This is probably going to be an exam question I'll answer tomorrow for my Cicero course, so I'll ask here to see what views the board has. Was the Roman Republic doomed to fail from the outset, or was its collapse more a matter of a few bad decisions and arrogant personalities in the first century BC?
Was the Roman Republic doomed?
- Thread starter Basileus Giorgios
- Start date
From my point of view Roman Reublic was functioning quite well untill Sulla, Marius, Caesar and other Generals showed the people how power can be grasp through the allegiance and power of the legions... After that Roman Republic was indeed doomed... However lets not forget that Rome remained a Republic in name only until Diocletian who finally got rid of that pretext and introduced the Dominate era...
From my limited reading, it sounds like it was something that would at least need drastic reforms to continue, simply by the nature of trying to manage a vast empire and not a city-state, but doomed in the sense to be replaced with the Principiate, I don't think so.
Not unlikely, but that was the result of the men and the particular circumstances, not destiny.
Not unlikely, but that was the result of the men and the particular circumstances, not destiny.
I'm gonna agree with Elfwine on this. The republic wasn't doomed from the start. But the two main problems was its size and your right, the generals. Think about. In the space from 100 BC to 1 AB the empire was at lest doubled in size,maybe even more. However, the constitution wasn't changed. Well unless you count Sulla's "reforms" but I wouldn't. if anything that made the problem worse. It would be like Athens trying to rule Alexander the Great's empire while keeping its Democratic virtue. At the very least massive reforms would be necessary. As for the other point, the vary generals that built and protected this empire was part of the problem. The legions loyalty shifted from the Central government (ie the Senate and the various assemblies) to the General who led them. I'm not really sure HOW to stop that problem from developing. I suppose have the central government look out for the Veterans more, instead of leaving it to the generals, like with Pompey and Caesar.
Oh and good luck on your exam.
The republic needed a serious land reform and a way to integrate the Italian socii. Pretty impossible to implement either of them, when the senate was made up of conservative latifundia owners. The military men were a consequence, not the cause of the difficulties and the ultimate demise of the republic
I'd agree that the Republic was fairly secure until generals started fighting for themselves instead of Rome. The empire though wasn't very sound under Republican rule and I could easily see the Republic surviving in Italy while loosing its Eastern possessions unless it did something to shore up its government. The problem there is that they didn't have any real options but monarchy to bring up the government in Rome to the standards of governing a large empire.
It was doomed to fail as long as it got as big as it did. If you contain it to say, Italy and North Africa and maybe Spain, I don't think it would be necessarily doomed then.
Is it arguable that had the Republic somehow continued on for another generation or two, it could have stabilised itself? By around 10BC or so, I'm assuming that all the "low hanging fruit" in terms of viable military conquests will have been picked, and so after this, the destabilising trend of great generals getting filthy rich on foreign conquests would be brought to an end. Thoughts?
Well, Dacia is still there, and that can make any conqueror rich (or dead), plus there's always the chance of sacking Ctesiphon and gaining lots of loot from there.
On the "doomed to fail" part, I also agree with most of the people here. You can get one of these:
1. Continue on with more or less the same partially democratic oligarchy, but without most of the empire, certainly not the eastern half - they either don't conquer the area in the first place - or - the state fractures permanetly, with the eastern Med being governed by an autocratic roman general who founds his own dynasty, and the west continuing on as it was before.
2. Keep the conquests, but loose the political structure.
So, either
2a. Serious land and legal reform giving rights, representation and citizenship to allied peoples [maybe also have (at least a sizeable number of) the senate members be appointed by the local councills?] - but a structure which still isn't dominated by any single individual
2b. A principate-like structure, wherein the popular assemblies loose all power, and the senate (while still powerful and influential) is under the thumb of the Princeps, who relies on a combination of military might, fabulous wealth, popular support and extensive patron-client relationships to stay in power
well ... to figure out if it was doomed as said, you'd have to figure out why it collapsed in the first place
While overreaching Generals is a good answer i think its imprecise.
The Late Roman Republic was a empire effectively ruled by some 300 people (if that many) controlling each their little patronage (either direct or through family relations), while for the most part sitting in the senate (while perhaps 'owning' some other senators) and using their vassals and deep coffers to turn the elections into a parody of itself ... These few people rules over a country many thousand times bigger than them, hence from the Marian Reforms and onwards the only way to make a grab for any kind of power for those outside the elite would be through military or brilliant financial know-how (which again needs a good amount of seed money).
