Roman Republic

See also Roman Republic (18th century) and Roman Republic (19th century).

The Roman Republic (Latin: Res Publica Romanorum) was the republican government of the city of Rome and its territories from 510 BC until its subversion into the Roman Empire. The precise date in which the Republic changed into the Empire is disputed, with the dates of Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual dictator (44 BC), the Battle of Actium (September 2, 31 BC), and the date in which the Roman Senate granted Octavian the title "Augustus" (January 16, 27 BC), all being advanced as candidates.

The city of Rome stands on the banks of the river Tiber, very near the west coast of Italy. It marked the northern border of the territory in which the Latin language was spoken and the southern edge of Etruria, the territory in which the Etruscan language and people held sway.

The structure of republican Rome

File:Toga1.png

The toga was the characteristic garment of the Roman citizen. Roman women (who were not considered citizens) and Non-citizens were not allowed to wear one.

The people

Rome had many different classes of people who existed within the state, or within Rome's sphere of influence. Each had differing rights, responsibilities, and status under the law.

Full citizens of Rome were invariably free, property owning, men. These citizens of Rome (and their families) were divided into two orders or classes, known as the Patricians and Plebeians. These two social classes were hereditary, based on one's ancestry. In the early Republic, patricians monopolized all political offices and probably most of the wealth, but there are signs of wealthy and influential plebeians in the later republican records. Likewise, many patrician families lost both wealth and political influence in the later Republic. By the 2nd century BC the distinction was primarily only a religious one, as many of the priesthoods were reserved only for patricians.

The rights of Roman women varied widely throughout the history of the Republic. However, they were never accorded all the rights of citizens; they were not allowed to vote, or stand for public office, although they did have the right to own property.

Roman society also contained large numbers of slaves, who had no rights whatsoever under the law. They were considered property and could be treated however their owner wished. The death of a slave was a matter of property rather than a crime against a human being. Despite this, a freed slave (a freedman) was granted a form of full Roman citizenship, although neither such freed slaves, nor their decendants for three generations, could stand for public office^[1].

Roman citizenship was also used as a tool of foreign policy and control. Colonies and political allies would be granted a "minor" form of Roman citizenship, there being several graduated levels of citizenship and legal rights (the Latin Right was one of them). The promise of improved standing within the Roman "sphere of influence", or rivalry for standing with one's neighbours, kept the focus of many of Rome's neighbours and allies centered on the status quo of Roman culture, rather than trying to subvert or overthrow Rome's influence.

The government

Roman republican government was a complex system, which seems to have had several redundancies within it.

The basis of republican government, at least in theory, was the division of responsibilities between various assemblies, whose members (or blocks of members) would vote on issues placed before their assembly. These assemblies included the Curiate Assembly, the Centuriate Assembly, the Tribal Assembly, the Plebeian Assembly, and the Roman Senate. Membership in such assemblies was limited by such factors as class, order, family, and income.

Several of these assemblies had specific and specialized functions, such as the Curiate Assembly which conferred Imperium on the Roman magistrates. However, two of these assemblies dominated the political life of the Republic: the Plebeian Assembly, and the Roman Senate.

Within the various assemblies, there were a number of magistratus - magistrates which performed specialized functions.

The Romans observed two principles for their magistrates: annuality, the observation of a one-year term, and collegiality, the holding of the same office by at least two men at the same time. The supreme office of consul, for instance, was always held by two men together, each of whom exercised a power of mutual veto over any actions by the other consul. If the entire Roman army took the field, it was always under the command of the two consuls who alternated days of command. Many offices were held by more than two men; in the late Republic there were 8 praetors a year and 20 quaestors.

The dictators were an exception to annuality and collegiality, and the censors to annuality. In times of military emergency a single dictator was chosen for a term of 6 months to have sole command of the roman state. On a regular, but not annual basis two censors were elected: every five years for a term of 18 months.

During the early and middle Republic, the Roman Senate, highest in prestige and being composed of the aristocratic, rich, and politically influential (it contained many ex-magistrates), predominated the state.

During the latter years of the Republic, a division developed within the Senate with two factions arising: the Optimates and the Populares. The Optimates held to the traditional forms of Roman government, while the Populares were those who used the fact that the Plebeian Assembly was capable of passing binding laws (plebiscites) on the Republic, to pursue political influence outside the Senate. Since the Senate controlled the finances of the state, this would lead to conflicts between the Senate and the Plebian Assembly. Many ambitious politicians would use these conflicts to further their political career, advancing themselves as champions either of "Roman tradition", or of "The People".

The military

Main article: Military history of ancient Rome

The Roman legion formed the backbone of Roman military power. Rome used its legions to expand its borders from beyond the banks of the Tiber to eventually dominate most of Europe and of the Mediterranean.

The Roman Legion was one of the first modernized armies. It was not a collection of tribal warriors attempting to defeat their enemies and demonstrate personal courage to their fellow citizens. The Roman legion was a standardized, organized, disciplined military machine, in which the heroics and bravery of individuals were secondary to the function of the army as a whole. Equipment, tactics, organization, and military law was standardized and uniformly implemented. Procedures for everything from training and marching to camp building were laid out specifically, tasks allocated, and each unit and man knew his role and responsibilities within the army as a whole. It was not a collection of warriors; it was a collection of professional soldiers.

The early republic had no standing army. Instead, legions would be conscripted as needed (the term Legion comes from the Latin term Legio, meaning "muster" or "levy"), put into the field to fight the war for which they had been created, and then would disband back to their regular lives. Troops would be levied from Rome and her surrounding colonies, each which would be responsible for providing a particular number of soldiers. Such conscripts were theoretically taken only from those men who were property/land holders wealthy enough to equip themselves, although in time of dire military need, this requirement was sometimes overlooked. This made the Roman Legion less expensive to the state, and ensured that the Legions were fighting to preserve their own property and way of life as much as trying to protect "the state".

In the later republic Gaius Marius would institute the Marian reforms which would completely alter the form of the Legion. Not only were the structure and tactics of the Roman Legion updated, but it was transformed into a standing army, composed mostly of lower-class "career soldiers", who would enlist for a period of 20 years, and be rewarded (traditionally, but not legally guaranteed) with a "land grant" at the end of their term of service. This had the subtle, but important, effect of refocusing the loyalty of the legionnaire who now fought as much for his General and his "pension" as for "the state".

Each time Rome conquered new lands, the territory would be sectioned off into one or more provinces, under the administration of a governor who was chosen annually by the Senate. In the later republic, this newly acquired land was often used, partly, to settle the discharged veterans of the military campaign who had earned their "land grant". This not only "paid off" the army, but had the added benefit of settling Roman people, with Roman customs, bringing Roman culture to newly conquered people: a form of "cultural imperialism" as well as a military one.

Culture of republican Rome

The priesthood: religion in republican Rome

See also: Roman religion

Hellenistic influence on Rome

The role of culture in Rome

History of the Roman Republic

The founding of Rome (753 BC)

The origins and early history of Rome are very uncertain. While there are quite specific accounts of Rome's origins and early history, these tend to be of a more mythological nature, and do not stand up as objective history when subjected to modern analysis. There even have been archeological findings in the city of Rome that predate the mythological founding date. However, Roman origin myths probably do contain aspects of the truth, and were responsible for shaping the Romans' views of themselves.

