ORG - A Global World - The Roman Republic (Lesson)

A Global World

The Roman Republic

When talking about the people living on the fringes of the Persian Empire, we mentioned the Romans. Their name appeared again when discussing the spread of Hellenism. In the days of Alexander the Great, the Romans were the people of the city-state of Rome with aspirations to become a kingdom. Rome was fortunately located in the middle of the Italian Peninsula—it had the Alps Mountains to the north (serving as a barrier from European invaders,) it had the sea all around the peninsula (serving as a quick means of travel for trade and military campaigns.) During the Hellenization of the Mediterranean World, Rome never came under direct rule by the Greeks but it did choose to adopt some aspects of Hellenism as a means of "keeping up with the neighborhood." So you will recognize some elements of the Roman culture and republic with what you know about the Greeks. But there are differences.

But perhaps the greatest trait that the Romans had with the Greeks (or Macedonians as Alexander the Great wasn't really Greek,) was the desire to grow beyond their traditional homelands. Naturally, this didn't sit well with the other city-states on the Italian peninsula as it would be their homes targeted first by the land-hungry Romans. But that didn't seem to stop the Romans—using their legions of between 3,000 and 5,000 men, they just marched right over their neighbors. Literally, they marched over their neighbors. One interesting point about the way the Romans fought was that they started their military campaigns every spring beginning in the month of March (the name of which stems from the Roman god of war, Mars)! (It's okay to giggle a little at that one.) Anyway, one of the results of the annual marches and military campaigns and military successes was that Rome gained more and more people to supply their military, so their military continued to grow exponentially, thereby leading to more and more success. By 265 BCE, Rome controlled the Italian peninsula. But they weren't done with their expansion yet.

Rome looked around and determined that the next step in their expansion would require a navy. So they built a great one and then proceeded to war against their neighbors along the Mediterranean basin. Across the Mediterranean Sea, in present day Tunisia, was the city of Carthage (originally founded by the Phoenicians.) They were just as interested in expanding their borders as the Romans, so it was just a question of time before these two cities fought. These wars are known as the Punic Wars-

• First Punic War- 264-241 BCE- naval battle over Sicily
• Second Punic War- 218-201 BCE- (Remember in the introduction to the unit the mentioning of a man storming around on an elephant? The Carthaginian General Hannibal attempted to invade Rome upon his elephant- with his troops' elephants- but was ultimately repulsed and then defeated.)- Roman defense of Rome and later attack on Carthage
• Third Punic War- 149-146- decisive war that ended Carthage's independence (as well as the lives of all of its adult males)

Following the Punic Wars, the map looked like this...

Rome started off as a city-state with a king, then became a city-state ruled by an outside aristocracy, then became a city-state ruled domestically as a republic. So how was the Roman government set up as a republic?

The Assembly and Senate served as something akin to a legislative system that wrote the Twelve Tables of Rome- a series of laws written so that everyone,Patricians and Plebeians alike, could understand their meanings and follow their instructions. The consuls acted as an executive branch. Two were selected from the Assembly every year. They could only serve for one year as a consul every decade (so...in a sense, the first term limits of a government are seen here.) Under this system, peasant farmers had a voice- the rich had a voice- the military had a voice- and so on. And this set-up worked very nicely for the city-state of Rome, but it didn't function as well for the Imperial state of Rome. With each new conquest, the wealth of Rome increased (especially among the patricians.) The patricians used this large-scale wealth to buy more land and import slaves to do all of the work- which meant that the peasant farmer was out of a job. Two consuls attempted to get the Senate and Assembly to pay attention to the poor's plight during this period of uncertainty, but the only one who seemingly noticed was an assassin and their voices were silenced. After that, the poor tended to turn to the military for help. From the military, peasants were assured of getting new lands (it was how the military paid for loyalty from its soldiers.) But with that sort of payment plan, the military would always need to be expanding in order to gain more land with which to distribute.

