Why the Roman Republic Fell The Roman Republic was a state of the classical
Roman civilization, which operated through public representation of the Roman people.
The Republic began with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated
to 509 BCE) and ended in 27 BCE with the establishment of the Roman Empire.
During the Republic period, Rome's control rapidly expanded—from the city's immediate surroundings to
hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. Roman society under the Republic was a cultural
mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements.
This political organisation developed at around the same time as direct democracy in
Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a Senate.
The highest level magistrates were the two Consuls, who had an
extensive range of executive, legislative, judicial, military, and religious powers.
Despite an ostensibly democratic constitution based on the sovereignty of the people,
the Roman Republic was in reality a classic oligarchy. However, even though a small number
of powerful families essentially monopolised the main magistracies, the Roman Republic is generally
considered one of the earliest examples of representative democracy in the world.
What were the factors that brought an end to the Roman Republic,
and what can we learn from this today? Internal turmoil provoked in 133 BCE by economic
stagnation in the city of Rome, slave revolts, and dissension in the military precipitated a period
of unrelenting political upheaval known as the Roman Revolution, or the Fall of the Republic.
While it is difficult to appreciate the violent political and social issues that
provoked the incessant disruptions of the late Republic, it is possible to discern a pattern
in the devolution of legal, constitutional authority as well as the increasing acceptance
of baser virtues in Roman society—those of greed, avarice and factionalism.
10 The Rise in Status of Roman Senators
The Roman aristocracy were recognized as important world leaders.
Senators and wealthy knights engaged in extensive practices of conspicuous consumption,
creating palatial town houses and monumental "art villas" to demonstrate their high rank in society.
The Republic was in a state of quasi-perpetual war throughout its existence, and continuous
conquest fed the aristocracy’s excesses. As these aristocrats worked to outperform
each other, they neglected their core responsibilities to the Republic.
9 The Woes of Imperialism
In accumulating the plunder and profits of war, the result was too much wealth coming
into Italy too rapidly to enable equitable distribution throughout society.
In general, the wealthier elements benefited while lower elements failed to keep pace.
In addition, rising expectations of profits from war led to abuses and illegal behaviour
by governors and generals in the field. The lex Calpurnia of 149 BCE established a
permanent court for extortion in the provinces. With this, the prospect of profiting from war
led to heightened competition for high office as well and extensive electoral bribery.
8 The Rise of the Equites
Roman knights, or Equites, emerged as a powerful social stratum in society.
The equites became a class distinct from the senators. Unlike senators, they were legally
free to enter the fields of commerce and finance. Known as publicani, Equites who were businessmen
enriched themselves by securing contracts to supply the army and to collect taxes.
The Equites also used their position and influence to exploit public lands, mines, and quarries in
the provinces to further enrich themselves. In this way the Equites became a prosperous
business and landowning class, eventually forming a third political group, along with the optimates
and populares, whom they occasionally rivalled in the growing power struggle in Rome.
7 Slavery
The development of a slave agricultural economy in Italy and Sicily was in part caused by the
destruction of farmsteads throughout southern Italy by Hannibal. This afterwards led to a
reorganization of the rural landscape toward larger estates run by slave labourers.
Medium sized estates producing wine and oil for export rose up as well vast estates,
known as latifundia, which could be huge. Many wealthy investors leased Roman ager publicus
or public land, to developed cattle ranches, again worked by slaves.
Conservative estimates suggest that some 250,000 persons forcibly migrated from
the Mediterranean peripheries to the core regions of Italy and Sicily as a
result of enslavement through conflict. Despite this, Rome and neighboring Italian
cities did not have sufficient police forces to monitor slave behaviour.
Living conditions for slaves were generally harsh and rebellions inevitable. Between 136-130 BCE
a massive slave revolt seized control of the island of Sicily. There was a constant danger
of servile insurrection, which had more than once seriously threatened the Republic.
6 Rome as an Imperial Capital.
The population of Rome stood at about six hundred thousand by 133 BCE.
Small farmers, both Roman and Italian, migrated to the capital in search of employment and cultural
benefits, even though living conditions remained squalid for all but the wealthiest people.
