Populares


The Populares were a political faction in the late Roman Republic who favoured the cause of the plebeians.
The Populares emerged as a political group with the reforms of the Gracchi brothers, who were tribunes of the plebs between 133 and 121 BC. Although the Gracchi belonged to the highest Roman aristocracy, being the grandsons of Scipio Africanus, they were concerned for the urban poor, whose dire condition increased the risk of a social crisis at Rome. They tried to implement a vast social program comprising a grain dole, new colonies, and a redistribution of the Ager publicus in order to alleviate their situation. They also drafted laws to grant Roman citizenship to Italian allies, and reform the judicial system to tackle corruption. Both brothers were nevertheless murdered by their opponents, the Optimates—the conservative faction representing the interests of the landed aristocracy, who dominated the Senate. Several tribunes of the plebs later tried to pass the Gracchi's program by using plebiscites, but Saturninus and Clodius Pulcher suffered the same fate as the Gracchi. Furthermore, many politicians of the late Republic postured as Populares to enhance their popularity among the plebs, notably Julius Caesar and Octavian, who finally enacted most of the Populares' platform during their rule.
The Populares counted a number of patricians—the most ancient Roman aristocrats—such as Appius Claudius Pulcher, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, and Julius Caesar among their number. They were allied to politicians of lesser status, especially "new men" like Gaius Marius, or Gaius Norbanus.

History

The plebeian tribunes and the Plebeian Council at times clashed with the Senate over the mentioned reforms and over the power relationship between the plebeian institutions and the Senate. The Optimates among the senators spearheaded the senatorial opposition. These tribunes were supported by Populares politicians such as Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar, who were often patricians, or equites. Their conflicts also played a part in some of the civil wars of the Late Roman Republic: Sulla's first civil war, Sulla's second civil war, the Sertorian War, Lepidus' rebellion, Caesar's Civil War, the post-Caesarian civil war, the Liberators' civil war and the Sicilian revolt.
The Populares reached the height of their ascendancy four times. The first one was with the Gracchi brothers, who mobilized the plebeians in support of their land reform and their challenge to senatorial supremacy. This almost was not the issue because the Populares had help from the Italians and they had to offer more land to the Italians than they wanted to. The land was meant to go to the poor. The second time was with Gaius Marius and his son Gaius Marius the Younger, when the Marians seized power and held Rome from 87 BC to 82 BC. They were defeated in Sulla's Second Civil War. This was caused by the deteriorating relationship between Sulla and Marius as they started to fall apart from the consul stand point and lost view of what was important. The third time was when Julius Caesar was elected as consul in 59 BC with the support of Marcus Licinius Crassus and Pompey, who formed an informal alliance with Caesar which historians call the First Triumvirate. These three helped bring Rome back to order from the scene it was when Sulla had left. The First Triumvirate gave each of the men their own land to watch over so parts of Rome were equally distributed among themselves so none of them would have too much to rule over. Caesar managed to pass an agrarian law for a land reform, which had not been achieved since the agrarian law of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus of 133 BC as all subsequent attempts at agrarian legislation had been thwarted by the opposition and obstructionism of the Optimates. Tensions between Populares and Optimates had increased with the Catiline conspiracy against the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero during which Cicero, supported by a final decree of the Senate, had some of the conspirators executed without trial. There were demonstrations against these summary executions and this display of arbitrary senatorial power. There were two attempts to counter senatorial dominance which failed, but they were popular. The proponents were Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos Iunior, a plebeian tribune; and Julius Caesar, who at the time was a praetor. This enhanced Caesar's popularity and was a help for his creation of the First Triumvirate three years later. The fourth time was with Caesar's Civil War, when Caesar held power from 49 BC to when he was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar relied on the support of the people for his power. After the defeat of Sextus Pompey in the Sicilian Revolt by the Second Triumvirate in 36 BC, the Populares ceased to be a relevant political label.

Members

Notable Populares included men who held the plebeian tribunate such as the Gracchi brothers, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, Marcus Livius Drusus, Publius Sulpicius Rufus, Servilius Rullus and Publius Clodius Pulcher; and men who held the consulship such as Appius Claudius Pulcher, Publius Mucius Scaevola, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, Gaius Marius, Gaius Marius the Younger, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Julius Caesar. There were other notable Populares such as Quintus Sertorius, who participated in the capture of Rome by the Marians in 87 BC and fought the Sertorian War, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Marc Antony, who fought for Caesar, were given a consulship by him and later became members of the Second Triumvirate.
Although Marcus Licinius Crassus did not play a prominent part in Roman politics apart from his consulship in 70 BC, prior to being part of the First Triumvirate he was known as a supporter of the Populares. Pompey was also a member of the First Triumvirate. The Optimates in the Senate side-lined him and frustrated his attempts to have his settlements in the east after his victory in the Third Mithridatic War ratified and to promote an agrarian reform to redistribute land to his veterans. Pompey's attacks pushed back Mithridates and Pompey even managed to get Mithridates's son to become an ally of Rome. As a result, he joined forces with Caesar and Crassus. After the death of Crassus, Pompey drifted towards the Optimates. These shifting allegiances are reminders that the designation Populares refers as much to political tactics as to any perceived policy. Holland notes that republican politicians "had always been more divided on issues of style than of policy".

Ideology

A historian of the Late Republic cautions against understanding the terms populares and optimates as formally organized factions with an ideological basis:
This summarizes the dominant interpretation of the Populares in 20th-century scholarship, deriving in large part from Ronald Syme in the Anglophone literature. In the early 21st century and as early as the publication of the ninth volume of The Cambridge Ancient History in 1994, the validity of examining Popularist ideology in the context of Roman political philosophy has been reasserted. In particular, T. P. Wiseman has rehabilitated the use of the word "party" to describe the political opposition between Optimates and Populares, based on Latin usage and pointing to the consistency of a sort of party platform based on the food supply and general welfare of the populus, making land available to those outside the senatorial elite and debt relief.
Politicians adhering to Popularist rhetoric or implementing Popularist policies usually did so not out of genuine belief in the cause or out of altruism, but rather to ingratiate themselves with the masses in order to achieve their own goals or those of patrons. Julius Caesar exemplified this once he became Roman dictator, involving himself in attracting teachers and doctors and the replacement of slaves on farms, but also disbanding clubs fellow Popularist Publius Clodius Pulcher used to maintain his own infuence, seeing him as a threat to his rule.
Those in the Populares tradition also tended to oppose the use of the death penalty, and accepted the ascension of novi homines into Roman politics.
A true distinction between the populares and optimates usually only showed intermittently, however, mainly in relation to some contentious measure.

Famous members