Practice question · Select all that apply
How did victory in the Punic Wars poison the Republic? Select the real mechanisms.
Hints
- The mechanisms are internal, not foreign.
- Conquest made offices lucrative and displaced the small farmer.
Show the answer
- A. Provincial commands became fortunes worth corrupting politics to win
- C. Landless citizens fell below the property bar for army service
- D. Slave-worked latifundia undercut the citizen smallholders
Why
No foreign plot required. The empire’s loot made offices worth stealing, its slaves displaced the farmer-soldier, and the displaced farmer broke the recruitment system, a self-tightening loop with the Gracchi at the bottom of it.
Practise The Roman Republic
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