Four. The Seeds That They Let Grow.?The Romans,

nevertheless, ignored certain glaring problems

until they became catastrophic. Among these

were the decline of the small farmer class,

the refusal of full Roman citizenship to all Italian

allies, and general political corruption.

Allowing the small farmer class to disintegrate in

Rome's wars of conquest, and allowing the

latifundia to push the survivors out of business

was a big mistake and led to the rise of client armies.

The solution would not have been simple but the

Gracchi paid with their lives for trying to find one.

Refusal to allow all Italian allies to become citizens

could have been fixed with the passage of a law,

but it took the death of Livius Drusus, the Social War,

and the war against Mithridates to teach the Romans

that particualr lesson. Finally, political corruption

made a mockery of the annual elections,

with its rampant bribery and other back door deals.

Optimates jockeyed with populares and populares

jockeyed with optimates, when each was basically

just a somewhat different side of the same sad coin.

Whoever had the most money and the most clients

usually won, which did not bode well for actual

democracy. As one of Rome's old enemies observed,

Rome was a truly a city for sale.