Early government
As legend has it, Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war. After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king of Rome, which is named for him. A line of Sabine, Latin and Etruscan earlier Italian civilizations kings followed in a non-hereditary succession. The power of the monarch passed to two annually elected magistrates called consuls; they also served as commanders in chief of the army. The magistrates, though elected by the people, were drawn largely from the Senate, which was dominated by the patricians, or the descendants of the original senators from the time of Romulus.
Politics in the early republic was marked by the long struggle between patricians and plebeians the common people , who eventually attained some political power through years of concessions from patricians, including their own political bodies, the tribunes, which could initiate or veto legislation. The Roman forum was more than just home to their Senate.
These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights and property rights and provided the basis for all future Roman civil law. By around B. During the early republic, the Roman state grew exponentially in both size and power. Though the Gauls sacked and burned Rome in B.
Origins of Rome
Rome then fought a series of wars known as the Punic Wars with Carthage, a powerful city-state in northern Africa. In the Third Punic War — B. At the same time, Rome also spread its influence east, defeating King Philip V of Macedonia in the Macedonian Wars and turning his kingdom into another Roman province. The first Roman literature appeared around B.
Roman Republic
The gap between rich and poor widened as wealthy landowners drove small farmers from public land, while access to government was increasingly limited to the more privileged classes. Attempts to address these social problems, such as the reform movements of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus in B. Gaius Marius, a commoner whose military prowess elevated him to the position of consul for the first of six terms in B. After Sulla retired, one of his former supporters, Pompey, briefly served as consul before waging successful military campaigns against pirates in the Mediterranean and the forces of Mithridates in Asia.
During this same period, Marcus Tullius Cicero , elected consul in 63 B. When the victorious Pompey returned to Rome, he formed an uneasy alliance known as the First Triumvirate with the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus who suppressed a slave rebellion led by Spartacus in 71 B. After earning military glory in Spain, Caesar returned to Rome to vie for the consulship in 59 B. From his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, Caesar received the governorship of three wealthy provinces in Gaul beginning in 58 B.
With old-style Roman politics in disorder, Pompey stepped in as sole consul in 53 B. Less than a year later, Caesar was murdered by a group of his enemies led by the republican nobles Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius. With Octavian leading the western provinces, Antony the east, and Lepidus Africa, tensions developed by 36 B.
In the wake of this devastating defeat, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. He instituted various social reforms, won numerous military victories and allowed Roman literature, art, architecture and religion to flourish. Augustus ruled for 56 years, supported by his great army and by a growing cult of devotion to the emperor. When he died, the Senate elevated Augustus to the status of a god, beginning a long-running tradition of deification for popular emperors.
The line ended with Nero , whose excesses drained the Roman treasury and led to his downfall and eventual suicide. The reign of Nerva , who was selected by the Senate to succeed Domitian, began another golden age in Roman history, during which four emperors—Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius—took the throne peacefully, succeeding one another by adoption, as opposed to hereditary succession.
Under Antoninus Pius , Rome continued in peace and prosperity, but the reign of Marcus Aurelius — was dominated by conflict, including war against Parthia and Armenia and the invasion of Germanic tribes from the north.
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When Marcus fell ill and died near the battlefield at Vindobona Vienna , he broke with the tradition of non-hereditary succession and named his year-old son Commodus as his successor. The decadence and incompetence of Commodus brought the golden age of the Roman emperors to a disappointing end. His death at the hands of his own ministers sparked another period of civil war , from which Lucius Septimius Severus emerged victorious.
During the third century Rome suffered from a cycle of near-constant conflict. A total of 22 emperors took the throne, many of them meeting violent ends at the hands of the same soldiers who had propelled them to power.
Ancient Rome
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Roman Republic - Wikipedia
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