The title is deliberately misleading as the topic of today’s discussion is the fall of the Roman Republic. The purpose is to see what lines we can draw between the politicians of the past and those of the present and what might need to change to avoid a repeat of history. Included below is a partial transcript of what Tristan had to say on the subject. The primary source he used was The Western Heritage, 9th Edition by Kagan, Ozment, and Turner.

 

The Family Unit and the Class Divides

Early Roman society was divided into two groups: the hereditary nobility called Patricians and everybody else called Plebeians. Patricians held all the political power in the early days and much of the wealth, though the plebeians would gradually gain more influence especially as some acquired great wealth of their own. The basic building block of the Roman Republic was the plebeian family unit with the father at the head, this being a very patriarchal society. Most of these families were farmers who were clients to a wealthy patron, normally a patrician. The patron would provide legal, physical and economic protection to his clients and they in return would support their patron politically and militarily while working his land. To fulfill this military obligation, these farmers owned their own gear with which to fight in wars. Later on, a third group emerged, a sort of middle class, called the equestrians. As you can probably guess they were originally wealthier plebeians who owned horses and formed the cavalry. Consequently they were traders, businessmen, and tax collectors and as the empire grew so to did their wealth, influence, and political power.

 

Senatorial Politics

Its important to note that Rome was never a democracy. At best it was an oligarchy with some democratic elements. There are three major aspects to Roman government worth mentioning. The first are the Consuls who were imbued with the power of Imperium; the right to issue commands and enforce them. This power was granted to individuals pending the approval of the Senate and a vote of the people gathered in assembly. This individual would then have both great military and political power by virtue of imperium, though in the early days there were many checks on this power, mainly from the Senate. Two consuls would serve at a time each appointed for a 1-year term and each having veto powers over any decision made by the other. Their imperium was also limited within the boundaries of the city of Rome with regards to capital punishment. However, as their empire grew and wars took longer, the weaknesses of this arrangement became apparent. So they came up with the proconsulship wherein a consul’s term could be lengthened if they were leading the army. This innovation would cause problems later on. There were several other types of magistrates with imperium, but for our purposes the consulship is what matters most.

Next is the Senate. Senators served for life and were the most wealthy and powerful Romans of the patrician class. Their will could not be lightly ignored by anyone, even the early kings. They were by virtue of being landed aristocrats, very conservative and traditional as a whole. They had control over financial matters, foreign affairs, and most appointments. In effect, they ran the show.

Finally, there are the assemblies. Throughout Roman history there were several different types of assembly, but they were all more or less comprised of average Roman citizens (re Plebes) divided into groups. Much like in the US, a majority vote in each group determined that group’s overall vote on a given issue. Initially the assembly merely gathered to approve what had already been decided, but its power would grow slowly over time thanks to the fact that they formed the bulk of the military.

Their first victory was the creation of the Tribune position: an official elected by the plebeian assembly with a mandate to protect the plebeians. This included the power to veto any action by a magistrate or any bill put forward by an assembly or the Senate. The tribune was considered sacrosanct and to lay violent hands on him was to court death without trial.

Their next victory was to have a code of laws actually written down. Prior to this, the law existed merely in the heads of patricians. Though the practice of unwritten traditions, rules, and customs shaping government would never entirely die out. Eventually plebeians earned the right to serve in magistrate positions, including as consuls, and lastly they made it so that laws passed by the plebeian assembly were binding on all Romans. This is not to say that Rome was in any way democratic. Government positions, whether plebeian or patrician in origin, were dominated by just a handful of wealthy families. The class divide simply became between the wealthy (or nobiles) and everyone else.

 

Growing Empire, Wars, and Unrest

While the Roman empire remained confined to the Italian peninsula, things were fine. Everyone from client farmers to the nobles shared in Rome’s success and were more or less content. But as Rome expanded further around the Mediterranean problems began to arise. Your average Roman citizen would normally fight in wars that lasted months, but now they were fighting wars that lasted years. These wars brought great wealth to their compatriots at home, but did little for the actual soldiers. They returned home to fallow overgrown fields that were now economically unviable for them to tend. The wealthy gobbled up most of this land through both legal and illegal means and cultivated cash crops with the influx of slave labour brought from the wars. The only options left to the returning soldiers were to head into the city and look for work, often with limited success, or to work as hired hands/tenant farmers on the massive estates. The family unit and the client/patron relationship that formed the backbone of Roman society was breaking down. Unsurprisingly, the conservative Senate and magistrates, largely comprised of aristocrats benefiting from the situation, were ignoring the problem.