According to Roman mythology, after the end of the Greek/Trojan war, the Trojan prince Aeneas sailed across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy and founded the city of Lavinium. His son Iulus later founded the city of Alba Longa, and from Alba Longa's royal family came the twins Romulus and Remus (supposedly sons of the god Mars by Rhea Silvia), who went on to found the city of Rome on April 21, 753 BC. Thus the Romans traced their origins back to the Hellenistic world.

Through a period of 243 years, Rome was supposedly ruled by a series of seven kings. The exact number and succession of these kings is likewise suspect. According to the records, each king would have to rule for an exceptionally long time, and most kings are attributed with founding a particular aspect of Roman culture: e.g. Numa Pompilius is thought to have founded all the religious institutions of Rome, Tullus Hostilius is thought to have performed all the millitary reforms, etc. It seems likely that later Roman historians simply attributed aspects of Roman culture to kings in the past. This 'retroactive editing' of the Roman monarchy period makes the exact history of it quite suspect.

Still, it seems clear that while details of this period may be suspect, Rome did in fact have a series of monarchs, which included individuals of Etruscan origin, whose influence could greatly be seen on Roman architecture and art.

The establishment of the Republic

Overthrow of the Monarchy (510 BC)

Livy's version of the establishment of the Republic states that the last of the Kings of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus ("Tarquin the proud") had a thoroughly unpleasant son, Sextus Tarquinius, who raped a Roman noblewoman named Lucretia. Lucretia compelled her family to take action by gathering her kinsmen, telling them what happened, and then killing herself. They were compelled to avenge her, and led an uprising that expelled the royal house, the Tarquins, out of Rome into refuge in Etruria.

Lucretia's widowed husband Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus and her brother Lucius Junius Brutus were elected as the first two consuls of the new Republic (Marcus Junius Brutus who later assassinated Gaius Julius Caesar claimed descent from this first Brutus).

The early consuls took over the roles of the king with the exception of his high priesthood in the worship of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the sacred temple on the Capitoline Hill. For that duty the Romans elected a Rex sacrorum or "king of holy things." It is interesting to note that the Roman Rex Sacrorum was forbidden membership in the Senate; one could not be a Senator and a Rex Sacrorum at the same time. Republican Rome distanced even this vestigial "king" from any possibility of power. Until the end of the Republic, the accusation that a powerful man wanted to make himself "Rex" - "King" remained a career-shaking charge (Julius Caesar's assassins claimed that they were preserving Rome from the re-establishment of a monarchy).

The conflict of the Orders

The relationship between the plebeians and the patricians sometimes came under such strain that the plebeians would secede from the city, taking their families and movable possessions, and set up camp on a hill outside the walls. Their refusal to co-operate any longer with the patricians led to social changes. Only about 15 years after the establishment of the Republic in 494 BC, plebeians seceded and chose two leaders to whom they gave the title Tribunes. The plebeians took an oath that they would hold their leaders 'sacrosanct' - 'untouchable' during their terms of office, and that a united plebs would kill anyone who harmed a tribune. The second secession in 471 BC led to further legal definition of their rights and duties and increased the number of tribunes to 10. The final secession ended in 287 BC and the resulting Lex Hortensia gave the vote of the Concilium Plebis or "Council of the Plebeians" the force of law. It is important to note that this force of law was binding for both patricians and plebeians, and in fact made the Council of the Plebeians a leading body for approving Roman laws.

Roman expansion into Italy

Throughout the 4th century BC the Romans fought a series of wars with their neighbors, most notably the Sabines and the Samnites, who were their principal rivals on the Italian mainland. Eventually, Rome came to dominate the Latin League, a coalition of city-states in the area of Latium.

During this era, Rome, and others of the Latin League, clashed with foreign powers as well, and not always successfully. In 390 BC the Gauls from Gallia Cisalpina (modern Po Valley) under the leadership of Brennus, defeated the Roman legions and sacked Rome itself, requiring a huge ransom to avoid completely destroying the city (A Roman senator protested that the weights used to measure the ransom of gold were inaccurate. In response, Brennus threw his sword onto the weights and uttered the famous words: "Vae Victis" - "Woe to the vanquished"). In 283 BC Pyrrhus of Epirus arrived to aid the Greek colony of Tarentum against the Romans. Pyrrhus was widely considered the greatest military mind since Alexander the Great, but even after winning three battles he was unable to defeat the Roman Republic, taking great losses as he did so. Pyrrhus is said to have uttered the phrase: "Another such victory and I shall be lost" coining the term "Pyrrhic victory". Pyrrhus withdrew to fight wars in Sicily and Greece, giving the Romans international military prestige, and bringing them to the attention of the Hellenistic superpowers of the East.

Roman military actions were characterized by a dogged determination, and a refusal to give up. Defeat of its legions would simply cause the Romans to regroup, raise another army, and continue to fight.

Another unique characteristic of the Republic was it's treatment of conquered people. Those conquered by Rome were brought under the "protection" of Rome; they were granted a form of citizenship, and had specific rights under Roman law. They were also held to certain obligations as well, most notably the requirement to provide troops for the Legions. This had a two-fold effect. First, Rome had a large pool of manpower to draw it's Legions from (the entire Latin League). This allowed it to simply field army after army, refusing to be defeated. Secondly, by having several levels of citizenship and rights under Roman law,the attention of conquered people was focused on "bettering" their rights within the Roman law, or in competing with rival client-states for status within the Roman sphere of influence, rather than trying to extract themselves from Roman dominance. This policy of "divide and rule" made conquered people willing participants in their own submission to Roman law.

By 268 BC the Romans dominated most of Italy through a network of allies, conquered city-states, colonies, and strategic garrisons. At that time Rome started to look beyond Italy, towards the islands and the rich trade of the Mediterranean Sea.

Conquest of the West: The Punic Wars

In 264 BC, Carthage was a Phoenician colony on the coast of modern Tunisia. It was a powerful city-state with a large commercial empire, and, with the exception of Rome, the strongest power in the western Mediterranean. While Carthage's navies were uncontested, it did not maintain a strong standing army. Instead, it relied on mercenaries, hired with it's considerable wealth from it's trading empire, to fight its wars for it.

As soon as Rome had consolidated its control in Italy, it came into conflict with Carthage as Rome attempted to expand it's influence into the Mediterranean. Rome and Carthage would fight a series of three Punic Wars ('Punic' is Latin for 'Phoenician') between 264 and 146 BC. The Roman victories over Carthage in these wars made Rome the most powerful nation in Europe and the Mediterranean, a status it would retain until the division of the Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire by Diocletian in 286 AD.

The First Punic War (264 to 241 BC)

The First Punic War between Rome and Carthage began as a local conflict in Sicily between Hiero II of Syracuse, and the Mamertines of Messina. The Mamertines had the bad judgement to enlist the aid of the Carthaginian navy, and then betray the Carthaginians by entreating the Roman Senate for aid against Carthage. The Romans sent a garrison to secure Messina, and the betrayed Carthaginians then lent aid to Syracuse. With the two local superpowers now embroiled in a local conflict, local tensions quickly escalated into a full-scale war between Carthage and Rome for the control of Sicily .

The first Punic war was mostly a naval war. After a sound defeat at the battle of Agrigentum, the Carthaginian leadership resolved to avoid direct land-based confrontation with the Roman legions, and concentrated on the sea.

