Was the Roman Republic doomed?

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".

Well, then I vote yes, it is doomed. Because sooner or latter, that will come back to haunt it - one way or another.
 
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?

It seems to then require an unusually principled man to introduce the legislation.
Few of those men seemed to exist in the Republic sadly.
 
It seems to then require an unusually principled man to introduce the legislation.
Few of those men seemed to exist in the Republic sadly.

Principles didn't matter. The way things ran was if you got people things on this scale, they were your clients. Which is why every damn Republic official who tried to solve the problem was treated as a dangerous demagogue.
 
Perhaps the senate adopts a plan where, if one man gains too much power, they elect a man into a similar position who shares their views and sympathizes with them.
 
I'm not an expert on the republic, but if anything, it sounds like it had too much the opposite problem in general.
 
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".

Ironically, this is why Pompey winning at Pharsalus might actually work as a PoD -- having just survived the threat of Ceasar, and with Pompey's armies, I can see the Optimates giving him whatever reforms he supports...
 
The Roman Republic was functioning - until a point. It was not doomed by its mere being, but events happened which doomed the republic a century before its collapse. I don't know when exactly to date it, but somewhere between the Gracchian Brothers, the Marian Reforms and Sulla.
 
The roman republic as idealizes by ancient writers was doomed because of its success.

You can't keep the government of an oligarchical small city State (yearly elections, almost no possible reelection, and a system of check and balances designed to prevent any decision on which there would not be a consensus of the leading rival aristocrats) for a world empire.

The tragedy of the roman republic is that most of the aristocrats saw it and used it (which is perfectly human but in the end leads to the doom) first of all as a means to maintain or improve their family prestige.

But I think it is an anachronical countersense to blame the generals. The generals of the republic were all leading senators. They were politicians before becoming glorious generals, not professional lifelong soldiers.
 
problem was that the Republic had a very aggessive Law of Jante going on

I don't agree with this statement. If it was true, so the Romans never accepted for example to give the Italics the citizenship rights in the last part of the Social war. Sulla and Pompey were winning on all fronts, the concession of the rights to the loyalists (and after the war, to the rebels) accelerated the victory but it was inavoidable anyway. And in the second Punic War, they gave freedom and rights to the slaves who fought for Rome. True it was an emergency situation after Cannae, but if the Romans were so individualists they will never seek the help of the slaves. Also, the Marian reforms despite its indirect consequences (talking about the rise of personal armies) was still an improvement respect to the past situation, and surely wasn't an individualistic step.

IMO, the Republic wasn't necessarily doomed because it could have the necessary personnel to evolve in a way or another, but the period of the civil wars determined a change of heart into the Romans so they agreed to support the loss of civilian rights in exchange of stability and peace, and Octavian caught the occasion. In effect, Sulla was in a position similar to Octavian but despite his authoritarian decisions he tried to safeguard the Republic (like Diocletianus with the attempt of the Tetrarchy to save the Imperial unity) and in end failed. Octavian claimed to preserve the Republic but he was conscious to trasform it in a de facto absolute monarchy.
 
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IMO, the Republic wasn't necessarily doomed because it could have the necessary personnel to evolve in a way or another, but the period of the civil wars determined a change of heart into the Romans so they agreed to support the loss of civilian rights in exchange of stability and peace, and Octavian caught the occasion.
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I disagree.

Which citizens are you talking about ?
Do you think that the 99,5% of the civic population lost something when the imperial régime was established ?

The Liberty that the "noble" Brutus theoretically worshipped was the Liberty of a small group of aristocrats to do what they wanted at the expense of the mass of the People, and to struggle against each other for honors.
Example of this Liberty : in 51 BCE, the "noble" consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus, a resolute enemy of Caesar, had a roman citizen, former magistrate of Novum Comum in Caesar's province, whipped to show that he considered Caesar's acta as worthless and that this man had usurped the roman citizenship acquired under Caesar's patronage.

