Genuine support for the lower classes in Roman history?

[spaceviking]

I have been watching a series of lectures on Roman history. A common point that the lecturer wants to get across is that despite some roman statesman using popular support to gain power and pass legislation these efforts were simply a means to an end and we should not see their actions in terms of modern concepts of equality.

The time period I am mainly looking at is the period of the Populares and the Optimates and the rise of Julius Caeser. It is fair to see these men's actions only in terms of using popular support for purely personal gain? Were their any significant statesman/significant military personal who championed the poor roman citizens out of a genuine concern for them?

[ray245]

The gracchi brothers will be a good example. Unlike some of the later politicians, I don't think they ever aim to become a dictator.

[Thanas]

Actually, they tried to claim more powers than were allotted to them by the constitutions. Now the question is whether you believe they did so out of care for the masses or for personal gain.

[Scrib]

Like what? I think that they restrained some of their opponents unlawfully and broke the term limits but wasn't that more of a tradition?

[Vaporous]

Tiberius Gracchus may have had a fellow Tribune removed from the assembly by force, which would have essentially been sacrilege. His death makes a sort of sense in that context.

His brothers death looks like it had more to do with the interests that were threatened by his legislation and the amount of influence he had amassed than with any crimes he may supposedly have committed.

I'm not sure if we'll ever really know what their motivations really were. In the meanwhile, yes, we should be wary about imposing modern ideas and viewpoints on the dead. This form of "history" changes with the cultural outlook of every generation and says more about the present than the past.

[spaceviking]

I agree, but it might be just as bad to assume that modern ideas are entirely modern. Abraham Lincoln was not a modern liberal, maybe in a thousand years people will see his ending of slavery as purely an effort to increase federal power.

[Junghalli]

How would you go about figuring this out? Were Roman statesmen in the habit of leaving descriptions of their motivations in such matters?

I agree, but it might be just as bad to assume that modern ideas are entirely modern. Abraham Lincoln was not a modern liberal, maybe in a thousand years people will see his ending of slavery as purely an effort to increase federal power.

This is just something I get an impression of so take it with a large grain of salt, but it seems to me there is a general tendency in Western social thought to play up the self-interested rational actor model of how political decisions are made, and underestimate the importance of ideology.

[Lolpah]

Of course, it is always possible that these people, or at least some of them both wanted personal power but at the same time genuinel cared about the common people to some degree. People's motivations are frequently not black-and-white, after all. Roman society encouraged the nobility to vye aggressively for personal political power(though not to use violence or join Rome's enemies), and it would have been difficult to avoid that sort of conditioning.

[Simon_Jester]

This is just something I get an impression of so take it with a large grain of salt, but it seems to me there is a general tendency in Western social thought to play up the self-interested rational actor model of how political decisions are made, and underestimate the importance of ideology.

This can be an especially bad idea when you start modeling "honor" as an ideology, and therefore irrelevant. A typical ancient aristocrat's concept of honor could lead him to do some very, very strange things.

Look at all the Romans (let alone Japanese) who fell upon their swords after something went wrong. Not the action of a self-interested rational actor who has any prospects except death by torture- and yet that decision was made repeatedly by different men in similar situations, not just on one or two rare occasions.