Initially, an experienced Carthaginian navy prevailed against a Roman Navy whithout any relevant experience, (see: Battle of the Lipari Islands). Rome responded by drastically expanding it's navy (there is some dispute whether or not it did so by copying storm-beached and captured Carthaginian warships). Roman designers added an "assault bridge" to Roman ships, known as "The Raven", or corvus. This bridge would latch onto enemy vessels, bring them to a standstill, and allow Roman legionaries to board and capture Carthaginian ships with ease. This tactic stripped the Carthaginian navy of it's advantage (superiority in ship-to-ship engagement), and allowed Rome's superior infantry to be brought to bear in naval conflicts. However, the corvus was cumbersome and dangerous, and it was eventually phased out as the Roman navy became more experienced and tactically proficient.

Save for the disasterous defeat at the battle of Tunis in Africa, and the battle of the Lipari Islands on the sea, the First Punic war was mostly an unbroken string of Roman victories. In 241 BC, Carthage signed a peace treaty giving Rome the total control of Sicily.

In 238 BC the mercenary troops of Carthage revolted and Rome took the opportunity to seize the islands of Corsica and Sardinia away from Carthage as well. From that point on, the Romans used the term "Mare Nostrum" - "our sea" and effectively controlled the Mediterranean. Rome's navies could prevent amphibious invasion upon Italy, control the important and rich sea trade routes, and invade other shores.

The Second Punic War (218 to 202 BC)

Carthage spent the following years improving its finances and expanded its colonial empire in Hispania (modern Spain), under the Barcid family, while Rome's attention was mostly concentrated on the Illyrian Wars. However, the Barcid family had not forgotten the defeats of the first Punic war, and it's most famous member Hannibal Barca, swore a sacred oath never to be a friend to Rome. In 221 BC Hannibal attacked Saguntum in Spain, a city allied to Rome, beginning the Second Punic War.

Hannibal's feat in crossing the Alps with war elephants passed into European legend: a fresco detail, *ca.* 1510, Capitoline Museums, Rome

Hannibal was a master strategist who knew that the Roman cavalry was, as a rule, weak and vulnerable and therefore enlisted superior Numidian light cavalry along with Gallic and Hispanic heavy cavalry into his armies, with devastating effect on the Roman legions.

There were three major military theaters in this war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly; Spain, where Hasdrubal Barca, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success until eventually retreating into Italy; and Sicily where the Romans held military supremacy.

After assaulting Saguntum, Hannibal surprised the Romans, by directly invading Italy, leading a large army of mercenaries composed mainly of Gauls, Hispanics, Numidians, and most famously a dozen African war elephants, through the Alps. Hannibal's forces defeated the Roman legions in several major engagements, most famously at the Battle of Cannae, but his long-term strategy failed. Lacking siege engines and sufficient numbers to take the city of Rome itself, he had planned to turn the Italian allies against Rome and starve the city out. However, with the exception of a few of the southern city-states, the majority of the Roman allies remained loyal and continued to fight alongside Rome, despite Hannibal's near-invincible army devastating the Italian countryside.

More importantly, Hannibal never received any significant reinforcements from Carthage, despite his many pleas. This lack of reinforcements prevented Hannibal from decisively ending the conflict by conquering Rome through force of arms.

Rome, on the other hand, was also incapable of bringing the conflict in the Italian theater to a decisive close. Not only were they contending with Hannibal in Italy, and his brother in Spain, but Rome had embroiled itself in yet another foreign war, and was fighting the first of it's Macedonian wars at the same time.

With Hannibal lacking decisive force from Carthage, and the Roman military spread over three separate theatres of conflict, Hannibal's Italian war carried on inconclusively for sixteen years.

File:Scipio.jpg

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus

In Spain, a young Roman commander, Publius Cornelius Scipio (later to be given the cognomen Africanus because of his feats during this war), eventually defeated the Carthaginian forces uner Hasdrubal. Abandoning Spain, Hasdrubal attempted to bring his mercenary army into Italy to reinforce Hannibal, but was utterly defeated and killed at the decisive Battle of the Metaurus before he could do so. Scipio captured the local Carthaginian cities, made several alliances with local rulers, and then invaded Africa itself.

With Carthage now directly threatened, Hannibal returned to Africa to face Scipio, but at the final Battle of Zama in 202 BC the Romans defeated Hannibal. Carthage sued for peace, and Rome agreed, first stripping Carthage of it's foriegn colonies, forcing it to pay a huge indemnity, and forbidding it to own either an army or a significant navy again. Hannibal took a leadership role in rebuilding Carthage, and succeeded so well that his envious rivals and a vengeful Rome forced him to flee to Asia Minor, where he served several local kings as a military adviser until he committed suicide years later to avoid his capture by Roman agents.

The Third Punic War (149 BC to 146 BC)

Rome now concentrated it's attention on it's ongoing Macedonian wars, and pacifying it's newly acquired territory in Hispania.

Carthage, however, was reduced to a single city-state, with no military, under huge financial debt, and dependant on Rome for military protection and arbitration of international matters. With no military, Carthage suffered raids from it's neighbor Numidia, and under the terms of the Roman treaty, such disputes were arbitrated by the Roman Senate. As Numidia was a favored "client state" of Rome, Roman rulings were slanted heavily in Numidian favor.

After some fifty years of this condition, Carthage managed to discharge it's war indemnity, and considered itself no longer bound by the restrictions of the treaty, although Rome believed otherwise. It mustered an army to repel Numidian forces, and immediately lost a war with Numidia, placing themselves in further debt, this time to Numidia.

This new-found Punic militarism alarmed many Romans, including Cato the Elder who after a voyage to Carthage, ended all his speeches by saying: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam." - "I also think that Carthage must be destroyed".

In 149 BC, in an attempt to pacify Carthage, Rome made a series of escalating demands, ending with the near-impossible demand that the city be demolished and re-founded away from the coast, deeper into Africa. The Carthaginians refused this last demand and Rome declared the Third Punic War. Scipio Aemilianus besieged the city for three years before he breached the walls, sacked the city, and burned Carthage to the ground. According to legend, the Romans went so far as to sow salt into the earth so that nothing might ever be grown there. This is highly unlikely, considering the high price salt commanded in those times, and is most likely only a legend. The surviving Carthaginians were sold into slavery, and Carthage ceased to exist, until Octavian would rebuild the city as a Roman veterans' colony, over a century later.

Conquest of the East: the Macedonian and Seleucid wars

The Macedonian and Seleucid wars were a series of conflicts fought by Rome during and after the second Punic war, in the eastern Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the Aegean. Along with the Punic wars, they resulted in Roman control or influence over the entire Mediterranean basin.

The first Macedonian war (215 to 202 BC)

During the Second Punic War, Philip V of Macedon allied himself with Hannibal. Fearing possible reinforcement of Hannibal by Macedon, Rome dispatched forces across the Adriatic. Roman legions (aided by allies from the Aetolian League and Pergamon after 211 BC) did little more than skirmish with Macedonian forces and seize minor territory along the Adriatic coastline in order to "combat piracy". Rome's interest was not in conquest, but in keeping Macedon, the Greek city-states, and political leagues carefully divided and non-threatening. The war ended indecisively in 202 BC with the Treaty of Phoenice. While a minor conflict, it opened the way for Roman military intervention in Greece.