Why do you think Caesar and Augustus were so popular with the mass of the People, so much that they could establish a new régime ?
Not because they were mere demagogues but because they had found a way to protect the People from what they had endured for centuries under the oligarchic republic.
The only part of the roman people who regretted something from the oligarchic republic were those of the urban Plebs (from the city of Rome) who used to vote and sell their votes in the tribal comitia (not in the centuriate comitia were the first class of citizens held the majority thanks to a very very very unequal census suffrage). But in compensation they benefitted from the generosity of the Princeps : panem et circenses.

It was not pure cynicism and limitless personal ambition which drove Caesar and Octavian to terminate the agonizing oligarchic republic. It was also a sense of duty.

Caesar had declared that the roman People than himself in his (Caesars') living long, because there would be a new civil war if he died. And that is what happened because Caesar had understood that the crisis was systemic.

You can start it from the social war, but Rome-Italy endured civil war for 20 years from 91 to 72 and for another 20 years from 49 to 30. There were hundreds of thousands of death because too many leading noble senators refused to make the compromises necessary to the needs of the empire-provinces and to the poor part of the roman People. This had to stop.
 
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It would go beyond what the bounds of your class are if you're focusing on Cicero, but maybe pushing your PoD back to the time of the Punic Wars might do the trick.

It would be difficult, considering the Roman aristocrats were always on the lookout for prospective triumphs. But if you could get rid of a figure such as Scipio Africanus needing to come to prominence you don't have the beginnings of the 'cult of the general' that culminated in Marius, Sulla, and Caesar. Plus I think there were some constitutional irregularities- I don't have my history books with me, so I can't remember the details, as to how he got imperium to lead an army so young.

Understandable in an emergency situation, of course, but that kind of thing sets a bad precedent.
 
Guetting rid of Scipio Africanus would certainly not prevent Rome from developîg the cult of the general ?

Rome was a warrior society like most ancient political entities. As such, it naturally valued honor, glory and military valor more than anything else. It did not wait Scipio Africanus to do so.

Who was the semi-mythical Camillus (Marcus Furius Camillus) if not a previous (and mythical) military savior of Rome ?

Rome had no written constitution. There was no law on the minimum age requirements at the time of Scipio : only custom.

Marcus Valerius Corvus, because he was Rome's greatest general of his own time, was (supposedly) elected consul for the first time in 348 when ... 22 years old.

Rome was pragmatic and, in times of greatest danger, it always adapted its custom to make sure that the most competent men would lead the city to military victory, whatever their age. Historians demonstrated that Rome did not hesitate to elect as consuls people whose citizenship was quite recent (originating from other italian cities) but who were the most qualified generals of the time.

Up to the full enforcement of the lex Villia annalis, many of the most powerful aristocrats were elected consuls for the first time aged between 37 and 39.

Scipio Africanus' power has been greatly overvalued. He undoubtedly was the most glorious, prestigious and popular individual of Rome from Zama on. But there were in the roman past other romans whose influence and power were more intense, more pervasive, more lastable than Scipio's : first of all the "Princes" (as Munzer calls them) of the house of the Fabii Maximi who were more influent than any other roman family in shaping the roman nobility in the 4th and 3rd centuries when Rome built its domination on Italy.

Besides, his power quickly waned. Though consul a second time in 194, he never got any new great command, neither in the war against Macedonia (Flamininus, closely allied to the Fabii et the Claudii Marcelli got it) nor in the war against the seleucid kingdom (given to his brother : Africanus was only his legate to make sure he did not get this fresh new glory). And his opponents destroyed him politically between 187 And 184.

Scipio was elected to the proconsular command of Spain by the assembly of the People, probably for 3 reasons :
- he was a very smart, very charismatic and very competent (and made the People know it) member of one of the 5 most prestigious roman gentes (the patrician Fabii, Cornelii, Aemilii, Valerii and Claudii). His family was one of the main warmongers who wanted the conflict against Carthage and his uncle and father, who were in charge of the war in Spain, had just died.
- He was capable of rousing People's enthousiasm by promotions a bold strategy.
- He knew that it was the time for such a change and that he could profit from many people's will to dampen the political domination exerted by another party/faction, which was led, from Cannae on, by the old Fabius Maximus Cunctator and his close plebeian allies (Claudius Marcellus and the Fulvii).
 
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