With profits of war Roman magistrates engaged in a sustained building program to develop the
necessary urban infrastructure—roads, granaries, docks, aqueducts, and baths were built, but Rome
remained very crowded and dirty. With all of the work, thousands of slaves were imported
to engage in artisanal labor for the city. Greek language was commonly spoken in the streets, and
it is estimated that 60% of the urban population consisted of slaves or people of slave origin.
Urban development was made possible by the profits of war, but once the Roman conflict
ceased after 146 BCE, revenues rapidly declined, as did public contracting.
There is evidence of economic stagnation by the 130s BCE, but Rome’s large surplus population
could not return to the land because of the radical slave-based agricultural changes.
5 Changes in the Military
Conquest required the maintenance of a permanent military establishment in the provinces to cope
with rebellions and uprisings. Roman authorities continued to rely on conscription to man overseas
armies, but the prospect evolved for an 18 year old draftee to spend 16 to 20 years outside Italy,
all the while receiving minimum pay for military service.
Little profit was to be gained from garrison duty in hostile regions such as Spain,
Sardinia, and Corsica. Since the draft was based on the property assessments of the Roman census,
abandonment of property resulted in decline in civic status and ineligibility for the draft.
For Rome the result was a gradual rise in the numbers of men evading the draft by abandoning
their farms and moving to the city. At the same time Italian allied states
became increasingly called upon to sustain Rome's overseas military establishment.
Allied states were required to contribute their native forces to Roman war efforts.
By the end of the Punic Wars it is estimated that two thirds of Roman military forces in
the field consisted of allied soldiers. In this manner the allies complied with
their treaty obligations to Rome. However, Roman generals had no obligation to share the
profits of war with these allies. Allies received neither land distributions from conquered peoples,
nor monetary bounties. The Allies likewise became discontented and began by 121 BCE to demand
full Roman political status commensurate with their role in the maintenance of the empire.
Sympathetic Roman leaders tried many strategies to obtain greater rights for the Allies,
but these ultimately failed,
provoking a widespread rebellion among allied states known as the Social War in 90 BCE.
This rebellion was ultimately suppressed by force and negotiation, but the process of integrating
allied citizens into the Roman state dragged on to the end of the Republican era.
4 The Financial Burden of Empire
The costs of Rome’s conquest was increasingly borne by the inhabitants of Roman provinces,
paying the tithe to Rome. The effect of this burden varied from province to province,
but generally the tendency was one of rebellion, suppression, and imposition
of even greater financial burden. This burden was frequently made
intolerable by the rapacious behavior of Roman tax collectors, frequently the publicanii Equites.
Generally, provincials held decidedly anti-Roman attitudes throughout the Republican era.
3 The Rise of the Popular Tribunes
The Gracchi brothers were two Roman brothers, sons of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,
who was consul in 177 BCE. Tiberius, the elder brother, was tribune of the plebs
in 133 BCE and Gaius, the younger brother, was tribune a decade later between 123–22 BCE.
They attempted to redistribute the occupation of the ager publicus—the
public land hitherto controlled principally by aristocrats—to the urban poor and veterans.
After achieving some early success, both brothers were assassinated by a mob controlled
by the Optimates, the conservative faction in the Senate that opposed these reforms.
The emergence of new forces of urban factions, rural voters, and others, engaging in continued
conflict with each other for their own interests, meant that the problem of effective governance
awaited resolution. The reforms of the Gracchi had come to an end by violence;
and this provided a brutal precedent that would be followed by many future rulers of Rome.
2 The Rise of Private Armies
When the oligarchy failed to resolve the military problem, Roman generals, specifically Gaius Marius
and Cornelius Sulla, recruited private armies more loyal to themselves than to the state.
In addition to the draft, they recruited landless poor citizens by offering them bounties and land
upon discharge. The soldier's status as Roman or allied mattered little to these generals either,
both of whom made extensive grants of citizenship to allied forces.
Ultimately, the two men came to blows in 88 BCE in the midst of the Social War
and the Asian rebellion induced by Mithridates. So violent were popular feelings that Sulla was
able to persuade his field army in southern Italy to march on the city of Rome to expel
Marius and his followers. So began the first Civil War and the gradual transference of
soldiers’ loyalties from the laws of the state to the persons of their commanding officers.