The second Macedonian war (200 to 196 BC)

In 201 BC, ambassadors from Pergamon and Rhodes brought evidence before the Roman Senate that Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire had signed a non-aggression pact. Although some scholars view this "secret treaty" as a fabrication by Pergamon and Rhodes, it resulted in Rome launching the second Macedonian war, with aid from it's Greek allies. It was an indecisive conflict until the Roman victory at the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC. After Rome imposed the Treaty of Tempea, Philip V was forbidden to interfere with affairs outside his borders, a condition he adhered to for the rest of his life. In 194 BC Rome declared Greece "free", and withdrew completely from the Balkans. It seemed that Rome had no further interest in the region.

The Seleucid War (192 to 188 BC)

Following the second Macedonian war, the Aetolian League was unhappy with the amount of territory ceeded to them by Rome as "reward" for their aid. In response, they "invited" Antiochus III of Seleucid Syria to assist them in freeing Greece from "Roman oppression". Antiochus sent a small force into Greece in 192 BC, and Rome responded by sending legions back into Greece, driving out the Seleucids.

Possibly partly because Antiochus had given Hannibal shelter as his military advisor (Hannibal had urged the king not to enter Greece with so few troops and been ignored), Rome sent a force of 30,000 troops under Scipio Africanus into Asia Minor. Roman victories at Thermopylae (191 BC) and the Battle of Magnesia (190 BC), forced Antiochus to sign the Treaty of Apamia (188 BC), ceeding Seleucid territory to Rome and Pergamon, and extracting a war indemnity of 15,000 talents of silver.

The third Macedonian War (172 to 168 BC)

Upon Philip's death in Macedon (179 BC), his son, Perseus of Macedon, attempted to restore Macedon's international influence, and moved aggressively against his neighbors. When Perseus was implicated in an assassination plot against an ally of Rome, the Senate declared the third Macedonian War. Initially, Rome did not fare well against the Macedonian forces, but in 168 BC, Roman legions smashed the Macedonian phalanx at the Battle of Pydna. Perseus was later captured and the kingdom of Macedon divided into four puppet republics.

The fourth Macedonian War (150 to 148 BC)

For several years Greece was peaceful, until a popular uprising in Macedon rose up under Andriscus, who claimed to be a son of Perseus. Rome once again dispatched legions into Greece, and put down the rebellion. This time, Rome did not withdraw from the region, forming the Roman provinces of Achaea, Epirus and Macedonia, establishing a permanent Roman foothold on the Greek peninsula.

In response, the remaining free Greek powers of the Achaean League, rose up against Roman presence in Greece. The League was swiftly defeated, and, as an object lesson, Rome utterly destroyed the ancient city of Corinth in 146 BC, the same year that Carthage was destroyed.

The Macedonian wars had come to an end, along with Greek independence.

The acquisition of Asia

In 133 BC, a dying King Attalus III of Pergamon willed his entire kingdom to the Roman Republic to avoid dynastic disputes amongst his heirs, and avoid the possibility that Rome would take the opportunity to seize Pergamon by force. Events were complicated by the rebellion of Aristonicus, a relative of Attalus III who was proclaimed king of Pergamon with the title of Eumenes III. After four years of war (133–129 BC) he was defeated and captured by Rome. Pergamon was reorganized into the foundation of the province of Asia, and became one of the most wealthy provinces the Romans ever controlled. Because of the vast wealth of Asia, the province attracted the corrupt and greedy among the Senate, and it's Governors were notorious for nearly a century after it's acquisition.

This sudden windfall had unforeseen, and perhaps unfortunate, consequences for the political situation in Rome, and the political reform movement of the Gracchi.

The beginning of the end

Economic and Political strife in Rome

Rome's military and diplomatic successes around the Mediterranean resulted in unforeseen economic and political pressures on the state. While factional strife had always been part of Roman political life, the stakes were now far higher; a corrupt provincial governor could acquire unbelievable wealth; a successful military commander needed only the support of his legions to rule vast territories.

Starting with the Punic Wars, the Roman economy began to change, concentrating wealth in the hands of a few powerful clans and causing political tension within Rome.

Much of the newly conquered territories were seized by rich and powerful families. Additionally, as only men who could provide their own arms were eligible to serve in the Legions, the majority of Roman troops came from the middle class land holders who theoretically would be fighting to defend their own lands. With military campaigns now lasting years rather than just a few months, soldiers could not return to work their farms. With their holdings lying fallow, their families quickly fell into debt, and their lands were lost to debtors - typically wealthy landholders who consolidated these properties into vast latifundia. Formerly middle-class soldiers would return from years of campaigning to find themselves landless, unable to support their families, and ironically, unemployable because the successes of the Legions made slaves a cheaper source of labor.

By 133 BC the economic imbalance was too acute to ignore, but the wealthy patricians and old families in the Senate had a vested interest in preserving the status quo. It seemed that land reform through traditional channels was an unlikely prospect.

The Gracchi reforms

In 133 BC, a tribune, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, tried to introduce land reform to redistribute "publiclly held land" to the now landless returning soldiers. He proposed the enforcement of a Roman law, which had mostly been ignored, which limited the use of public lands. While "public lands" were technically state owned, such land was often used by wealthy landholders, many of them Senators. Under the enforcement of this law many of them would lose property.

As it seemed unlikely that the Senate would agree to enforce the law, Tiberius bypassed the Senate entirely, and tried to pass his reform through the Plebeian Assembly as a plebiscite, using the legal principle of Lex Hortensia. While technically legal, this was a violation of political custom, and outraged many patricians. The Senate blocked Tiberius by bribing his fellow tribune to veto the bill. Tiberius then passed a bill to depose his colleague from office, violating the principle of collegiality. With the veto withdrawn, the land reform passed. An incensed Senate refused to fund the land commission. Tiberius used the plebeian assembly to divert funds from the income of Pergamon to fund the commission, challenging Senate control of state finances and foreign policy. When it became clear that Tiberius did not have time, even with political and economic backing, to finish his land reforms, he announced that he would run again for the tribunate, violating annuality. This was the last straw for the patricians, who, fearing that Tiberius was setting himself up as a tyrant, responded by slaughtering Tiberius and 300 of his followers in the streets of Rome.

Tiberius' younger brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus attempted to continue political reforms using similar tactics almost ten years later. He seems to have been more of a demagogue who attempted to pass a slew of popular laws to gain popular support rather than to be a political reformer with a specific agenda like his brother. He was neither as successful, or as popular, as his elder brother, but he managed to create many political enemies. Escalating political tensions finally exploded once again in violence on the Capitoline Hill, where Gaius Gracchus and 3,000 of his followers were killed.

Whatever their intensions, the political careers of the Gracchi brothers had broken the political traditions of Rome, and introduced mob violence as a tool of Roman political life. It was a change that the Republic would not recover from.

Marius and Sulla

Gaius Marius, Military Reformer

"Marius amid the Ruins of Carthage" by John Vanderlyn

Following the scandal of the Gracchi, Roman politics became a mix of traditional forms, demagoguery, and mob violence. Additionally, Rome was finding the military demands of it's holdings extremely taxing.

A badly executed, and unpopular, Jugurthine War (112-105 BC) was dragging on in Numidia. It would launch the career of Gaius Marius, and bring about fundamental changes in the Republic.

Marius was a "novus homo" from Arpinum who had wealth and minor political influence, but who was not a member of the Roman aristocracy. After serving as a minor officer in the Jugurthine War, Marius returned to Rome, and stood for election as Consul in 107 BC, based on the promise to end the war within a year. Surprisingly, Marius was elected.

