What were facts that resulted in the agrarian revolt in ancient Rome?

Answer 1

There came a point in time within ancient Rome that civil unrest among the lower classes of Rome became a serious problem. By the middle of the 2nd century BC, the seeds of a revolt were sown. The initial problem was due to the following events that later resulted in a revolution:

A. The importation of grains from large grain farms worked by slaves drove down the prices of these food products. These "slave driven" farmlands were in nearby Sicily, and further away in Sardinia and Spain;

B. Italian farmers, most of them running small farms in the Italian peninsula, had a hard time as the cheaper grains from abroad cost less than the cost of producing grains and marketing them for the Italian farmers;

C. This placed many of the Italian farmers into dire straits as they could not match the prices of imported grains. Many of these farmers had to go out of business;

D. Based upon Roman conquests, the slave population grew within the growing Roman Empire. Rome was still a "republic" in this time frame, but its expansion created a large population of slaves that entered the Italian peninsula. Their cheap labor forced the Italian peasants, small farmers, and free workers in the towns of Italy to look for work where there was little competition from slave labor;

E. Despite agrarian laws passed in the 3rd century BC, the size of Italian farms were enlarged by the wealthy land owning classes. Small farmers had to borrow funds to maintain their holdings. The interest on these loans created a scenario whereby they doomed the borrowers into bankruptcy; and

F. Slowly a class of unemployed farmers & workers drifted into Rome where the Government would feed them and as citizens they could "sell" their voting rights. In time the "proletarian" classes grew and were harmless as the free "games" and cheap doles of grain kept them alive. This new "population" became the seeds of a revolt.