The Fall of Rome and Republicanism

The Fall of Republicanism and Rome

Why did Rome fall? Some say Rome fell because Roman Empire was just too big, making it collapse. Others say the empire spent too much of its resources on the poor, drawing away much needed funds from the empire. Another theory was that plagues reduced the population to the point it could not sustain itself, and another was that the citizens of Rome became too satisfied and lazy, allowing the empire to crumble due to neglect. The list goes on and on; did the empire bureaucracy become too top heavy, eventually causing the empire to collapse upon itself? Did God turn away from Rome due to its sinful nature? Did it fall as the result of barbarian invasions? Well, perhaps the answer lies in one of those theories, or perhaps there is no clear answer.

What is republicanism? Republicanism is in the first place a theory of freedom and, in the second, a theory of government. It equates freedom with the enjoyment of non-domination: of living without a master in one's life. Ð' For the central theme in republican concerns throughout the ages -- the theme that explains all their other commitments -- has been a desire to arrange things so that citizens are not exposed to domination of this kind. They do not live, as the Romans used to say, in potestate domini: in the power of a master. Republicanism is a political philosophy. For me personally, when I hear Ronald Reagan refer to his idealistic vision of what the US should be as a "shinning city on a hill" I cannot

but help to think of Rome also. Its classic Republicism. The idea of the Republic is drawn from Rome.

The Romans were convinced that their city was founded in the year 753 BC. Rome was started by Romulus and Remus. It was then, tradition had it, ruled by kings for many centuries. Livy's version of the establishment of the Republic states that the last of the Kings of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus ("Tarquin the proud") had an unpleasant son, Sextus Tarquinius, who raped a Roman noblewoman named Lucretia. Lucretia compelled her family to take action by gathering the men, telling them what happened, and killing herself. They were compelled to avenge her, and led an uprising that drove the royal house, the Tarquins, out of Rome to take refuge in Etruria.

Lucretia's husband Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus and Lucius Junius Brutus gained election as the first two consuls, the chief officers of the new Republic.

The early consuls took over the roles of the king with the exception of his high priesthood in the worship of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the temple on the Capitoline Hill. The Romans elected a Rex sacrorum or "king of holy things." The people of Rome were divided into patricians and plebeians. The two classes were ancestral and inherited. One's class was fixed by birth rather than by wealth, and though patricians had in the early Republic monopolized all political offices and probably most of the wealth, there are always signs of wealthy plebeians in the history, and many patrician families had lost both wealth and any political influence by the later Republic. They could move from one class to the other by adoption, the way the the political operator Clodius, who managed to have himself adopted into a plebeian branch of his own family for political purposes in the late Republic, but this usually did not happen and was rare. . By the 2nd century BC many priesthoods remained restricted to patricians.

The relationship between the plebeians and the patricians was very strained and the plebeians would secede from the city Ð'-- they left the city, took their families and possessions, and set up camp on a hill outside the walls. These secessions happened in 494, 450, and around 287 BC. Their refusal to co-operate any longer with the patricians led to social changes. In 494 BC, only about 15 years after the establishment of the Republic, the plebeians for the first time elected two leaders, who they called tribunes. The "plebs" took an oath that they would hold their leaders 'sacrosanct' during their terms of office, and that the united plebs would kill anyone who harmed a tribune. The second secession led to further rights and duties and increased the number of tribunes to 10. The final secession gave the vote of the Concilium Plebis or "Council of the Plebeians" the force of law. Rome's military and diplomatic successes around the Mediterranean resulted in new and unaccustomed pressures on the structures of the old city-state. Factional strife had become a traditional part of Roman life. Also landowners were displaced in favor of large slave-run estates, resulting in large numbers of unemployed urbanites.

Beginning with the agrarian reform of Tiberius Gracchus in 133, the political convulsions became more and more severe, resulting in a series of dictatorships, civil wars etc. May think that this was the beginning of the end for Rome. Perhaps it was.

Gracchus' reform was to put more land in the hands of veterans, his Senatorial opponents responded to his political machinations by killing him in the street. His younger brother Gaius Gracchus continued the reform efforts.

A Roman soldier named Spartacus became an outlaw. For survival he joined drifters in bandit raids, and he was caught. For punishment, Roman authorities sold him as a slave. He became a prisoner at a training school for gladiator contests in the city of Capua. And there, in 73 BCE, he and seventy-seven other prisoners and slaves escaped and seized control of nearby Mount Vesuvius. News of the revolt encouraged other slaves to revolt, and they joined Spartacus on Mount Vesuvius -- an army of from fifty to a hundred thousand. This was the beginning of the Third Servile War. The slave army broke through Crassus' lines and went to the southern tip of Italy, where it hoped to cross into Sicily. But the slaves were unable to buy passage or commandeer ships, and Rome's legions cornered them. To escape, the slaves scattered. Piecemeal they were defeated and captured, and, to advertise their defeat and lift the morale of Roman citizens, Crassus had them crucified along the road (the Appian way) between Capua and Rome.

Agriculture in Italy on slavery in the latifundia system, and was rocked by a severe slave revolt (the Third Servile War) led by Spartacus that lasted from 73 BC to 71 BC. Spartacus was a Thracian slave, and was trained as a gladiator. In 73 BC

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