Upon attaining the Consulship, and over the extreme protests of the Senate, Marius instituted the Marian reforms in 107 BC. These reorganized the tactical structure of the Roman legion, and allowed the recruitment of poor and landless Roman citizens into the legions, at state expense. Soldiers would enlist for a period of 20 years, and would be rewarded with a land grant at the end of their term of service. This would change the nature of the legions, as legionnaires would from this point on be professional soldiers fighting for their "pension", and the general who would obtain it for them, as much as for "the state".

With his new "head count" armies, Marius returned to Numidia as the Consular commander. Although Marius did not complete the war within the year, he was elected Consul a second time, in absentia (both amazingly unusual exceptions), to complete the war. In 105 BC, Marius defeated Jugurtha, who was captured by King Bocchus I of Mauretania and handed over to one of Marius' quaestors, Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Returning to Rome a military hero, Marius arrived to deal with the aftermath of the disaster of the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC, and the fact that Roman territory was now open to invasion from migrating Cimbri and Teutoni tribes. Amazingly, Marius was elected Consul for three more years (104 to 102 BC) to deal with the Germanic threat.

He raised new Legions from plebeian volunteers, trained them, crushed the Teutoni at the Battle of Aquae Sextae in 102 BC, and aided Quintus Lutatius Catulus to likewise defeat the Cimbri at the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC. Having saved Rome, Marius was elected to Consul an unprecedented 6th time in 100 BC.

However, Marius would prove that he was a General, and not a politician. After a humiliating political scandal concerning Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, Marius completely withdrew from public political life.

The Social war (91 to 88 BC)

With Marius' retirement, the way was cleared for the political career of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla was a patrician, and a traditional political conservative, who had served under Marius as a competent officer in Numidia and Germany. However, there was political enmity between the two, as Marius had "slighted" Sulla by failing to credit him with the capture of Jugurtha.

In 91 BC, a tribune and political champion of the rights of the Latin allies, Livius Drusus, attempted to pass a law granting full Roman citizenship to all the Italian allies living south of the Po River. When Drusus was murdered, some of the allies, especially those among the Samnites, exploded into the rebellion of the Social war (Soccii is Latin for ally).

Ironically, to try and end the war, Rome offered full citizenship to any of the rebelling allies who would cease the conflict. Most of the allies ceased fighting, but several continued the rebellion. In response, Gaius Marius came out of retirement, and commanded the Roman forces in northern Italy, while Lucius Cornelius Sulla commanded the Roman legions in southern Italy, bringing the war to an end in 88 BC. Following their joint victory, Sulla stood for election as Consul, and was elected.

The first Mithridatic, and Roman civil wars (88 to 83 BC)

When Mithridates VI of Pontus overran Bithynia as the Social war ended, and slaughtered tens of thousands of Roman citizens in the Asiatic Vespers, the Senate gave Sulla the Consular command of the expeditionary force sent to extract revenge against Mithridates.

Gaius Marius did not wish to return to political obscurity, and bribed the passage of a bill through the Plebeian Assembly to give himself command of Sulla's armies. When Sulla heard of this while raising his legions in southern Italy, he turned his armies on Rome itself! Sulla's legions captured the city after protracted and bloody street fighting in Rome, and Marius was forced to flee to Africa. Sulla then departed for Pontus to extract revenge from Mithridates.

Marius returned to Rome with Lucius Cornelius Cinna and captured the city with their Legions. Marius appointed himself Consul for a 7th time and proceeded to butcher Sulla's supporters. However, Marius died of a massive brain hemorrhage only a few weeks into his reign. Cinna retained power, and in an almost comic twist, decided to ignore Sulla's existence completely, even sending a second army to Pontus. The two Roman armies spent as much time fighting each other as Mithridates, and the war came to a disappointing close with the Treaty of Dardanos (85 BC).

Sulla then returned to Rome with his Legions in 83 BC.

The bloody reign of Sulla (83 to 80 BC)

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix - a denarius portrait issued by his grandson

Cinna was killed by his own troops trying to muster them against the returning Legions of Sulla, leaving Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and other of Marius' supporters to deal with Sulla's return. In 83 BC Sulla landed in southern Italy, and full scale Roman civil war broke out in the Italian countryside. The war raged on for a year and a half, ending with Sulla in control of the Roman state.

Sulla then instituted a bloody series of purges, subjecting his enemies to proscription: a process named for the lists of the condemned posted in the forum. People were stripped of their legal rights and protection, had their (and their family's) property impounded by the state, and a bounty placed on their lives. Thousands of Romans who opposed Sulla, or even those who simply had wealth he and his followers coveted, were butchered in this fashion over a period of two years.

Sulla also appointed himself dictator without limit, and began reorganizing the state, attempting to return power to the Senate. He strongly curtailed the power of the Plebeian Assembly, doubled the size of the Roman Senate, gave the Senate veto power over the decrees of the Plebeian Assembly, and stripped the Tribunes of much of their power.

With his reforms in place, Sulla then, surprisingly, resigned his dictatorship in 80 BC, withdrew completely from public life, and retired to his country estates — if ancient sources are correct, there to pursue a life of debauchery — until his death in 78 BC.

The Rise of the First Triumverate

Throughout the decade of the 70's, Roman politics was now controlled by the conservatives, due to Sulla's reforms. These political reforms would slowly be eroded over time through legislative change. However Sulla's use of military force against Rome was a legacy that endured.

Spartacus, Crassus and Pompey

One of of the more easily over-looked social aspect in classical antiquity and of Roman society is Slavery. At that time almost all societies used slaves in various positions. The vast majority would perform back-breaking and dangerous labor and the more educated slave (a small minority) would work in a more bureaucratic position. The lives of the majority of slaves would usually consist of hard work and their living conditions would be quite harsh. From time to time slaves would revolt and military might would be used to crush the rebellion and the matter would be conviently forgotten and nothing would happen. This time, it would be diffrent.

The Roman Republic would be rocked by a slave revolt led by Spartacus who according to ancient sources was a Thracian auxilia who had deserted from the Roman legions. He had been captured, enslaved and trained as a gladiator. In 73 BC he and some of his fellow gladiators rebelled at Capua and set up a military camp on Mount Vesuvius. Slaves across all the Italian peninsula flocked to him, and their numbers soon swelled to about 70,000. The best Roman legions were absent from Italy: some were in Spain under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, suppressing a rebellion led by Quintus Sertorius, while others were fighting in Asia Minor under the command of Lucius Licinius Lucullus against Mithridates. Initially, the rebel slaves had great success against the Roman legions sent against them, and wreaked havoc across the Italian peninsula. In 71 BC, however, Marcus Licinius Crassus was given military command and crushed the rebels. About 6,000 were crucified; 10,000 survivors who escaped were intercepted by Pompey, then returning with his army from Spain. Although Crassus did most of the fighting, Pompey also claimed credit for the victory, and this created tension between the two men.

Crassus and Pompey both ran for consul for the year 70 BC and were elected. The two spent most of the year trying to outdo each other in the lavishness of their public expenditures. Despite the two consuls' uncooperative natures, there was still the passage of two laws that chipped away at the Sullan settlement; first, the tribune was restored to its former power; second, the senatorial monopoly of juries was ended, and membership was divided equally between senators, equestrians, and a group known as "tribunes of the treasury" .

Meanwhile, Lucullus was fighting quite successfully, against Mithridates and his ally and son-in-law, Tigranes the Great, King of Armenia, but was unable to completely pacify the territories he conquered. At the same time, M. Antonius (father of Mark Antony) and Q. Caecilius Metellus were attempting to stamp out the plague of piracy afflicting the Mediterranean, with reportedly grotesque incompetence.

