3 - The collapse of the Republican order

Summary

NEW DIMENSIONS OF POPULAR PROTEST

During the sixties and the fifties of the first century BC, Rome saw waves of political violence which could no longer be controlled. This was partly because government was paralysed by power struggles within the nobility; thus in 59, for example, Caesar forced the passage of his agrarian law against the opposition of his consular colleague Bibulus. In addition, however, the post-Sullan era witnessed the development of new methods of organizing the plebs and articulating social protest. In the end, the Republican system of maintaining law and order collapsed.

Clodius and the plebs urbana

These developments are especially associated with the role played by P. Clodius Pulcher, who obviously profited from the repeated deadlocks in the power struggle between Pompey, Caesar and Crassus and the Senate. He was surely neither the first nor the only person to mobilize parts of the urban populace, but by employing every available means in so concentrated and unscrupulous a way over a considerable period of time he opened up new dimensions of politics. What matters is not his personal motives and ultimate aims (if, indeed, he had clearly formulated any) but that he was able to present himself as the People's champion and to represent his personal cause against Cicero as an issue of the People's liberty.