Sulla ultimately prevailed against both Mithradates and the Marian element in Italy
(Marius having died in 86 BCE), and attempted to impose a reactionary political reform on Rome as
dictator.
1 The First Triumvirate
Three men, Pompeius Magnus, or Pompey, Licinius Crassus, and Julius Caesar,
combined their influence to seize power in Rome bringing about an end to the Republic.
Pompey was an extremely popular general who defeated numerous enemies of the oligarchy,
including a rebellion in Spain led by the renegade Roman general Quintus Sertorius,
a Mediterranean wide rebellion by the Cilician pirates,
and the final defeat of King Mithridates the sixth of Pontus. Pompey had a loyal private army,
but proved politically incapable of delivering on his promises of land and bounties.
As an officer of Sulla during the Civil War, Crassus had made himself the wealthiest man in
Rome by profiting from Sulla's proscriptions, that is, the outlawing of Roman citizens by
putting their names on lists and putting a price on their heads. All proscribed citizens saw their
civil rights nullified and their property confiscated and auctioned off by the state.
Crassus exploited the proscriptions to acquire perhaps as much as 20 percent of the property
in the city of Rome and countless estates throughout Italy. He used his wealth to buy
influence in the Senate and throughout the urban populace and emerged as a powerful,
but surreptitious influence on the Roman state. Caesar began his career in a seemingly hopeless
situation as the nephew of Gaius Marius and confronted by the dictatorship of Sulla.
As a young aristocrat he excelled at manipulation of the symbols of Marian
reform and public generosity and became the darling of the masses by the late 60s BCE.
By offering his political abilities to aid Pompey and Crassus with their political agendas, he rose
to the consulship in 59 BCE basically to work as a tool for his two more powerful partners.
He delivered necessary legislation in the face of senatorial opposition and
received for his effort a 10-year extraordinary command in Gaul.
Intense rivalry existed between these three men, but so long as they maintained their
illegal political association, the senatorial aristocracy was powerless to thwart them.
Ultimately, Crassus was killed while fighting the Parthians in Mesopotamia in 53 BCE
and Pompey distanced himself from Caesar. Pompey hoped to use the aristocracy to reduce
Caesar's influence with the army in Gaul, just as the aristocracy hoped to use him for the same
purpose if only to discard him once Caesar was destroyed. However, Caesar's army proved
superior during the Second Civil War. Pompey was defeated at Pharsalus and killed in Egypt,
and the rest of the oligarchs opposing Caesar were mopped up across the Mediterranean.
The Death of the Republic, Caesar’s Dictatorship
Having defeated all his enemies, Caesar was granted a 10-year dictatorship for purposes
of restoring the Republic, but this was not to be. His aim was to reconstitute himself
as a Roman form of Hellenistic divine king or ruler. Since 510 BCE however, the Romans had
prided themselves with having obtained their freedom by expelling their Etruscan King,
and the very word king, or ‘Rex’ was anathema to the Republic mentality.
Roman citizens had a civic duty to suppress any attempt at tyranny, even through political
assassination, and could do so with impunity. Although carefully avoiding the title "Rex",
Caesar attempted to collect for himself all facets of constitutional authority, serving at
the same time as dictator, as consul, as Pontifex Maximus, and as Plebeian Tribune for life.
In early 44 BCE he declared himself Dictator in Perpetuo and had this title minted onto his coins.
Caesar met his Ides of March though, and was murdered by a conspiracy of some 60 odd
senators a few weeks later. For the Republic, the precedent of rule by one man had been established.
The only question remained which of his supporters would most likely succeed
him to the position. This turned out to be his great grand nephew, Octavian.
This was a simple presentation of the factors that caused the fall
of one of the earliest democratic Republics. Although there were external forces at play,
the key factors in the fall of the Roman Republic were internal. A culture of unencumbered greed,
factionalism and inequity rose up to undermine the ideals of the Republic.
Throughout history, and perhaps especially today these factors should be considered,
and remembered. We hope you enjoyed this video.
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