----
So the problem is (at least) 2 fold
Roman republic is ruled by a political structure created (with hardly if any change in setup) to rule a city state, multitudes smaller -> high protential for civil revolts/wars against the ruling elite ... specially from sides that see the republic as a conquering overlord that have little or no concerns for the wants/needs of their vassals (Italian Socii's).
Marian reforms, and the following wars showed entrepreneuring military generals with visions of grandeur a way to gain supreme power.
----
There are several ways this could be handled making the republic more likely to survive.
1. Instead of a rigid political structure that neither bend or moves a inch, make it a more including structure with 'regular' inclusion of new territories (exact way how I don't know ... Gracchus might be the last good shot at this that won't be to little, to late)
2. A want from the senate to actually make the soldiers like them, instead of moaning about that the generals fight a major political battle to get them a decent pay (Marius ideas for settling soldiers in conquered territories as a nationwide plan might do it, instead of forcing all generals to fight for their soldiers, hence putting them in 'debt' to their general instead of the senate)
3. Selecting generals out from a "talent, not birthright", weeding out the couch generals 'that believe they can (and should) control an army when they would be unable to organize a trip to the whorehouse' might help them out quite a bit, perhaps even to the degree that the Marian reforms aren't needed in the first place, and so that the Socii aren't as annoyed by roman disrespect/lack of caring about keeping their troops alive ...
While overreaching Generals is a good answer i think its imprecise.
The Late Roman Republic was a empire effectively ruled by some 300 people (if that many) controlling each their little patronage (either direct or through family relations), while for the most part sitting in the senate (while perhaps 'owning' some other senators) and using their vassals and deep coffers to turn the elections into a parody of itself ... These few people rules over a country many thousand times bigger than them, hence from the Marian Reforms and onwards the only way to make a grab for any kind of power for those outside the elite would be through military or brilliant financial know-how (which again needs a good amount of seed money).
----
So the problem is (at least) 2 fold
Roman republic is ruled by a political structure created (with hardly if any change in setup) to rule a city state, multitudes smaller -> high protential for civil revolts/wars against the ruling elite ... specially from sides that see the republic as a conquering overlord that have little or no concerns for the wants/needs of their vassals (Italian Socii's).
Marian reforms, and the following wars showed entrepreneuring military generals with visions of grandeur a way to gain supreme power.
----
There are several ways this could be handled making the republic more likely to survive.
1. Instead of a rigid political structure that neither bend or moves a inch, make it a more including structure with 'regular' inclusion of new territories (exact way how I don't know ... Gracchus might be the last good shot at this that won't be to little, to late)
2. A want from the senate to actually make the soldiers like them, instead of moaning about that the generals fight a major political battle to get them a decent pay (Marius ideas for settling soldiers in conquered territories as a nationwide plan might do it, instead of forcing all generals to fight for their soldiers, hence putting them in 'debt' to their general instead of the senate)
3. Selecting generals out from a "talent, not birthright", weeding out the couch generals 'that believe they can (and should) control an army when they would be unable to organize a trip to the whorehouse' might help them out quite a bit, perhaps even to the degree that the Marian reforms aren't needed in the first place, and so that the Socii aren't as annoyed by roman disrespect/lack of caring about keeping their troops alive ...
I think if you have Sulla esque reforms without the marching on Rome part, it could work out for a while. The problem with Sulla was, the generation that grew up in the aftermath of his marching on Rome had a perfect example in their lifetimes of how a man could get around the rules.
As has been pointed out, what really torpedoed the long-term stability of the empire was Marius' reforms to the army, allowing unlanded men to join the army and effectively making armies loyal only to their generals. Unless you nip this problem in the bud, Rome will always be threatened by civil war.
But if Marius didn't reform the army, the Romans would have had a very hard time of holding onto their gains. They had a huge man-power shortage, which hurt then not just in war but in peace, when the farmer-soldiers returned to their land while the conquered territory needed an occupation force.
Really, the only way I can see Roman Republicanism surviving is to prevent Rome from expanding outside of Italy. But to do that you need to change the political system so that the generals are not the politicians, with much to gain and little to lose by going to war.
And so on and so on and before long we've deconstructed the entire Roman state. Were they doomed? Maybe a better question is whether any state is not doomed.
But if Marius didn't reform the army, the Romans would have had a very hard time of holding onto their gains. They had a huge man-power shortage, which hurt then not just in war but in peace, when the farmer-soldiers returned to their land while the conquered territory needed an occupation force.
