Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, Part XIX: Illogical, Unthinking, Hypocritical Britain, contd.

As with his citation of the Dutch Revolt in Part II, Section IV of Observations, Price’s subsequent invocation of certain episodes from classical antiquity present a similarly awkward attempt to find broad – and rhetorically useful – parallels between the circumstances of British policy in late 18^th century America and specific incidents in European history. The first of these, offered in brief at the end of an already fairly succinct paragraph, took the form of an exhortation on the part of Price to his prospective audience. “Let any one read also,” he avowed,

The history of the war which the Athenians, from a thirst of Empire, made on the Syracusans of Sicily, a people derived from the same origin with them; and let him, if he can, avoid rejoicing in the defeat of the Athenians.

The event being here referred to is the Sicilian Expedition (415-413 BC), one of the final campaigns of the decades-long Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) between the respective alliances of regional hegemons Athens and Sparta. While Price seemed intent on presenting the incident as another tragic example of a thirst for empire bringing about one people’s unpardonable abuse of their own relations, however, the actual circumstances were nowhere near so cut and dried.

The people of Syracuse, for example, though most definitely of Greek derivation, were in fact the descendants of settlers from Corinth rather than Athens. As Athens was an Ionian city while Corinth was Dorian – these being two of the four tribes into which the Greek people divided themselves – this meant that the people of Syracuse would have spoken a different language, possessed a different culture, and partook of a substantially separate social identity that their nominal Athenian oppressors. Furthermore, while the Athenian motive for invading Syracuse was inarguably tied to Athens’ desire to cut off a potential source of food and military assistance to its Spartan rival, Syracuse was itself something of a local hegemon whose military and commercial resources had allowed it to effectively control the whole of Sicily. Indeed, the first Athenian expeditions dispatched to the island were sent in response to a plea for assistance from another Sicilian city – Leontinoi – whose inhabitants had been struggling for decades to assert their independence from either Syracuse or one of its rivals. Far from an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a power struggle between rival empires, therefore, Syracuse represented a burgeoning empire in its own right whose interests largely paralleled those of the great powers of the ancient Greek world. 

In consequence of these circumstances, it was not the brutality of the Athenian campaign in Syracuse that sent shockwaves through the contemporary Aegean, or any horror which might have resulted from the sight of a powerful empire laying waste to a related people. On the contrary, what observers at the time found most striking was the degree to which Athens endured one reverse after another without retreating, as well as the scale of that city’s ultimate defeat. The expedition itself had in large part been the product of political maneuvering within the Athenian political scene – playing out as a struggle between pro-Spartan advocates of peace and anti-Spartan supporters of continued war – and accordingly progressed in a somewhat haphazard fashion. For example, while initially proposed in response to a plea for assistance from the Sicilian city of Segesta against a local rival, the pro-war faction advocated for Syracuse as the final target of the expedition – seeing as it represented the greater threat to Athenian interests – and succeeded in redirecting its resources over the course of the journey from Greece to Southern Italy. The scale of the endeavor was also the product of political intrigue, stemming from the efforts of pro-peace partisan Nicias (470-413 BC) to dissuade his fellow citizens from partaking in what he regarded as an unnecessary distraction. Stymied by the successful lobbying of pro-war advocate Alcibiades (450-404 BC), Nicias suggested a dramatic increase of the requested ships and men in the hope that the people of Athens would recoil at the thought of committing so many of their precious resources to what was obviously a needless foreign adventure. This tactic unfortunately backfired when, perhaps encouraged by the suddenly unanimous support for the Sicilian excursion, the assembled citizens enthusiastically approved the revised proposal, thus committing some five thousand men and one hundreds ships to the efforts at a time when Athens could ill afford to lose them.

