Roman Republic Timeline

An explanation for the beginning of the collapse of the Roman Republic

The Roman Republic, the precursor to the colossal Roman Empire; one that would last (in one form or another) for 1500 years, is the first example in European history of the complete collapse of a constitutional system. The Crises of the Roman Republic is contemporarily used to describe an extended period of time where Rome faced political instability and unrest that ended in the demise of all functions of the Republic, and the beginning of the Empire. This period lasted from about 134BCE until 27BCE, when Octavian took on the name Augustus, founded the Roman Empire, and became its first Emperor. However, some controversy exists in regards to the exact dates of the Crisis,
as “Rome teetered between normalcy and crisis” for many decades.1 What must be analysed, before one can effectively look into the causes of the ultimate fall, which was primarily due to the First and Second Triumvirates, is the first two crises, that of the Gracchi, and Marius and Sulla. Only after an understanding of them, the beginnings of the collapse of the Roman Republic, can one understand later actions that were more contemporaneous to the fall. In addition, the causes of the fall of the Roman Republic are numerous and complex, and piled on and evolved throughout the decades of the crises. Scholarship is, and has been for millennium, in constant disagreement in regards to why the crises happened and led to the fall. The traditional catalyst for the beginning of the collapse is attributed to Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus’ expansion of citizenship to others in the Italian peninsula (with all of its rights, privileges, and duties) by Sallust, Gibbon, and others of their schools. Their explanation for such reasoning was that it caused internal dissent, disputes with Rome’s allies, slave revolts, and riots.2 One school of thought contends that individual generals and would-be dictators such as Gaius Marius and Sulla destroyed the traditional political system of Rome through ruthless ambition, and seizing opportunities when they rose up, such as slave revolts. As seen in Source 1, the Roman Republic was a large state, and due to this, it is hypothesised that it was near impossible for it to be effectively run when multiple competing interests held power. The Roman Republic, in a way, outgrew its constitution as it grew as a military power, and the multiple military and political crises that arose in the final 100 years of its existence point to a reason as to why the Republic transformed into an Empire.
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The death throes of the republic began in 133 BCE with the tribuneship of Tiberius Gracchus, and lasted for a little over a century.
The murder of Tiberius Gracchus by a mob of senators and their clients gave clear notice that the ruling consensus of the Roman Republic was shattered. Tiberius Gracchus took office as the tribune of the plebs in late 134 BCE when "everything in the Roman Republic seemed to be in fine working order."4 However, during this time Roman society was highly stratified in terms of class, and divisions bubbled just below the surface. Consisting in this system were noble families of the senatorial rank, the knight or equestrian class, citizens (grouped into two or three classes depending on the time period - self-governing allies of Rome, landowners, and plebs or tenant freemen), non-citizens who lived outside of south-western Italy, and at the bottom, slaves. Only men who were citizens could vote in certain assemblies, and only men who owned over a certain threshold of property could serve in the military; a career that granted social prestige and other benefits of citizenship. The Roman government owned large plantations of farming land that it had gained through invasion, and rented these lands out to large landowners, whose slaves worked the land. There was some social mobility and limited suffrage. The plebeians were a socio-economic class, and were the ‘populist’ political party during this time, aiming to ensure that the lower classes (only of
male citizenry) could gain more rights, and more importantly more land. Traditionally, the senate had the sole power to pass legislation, and only members of the upper classes, such as former magistrates, could run for the senate.
However, Gracchus tried to address the concerns of the plebeians, and bypassed the Roman senate to pass a law limited the amount of land belonging to the state that any individual could farm. This legislation would have resulted in the breakup of large plantations maintained by the rich on public land. Gracchus’ plan of reform was put in place “to increase the number of Roman citizens who owned land and consequently the number who would qualify as soldiers according to their census rating."5 Furthermore, he also wanted to increase the efficiency of farmland, and dole out small parcels of land to tenant farmers, his populist constituency. The Senate, as the place of the wealthy aristocrats who benefitted most from the status quo, almost unanimously did not agree with this law; so Gracchus used a loophole- the lex Hortensia of 287 BCE. This allowed the assembly of plebs to bypass the Senate. However, a tribune for the Patrician class (descendants of the founders of Rome, the highest nobility), Marcus Octavius, used his veto to scuttle the plan. The crisis escalated: Gracchus pushed the assembly to impeach and remove Octavius; the Senate denied funds to the commission needed for land reform; Gracchus then tried to use money out of a trust fund left by Attalus III of Pergamum; and the Senate blocked that, too. Gracchus
sought re-election to his one year term, as he believed that the Roman constitution hampered reform, which was unprecedented in an era of strict term limits. The oligarchic nobles responded by murdering Gracchus, and mass riots broke out in the city in reaction to the assassination.6 The historian, Barbette Spaeth, believed that Gracchus was killed because: “Tiberius Gracchus had transgressed the laws that protected the equilibrium of the social and political order, the laws on the tribunician sacrosanctitas and attempted tyranny, and hence was subject to the punishment they prescribed, consecration of his goods and person [to Ceres].”7