Really, the only way I can see Roman Republicanism surviving is to prevent Rome from expanding outside of Italy. But to do that you need to change the political system so that the generals are not the politicians, with much to gain and little to lose by going to war.
And so on and so on and before long we've deconstructed the entire Roman state. Were they doomed? Maybe a better question is whether any state is not doomed.
Well I think they can expand outside Italy-North Africa and Spain seem to be as far as its going to get.
Another interesting idea: Have the Punic war be a lot less damaging. In other words, keep Hannibal out of Italy. The Second Punic War lead to the soldiers losing their farms. It lead to a huge loss of manpower. And it lead to the death of many well established nobles, which paved the way for new men to arise to prominence, and paved the way for the optimate vs populares showdown.
In my opinion, the end of the second Punic war in 201 BC and influx of cheap slave labor and wealth from eastern acquisitions marked the last chance for the republic to adapt. This window closed with the death of the Grachii movement and Gaius Gracchus. After this, the main concept that had held the entire system together-collective protection and the loyalty of the soldiers to the state and binding of Socii allies was replaced by self enrichment by the rich, and with it the switching of loyalties from the state to individuals.
While Rome controlled just Italy, it was easier for soldiers to be citizen soldiers/farmers and thus land allocation, management by the surprisingly small state and limited bureaucracy was easier. Over wide territories the state had to devolve its power to cope and entrust it to individuals and full time soldiers-which by the very nature of roman politics (the course of honour) which encourage competition would be highly ambitious, made it inevitable that generals would become warlords with an army loyal to them, and thus civil strife was, in my opinion, inevitable.
Many senators realized this, and its worth noting that after Persius' defeat in the 3rd macedonian war the Romans were unwilling to create another province to the 4 already existing, entrusting puppets, allies and clients instead. Only after the complete roman takeover did things really go wrong.
So really, The republic was doomed once it started taking foreign territories-simply because its limited bureaucratic and ineffectual governance over large geographical areas. So in a way, geography and distrust of civil servants doomed the republic.
While Rome controlled just Italy, it was easier for soldiers to be citizen soldiers/farmers and thus land allocation, management by the surprisingly small state and limited bureaucracy was easier. Over wide territories the state had to devolve its power to cope and entrust it to individuals and full time soldiers-which by the very nature of roman politics (the course of honour) which encourage competition would be highly ambitious, made it inevitable that generals would become warlords with an army loyal to them, and thus civil strife was, in my opinion, inevitable.
Many senators realized this, and its worth noting that after Persius' defeat in the 3rd macedonian war the Romans were unwilling to create another province to the 4 already existing, entrusting puppets, allies and clients instead. Only after the complete roman takeover did things really go wrong.
So really, The republic was doomed once it started taking foreign territories-simply because its limited bureaucratic and ineffectual governance over large geographical areas. So in a way, geography and distrust of civil servants doomed the republic.
I have said it before and I will say it again, with nothing personal directed at you. The problem with Roman government wasn't that it was unrepresentative. How many people in the empire really cared if their local landlords where in the Senate or not? Making the Roman Empire into some sort of 1st Century America with local representatives would probably speed up its collapse. What is the only thing that Spanish and Gallic tribes, Hellenized Jews, and democratic Greeks have in common? They want the Romans to go home. If you threw them in the Senate in proportional numbers, they would try to dissolve the empire.
So what we had?
I think this might be the winner for me. If the Roman Senate actually followed through with its obligation to support veterans, the men vying for power in the cursus wouldn't have swarms of veterans ready to fight for them. I'd say that even if the Senate simply ordered the first or second governor of a province after the guy who actually conquered it to set aside some confiscated land for someone else's veterans the situation would have improved.
Ahh ha, but the Senate won't do that, because the man who made the Senate do that would gain all those veterans as clients, thus becoming extremely powerful, and possibly a threat to the Senate...
Are you seeing the problem here?
That's a different sort of problem than whether or not the Republic can support those troops, though.
Although it is suggesting (to me) that "The Republic" as a government distinct from the agreement of the senators doesn't exactly exist, which does sound doomed to disintegrate once one man has - one way or another - overwhelming power.
Augustus technically not being "Emperor' but a collection of Republican-era titles.
The problem isn't "can the Republic support those troops?"--it most certainly can--the problem is "will the Republic support those troops?" and the answer was generally "Only if people's feet get put in the fire".