Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin & Sergey A. Nefedov

Author:Peter Turchin & Sergey A. Nefedov [Turchin, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2009-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 6.1 Temporal distribution of temple-building activity in Rome, ca. 600–50 BCE. Data from Richardson (1992).

Figure 6.2 An index of sociopolitical instability in Republican Rome (Sorokin 1937).

Phases of the Republican Cycle

The achievement of internal unity among the elites following the Licino-Sextian compromise of 367 marked the shift from the disintegrative to integrative trends and opened the long and highly successful period of Rome's territorial expansion. By the end of the fourth century BCE, Latium and Campania had merged together into a Roman-Campanian state, which involved agreement between the Roman and Capuan aristocracies to create a shared army. The great Capuan families were welcomed into the Roman senate (Le Glay et al. 1997:51). Internal unity created conditions for territorial expansion, which resulted in Rome first establishing control over peninsular Italy, and then acquiring a Mediterranean empire. During the third century BCE Rome had to fight a series of prolonged and bitter wars (the Second Punic War was particularly destructive) that delivered several shocks to population growth. Growth resumed after the end of the War with Hannibal (218–201), and Rome entered the stagflation phase around 180 BCE. There was no sharp transition between the stagflation and the crisis phase. Between 133 and 91 BCE Roman society slipped into crisis by stages. The first wave of severe instability was the series of civil wars between 90 and 71. It was followed by a relatively peaceful interlude in the 60s and 50s, and then the second series of civil wars from 50 to 31 BCE, which finally produced conditions for the reversal of the disintegrative trend. We use the end of the civil wars and the establishment of the Principate by Augustus as the end-point of the Roman Republican cycle. Therefore, the disintegrative trend (combining crisis and depression phases) is dated by us as the century between 130 and 30 BCE.

In the first century BCE, thus, the state and society of Rome were fundamentally transformed. The proximate factors leading to the collapse of the Republic and the establishment of the Principate were the series of civil wars that afflicted Italy during this century. Why Rome experienced this period of social and political instability, however, does not yet have a widely accepted answer. Probably the most influential model explaining this period is the one advanced by Keith Hopkins (1978). We offer an explanation, based on the demographic-structural theory, that in some parts coincides with Hopkins's model and in other parts diverges from it. Although we do not necessarily agree with all aspects of Hopkins's model, we are indebted to his pioneering effort.

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