Concept

Roman Republic

Overview

The Roman Republic (Latin: Res publica Romana, pronounced [ˈreːs ˈpuːblɪka roːˈmaːna]) was the era of classical Roman civilisation beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.

Roman society at the time was primarily a cultural mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the ancient Roman religion and its pantheon. Its political organisation developed at around the same time as direct democracy in ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a senate. There were annual elections, but the republican system was an elective oligarchy, not a democracy, with a number of powerful families largely monopolising the senior magistracies. Roman institutions underwent considerable changes throughout the Republic to adapt to difficulties such as the creation of promagistracies to rule its conquered provinces and, after the Social War during the late Republic, the inclusion of peninsular Italians as citizens and senators.

Unlike the Pax Romana of the Roman Empire, republican Rome was in a state of near-perpetual war. Its first enemies were its Latin and Etruscan neighbours, as well as the Gauls, who sacked Rome around 387 BC. After the Gallic sack, Rome conquered most of the Italian peninsula in a century and became one of the Mediterranean great powers. Its greatest strategic rival was Carthage, against which it waged three wars. Rome defeated Carthage at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC and in the following decades became the dominant power in the ancient Mediterranean world. It then embarked on a long series of difficult conquests, defeating Philip V and Perseus of Macedon, Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire, the Lusitanian Viriathus, the Numidian Jugurtha, the Pontic king Mithridates VI, Vercingetorix of the Arverni tribe of Gaul, and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

At home, during the Conflict of the Orders, the patricians, the closed oligarchic elite, came into conflict with the more numerous plebs; this was resolved peacefully, with the plebs achieving political equality by the 4th century BC. The late Republic, from 133 BC onward, saw substantial domestic strife, often anachronistically seen as a conflict between optimates and populares, referring to conservative and reformist politicians, respectively. The Social War between Rome and its Italian allies over citizenship and Roman hegemony in Italy greatly expanded the scope of civil violence. Mass slavery also contributed to three Servile Wars. Political violence at home coupled with powerful semi-autonomous generals led to civil wars that broke the Republic. The first involved Marius and Sulla. After a generation, the Republic fell into civil war again in 49 BC between Julius Caesar and Pompey. Despite his victory and appointment as dictator for life, Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar's heir Octavian and lieutenant Mark Antony defeated Caesar's assassins in 42 BC, but they split, eventually resulting in Antony's defeat alongside his ally and lover Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Octavian, the victor, then became the dominant force in Roman politics; Octavian's receipt of the title Augustus from the Senate in 27 BC is often seen to mark the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Here, then, is this Roman republic, "which has changed little by little from the fair and virtuous city it was, and has become utterly wicked and dissolute." It is not I who am the first to say this, but their own authors, from whom we learned it for a fee, and who wrote it long before the coming of Christ.
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
Opens on Roman Republic; names Roman Republic.
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No one can doubt that the Roman republic would have subsided into a military despotism if Julius Cæsar had never lived” (thus much was rendered practically certain by general causes); “but is it at all clear that in that case Gaul would ever have formed a province of the empire? Might not Varus have lost his three legions on the banks of the Rhone? and might not that river have become the frontier instead of the…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
Opens on Roman Republic; names Roman Republic.
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The Sabines remitted the choice to the original Romans, and they, too, on their part, were more inclinable to receive a Sabine king elected by themselves than to see a Roman exalted by the Sabines. Consultations being accordingly held, they named Numa Pompilius, of the Sabine race, a person of that high reputation for excellence, that, though he were not actually residing at Rome, yet he was no sooner nominated…
Plutarch, Plutarch
States what Roman Republic is.
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Roman Republic

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