This seeming comedy of errors continued upon the arrival of the assembled forces at Sicily. The three commanders assigned to lead the expedition – Nicias, Alcibiades, and a veteran soldier named Lamachus – frequently disagreed as to the nature and direction of their mission, with Nicias favoring a very limited campaign and Alcibiades and Lamachus arguing for a more expansive foray against the island’s major power centers. This dynamic was quickly interrupted, however, upon the arrest of Alcibiades by an envoy sent from Athens. Ostensibly accused of certain religious offenses – though in fact the victim of further political skullduggery – the primary advocate and architect of the venture was thus sent home almost before it began. He subsequently escaped from confinement, sought refuge in Sparta, and turned over any number of secrets to his former homeland’s hated rival. Accordingly left to command the expedition between them, Nicias and Lamachus then proceeded to lead an unsuccessful first assault on Syracuse, wintered in Southern Italy while awaiting reinforcements, engaged in a campaign of fortification building and blockades the following summer, and entirely failed to petition sufficient local allies for assistance. The death of Lamachus during this phase of the expedition was followed by the arrival of a relief force from Sparta and Corinth – dispatched, it bears noting, on the advice of Alcibiades – the uniting of all previously neutral Sicilian cities under Spartan leadership, a call for reinforcements from Athens – which Nicias hoped would be refused, and which, to his frustration, was not – and a final Athenian attempt to leave the island that was ultimately thwarted by a mixture of superstition and indecisiveness on the part of their commanders. Suffering a final defeat and surrender in 413 BC after having their ships destroyed and being forced to march inland, what remained of the expedition – between the initial force and subsequent reinforcements, some ten thousand men in total – were either executed, sold into slavery, or left to die of starvation and disease as prisoners of Syracuse.

Granting that this series was never intended to devolve into a recitation of ancient battles or an accounting of the political intrigue which characterized the civilizations of Classical Greece, one may rest easy in the knowledge that the details cited above were offered with a very particular purpose in mind. To wit, while Richard Price seemed intent on characterizing the Sicilian Expedition as being substantially in parallel with the North Ministry’s campaign against the Thirteen Colonies – in that they were both conducted by major imperial powers against a related people who were comparatively overmatched – the facts just now related about the former clearly demonstrate that this was not at all the case. Syracuse was not a colony of Athens, the expedition was not undertaken in order to affirm any supposed Athenian right to rule the island of Sicily, the whole excursion was the product of, and subject to, the arbitrary decision-making of a relatively small number on intriguers and partisans, and the final defeat of Athens came in large part at the hands of its perennial rival, Sparta. There was little one could declare to be particularly unjust in Athens’ behavior towards Syracuse, rather much one could comparatively complain of in the Syracusan treatment of the defeated Athenians, and little in the way of substantial moral significance to the prosecution of the affair or its outcome. Nicias, it might be said, badly misjudged the temper of his countrymen, and Alcibiades might conceivably be chided for making too many enemies and for too swiftly turning on his fellow Athenians. It remains, however, something of an open question what any of this has to do with the war being waged at the time of Price’s writing between Great Britain and the American colonies. While the use of an episode from classical antiquity as reminder of where his countrymen’s sympathies ought to have laid may indeed have served his efforts well – particularly in light of the affection with which many members of the contemporary British elite regarded the history and culture of Classical Greece – the events of the Sicilian Expedition were plainly not what Price desired them to be.

Nor, it seemed, were the circumstances of the Social War (91-88 BC) which the author of Observations next proceeded to invoke. “Read the account of the social war among the Romans [,]” he thus declared.

The allied states of Italy had fought the battles of Rome, and contributed by their valor and treasure to its conquests and grandeur. They claimed, therefore, the rights of Roman citizens, and a share with them in legislation. The Romans, disdaining to make those their fellow-citizens, whom they had always looked upon as their subjects, would not comply; and a war followed, which ended in the ruin of the Roman Republic. The feelings of every Briton in this case must force him to approve the conduct of the Allies, and to condemn the proud and ungrateful Romans.

While this account might reasonably be pronounced be as being being broadly correct, it nevertheless fails to accomplish the objective for which Price deployed it for two basic reasons. First – and most glaringly – the Roman Republic was not ruined by the outcome of the Social War. If it had been, the subsequent transformation of said republic into one of the most powerful and most significant empires in the history of human civilization would surely not have occurred. And second, while the Anglo-American crisis concerned the efforts of certain dependent states of a larger empire to assert the primacy of their domestic independence against imperial encroachment, the Social War conversely stemmed from the desire of a collection of subjects peoples to enjoy a greater share of the rewards which resulted from their hegemon’s various imperial forays.