 

The Gracchi

Some nobles saw these problems and realized it could pose a grave threat to the Republic. Foremost among them was Tiberius Gracchus, a wealthy plebeian who became tribune in 133 BC on a program of land reform. He drafted a moderate bill with the help of several powerful nobles families, that would redistribute some of the illegally acquired land. Despite being fairly benign, the Senate opposed it for a number of reasons, but mostly due to greed. They had one of the other tribunes veto it. Here is where things begin to turn. Though Tiberius undoubtedly meant well, he was convinced that this bill had to pass and was willing to use unorthodox methods to see it through. His first unprecedented act was to remove the opposing tribune from office with the support of the assembly. This implied a fundamental shift in power to the people, threatening to turn Rome into a democracy. The second unprecedented act was to use the income from a newly acquired kingdom to fund his initiatives. This subverted the Senate’s traditional role of controlling finances and foreign affairs. His third break with tradition was to run for a second term as tribune. On the day of the election however, a riot broke out and Tiberius and many of his followers were killed by the mob (including some Senators) and their bodies dumped in the river. This transgression, the murder of a supposedly sacrosanct tribune with no immediate repercussions, was perhaps the gravest of all. This internal bloodshed was a first in Roman history and this broken taboo could not be undone.

Tiberius was the first of a new breed of Roman politician, one who relied on support from the people rather than the aristocracy called “populares”. They were opposed to the more traditionalist “optimates” who supported Senatorial rule, forming a quasi two-party system. Key divisions were over land reform, the Senate vs the assemblies, and the treatment of Italians outside of Rome. The inability to adequately resolve any of these issues did not bode well for the Republic.

Tiberius’ younger brother, Gaius, highlights this shift. He had tremendous popular support and enacted numerous laws to benefit the peasant class as tribune. He also curried favour with the equestrians and gave them a political voice. The senate was mostly powerless to stop him, such was his support. His undoing however, was by trying to appeal to non-Roman Italians by granting them citizenship. Nothing divides like racism and the Senate pounced, turning it into a wedge issue. Gaius lost re-election as a result and one of the consuls provoked a violent incident that led the Senate to enact martial law “to see that no harm comes to the republic.” This protection apparently necessitated hunting down and killing Gaius and some 3000 of his followers in 121 BC. His bloody death marked the end of any significant diplomatic efforts to restructure the republic. From here on out, its all out war.

 

Marius + Sulla

For a time it seemed as though the oligarchs would maintain their position, but the damage they had done went deep. A political outsider named Marius was elected consul in 107 BC in the midst of a war which the Senate was ineffectually handling. The assembly went over the Senate’s head and assigned Marius to deal with it. He did so, then returned to Italy to deal with invading barbarians serving multiple consecutive terms. During this time he made several important changes to military structure. He began taking volunteers for his army, mostly the dispossessed whose problems the Senate had neglected to solve. They effectively became his clients, serving as semi-professional soldiers in return for basic necessities, the spoils of war, and the promise of land when they retired. These soldiers were loyal to the general based on the strength of his reputation, not to the state, and as a result a popular general could frighten the Senate into giving him what he needed to satisfy his troops. In short, Marius created a situation where military leaders needed and acquired power to challenge civilian authority.

Much as they neglected the peasant class, the Senate also ignored the problems facing Italians who finally rose up in rebellion. They wound up giving most of them citizenship, but over the course of the uprising one Roman general, formerly an underling of Marius named Sulla proved his mettle. In 88 BC he was elected consul and sent to deal with war in Asia. For most likely petty reasons, Marius came out of retirement and had the command transferred to him. Sulla had no choice but to turn his army around and march on Rome, a first for their history and not the last. Marius fled, Sulla regained command and marched out again, then Marius returned, massacred his opposition in Rome, and took control. Sulla dealt with the problems in the East then returned to Rome and fought a civil war which saw him come out on top. He took sole control of the state, wiped out the opposition, and even some innocent rich people so he could use their wealth to pay his troops. He then used his power to reshape the government and judiciary mostly to the benefit of the Senate. Once that was done he retired and lived out his days in luxury. His aim seemed to be to prevent what had just happened, and to create a more responsive and responsible system. However, his only real lasting legacy proved to be his example of leading a personally loyal army into Rome and slaughtering his opponents.

 

1^st Triumvirate

Within a year of Sulla’s death, the Senate started disregarding his rules for office-holding and appointed untested individuals to positions of extraordinary power to deal with various revolts (by untested I mean they hadn’t gone through Sulla’s system to prove themselves safe, loyal, and experienced). Foremost among them were Pompey and Crassus. They joined forces so that they could both win the consulship in 70 BC, and succeeded on a platform of restoring power to the tribunes and the equestrians which Sulla had curtailed. With their election, most everything Sulla accomplished was undone and Senatorial control was swiftly collapsing. Pompey received a special Imperium, greater than any consul had ever had, to deal with piracy and a rebellion in Asia. He was enormously successful in these pursuits. He returned to Rome in 62 BC more popular and powerful than ever. Fearing Pompey’s rise and lacking his military support, the fabulously wealthy Crassus began cultivating alliances with popular leaders, most notably Julius Caesar. Much to the surprise of many, when Pompey returned he laid down his arms and retired. All he wanted was for the Senate to approve his arrangements in the East and grant land to his veterans. A moderate request that the Senate foolishly refused, forcing Pompey into an alliance with Crassus and Caesar whose goals were also being stymied by the Senate. Thus the 1^st Triumvirate was born, an informal agreement among three very powerful men to concentrate their efforts on undermining the Senate.

