The Importance of the Roman Republic Essay Example

While researching historical dates, I found a few key dates throughout world history. These dates will all be used in the historical context of this paper. These include the foundation of Rome in 753 BC, the settlement of the Latin war in 338 BC, the Punic Wars between 264-146 BC, and Augustus reintroducing the monarchy to Ancient Rome. These events will be used in historical context to show how the Roman Republic came to be. When researching I have gone to use as many professional sources and reliable historical sources as possible to explain the importance of the Roman Republic. My goal in this paper is to bring this source of historical information by connecting three Roman events that helped shape the invention of the Republic.

To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into three main sections, one of which has a sub-section. In the first section, I provide an overview of three important events that lead up to the creation of the Republic. In the second section, I discuss the fragility of the Roman Republic. I end with a third section that discusses research questions to the original prompt and concludes with a conclusion subsection. I will now transition to the historical context behind this paper. 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Since the founding of Rome, it was ruled by monarchs. Monarchs of Ancient Rome were elected for life and made up the whole Roman senate. The last Roman monarch was named Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, (also known as “Tarquin the Proud”) and in traditional historical context, Tarquin was expelled from Rome in 509 BC because of his son, Sextus Tarquinius, assaulted a noblewoman named Lucreita (who afterwards commited suicide). Lucretia's husband, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, together with Tarquin the Proud’s nephew, Lucius Junitus Brutus, gained support from the Senate and Roman armies and forced the former monarch into exile to Etruira. After these events transpired, the Senate abolished kingship and the monarchy. From this, most of the responsibilities of the former king or monarch were transferred to two separate consuls. These consuls were elected to office for a term of one year, each could ‘check’ their opposite as to make sure the concentration of power did not affect their decision making negatively. Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus became first consuls of the Roman Republic. They later led to the creation of the Roman Republic. Most historians agree that the creation of Consuls shaped the checks and balances of the Roman Republic along with the election of consuls. The constitutional system of Rome began in 509 BC with the revolution and overthrowing of the monarchy. It finally ended with constitutional reforms that transformed Rome into the first republic. Throughout Rome’s rich history, constitutional reforms and changes were caused by outside influences like a revolution or they were driven by self interest and conflicts of interest between aristocrats and plebeians. I will now discuss the key changes that led to the Roman Republic. 

Changes that led to a Roman Republic

One of the biggest changes that led to the creation of the Roman Republic was the past historical failures. The Greeks, Persians, and Sumerians had all risen and fallen. One of the aspects that led to the Roman Republic was the merging of Latinof the Latin, Greek, and Etrucan culture. Rome had lasted for over 1,000 years due in part to the adaptation of these cultures. These changes along with the need for a set of laws was what really resulted in the longevity of Rome. The Romans lasted because of their constitution and because they valued the importance of the Republic at one point in time. The creation of the constitution of Rome later known as the Twelve Tables was a historical step-forward as it laid the foundation for future Democracies and Republics, “The most notable feature of the Roman system from a modern perspective was the elaborate set of precautions against the accumulation of executive power in a single person. The goal was to prevent the recurrence of monarchy but the risk of checks and balances is that they paralyze governance. I argue that gridlock did not occur during the Republic’s first four centuries because the population was relatively small and homogenous, so political agents could bargain around the institutional checks and balances when necessary for the sake of public security. But as conquered foreign populations streamed into the city, the population became large and heterogeneous. Most of the fabulous wealth resulting from conquest enriched the elites, not ordinary people, resulting in divergence of interests between the upper and lower classes. Governance became subject to gridlock, setting the stage for extra-constitutional behavior in the last century and eventually dictatorship” (Posner 3). This creation of the constitution helped create what Rome was. The governance of the people’s interests were set first. The Twelve Tables allowed for this to occur by giving people the right to know what was definitely right and wrong according to the law of the land. However, over time, as mentioned by Posner, Rome’s expansion was no longer about public security and the wellbeing of the common man but in the needs and wants of the aristocrat. I will now transition into why the Republic became fragile.

The Fragility of the Republic

Although the initial groundwork was laid for a Republic, everything else was unclear. Oftentimes, a Republic will give concentrated power and attention to the senators who are elected by the people. In the case of Rome, these senators were influenced by their own self interest and ignored the needs of the people. This caused them to act against the original guidelines of the Republic and Roman law. The constitution was eventually edited multiple times, “In addition, it is impossible to identify a single Roman constitution over the five hundred year period of the Roman Republic. There was significant change and disruption during this period. During its last century, the Republic was in a state of nearly continuous crisis and sometimes civil war. The secondary sources that describe the Roman constitution focus on the third and second centuries B.C., when the political order was relatively stable, while also identifying norms that persisted over time and some historical variation during other periods, especially the final fifty years. I follow them but deemphasize the historical variation, which is complex and elusive, (Posner 5). The Roman Republic was corrupted by the editing of the original works of the constitution. Finally, I will transition into the importance of the Roman Republic.

The Revolution of Rome and the decay of the Republic

The Roman Republic began by adapting their predecessors and forming a government based on the needs of the people. This government eventually became corrupted by senators who changed the constitution. Now, I will speak about the revolution and decay of the Republic, and conclude with the importance of the Republic. One of the reasons Rome fell was due to the inequality in wealth. Romans had a large population and a large divide in wealth, “The adage goes that if we do not learn from our past thenthan we are bound to repeat it. Nowhere is this clearer than when we look at the fall of the Roman Empire and the social and financial situations prior. Before the collapse of the Roman Empire, the top 1% of its population controlled over 16% of its wealth. The Gini coefficient; which measures the level of income disparity in a society where 0 is perfectly equal and 1 is perfectly unequal, measured Rome at an incredibly high 0.43[1] (Huestin 1). The Roman Republic started with serving the interests of the people, and then it elected senators who edited the constitution, finally these same corrupt senators passed on their wealth generation to generation. This divide in Rome caused Patricians to pass on their wealth to the next generation, “In contrast, those Romans whom our sources refer to as plebs seem to have essentially been everyone of non-patrician status in the city. The problem with the dichotomous divide that our sources paint of a patrician and plebeian Rome is that it reflects the split factional politics of their own time and fails to account for what appears to be a diverse social makeup in the early times of Rome.” (Saladin 15). Rome’s large divide caused civil unrest and caused citizens to question their government which was never good.

CONCLUSION

The Roman Republic was corrupted by outside influences. Their own arrogance of being a Republic carried them for a long period of time but it could not last forever. We saw how Rome started with high hopes after seeing the failures of their predecessors, afterwards the Republic slightly weakened, and finally it was in a full collapse.