about the violence and the mob that would go to a particular place, the famous sacking of the Temple of Serapis and Alexandria, kind of the end of Christianity and the end of pagan worship of the deities. Oh yeah. There are books and books and books written on this, and we'll share all that with you ultimately. Okay. So just kind of wrapping up. So the death of Gaius, the Senate wants to restore its own power, right? Go back to being a republic, but it's the mob, along with the Praetorian Guard, that push for somebody to replace Gaius Caligula, and that's going to be a Claudius. But if you look at the sources, if you look at your tassels and Tonius and so forth, there is a big part, a big role that's being played, not just by the big famous power brokers like the Praetorian Guard, or some members of the Senate, or the members of the emperor, the Praetorian Guard head, the Prefect, but also it's the people themselves. They're in the streets. Hey, the emperor's dead. We didn't like that guy. He's assassinated. What's happening next? Give us another ruler. We like these rulers. They give us, they subsidize a lot of stuff. They give us a lot of great entertainment. They take care of us. They're looking out for us, and that is exerted several times. The death of the emperor Perchanax, for example. I'm jumping forward here. Let's see. Brain hoarding in part, and the upping of the cost of brain, is what also ultimately leads to the revolt against Nero, and people are getting mad at him. With the fire of 64, he blames the Christians, so the mob isn't coming after him. And again, the death of Perchanax, ultimately, his title is going to be auctioned off in the forum. The people did not like that. The people did not like that at all, and they're going to exert their displeasure. So we have many, many examples of the mob in violence. We know how large the crowds could be. We know the venues and how always the authorities were very much concerned with building permanent structures. For a long time, the theaters and the Republican period were only made of wood. They were not permanent. They were only for temporary festivals. Of course, we know that the first stone amphitheater is only built with an emperor. That's under Augustus. That's built by Satelius Taurus, and so forth. So there's places that become associated with those groups of people that assemble and can potentially be dangerous and have their own ideas that aren't going to be really directed by the authorities, members of the Senate, and so forth. And we see that historically then. The tribunes of the plebs are also going to be very powerful people speaking to the masses. Ultimately, the real conversation is between the people in the circus, up to the emperor, and the palace on the Palatine Hill, and there are all kinds of conversations that are going on between all those masses and the individual. So just a little taste of these issues, a little taste of the Senate and the people of Rome, that is the people of Rome of SPQR. Very important to keep in mind how volatile their situation could be. Remember Rome was crowded, Rome was complicated, Rome was ultimately a dangerous place, and you wanted to have those basic assurances, and if you didn't get them, you didn't have the food guarantee to you that wasn't showing up, there's a spike in prices, then that's when things all get loose, or you have the assassination of an emperor and the succession wasn't clear, they could then quote unquote step in. So those are just some ideas and insights on our conversation today on mobs and violence, and a lot of the difficulties in the city of Rome, and they are very good, I'm looking at a whole bunch of other issues here, a lot of questions, but definitely just to address them as we wrap up, food absolutely is a major source of unrest because it was much less of a guarantee, let's say, than in a modern city today. But we all know around the world so many people have a very unsure food supply reality, and it's dramatic to a lot of people around the world, many, many people. So we also want to think even though, hey we're talking about Rome, there's some incredible empire and all this great wealth, but it was actually much more volatile there that this food security, which affects so many people around the world, it affected Rome too. It was of the utmost priority of the senate and then under the emperor, and yeah, thank you very much. It is a very, I think it is a timely lecture, that's really what I wanted to do it as soon as possible, given how the state of the world right now, the ride outside the amphitheater in Pompeii, yeah that's another conversation, but essentially it's a ride that breaks out during an amphitheater, gladiator fights, nocieta versus the Pompeians, and all hell broke loose and you've got a fantastic painting. I wanted that personally to be my backdrop shot for today, even though it's not in Rome and I couldn't find it in my archives, but it has a great, great kind of conversation. So listen, thank you guys so much, thank you guys for all your time. Please do consider subscribing to the newsletter and following all the time every week. We have new videos dropping. This week's on Friday was the forum piazza. Please do consider getting involved and supporting us. 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