For about a decade they ran the show, but when Crassus died in battle in 53 BC things began to unravel for although the triad never really got along, they had successfully kept one another in check. Down to two that balance became untenable. As Caesar’s star rose with his campaign in Gaul, Pompey and the Senate began to fear him. Pompey was granted even more extraordinary powers and they ordered Caesar to lay down his arms upon his return. Knowing this was an obvious trap, he instead crossed the Rubicon with his army, launching a civil war that ended in 45 BC with Pompey’s death and Caesar assuming full power. In the year that he held sway he made numerous reforms and granted himself a multitude of powers. He turned the Senate into a joke, essentially making it his puppet. The few remaining Senators who opposed him assassinated him on the Senate floor on March 15, 44 BC in retaliation. They believed that with Caesar’s death everything would just go back to the way it was before, but too many taboos had been broken. They were well past the point of no return and nothing would be the same.

 

2^nd Triumvirate

In the wake of Caesar’s death his top general, Marc Antony, allied with his heir, Octavian, and a governor named Lepidus to form the 2^nd Triumvirate to hunt down Caesar’s assassins who by this point had amassed an army. Once they were dealt with (and therefore any hope of restoring the republic was dashed), the trio divided up governance of Rome between them with Octavian taking the West and Marc Antony taking the East. Lepidus doesn’t matter at this point. It didn’t take long for Marc Antony and Octavian to turn on one another, thereby prolonging the already exhausting civil war which finally saw Octavian, now known as Augustus Caesar, come out on top in 31 BC. The Republic was now well and truly dead. That being said, Augustus was careful to make it appear that the Senate still held authority, and treated it with honour and respect unlike his predecessor. But at the end of the day, he had himself imbued with consular and tribunate powers that superseded all others, and he had control of virtually the entire army making him the de facto sole ruler. Now to be fair, Augustus was an extremely competent leader who made many important and beneficial reforms that ushered in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity for Rome. Compared to what came before he was a breath of fresh air, especially after a decade-long civil war that primed people to be willing to give up on Republican values. Of course the system he created allowed for some truly terrible leaders to come to power, but that’s a story for another day.

 

Parallels to Modern Times

When taking the fall of the Roman Republic and using it as a blueprint for the potential future of US politics there are a few obvious major differences. First and foremost, the political and military structure of Rome is vastly different from that of America. The US is more of a democracy with oligarchic elements (though some would disagree) with most legislative and many executive/judicial positions being elected rather than appointed. Ostensibly you’re not elected for life, though in congress the turnover rate is embarrassingly low. While the president as commander-in-chief does have both military and political powers akin to a consul, their function is not the same (ie a president doesn’t lead troops into battle and there are many checks in place). Also there’s a good 2000+ year time difference between Rome and the US. It’s a completely different world now. All that being said, there are two important lessons we can learn from the Romans.

Firstly, the ruling Senate proved to be unresponsive, uncaring, and ignorant of the problems facing the people of Rome. They allowed greed and a pigheaded adherence to tradition to cloud their judgment preventing any meaningful action to take place on important issues. These issues included growing income inequality that eroded away at the bedrock of their society, and a growing group of non-Romans demanding equal rights and citizenship. With political efforts stalled, powerful populist leaders arose who went around the system to solve these problems. These solutions tended to be violent and ultimately usurped the power of the Senate. The same power they thought they were preserving by not solving the problems. I shouldn’t have to go into detail to demonstrate how these same issues are affecting the US today.

Secondly, the progressive breaking of taboos and unwritten rules set a terrible precedent that later generations would imitate and expound upon. Once it became apparent that the powers-that-be were willing to let certain transgressions slide it opened the door for others to take even more erroneous actions. The inability or unwillingness of the Senate to enforce the very laws and customs designed to protect it allowed the Republic to slip into chaos and for Emperors to rise from the ashes. Today we similarly see taboos and unwritten rules being broken at an alarming rate and people are taking notice. Much like the oligarchs of old, there seems to be a general assumption among the political establishment that this is just a phase and that in a few years time this will all blow over and things will return to normal. Senators of days past and in the modern era forgot that once taboos are broken, they can’t be unbroken. There is no going back.