            Consider, by way of explanation, the nature of the Roman Republic just prior to the outbreak of the Social War. While the centuries which followed the founding of the republican phase of the Roman government – generally marked as taking place in 509 BC – witnessed repeated successful campaigns of expansion and conquest in such disparate regions as the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, North Africa, and Anatolia, Italy itself remained under something less than the complete control of the city of Rome well into the 80s BC. Rather than administer the various Italian provinces which fell outside the direct authority of the Senate via a series of appointed governors – as was the case with non-Italian possessions – power had instead been vested in the individual tribal communities that were native to the areas in question. The government of Southern Italy, for example, was left to indigenous peoples like the Samnites and the Lucani, central Abruzzo to the Marrucini, Vestini, and Paeligni, and Umbria to the Marsi. And while the relationships which these people enjoyed with their Roman cousins varied according to whether they had submitted peacefully to the authority of Rome or had been defeated in war, it was standard procedure for all of the local tribes to see to their own domestic needs while leaving foreign policy decisions to the Senate.

Durable though this arrangement proved, certain aspects of it in time became a source of tension and resentment among the various non-Roman peoples involved. None of them, for instance, were granted the privilege of Roman citizenship, though they fought in large numbers in the Roman legions of the day. Indeed, by the 2^nd century BC, Rome’s Italian “allies” contributed between one half and two-thirds of the Roman field army, and were simultaneously subject to taxation in the form of annual tribute. In spite of having contributed their blood and treasure to Rome’s expansion, however, their collective disenfranchisement ensured that they would never enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Conquered land, held in public trust by the government of the republic, was more often than not doled out to wealthy Roman landowners rather than to those who had helped capture and secure it. In consequence, while certain Romans became richer as the republic expanded, the people doing the actual expanding received hardly anything for their trouble. And though, at the same time, though they remained generally unmolested in their home regions, the Samnites, Marsi, and Vestini were forced by their lack of standing within Rome’s domestic political scene to render up their fighting men whenever they were called upon to do so. Lacking citizenship, they had no place in Rome’s various tribal assemblies, no influence over the elections of its magistrates, and no voice in the Senate during discussion upon war and peace.

Marcus Livius Drusus (130-91 BC), a reformist Tribune of the Plebs – i.e. the elected representative of the common people of Rome – attempted to alter this unequivocally imbalanced state of affairs when he proposed legislation in 91 BC which would have extended Roman citizenship to all of Rome’s Italian allies. Having come to depend on the manpower that these various subject peoples provided, it doubtless appeared to him both good form and good sense to take such measure as would ensure that they had no cause to become unnecessarily disgruntled.  Having already aggravated the traditionalist element of the Roman elite with his incessant politicking over the course of the previous year, however, the proposal was rejected by the enemies of Drusus in the Senate – many of whom also feared the power he would accrue from instantly enfranchising entire communities of potential supporters – and he was subsequently assassinated near the end of his year in office under circumstances which still remain mysterious. Their nearest chance at political empowerment now dashed, the supporters of reform among the Italian peoples almost immediately raised the banner of rebellion. In the conflict that followed, the Italians and Romans alike raised over one hundred thousand men and suffered some fifty thousand casualties each. Despite a series of early defeats – and the death of one of its Consuls – Rome managed to endure the resulting onslaught long enough to carve out a victory for itself by the dawning of 88 BC. At this point, having perhaps absorbed the lesson embedded in Drusus’ support for citizenship reform, the Senate managed to see its way clear to passing a pair of laws intended to both end the Roman-Italian conflict and prevent its future recurrence. The first, approved in 90 BC, was the Lex Julia de Civitate Latinis et Socii Danda, the terms of which extended Roman citizenship to all Italian peoples who had not taken up arms in revolt. This measure was followed in 89 BC by the Lex Plautia Papiria de Civitate Sociis Danda, which further extended the franchise to those Italians tribes who had declared themselves independent two years prior. The Social War – so named after the Italian allies, or socii – came to an end shortly thereafter with the defeat of the inveterate Samnites and the restoration of peace in Italy.