Due to these lack of successes, Pompey was given an extraordinary military command in 66 BC. He stamped out piracy within forty-nine days and then began pursuing Mithridates. Pompey annihilated his army, and Mithridates remained a fugitive for the last three years of his life. Pompey followed up these successes by conquering the entirety of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, ending the rule of the Syrian Seleucid dynasty. The captured wealth of the conquests more than doubled the income of the Roman state, and Pompey now surpassed Crassus as the wealthiest and man in Rome.

The economic situation in Rome itself, however, was still problematic. Debt was the intractable problem and many, both noble and not, found themselves burdened with incredible debts. Their mantle was taken up by Lucius Sergius Catilina, who ran for consul in 64 BC for the year 63 BC on the platform of a wholesale debt cancellation – essentially a redistribution of wealth. Despite his noble birth, his policies scared the optimates, who instead supported the novus homo Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero was duly elected; Catilina finished third and out of office. Catilina ran again the following year, but this time was defeated even more heavily. He then, along with several dissolute senators, began planning a coup d'état that would include arson throughout Rome, the arming of slaves, and the accession of Catilina as dictator. Cicero found out and informed the Senate in a series of brilliant speeches, and was given absolute power by the senate ("senatus consultum ultimum"), in order to save the republic. He ordered the execution of the conspirators in the city without due trial; and his fellow consul, Gaius Antonius Hybrida defeated the army of Catilina near Pistoria. None of Catilina's soldiers were taken alive.

The First Triumvirate

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Bust of Gaius Julius Caesar

In 62 BC Pompey returned from the east. Many senators, especially among the optimates, feared that Pompey would follow in the footsteps of Sulla and establish himself as dictator. Instead, Pompey disbanded his army upon arriving in Italy. Nevertheless, the Senate maintained its opposition to land grants for Pompey's veterans and the ratification of Pompey's eastern settlement. In addition, the Senate was also stonewalling Pompey's old enemy, Crassus, in his attempts to gain some measure of relief for his allies, the tax farmers. Now arriving onto the scene was a young politician who had a heretofore successful, but not brilliant, career — Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar took advantage of the two enemy's dissatisfaction to bring them into an informal alliance known as the First Triumvirate. In addition, he reinforced his alliance by marrying his daughter, Julia Caesaris to Pompey. The three triumvirs would be able to dominate Roman politics due to their collective influence; the first step was Caesar's election to the consulship for 59 BC.

Attempting to pass the laws which would benefit both Pompey and Crassus, Caesar ran into heavy opposition from his very conservative consular colleague Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who used all manner of parliamentary tactics to stall the legislation. Caesar resorted to violence and Bibulus ended up under house arrest for most of the year, and Caesar was able to pass almost all of his legislation. He was then appointed Governor of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum for a five year period. When the Governor of Transalpine Gaul died unexpectedly, the Senate assigned that province to him as well.

Caesar took up his governorships in 58 BC. He immediately launched a series of military campaigns across all of Gaul known as the Gallic Wars, and even raided Germania and Britannia. For a nine year period he carefully played the gallic tribes against each other (divide and rule) and crushed all military opposition. These wars caused massive death and destruction and were, technically, illegal, as Caesar had exceeded his authority (which was supposedly limited to his provinces) in launching the invasions, but in Rome no one, except his enemies in the Senate, was too concerned.

Meanwhile, the Triumvirate at home needed a boosting. In 56 BC, the three triumvirs met at Lucca, just inside Caesar's province of Cisalpine Gaul (as a man in control of an army, he was not allowed to cross into Italy). The three triumvirs reached a new settlement: Crassus and Pompey were once again to be elected consuls for the year 55 BC; Pompey kept the command of the Roman legions in Spain (which he ruled in "absentia"), and Crassus, desiring military glory so that he could be on the same level as Pompey and Caesar, was given a military command in the east. Caesar's governorships were extended for another five years.

The Parthian Empire, the arch-rival of Rome, at its greatest extent, c 60 BC.

In 53 BC, Crassus launched an invasion of the Parthian Empire. He marched his army deep into the desert; but here his army was cut off deep in enemy territory, surrounded and routed at the Battle of Carrhae. Crassus himself was killed in battle, the story being that the Parthians, upon finding his body poured molten gold down his throat, symbolising Crassus' obsession with money.

The death of Crassus removed some of the balance in the Triumvirate; consequently, Caesar and Pompey began to move apart. In 52 BC, Julia died, widening the gap emerging between the two. Pompey, who previously had been the leader of the Triumvirate and, indeed, of the republic, was beginning to see his authority threatened by Caesar, whose campaigns in Gaul were vastly increasing his prestige, fortune and power. Consequently, Pompey began to align increasingly with the optimates, who themselves were very much opposed to Caesar and his "party" (i.e., the populares).

At the same time an united Gallic uprising, led by Vercingetorix, nearly succeeded in toppling the Roman military presence in Gaul; but Caesar, with his usual speed and brilliant mix of military strategy and ruthlessness, was able to defeat Vercingetorix at the siege of Alesia. The Gallic Wars were essentially over (a third of all male Gauls had been slain; another third had been sold into slavery).

By 50 BC all Gallic resistance had been stamped out and Caesar had a veteran and loyal army to further his political ambitions. With Caesar's governorship drawing to a close, the two greatest political and military leaders of the Roman Republic were hard-pressed to find any common ground, and a crisis was growing which would be the final nail in the coffin of the Republic.

The Civil War and Caesar's dictatorship

The key issue was whether or not Caesar would be able to stand for the consulship of 48 BC in absentia. Caesar's governorship's would expire at the end of 49 BC, and so would his immunity from trial. He was sure to be charged with violations of the constitution stemming from his consulship of 59 BC, which could result in his political and probably even physical, death. If he was allowed to run in absentia, he could immediately assume another consulship, and then following that, immediately assume a new governorship, always maintaining his immunity. The optimates were heavily opposed to Caesar's standing in absentia, and on the first of January, 49 BC, passed a law declaring Caesar a public enemy and demanded his return to Rome to stand trial. Pompey was given absolute authority to defend the Roman Republic. This news reached Caesar probably on January 10, and proclaming "alea iacta est" - "the die is cast" (in fact, he said it in Greek, quoting Menander), Caesar crossed the Rubicon River (the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy) with his army. Civil war had begun again.

Caesar, leading a tough veteran army, quickly swept down the Italian peninsula, and encountered meager resistance from freshly recruited legions. The only exception was at Corfinium, where Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was defeated. Caesar pardoned him, under his notable policy of clemency — he wanted to let everyone know that he would not be the next Sulla. He took Rome without opposition, and then marched south to try and stop Pompey, who was trying to withdraw from Brundisium across the Adriatic Sea to Greece. Caesar came close, but Pompey and his armies were able to escape at the last minute.

In 48 BC Pompey controlled the seas, and his legions heavily outnumbered Caesar's; but the legions of Caesar, after ten years of vigorous campaigns were experienced veterans. Caesar, for his lack of a navy, solidified his control over the western Mediterranean, notably at Massilia and over Spain. Then he invaded Greece, the two leaders first faced each other at the Battle of Dyrrhachium, where Pompey won a major victory. Nevertheless, Pompey failed to follow up on his victory, and Caesar was able to regroup and win a decisive victory at the Battle of Pharsalus on the 9th of August. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he hoped to find assistance.

