The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

But there was one persistent complaint lodged by both rich and poor Italians alike: arbitrary abuse at the hands of Roman magistrates. Gaius Gracchus highlighted a case in which slaves carried a Roman magistrate in a litter. A local Italian peasant “asked in jest if they were carrying a corpse.” The insulted magistrate ordered the peasant beaten to death. In another case, the wife of a magistrate was angry some public baths had not been cleared for her solitary use. As punishment, “a stake was planted in the forum and… the most illustrious man of his city, was led to it. His clothing was stripped and he was beaten with rods.” The longstanding protection from arbitrary arrest, flogging, and execution enjoyed by even the poorest Roman citizen did not apply to the Italians. It was an indignity felt acutely by all classes.6