Once again, in light of all that has just been cited, consider the degree to which the circumstances of the Social War compare to those of the Anglo-American crisis and the subsequent armed conflict. The allies were not colonists of Rome who had been planted in the various regions of Italy with the intention of extracting local resources and/or provided markets for Roman manufacturing. Indeed, this might rather be taken to describe the relationship between republican Rome and its various non-Italian provinces, the purpose of which was generally to secure the Roman homeland from attack while providing much needed commodities like grain and iron. Price’s focus was not on Rome’s somewhat dictatorial rule over its extended empire, however, but on its relationship with the Socii, none of whom were of Roman derivation. In consequence, it would also seem fair to conclude that the Social War did not constitute an attempt by a given authority to abrogate the rights or appropriate the wealth of a related people. On the contrary, the issue at the heart of the conflict was that the Italians had no rights within Roman society. It was not the violation of their liberties that prompted them to revolt, therefore, but the fact that their longstanding contribution to Rome’s imperial expansion had yet to be substantially recognized. The Italians, in short, did not simply want to be left to their own devices. Rather, they sought to partake of – and perhaps to some degree direct – the conquests of which their fighting men formed a central component.

Consequent to the above, Price’s affirmations that Rome was ruined by the outcome of the Social War, and that every one of his countrymen would doubtless sympathize with the Italian allies and condemn the Romans, should appear exceptionally curious. What, in truth, had either of these points got to do with the actions of the North Ministry against the Thirteen Colonies? Rome was not ruined by the Social War. Indeed, as of 88 BC, the Romans had barely begun the historic chain of conquests which would ultimately render them the most powerful empire in the known world. And what if the British people did sympathize with the allies? Given though they may have been to identify the glory of their own expansive domain with that of Augustus (63 BC–14 AD) and his successors, there was no reason certain of them wouldn’t be given to compassion when asked to consider the plight of a people so completely subjugated in their foreign affairs to the discretion of an authority they could not themselves control. What of it? The American colonists were fully subjects of the British Crown, protected by their charters and by the terms of the Bill of Rights. Far from contributing to an empire in which they had no share, they benefited greatly from access to markets for their produce, from military and diplomatic protection, and from the ability to purchase some of the finest manufactured goods then available in the world. How, in light of all this, could they possibly compare to the benighted Socii?

Granted, the colonists and the Italian allies alike suffered to have their fates in some part decided by a government in which they had no part. But there the similarity between them substantially ends. Notwithstanding Price’s implication to the contrary, the behavior of the North Ministry towards the Thirteen Colonies did not much resemble the relationship between the Roman Republic and the various Italian client tribes tied to it by treaty. Apart from the conflicts which arose surrounding attempts made to curtail colonial expansion into territories ostensibly set aside for Britain’s Native American allies – a noteworthy but ultimately secondary source of tension within the Anglo-American relationship – the American colonists showed no outward interest in the 1760s and 1770s in receiving a greater share of the spoils of Britain’s continued global expansion. Unlike the Socii, they were not called upon to serve in British campaigns outside of their native environs – in India, say, or Africa, or Europe – and thus had no reason to either expect compensation for the foreign service they had rendered or to be concerned about how they were going to next be put to use. When Americans fought under the British banner, they fought in America, for the purpose – directly or indirectly – of protecting their homes. What concerned them, then, rather than any lack of compensation or consent in the realm of military affairs, was the sanctity of the liberties to which they believed their citizenship and their governing charters entitled them.

The Socii, by comparison, seemed to nurture far more martial intentions. Their primary interaction with Rome was in the realm of military service, and it was through that service that they sought to assert themselves politically. This, in essence, is what the Social War was all about. Having failed to carve out a space for themselves within Rome’s burgeoning empire by taking up arms on behalf of that selfsame republic, the Italian peoples instead sought to achieve the same objective by turning their swords upon their former masters. Noble though such an effort may seem, however – and though Price endeavored to make it appear – subsequent events within the history of the Roman Republic arguably cast some doubt upon the righteousness thereof. Having secured, at great cost, the right to share in the planning and outcome of Rome’s expansionist conflicts, the same Samnites, Marsi, and Lucani with whom Price implored his readers to sympathize proceeded in the centuries that followed to conquer half the world alongside their fellow Roman citizens. Far from endeavoring to seek a voice in Roman politics for the purpose of promoting peace, they instead seemed only desirous of waging war on more favorable terms. One naturally struggles to maintain a degree of sympathy when liberty, hard won, is turned to such ignominious purposes. Price having earlier condemned the Roman Republic for the tyrannical way it governed its provinces in part I, Section III of Observations, he would surely have been of this same sentiment himself. That he appeared to have forgotten the role which the various tribes of Socii must have played in securing these provinces to Roman control would therefore seem to represent either a lapse in memory on his part or an unfortunate side-effect of a particular rhetorical conviction.