How did economics change during the late republic?

Answer 1

The main economic changes in the late Republic were increases in trade and production for trade, the supply of slave labour, slave-based agricultural production, and the number of dispossessed peasants.

Imperial expansion in the Mid- and Late-Republic created increasing trading opportunities in the conquered territories and the areas which came under Roman influence. This strengthened the economic and political importance of the equities, an increasingly wealthy entrepreneurial class of merchants, bankers, moneylenders and investors in shipping and mining. As Roman trade extended around the Mediterranean , shipping also became more and more important as it was needed to transport trade goods around this sea. There was also an increase in the number of craftsmen who produced manufactures for trade.

In antiquity slaves were enslaved war captives. Rome's wars of expansion created large numbers of captives who were sent to Rome to be sold as slaves. In the 2nd and1st century BC and the 1st century BC (Late Republic and Early Empire, intended as rule by emperors) Italy was flooded with slaves.

Most of the slaves were bought by the owners of large landed estates and worked in their fields. This abundant supply of labour enabled these landowners to greatly increase the size of their estates and their output. Increased commercial production of food for towns and agricultural commodities for trade (such as olives and olive oil, grapes and wine, wool and the like) made these men (most of whom were patricians) even richer.

The households of the rich also came to own many slaves who carried out domestic work and other jobs. Miners were slaves because this job was considered a death sentence. Enslaved educated men became tutors who educated the children of the rich or state slaves who worked in state archives or in government departments.

Whilst the rich became richer, the poor became poorer. There was the emergence of dispossessed peasants who flocked to Rome to eke out a living and swelled the city's mass of the unemployed or underemployed poor who relied on a grain dole distributed by the state. Rich landowners often exploited the misfortunes of peasants to buy their land of the cheap and expand their estates. This trend started after the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). Many small farms were ravaged by Hannibal's invasion of Italy or had been neglected due to prolonged military service. Another problem was that the plots of land granted to peasants usually were too small to sustain a peasant family. These factors and indebtedness often led the peasants having to sell their land cheaply. The trend of encroachment on peasant land persisted through the period of the Late Republic.

Rome also came to increasingly rely of imports of grain from Tunisia, Sicily and Sardinia (later Egypt became the main supplier) to feed her growing population. Since the poor relied on a grain dole which initially was subsidised and then became free, the state needed money to fund this.

The problem of poverty became a political hot potato and was one of the major causes of the series of civil wars which eventually brought the Roman Republic down.