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Topic: Decline of the Republic
Note: there is no special reading on the web. This will be the topic of a classroom lecture. (Don't you wish you always found this message.)
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Introduction to ROMAN CIVILIZATION
Questions: Answer in your notebooks.
The poet Virgil, in his epic poem the Aeneid, attempted to capture Rome's particular genius and to distinguish it from the accomplishments of Greek Civilization. He wrote: "Others will bring more lifelike portraits out of marble; argue more eloquently, use the pointer to trace the paths of heaven accurately, and accurately foretell the rising stars. Roman, remember your strength is to rule Earth's peoples--for your arts are to be these: to pacify, to impose the rule of law to spare the conquered, strike down the proud." Whether his words are fully accurate is debatable. What is not is that in the space of a few hundred years, Rome grew from a small city-state in Italy into an empire that dominated the entire Mediterranean world. Their particular genius was the genius to govern; their greatest legacy, the rule of law.
Roman Origins. Roman legend links the founding of Rome with the Trojan hero Aeneas, who escaped the destruction of Troy and eventually settled in central Italy with a band of men. Other legends cite the story of abandoned twins, raised by a she wolf--the famous Romulus and Remus. The real Romans were a Latin people, sharing the Italian peninsula with a variety of peoples. The Etruscans to the north ruled over the Romans until 509 BC, when Rome successfully rebelled against them and established the Roman Republic.
THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. The Romans set up a new system of government without a king based on power in the hands of representative of the people. This form of government--a republic--would last for nearly 500 years. (The term comes from Latin meaning "the thing of the people.")
The most powerful governing body in the Roman Republic was the Senate. Its 300 members were drawn from the wealthy, land-owning patrician class. Senators served for life and controlled the finances and foreign policy of the Roman state. The traditional view of historians is that Rome was an oligarchy dominated by this wealthy class. Recent scholarship emphasizes the considerable powers of the other two assemblies which were popularly elected, included representatives from the plebeian class (the ordinary people of Rome), and had the power to pass laws and appoint most officials of the state. This view makes the Republic more like a representative democracy and less like an oligarchy. Scholars continue to disagree (that's ancient history for you--nobody knows for sure).
The executive power of the state was vested in two consuls elected by the Senate for one-year terms. Their job was to run the government on a day-to-day basis in consultation with the Senate. That there were two consuls who shared power and that they served a very limited term of office effectively checked their power. Two rulers in a crisis is a bad idea. In this case, the consuls resigned and the Senate appointed a dictator with vast emergency powers. these powers lasted for six months. At the end of that time, the dictator had to give up power. As Rome grew so did its list of elected officials
Three important themes dominate the story of the Republic: its gradual extension of rights to ordinary people, its astonishing territorial expansion throughout the Mediterranean world, and its political decline and collapse into monarchy in the first century before Christ.
1. Plebeian demands for greater equality were significantly aided by their right to vote in the lower assemblies and their importance as soldiers in the Roman army. An early breakthrough was the right to have the laws of the state inscribed and displayed on tablets in the center of Rome--the Roman Forum. The first written laws, the Twelve Tables, made it more difficult for the Patricians to manipulate the law. Plebeians could now appeal judgments against them, based on a written code. Officials called Tribunes were chosen to represent the interests of the ordinary people of Rome. They had the power to "veto" decisions of the Senate. In reality, this was the power to "object to" but not actually reject Senate decisions. Over time, Plebeians won the right to marry into the Patrician class, to be appointed to the Senate, to have one consul appointed from the Plebeian class, and to hold other high political and religious offices within the state.
2. While the plebeians were on the march at home, Rome's armies expanded its power first across Italy and then the Mediterranean. The recipe for imperial success was a combination of skillful diplomacy, military might, and generally good treatment of its defeated enemies. In other words, Rome would first try to do a deal with you. If you were stubborn, they would beat you up. Then they would dust you off and be nice to you, often offering you full citizenship in their empire. By this method, Rome allied with other Latin tribes in central Italy, turned north and defeated the Etruscans, and finally turned south and defeated and absorbed the Greek colonies in southern Italy. Within 250 years, the Romans were masters of the Italian peninsula.
Their next step was to win control of the empire of their chief commercial and military rival in the western Mediterranean: Carthage. Between 264 and 146 BC. Rome fought three wars (the Punic Wars) against Carthage, a city-state in North Africa (modern day Tunis). Rome had its most difficult challenge in the Second Punic War, thanks to the successes of the remarkable Carthaginian general Hannibal (famous for crossing the Alps into Italy with elephants as pack animals.) He defeated Roman armies again and again, until superior Roman resources and patience won out in the end. In the first two Punic Wars, Carthage lost all its territory outside Africa to Rome: the large islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, and its lands on the Iberian peninsula (modern day Spain and Portugal). Rome paid a heavy price: Hannibal's armies had ravaged the Italian countryside, causing terrible destruction. Rome would seek revenge in the Third Punic War. It attacked and destroyed the city of Carthage, killing most male inhabitants, selling the survivors into slavery, and pouring salt into the fields around the city (a mostly symbolic gesture of destruction). This incident provides the ironic phrase in English, a "Carthaginian peace."