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Bust of Cleopatra, with her hair in a Greek style bun

Caesar pursuing Pompey, arrived in Alexandria, capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, to find the breadbasket of the Mediterranean in a state of civil war. Agents of the young king, Ptolemy XIII, had assassinated Pompey and presented his head to Caesar, believing it would please him and that he would support Ptolemy against his sister, Cleopatra. Caesar was a too cunning politician to make such a mistake, in a carefull way he lamented the unglorious death of Pompey, a fellow roman, and supported the military weaker side, whose gratitude would logically be much greater. He even began an affair with Cleopatra. A long, drawn-out city battle resulted, one of the most dangerous of Caesar's career, but he triumphed and placed Cleopatra on the throne along with another brother, Ptolemy XIV. Cleopatra later gave birth to Caesar's son, Caesarion, titled Ptolemy Caesar. Caesar hearing of an invasion in Asia Minor led by Pharnaces II of Pontus, the son of the old Roman enemy Mithridates, advanced there in 47 BC, and won a quick victory at the Battle of Zela. It was then that Caesar famously said: "Veni, Vidi, Vici" - "I came, I saw, I conquered."

In 46 BC Caesar went to North Africa to deal with the regrouping remnants of the pro-Pompeian forces under Cato the Younger and Titus Labienus. After a slight setback in the Battle of Ruspina he defeated them at the Battle of Thapsus. Much to Caesar's chagrin, Cato committed suicide. Caesar had wanted to pardon Cato, his most intractable foe, in order to gain popularity through further clemency. In 45 BC, he went to Spain, and won the final victory over the pro-Pompeian forces in the terrifying Battle of Munda. He said that before, he always had fought for victory, but in Munda he had fought for his life. He then returned to Rome; he had less then a year to live.

In that final year Caesar launched many reforms. He tightly regulated the distribution of free grain, keeping those who could afford private grain from having access to the grain dole. He reformed the calendar, changing from a Lunar to a Solar calendar and giving his gens name to the 7th month (July). This calendar, with minor changes made by Octavian (who would later rename the 8th month (August) after one of his titles) and Pope Gregory in 1582, has survived until now. He also reformed the debt problem. At the same time, he continued to accept enormous honors from the Senate. He was named Pater Patriae (Father of his Country), and began wearing the clothing of the old Roman kings. This deepened the rift between Caesar and the aristocratic republican Senators, many of whom he had pardoned during the civil war.

In 45 BC he had been named dictator for ten years. This was followed up in 44 BC with his appointment of dictator for life. A two-fold problem was created; firstly, all political power would be concentrated in the hands of Caesar for the foreseeable future, in effect subordinating the Senate to his whims; and secondly, only Caesar's death would end this. As such, a group of about 60 senators, led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, conspired to assassinate Caesar in order to save the republic. They carried out their deed on the Ides of March 15 March, 44 BC, three days before Caesar was scheduled to go east to defeat the Parthians.

The Second Triumvirate and Octavian's triumph

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Bust of Mark Antony

After Caesar's assassination, his friend and chief lieutenant, Marcus Antonius, seized the last will of Caesar and using it in a inflamatory speech against the murderers, incited the mob against them. The murderers panicked and fled to Greece. In Caesar's will, his grand-nephew Octavianus who also was the adopted son of Caesar, was named as his political heir. Octavian returned from Greece (where he and his friends Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Gaius Maecenas had been helping in the gathering of the Macedonian legions for the planned invasion of Parthia) and raised a small army from among Caesar's veterans. After some initial disagreements, Antony, Octavian and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, formed the Second Triumvirate. Their combined strength gave the triumvirs absolute power. In 42 BC, they followed the assassins into Greece, and mostly due to the generalship of Antony, defeated them at the Battle of Philippi on the 23 of October.

In 40 BC, Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus negotiated the Pact of Brundisium. Antony received all the richer provinces in the east, namely Achaea, Macedonia and Epirus (roughly modern Greece), Bithynia, Pontus and Asia (roughly modern Turkey), Syria, Cyprus and Cyrenaica and he was very close to Egypt, then the richest state of all. Octavian on the other hand received the Roman provinces of the west: Italia (modern Italy), Gaul (modern France), Gallia Belgica (parts of modern Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), and Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal), these territories were poorer but traditionally the better recruiting grounds; and Lepidus was given the minor province of Africa (modern Tunisia) to govern. Henceforth, the contest for supreme power would be between Antony and Octavian.

In the west, Octavian and Lepidus had first to deal with Sextus Pompeius, the surviving son of Pompey, who had taken control of Sicily and was running pirate operations in the whole of the Mediterranean, endangering the flow of the crucial Egyptian grain to Rome. In 36 BC, Lepidus, while besieging Sextus forces in Sicily, ignored Octavian's orders that no surrender would be allowed. Octavian then bribed the legions of Lepidus, and they deserted to him. This stripped Lepidus of all his remaining military and political power.

Antony, in the east, was waging war against the Parthians. His campaign was not as successful as he would have hoped, though far more successful than Crassus. He took up an amorous relationship with Cleopatra, who gave birth to three children by him. In 34 BC, at the Donations of Alexandria, Antony "gave away" much of the eastern half of the empire to his children by Cleopatra. In Rome, this donation, the divorce of Octavia and the affair with Cleopatra, and the seized testament of Antony (in which he famously asked to be buried in his beloved Alexandria) was used by Octavian in a vicious propaganda war accusing Antony of "going native", of being completely in the thrall of Cleopatra and of deserting the cause of Rome. He was careful not to attack Antony directly, for Antony was still quite popular in Rome; instead, the entire blame was placed on Cleopatra.

In 31 BC war finally broke out. Approximately 200 senators, one-third of the Senate, abandoned Octavian to support Antony and Cleopatra. The final confrontation of the Roman Republic occurred on 2 of September, 31 BC, at the naval Battle of Actium where the fleet of Octavian under the command of Agrippa routed the combined fleet of Antony and Cleopatra; the two lovers fled to Egypt. Due to Octavian's victory and his skillfull use of propaganda, negotiation and bribery the legions of Antony in Greece, Asia Minor and Cyrenaica went over to his side.

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Bronze statue of Octavian, Archaeological Museum, Athens

Octavian continued on his march around the Mediterranean towards Egypt, receiving the submission of local kings and Roman governors along the way. He finally reached Egypt in 30 BC, but before Octavian could capture him, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra did the same within a few days.

The period of civil wars were finally over. Thereafter, there was no one left in the Roman Republic who wanted, or could to stand against Octavian, as the adopted son of Caesar moved to take absolute control. He designated governors loyal to him to the half dozen "frontier" provinces, where the majority of the legions were situated, thus, at a stroke, giving him command of enough legions to ensure that no single governor could try to overthrow him. He also reorganized the Senate, purging it of unreliable or dangerous members, and "refilled it" with his supporters from the provinces and outside the Roman aristocracy, men who could be counted on to follow his lead. However, he left the majority of Republican institutions apparently intact, albeit feeble. Consuls continued to be elected, tribunes of the plebians continued to offer legislation, and debate still resounded through the Roman Curia. However it was Octavian who influenced everything and ultimately, controlled the final decisions, and had the legions to back it up, if necessary.