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As seen here, in Source 2, Gracchus had a beard. What is now thought of as an innocuous part of one’s expression had an extreme significance in the late Roman Republic, with a clean shaven face representing the upper classes, and respectability. Tiberius’ beard represented his connection with the plebeian classes, and his status as a genuine social reformer, responding to the distress of the poor. In short, the consequences of Rome 's growing empire were crucial. Many of the poor had fallen into poverty after serving for long periods with armies overseas - and returning to Italy to find their farmland taken over by wealthier neighbours. But Tiberius 's desire to stand for a second tribunate also raised questions of personal political dominance. The state had few mechanisms to control men who wanted to break out of the carefully regulated system of 'power sharing ' that characterised traditional Republican politics. This became an increasingly urgent issue as leading men in the first century BCE, such as Julius Caesar, were sometimes given vast power to deal with the military threats facing Rome from overseas - and then proved unwilling to lay down that power when they returned to civilian life. There seemed to be no solution for curbing them apart from violence. This also demonstrated that the senate was not in tune with the views of the people, and was simply an oligarchic group, intent on retaining their own power, and not intent on ensuring the common good of the Roman state. The next major reformer that provoked a crisis was Gaius Marius, who like Gracchi, was a populist. However, unlike them, he was a part of the military, a general.9 He single-handedly abolished the property requirement for becoming a soldier, and as a result, the poor enlisted in large numbers. This opening of the Army 's ranks to the capite censii10 enfranchised the plebs, thus creating an esprit de corps in the enlarged army.11 Some elites complained of this great change, and they were under the belief that the army would become unruly due to commoners in its ranks, but this is without good cause. The historian Nic Fields had this to say: “Marius stands accused of paving the way for the so-called lawless, greedy soldiery whose activities were thought to have contributed largely to the decline and fall of the Republic a few generations later. Yet we should not lose sight of the fact that Marius was not the first to enrol the capite censi. Rome was ruled by an aristocratic oligarchy embedded in the Senate. Thus at times of extreme crisis in the past the Senate had impressed them, along with convicts and slaves, for service as legionaries.”12 The view of Fields demonstrates that the Roman oligarchs were hypocrites, intent on serving their own personal interests, not that of the expanding Roman state. With his reforms, Marius employed his soldiers to defeat an invasion by the Germanic Cimbri and Teutons. His political influence and military leadership allowed him to obtain six terms as consul in 107, and 103 to 99 BCE. In 99 BCE, the senate used renewed violence to declare another senatus consultum ultimum13. Sulla, one of Marius 's subordinates, contested with him for supreme power. After the senate awarded Sulla the lucrative and powerful post of commander in the war against Mithridates, Marius 's politicking resulted in his being appointed commander in Sulla 's stead. Sulla seized power and marched to the east with his soldiers. Marius himself launched a coup in Sulla 's absence and put to death some of his enemies. He instituted a populist regime, but died soon after. When Sulla returned from the wars, his victorious army defeated the forces of Cinna, Marius 's populist successor. He began a dictatorship and purged the state of many populists. A reign of terror followed in which some innocents were denounced just so their property could be seized for the benefit of Sulla 's followers. Sulla 's coup resulted in a major victory for the oligarchs. He reversed the reforms of the Gracchi and other populists, stripped the tribunes of the people of much of their power and returned authority over the courts to the senators. Indeed, the peaceful political landscape of the early Republic had shifted dramatically. Violent tactics would become standard for Roman politicians, including Cataline, Pompey, Caesar, Octavian and many others of the late Republic. The historian Sallust had this to say:
“Fortune turned against us and brought confusion to all we did. Greed destroyed honour, honesty and every other virtue, and taught men to be arrogant and cruel, to neglect the gods. Ambition made men false. Rome changed: a government which had once surpassed all others in justice and excellence now became cruel and unbearable.” 14

It wasn’t just the acceptance of violence to achieve goals, it was the degradation of Rome’s Republican values, that it had held for almost four centuries prior, that led to the events of the first Triumvirate, and eventual collapse of the Republic. As shown in Source 3, Sulla’s reversion back to the conservative elements of Roman society and his disenfranchisement of the capite censi led to further anger of the plebeians at Rome’s leaders, and their belief that a strong dictator needed to take control.

To conclude, the Roman Republics fall was not inevitable, nor was it unavoidable. However, the wealthy oligarchs constantly ignoring the needs of the people, and the needs of the state led to the rise of two populist leaders, Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Marius. Both of these men instituted agrarian and military reform, allowing the lowest classes of citizens some enfranchisement. This provoked internal conflict, which weakened the empire. Sulla’s backtracking further entrenched the belief of the plebeians that the Roman Republic was not worth fighting for as an institution. Due to this, the rise of dictators such as Pompey, and Julius Caesar happened many years later, which finally contributed to the ultimate downfall and ascent of Octavian. The Roman Republics fall was a significant event in European history, and the reasons are complex and multiple, but it all boiled down to inter-class strife.

Bibliography
Barbette Spaeth. The Roman Goddess Ceres (U. of Texas Press, 1996) Cornell, T., The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars c. 1000–264 BC (Routledge, 1995)
Harriet I. Flower, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Nic Fields, Spartacus and the Slave war 73-71 BC: A gladiator rebels against Rome (Osprey 2009)
P.A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988)
Polybius. The General History of Polybius: Translated from the Greek. Vol 2 (Oxford 1823)
Robin Seager, ed., Crisis of the Roman Republic: Studies in political and social history (W. Heffner & Sons, Ltd. 1969)