Area by area, Rome expanded its empire, adding Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt to its empire. By the time of the birth of Christ, Romans could justifiably boast that the Mediterranean was indeed Mare Nostrum: "Our Sea."
3. The last theme of the Republican period --the decline and fall of the Republic--has its roots in Rome's expansion. Triumphant Rome tore its state apart over the spoils of victory. Ambitious generals and greedy Senators fought over the wealth and power that poured into Rome as its empire expanded. Poor farmers, ruined by the Punic Wars, poured into the cities, swelling the ranks of the urban poor. Jobs were scarce thanks to the widespread use of slave labor--slaves captured as a result of Rome's impressive conquests. Service to the Republic that had once been an honor and a civic duty was now a matter of greedy ambition. From 146 BC to the end of the Republic in 27 BC, turmoil rocked the Republic. Strong men seized power, often by making promises to the desperate poor in exchange for mob support. Civil wars split the republic into factions. When true reformers appeared, such as the tribunes Tiberious and Gaius Gracchus, they were destroyed by the Senate. Their plan for land reform--distributing land to the poor to restore the vitality of the small Roman farmer-- clashed with the desire of senatorial families to accumulate vast estates.
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Roman Republic: Text Reading Guide (pp. 8-11)
1. What three groups battled to control the Italian peninsula?
2. Define republic; contrast the Roman republic and the Athenian direct democracy.
3. Describe the class of social classes in Roman history.
4. Identify key parts of the Roman government: the consuls, the Senate, the assemblies, the dictator.
5. Explain key aspects of Roman law:
6. What is the Roman legacy for Western Civilization?
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By Paul Lewis, New York Times (July 24, 1999)
[Directions: Identify the author’s thesis and the evidence he presents to support it.]
To most historians of this century, the Roman Republic was a corrupt oligarchy ruled by a rich and decadent aristocracy, despite its democratic constitution, popular assemblies, and regularly elected officials…compared with Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., which was revered as the birthplace of a purer [direct] democracy.
Yet over the last decade or so several scholars have been arguing that it was an imperfect but still recognizable democracy. Political office was less controlled by the aristocracy than was assumed. What’s more, they say in some ways, Rome had even more in common with modern notions of democracy than Athens did.
Republican Rome’s democratic credential weren’t always in doubt. After all, America’s founding fathers took the Roman Constitution, with its foundation of Senate and Assembly, as their model, not the single Athenian assembly. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian Assembly would still have been a mob…History informs of no long-lived republic which had not a senate.”
But in the 19th century, Greece began to replace Rome as the West’s political and cultural model. As the British pushed to expand democratic reforms, liberals pointed to the Athenian experience was evidence that democracy was achievable without a traumatic upheaval like the French Revolution. Rome left a much better record of its political life than did Athens, which didn’t help its image. Since historians knew so much more about Rome, they could better trace [its flaws].
[Some] historians are trying to reverse this perception. After all, it was Rome, not Athens, that invented that cornerstone of modern democracy, the secret ballot. And even though some of Rome’s popular assembles may have had weighted voting systems that favored the rich, they were still the only political bodies that could pass laws and appoint officials. The Senate, dominated by the aristocracy, had neither of those powers. Traditional interpretations are turned on their heads, using the corruption of democracy as evidence of its existence. That bribery was widespread demonstrates how essential [approval of measures by the elected assembles] was to the exercise of political power.
The Forum was the ultimate symbol of Rome’s open political system. This is where leaders went to make their case and win the support of the Roman population. Their power was so dependent on this popular support that rival groups vied for physical control of the places where citizens gathered…
The very scope and size of ancient Rome also makes it more relevant to many of today’s democracies. At most, the Athenian city-state had an electorate of 40,000 men in the middle of the fifth century B.C. At the end of the Roman Republic, however, there, were more than one million Roman citizens, many of them freed slaves. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of its quickly expanding empire were regularly granted citizenship.
Of course, extending citizenship didn’t always mean extending power. Rome became more authoritarian as popular leaders sought ever greater powers to tackle the problems of an expanding empire. And to vote, Romans still had to show up personally in Rome. Romans may have invented the secret ballot, but the mail-in ballot remained something of the future.
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Topics:
Introduction
to Western Civilization, including overview of other early civilizations
(Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews)
Ancient
Greece
The
Roman Republic and its decline
You are responsible for...
Readings
on the website: be sure you understand the issues raised in the questions
for each reading and know the terms in bold or italic
Notes
from class discussions
Pay special attention to...
The
major dates on timelines
Characteristics
of Athenian direct democracy; be able to contrast it with the republican
government of Rome
Greek
art, literature, philosophy
Structure of the Roman Republic and how it functioned
Roman territorial expansion as an "empire" .
Problems
leading to the fall of the Republic
Format
40
objective questions (multiple choice; true/false; fill in the blanks)
2
Questions. For each question, you will write a topic sentence that answers
the question, developing each answer in a well-constructed paragraph that
supports your main idea with evidence.
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