The Roman Senate and the Roman citizens, tired of the never-ending civil wars and unrest, were willing to toss aside the incompetent and unstable rule of the Senate and the popular assemblies in exchange for the iron will of one man who might set Rome back in order. By 27 BC the transition, though subtle and disguised, was made complete; in that year, Octavian offered back all his extraordinary powers to the Senate, and in a carefully staged way, the Senate refused and in fact titled Octavian Augustus - "the revered one". He was always careful to avoid the title of rex - "king", and instead took on the titles of princeps - "first citizen" and imperator, a title given by Roman troops to their victorious commanders. All these titles, alongside the name of "Caesar", were used by all Roman Emperors and still survive slightly changed to this date. Prince derives from "Princeps" and Emperor from "Imperator", Caesar became "Kaiser" (German) and "Czar" (Russian). The Roman Empire was born.

Once Octavian named Tiberius as his heir, it was clear to everyone that even the hope of a restored Republic was dead. Roman Republic had been changed into a despotic regime, which, underneath a competent and strong Emperor, could achieve military supremacy, economic prosperity, and a genuine peace, but under a weak or incompetent one saw its glory tarnished by cruelty, military defeats, revolts, and civil war. The Roman Empire was eventually divided between the Western Roman Empire which fell in 476 AD and the Eastern Roman Empire (also called the Byzantine Empire) which lasted until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Causes of the subversion of the Republic into the Empire

the famous statue of Octavian at the Prima Porta

Officialy, the republic never ended. Octavian (and his "heirs") supposedly "saved the republic" and ruled by "will of the Senate" until a future date, in which he would return his extraordinary powers back. This fiction was carefully mantained (at least at the beginning) by all of his sucessors.

In truth, however, the Republic had been dying since 133 BC, with the killing of the Gracchi. Their deaths signaled the end of debate and legal procedure — from that point on, it was whoever was willing to go the farthest dictated policy. Murder became commonplace during election time, and mobs were often whipped up by opposing parties to frighten enemies into submission. It became accepted, even encouraged, to use force to 'preserve the Republic'. Senators who could not legally block reform used assassination and trumped-up criminal charges to stop it; reformers who could not legally pass their bills used the steadily growing anger of the Roman populace to terrify the Senate or appealed to powerful generals and their armies for military support. Each time someone used violence to achieve an end, someone else hit back even harder to counter it. When Marius used his army of gladiators, slaves, and plebeians to seize Rome, Sulla hit back using professional legions. The result was a short-term stability and further weakening of the underlying structure of government.

The change also became one that put the men before the Republic — no longer was it possible to survive in the new vicious world of Roman politics by being humble and loyal to the ideals of the ancestors. Powerful politicians vied to become "primo inter pares" - "first amongst equals" through whatever means necessary, and ambitious men were only kept in check by other equally ambitious competitors. Marius and Sulla were the first, and their example gave rise to the first Triumvirate of Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, and of the second one composed by Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus.

Moreover, the Senate had proven, time and time again, to be soo selfish, arrogant, incompetent and shortsighted that the Roman population no longer trusted them to lead. The Senate was often too willing to protect its friends, allies and members from lawful prosecution for even the most evident and extraordinary crimes; and because of this it lost the trust of the Roman citizens at large. When someone did come from their ranks and proved himself capable, the Romans flocked to them in a desperate hope that he might pull together the Republic and restore peace, law, and order. The Senate, using what means necessary, struck down these champions one by one, starting with the Gracchi. Each time this happened, the Roman people became more willing to accept the extreme measures of the reformers to ensure their laws, and their lives. Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon was technically treason, but no one outside the Senate cared, because it promised real change for a corrupt and unworkable Republic.

Within the Senate itself, the heavily entrenched, tradition-bound, rich conservative party was constantly at odds with any reformer that arose. The Gracchi worked outside the constitutional system by using the popular assemblies instead of the Senate; Marius had to fight tooth and nail just to get the necessary changes needed to recruit lower class soldiers; Sulla terrified the Senators with executions to enact reforms that were intended to actually preserve the powers of the Senate; and Caesar had to effectively conquer the whole Roman dominion in order to pass laws that were at least a century overdue. The harder the Senate fought to keep the status quo, the farther the reformers were willing to go, until at last it ended in Caesar's dictatorship.

The distrust the Roman citizens felt for the Senate was evident in the reaction of the troops to their commanders asking them to commit treason. The legions were willing to follow their commanders because they had no special love for the Senate, who only refused them pay and often fought over their rights to receive land upon returning home from war. There was no time when a commander asked his men to march with him on Rome and they refused, not one time where legionaries sided with the Senate. They chose to rally around names like Sulla and Pompey and Caesar, not the antiquated ideals of a Republic that rarely worked for them. The only thing that kept them in check, was each other. The Senate's inability to see this new reality cost it dearly. The Senate could not and did not want to adapt itself to the changing power structure, and as a result was pushed aside by those who could.

Part of the problem was that Rome's government was not designed to rule an empire. The Republic was meant to govern a city-state; one that was, even at its founding, growing in scope and power, but nevertheless only supposed to extend through the regions of central Italy. When territory was captured overseas, the Republic proved itself unable to effectively govern it. The provinces became fiefdoms of the governors, who proceeded to plunder them at will and engage in military adventures that did not have the approval of the Senate. These governors eventually took on Rome itself whenever they were threatened. There was no system of accountability, no ancient tradition of dealing with corrupt governors — the problem was new, and the Republic, so tradition-bound, would not change to handle it. Once the Republic became an Empire, only an Emperor could effectively rule it, not an oligarchic assembly. But it took nearly a century before that was fully realized.

In the end, the failure to control the generals caused the downfall of Rome's Republic. When Caesar finally took Rome for himself, he was greeted with thunderous applause, because he, at long last, promised, and even delivered, reforms the Roman people had wanted since the Gracchi.

The legions of Rome physically dismantled the Republic, but it was the Senate that set up a world where such a thing could happen as the citizens looked on and cheered.

Footnotes

^ Fagan, Garrett G. (Lecturer/Professor) (2003). History of Ancient Rome, "Lecture 38: Roman Slavery" [CD Lecture series]. In associattion with The Teaching Company.

Figures of the Republic

Early Republic

Late Republic

Latin literature of the Republic

Tourist resorts of the Republic

External links

Grout, James: Encyclopaedia Romana
The Gracchi Marius and Sulla by A.H. Beesley
www.roman-empire.net, about the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire
The Roman Republic from In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
www.unrv.com

References

"The conquest of Gaul" by Gaius Julius Caesar ISBN 0-140-44433-5
Harriet I. Flower (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, Cambridge 2004.
"The Cambridge Ancient History", vols. 7-9, Cambridge 1990ff.
"The Enemies of Rome" by Philip Matyszak edited by Thames & Hudson ISBN 0-500-25124-X
"Rubicon : the last years of the Roman Republic" by Tom Holland edited by Doubleday ISBN 0-385-50313-X
"Caesar's Legion" by Stephen Dando-Collins edited by John Wiley & Sons ISBN 0-471-09570-2
"Nero's Killing Machine" by Stephen Dando-Collins edited by John Wiley & Sons ISBN 0-471-67501-6
"The Complete Roman Army" by Adrian Goldsworthy edited by Thames & Hudson ISBN 0-500-05124-0
"Scipio Africanus - Greater than Napoleon" by B. H. Liddell Hart published by DA CAPO Press ISBN 0-306-81363-7
"The Roman Army" by Peter Connolly

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