Roman Republic

The city of Rome stands on the Tiber River very near the west coast of Italy. It marked the northernmost border of the territory in which the Latin language was spoken and the southern edge of Etruria, the territory in which the Etruscan language was spoken.

Government Institutions

The Romans observed two principles for their officials: annuality or the observation of a one-year term and collegiality or 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 Roman army took the field under the command of the two consuls they alternated days of command. Most other 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 emergency (always military) a single dictator was elected for a term of 6 months to have sole command of the state. On a regular but not annual basis two censors were elected: every five years for a term of 18 months.

The legion formed the backbone of Roman military power.

History of the Republic

The Legendary Founding of Rome - 753 BC

The Romans were very much convinced that their city was founded in the year 753 BC. Rome has often been said to have been started by Romulus and Remus. It was then, tradition had it, ruled by kings for several centuries.

The Foundation of the Republic - 509 BC

Livy's version of the establishment of the Republic states that the last of the Kings of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (superbus, "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 the men, telling them what happened, and killing herself. They then were compelled to avenge her, and led an uprising that drove the royal house, the Tarquins, out of Rome to take refuge in Etruria.

Lucretia's husband Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus and Lucius Junius Brutus gained election as the first two consuls, the chief officers of the new Republic. (The Marcus Junius Brutus who assassinated 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 huge temple on the Capitoline Hill. For that duty the Romans elected a Rex sacrorum or "king of holy things." Until the end of the Republic the accusation that a powerful man wanted to make himself king remained a career-shaking charge. (Julius Caesar's assassins claimed after they acted that they were preserving Rome from the re-establishment of an explicit monarchy.)

Patrician and Plebeian

The people of Rome were divided into patricians and plebeians. These words have taken on such different connotations of wealth and ordinariness in modern English that they must be examined in their Roman context. The two classes were ancestral and inherited. One's class was fixed by birth rather than by wealth, and though patricians had in the early Republic monopolized all political offices and probably most of the wealth, there are always signs of wealthy plebeians in the historical record, and many patrician families had lost both wealth and any political influence by the later Republic. One could move from one class to the other by adoption, as did the political operator Clodius, who managed to have himself adopted into a plebeian branch of his own family for political purposes in the late Republic, but this rarely occurred. By the 2nd century BC the classifications had meaning predominantly in religious functions - many priesthoods remained restricted to patricians.

The relationship between the plebeians and the patricians sometimes came under such a strain that the plebeians would secede from the city - they literally left the city, took their families and movable possessions, and set up camp on a hill outside the walls. These secessions happened in 494, 450, and around 287 BC. Their refusal to co-operate any longer with the patricians led to social changes on each occasion. In 494 BC, only about 15 years after the establishment of the Republic, the plebeians for the first time elected two leaders, to whom they gave the title Tribunes. The "plebs" took an oath that they would hold their leaders 'sacrosanct' or inviolate during their terms of office[?], and that the united plebs would kill anyone who harmed a tribune. The second secession led to further legal definition of their rights and duties and increased the number of tribunes to 10. The final secession gave the vote of the Concilium Plebis or "Council of the Plebeians" the force of law - we call this a "plebiscite".

The end of the Republic - 133-31 BC

Rome's military and diplomatic successes around the Mediterranean resulted in new and unaccustomed pressures on the structures of the old city-state. While factional strife had become a traditional part of Roman life, the stakes were now far higher; a corrupt provincial governor could enrich himself far beyond anything his ancestors imagined possible, and a successful military commander needed only the support of his legions in order to rule vast territories. In addition, small landowners were displaced in favor of large slave-run estates, resulting in large numbers of unemployed urbanites.

Beginning with the agrarian reform of Tiberius Gracchus in 133, the political convulsions became more and more severe, resulting in a series of dictatorships, civil wars, and temporary armed truces during the next century. Much of the political record of this period has survived, and we are able to understand it in some depth.

Gracchus' reform was simply to put more land in the hands of veterans, but ominously, his Senatorial opponents responded to his political machinations by killing him in the street. His younger brother Gaius Gracchus continued the reform efforts, promoted the extension of the franchise to all the cities of Italy, and established the equites[?] as a new force in Roman politics.

A conservative reaction brought power back to the Senate, but they prosecuted the Jugurthine War[?] of 112-105 so poorly, on top of a Slave War[?] in Sicily, and losses at the hands of Germanic tribes, of whom the Cimbri destroyed consular armies at Arausio[?] in 105. Rome was saved by Marius, who held multiple consulships 103-101 while defeating the Teutones[?] at Aquae Sextiae[?] (102) and the Cimbri near Vercellae[?] in the following year. But Marius' military reforms had resulted in an army of proletarian volunteers with no special love for the Senate, and Marius' political allies used the army to threaten the Senate into passing laws reducing the Senate's power. Marius curbed his own allies, and took himself into lesser positions.

Again the Senate proved itself unequal to its role, and failed to deal with the growing discontent of the allies in Italy. After the reformer Livius Drusus[?] was assassinated in 91, almost all of the Italian allies of Rome rebelled in what the Romans called the Social War (allies = Socii, related to the English "associates"). The Romans were only able to end the war in 88 by granting citizenship to all Italians living south of the Po River.

At the same time, Mithridates VI of Pontus[?] overran Bithynia, the latest of several provocations which, this time, forced Rome to act. But Marius and Sulla contended over the command of the army, ending with Sulla marching on Rome with several legions, outlawing his opponents and passing laws favoring the Senate. Sulla then went to Greece, defeated Mithridates at Chaeronea in 86, then returned in 83 to overthrow Marius' ally Cinna. In the following year, Sulla secured appointment as dictator and used the post to reduce the power of the tribunes and the army, although the changes did not long survive his voluntary retirement in 79.

The Spartacist Rebellion - 73 - 71 BC

Large-scale agriculture in the Italian peninsula came to depend on slavery in the latifundia[?] system, and was rocked by a severe slave revolt[?] led by Spartacus that lasted from 73 BC to 71 B.C.E.[?]

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The end of the Republic

In the end, the Roman world became too large and complicated for the structures of the republic to cope, and after a period of civil war ended by the Battle of Actium (31 BC), Augustus Caesar established the Roman Empire.

• political offices of the Republic

Consul

Praetor

Aedile

Quaestor

Tribune

Censor

Pontifex Maximus

Cursus honorum

• figures of the Republic

Early Republic

Lucretia

Lucius Junius Brutus

Cincinnatus

Appius Claudius the Censor[?]

Samnite wars 327 - 290 BC

Punic wars

Hannibal - see Carthage

Scipio Africanus Major

Scipio Aemilianus[?]

Cato the Censor

Late Republic

Ahenobarbus family

Julius Caesar

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus

C. Marius

L. Cornelius Sulla

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Spartacus

Latin Literature of the Republic

Catullus

Cicero

Plautus

Terence

Ennius

Fabius Pictor[?]

Naevius

References

William G. Sinnigen[?] & Arthur E. R. Boak[?], A History of Rome to 565 A.D. (Macmillan[?])

Another Roman Republic was declared in Rome on February 9, 1849 by Carlo Armellini[?], Giuseppe Mazzini and Aurelio Saffi[?].

It was a brief experience, but soon (1860) Italy would be unified as a kingdom by the king of Sardinia, and later (1870) Rome became part of this kingdom.