The Social War and Its Impact

When most people think of the Roman Republic, they think of two things - a city made of white marble and a map with lots of Europe colored red to denote the boundaries. What if I told you that both of those were wrong? We will not get into the marble bit today (the city was built mostly of brick and the marble that was used probably had color painted on it) but we can talk about how Rome governed the territory it “controlled.” Rome was not ruled like a republic is ruled today with a strong centralized federal government, and an established bureaucracy to carry out vital governmental functions. Instead, it ruled its controlled territory with a distant touch (mostly) and used treaties to make sure that neighboring tribes, towns, cities, and states swore allegiance to the Republic of Rome. This article is about those tribes, towns, cities, and states in Italy that fell under the control of Rome but decided to rebel, leading to an outbreak of war. This war is known to history as the Social War (91 to 87 BCE) and despite its rather benign name, caused an existential crisis for Rome and its governing system.

My favorite history professor at my university used to use the Social War to trip up students who didn’t complete their required reading, she would ask students to answer a question on the first quiz/test around the definition of the Social War and provide multiple choice options that would be around the word “social” except for one: the true answer. If you didn’t complete your reading, you mostly thought this was a war involving Roman society, as the name suggests, but the real answer was that this was a war/uprising of Italian allies of Rome against Roman rule. You may now be wondering why it was even called the Social War. If you are, it is because of Latin, the word for an ally in Latin is socius or socii, which leads to the name Social. Now that burning question is out of the way, let's get to the intensely interesting topic of Roman governing (yes, there was some sarcasm there) and its failure. In order to understand the Social War, we have to first understand two concepts key to Roman life, citizenship, and the military. Both these topics could be articles on their own, and maybe they will be, but not today as I don’t want to you click to something else, so instead you will get a summation (that is still longer than I would like).

We are starting with Roman citizenship – the concept of Roman citizenship is both similar and different to our own. Romans did not understand nor possess the concept of universal birthright citizenship that a lot of countries today have, such as the United States of America. Instead, Romans had a multi-tier class system of citizenship with the highest tier only being acquired if your parents were both free citizens of Rome (born within Rome itself or a city granted full citizenship rights) or was earned through military service in the auxiliary. The key word to note there is “free” as Rome was a slave holding state and economy. Being a free land-owning Roman citizen was a really big deal that gave you full legal protection under Roman law. The second and third tier of citizens were known as Latini (Latin Rights) and Socii (ally/friend) respectively. There are a few more sub or lower tiers that we are not going to get into today as its pretty complicated and varies depending on what period we are discussing, but hey, if you are interested in that sort of thing, let me know and I may do an article on it. Latin Rights was a legal designation denoting a colony or city outside the traditional Roman citizenship boundary but had upgraded legal status. Latin Rights varied from city to city, but for the city’s population, while not full Roman citizens, they had legal protections and rights not granted to other cities or freedman (former slaves and their families). These sometimes included the right to vote, migrate/move around the Republic, have fully protected and equal business dealings with Roman citizens, and the right to eventually gain full Roman citizenship. Socii was a third tier roman class that denoted an individual hailing from a city or town allied to Rome but not granted Latin Rights or full Roman citizenship. This came with some legal protection under Roman law but not always coming with the perks given to Latin Rights citizens. Socii could gain higher class citizenship by serving within the ranks of the Roman military. This military service requirement would play a major factor in the Social War. Rome used citizenship and legal rights as a tool for foreign policy and subjugation, granting different tier legal rights and citizenship to conquered or allied towns/villages/cities within Italy. Rights given to an allied town could also be revoked, this would be used to punish allies that revolted or chose to side against Rome when things looked dire, such as during the Second Punic War and the invasion of Italy by Epirus/Pyrus.

Now, onto the Roman Military – during the Republic days, Rome fought a series of highly devastating conflicts that led to reforms of the military. For several centuries, Rome relied on a levying or raising part-time soldiers of land-owning citizens with allies providing their own forces to bolster Rome’s numbers. But due to wars with Carthage and Epirus causing massive casualties to Rome and her allies, the system of part-time soldiers bolstered by allies, needed to be reformed. The most famous of these reforms is known as the Marian reforms that established professional soldiery and service contracts, creating the legionary system that we all know and love. To be a legionary, you had to be a citizen but didn’t have to own land. This also created an auxiliary system of non-legionary forces, i.e., non-citizens or allies, called, you guessed it, auxiliaries. These Marian reforms were first instituted around 107 BCE (16 years before the outbreak of the Social War) but still were mixed with the old conscription system of levying. It was very uncommon during this time to volunteer for the army as life in the Roman army was tough and exhausting, but the Marian reforms changed the average Roman soldier and auxiliary from land owners who could afford to provide their own equipment and weapons to poor men with state provided equipment. The Roman Republic relied heavily on it’s allies to provide military manpower when Rome experienced a shortfall, this lead to a massive burden placed on the Socii.

So why did I just explain to you the Marian reforms and citizenship rights in the Roman Republic? Because these were the primary causes of the Social War (along with complicated land owning and usage disputed between Rome and the Socii). Come on, pay attention. Allies of Rome not granted full citizenship were still required to provide Rome soldiers (sometimes this meant large percentages within a town/village of young men) to fight wars for a Republic that didn’t allow these towns to participate in the full economic or political process. Resentment grew over time leading to a full-scale rebellion of Italian allies of Rome in 91 BCE. The exact outbreak is disputed, along with much of the reasoning for the war as contemporary sources for the conflict are lost and later sources are writing hundreds of years later, but there is evidence that due to the rapid raising of troops amongst the Socii, that some preparation prior to the outbreak of hostilities had to have occurred. Rome was caught off guard by the quick creation of armies against her and suffered early setbacks with destruction of whole Roman armies and even defections of Roman soldiers to Socii forces. The two Roman Consuls at the time were outmatched by the Socii leading to the death in battle of the Consul, Publius Lupus, and widespread panic within Rome when the battle dead returned the city. But by the end of 88 BCE, Rome was successful in dividing the northern Socii from their southern friends. These victories for Rome were brought about by the command of talented commanders and eventually very famous names within Roman history, Gaius Marius (namesake of the aforementioned Marian reforms) and Sulla (eventual dictator of Rome and enemy of Marius in a later civil war). The war ended in 87 BCE with a Roman long-term victory (there is historical argument that Rome lost in the short term or suffered a stalemate) as it appears (again sources aren’t really clear) that the rebellious Socii received full Roman citizenship or Latin Rights.

The Social War changed the Roman Republic permanently as an influx of new citizens changed the way the government functioned, the Marian reforms utilized by Rome brought about economic changes to the military make up and subsequent changes to the Commander-Soldier relationship (soldiers weren’t paid well so, war loot accounted for a large incentive by soldiers to not desert the army and generals made sure these soldiers received shares of the loot, causing soldiers to be loyal to generals, not the Roman state), and conscription of axillaries turned away from non-citizen Italic allies to foreign conquered entities. Some historians even argue that the instability caused by the Social War led to the downfall of the Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire (that’s your que to play Imperial March).