Jugurthine War

Before the war started the Roman people were led by a senate, which consisted of various elected officials. Magistrates carried out many of the duties that needed to be done. These magistrates had to be elected by an Assembly. The Assembly consisted of three parts. The first were two counsels. Next were the praetors. The most important though were the ten tribunes of plebs, who had the most power of all. (Sallust p. 16)Though the Roman Senate contained the majority of the power it could not get involved in business affairs overseas. These affairs were handled by a section of governmental officials called Equites. Due to the fact that the most powerful part of the government could not do these overseas affairs, tension arose between the Senate and the Equites. Seeing as though the Senate was the most powerful part of the Roman government, it was only natural that they were the most experience

d and educated in the art of war. Now that the Senate was obviously taking over all of the government, it was only right that a upper echelon of Senators started to emerge. Like many leaders these men came from a prominent families within the city of Rome. After some time the populace of Rome decided to branch off into two different sections. The first section consisted of the people that supported the individualist approach to rule. The people who believed in this philosophy were called the populares, or people’s government. The other group of individuals believed that the Senate should rule over the people. This was the larger group of the two, they dubbed themselves optimates. (Sallust p.17) This style of government closely resembles that of today’s, where people go out for a personal betterment. Many of the political figures used bribes and other cons to sway people to their favor. These bribes and cons by political figures soon led to the development of criminal punishment. Which would prove significant later on.

A man named Gaius Marius, a man born into the lower class. Naturally he developed a strong distaste for the noble class of Italy. During the war with the Jugurtha the Numidian King. Throughout the war Marius was able to observe Jugurtha brutally killing Italian people, and also was able to see Jugurtha use bribery. Soon after Marius left Rome and in a short time he was the new commander of the army to fight in Africa. Now he was able to do what he thought of, commanding the noble class, who were now under his command in the army.

Soon after the death of Tiberius Sempromius Gracchus, Italy was in need of more reforming. It was the brother of the slain Tiberius who stepped forward, the idea to develop new colonies in Italy itself, and also in land beyond Italy. The Equites loved this idea because the saw the opportunity to begin overseas trade. Now they had motive in all situations. The Equites were able to come up economically by taking up new provinces in Asia. This simultaneously spawned new trade connections. Intelligently the Equites taxed the new Asian products, and they did so heavily. This heavy taxation was soon neutralized,

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