Another downside of the expansions and the increases in slavery was that the slaves really didn't like their position. From roughly 135 to 71 BCE, the Roman Republic experienced a series of slave revolts known as the Servile Wars. The third and the last, known creatively as the Third Servile War, was the worst (from the point of view of the Romans) and the closest to being successful. In part led by the famous Spartacus, it was during this rebellion that the Roman Republic came the closest to ending up to that point. If you look at this map, the blue arrows represent the movements of the slaves under Spartacus where they met with successes at the sites marked as #2 and #3—had Spartacus and his followers continued on to the north, they would have probably experienced freedom and a chance to return to their native homelands. However, they circled back to attack the Romans further and met with defeat.

In 59 BCE, a man whose name everyone knows rose to power. Julius Caesar became the consul that year and formed an alliance with a rich man named Crassus and a military man named Pompey. Together, the three formed the First Triumvirate. They did so following a time of great civil unrest in Rome (the Servile Wars) and sought to bring peace back to Rome (as well as power and wealth to themselves.) At the end of Caesar's one year rule, he packed his army and marched north. Caesar spent ten years defeating Gaul and beating up on the people living in the British isle. Then Caesar received news that Crassus was dead (and his head was being used a prop in a play by his killers,) Pompey's wife (and Caesar's daughter) had died in childbirth, and that Pompey was the consul of Rome. Caesar packed up his army again and marched home- Pompey fled (leaving the position of consul available to whomever might be marching back to the city with big plans- wink, wink.) Julius Caesar took over the consul spot once more in 48 BCE—only this time he added a new name to his position- "dictator and consul." He also flagrantly ignored the rule of only serving one term per every decade and "ran" for and won the consul spot in 46 and 45 BCE. Ultimately, he came to be known as the "Emperor for Life." During his time as consul, Julius Caesar accomplished a number of very popular things for Rome:

• He established land pensions for soldiers (which would further the need for the military to continue Rome's expanse to provide this land.)
• He restructured debts.
• He changed the calendar to the Roman calendar.

But not everything he did was popular, especially among those who hoped to rise to power one day too. A number of senators felt Julius Caesar had too much power and stabbed him dozens of times on the floor of the Senate in order to restore the Republic's government in 44 BCE. (In retrospect, perhaps the "emperor for life" title was off-putting. Certainly puts our government issues in perspective, doesn't it?) Anyway, the date of Julius Caesar's assassination was March 15^th- the Ides of March - a date of which, according to legend, one should beware.

Julius Caesar's adopted son, Octavian or Octavius, formed his own alliance to win back power for his family. Octavian plus Marc Antony plus Lepidus equaled the Second Triumvirate. The Second Triumvirate differed from the First in that the Second one was officially recognized by the Roman government (whereas the First had been, at first, a secret alliance.) Another difference was that with the rise of the Second Triumvirate, came the death of the Roman Republic. Once again, another "Caesar" emerged from a Roman triumvirate to rule over the others—Octavian changed his name to Augustus Caesar, skipped the title of "consul" and went straight for "emperor." From this point forward, no one pretended that Rome was a republic anymore—it was an empire with one person in charge. And as such, it covered all of the areas in bright colors on the map below-

This map shows that Rome was truly a global empire. Notice that Egypt is included in this map- here comes the part with the lady and the asp from the introduction. The last Ptolemaic pharaoh of Egypt was Cleopatra- technically, she was the seventh one with this name- but nobody really remembers the first six. Anyway, Cleopatra was the wife of Mark Antony at the time of the Second Triumvirate. When Mark Antony committed suicide following his defeat by Augustus Caesar (Octavian,) Cleopatra- according to legend- coaxed an Egyptian snake into biting her so that she would die too. Although her son (from her affair with Julius Caesar—doesn't this sound like a soap opera? You wouldn't be wrong, Shakespeare used the real life story to help round out his tale of Romeo and Juliet.) took over her throne, he wasn't very effective or there for too long. Instead, Cleopatra is recognized as the last active pharaoh of Egypt before it, too, joined the fate of most of North Africa, the Middle East and Europe as part of the Roman Empire.

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.

PUNIC WAR VIDEO MAPS BY AGATA BRILLI, DENSITY DESIGN RESEARCH LAB