Rome: Republic to Empire

For some background to the posts that I hope to have here in the very near future, I thought it would be good to talk about a little Roman history. Rome was initially similar to other Meditteranean cities. It became a state by absorbing the surrounding areas of Italy. Rome grew into an empire by expanding its reach to the limits of the known world at the time. The political center of that empire grew, and for the ancients was the greatest city ever known. Greek commentators like Polybius and others praised the excellences of it's constitution and the cohesiveness of it's social order. In Rome, all of it's citizens served in the legions, paid taxes, elected the magistrates, made the laws and even decided on such questions as peace and war. Politics was everyone's business it was the res publica.

The reality of the situation was that it was easy to see that a certain class of privileged individuals held more political power than the mass of the citizenry. This class would have excluded foreigners, women and slaves. The censors kept an eye on the fortune and honor of each citizen; regulated his role in political life along with his military and fiscal contributions. The wealthiest citizens and those fortunate enough to be born into Rome's aristocratic families formed an oligarchy which split among itself the offices of magistrate, military commander and priest. The power struggles between patricians and plebeians in the early years of the republic had led to an expansion of this 'nobility'. In the later republic it was very rare for this class to open itself up to 'new men'. These were usually men who had shown great military talents and sometimes political ones.

The Roman city-state was first and foremost a community of warriors. The existence of universal military service meant that citizens could be mobilized between the age of seventeen and sixty. This distinguished Rome in a very important way from Carthage and the Hellensitic kingdoms who only had mercenaries. The defeated powers also provided soldiers for Rome's further conquests.

The Senate intially controlled Rome's expansionist tendencies, which were bound up with it's desire to ensure it's own security. The Senate during the republic was sort of a permanent council made up of former magistrates. The Senate's duties also included receiving ambassadors and ruled over allocation of the budget. Rome's early conquests were confined to Italy. Through the elaboration of a variety of diplomatic contacts with thee Italian peninsula's ethnically and culturally heterogenous communities, and in organizing the Italian geographical area by building roads and founding colonies, Rome laid the groundwork for unification which Hannibal's political strategy did little to damage. When Hannibal presented himself as the liberator of Italy, he was only able to win the support of a section of the Campanians. More than a million Italians acceded to Roman citizenship after the Social War. This revolutionized the structures of the city for good.

When Rome attacked Carthage, which controlled the western Meditteranean, it was entering a conflict with incalculable consequences. It was the first military intervention as a sea power and it's first outside of Italy. The Second Punic War extended the field of battle to Sicily, Spain, Africa, parts of the Greek world and Italy. The Third Punic War showed that Rome was capable of destroying anyone who fought her power. Rome conquered Carthage and also established her power over the Hellenistic kingdoms. The profits from these conquests were so great that after 167 B.C., Romans no longer paid any direct taxes. However, social tensions were growing. Rome had to modify it's conditions for recruiting soldiers under Marius, and the way in which Rome allocated important military commands were also changed in the first century B.C. The economic and social system began to come under a great deal of strain and the cohesion of the political system diminished, despite attempts at reform such as those of the Gracchi. The clash of ambitions between the military leaders who had dominated parts of the East(Sulla,Pompey) and the West (Julius Caesar) led to the Empire. This was just a very, very short bit about Roman history. I want to do a lot more with Roman history in the future and the coming series touches on quite a bit of it. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!