The Eternal Republic?

[Julia C]

I think that the Republic was one of the things that was uniquely Roman. Though Augustus (in my opinion) started out with good intentions, placing a single person over the Republic/SPQR/Roma undercut the entire reason why the Roman identity was special. The Republic was something special and it made the Romans into something special.

 

I do think there were MORE than just four problems with the Republic--it definately needed to be streamlined and made into a more workable system. As it stood, it was like a moving trainwreck--surviving on its own inertia. It's inarguable, though, that many of the greatest achievements were performed under the Republic.

 

A synthesis of the Republic and Principate would have been ideal. The Principate was more meritocratic (to an extent--it did surpress talent in the upper classes, ironically) and more equitable for the provincials, for instance. It would have been great if all those problems in the First Century BCE were avoided, but I think they had to happen. I think that they could serve as an example of all that could go wrong, so that sort of thing would be avoided in the future. If Sulla and C

[Aurelianus]

If Augustus had retired like Sula then some other ambitious general would have wanted power, creating endless civil wars. What Augustus did when he created the Principate was create stability. Sula had set the mould, and there was no going back. If Augustus had retired it is likely that either Rome would not have lasted nearly so long, or someone else would have founded the the Principate and the outcome would have been the same.

Edited October 4, 2006 by Aurelianus

[P.Clodius]

I have to disagree with you there Phil. I think GW would absolutely recognize the political system of the US in the 21st century. And what's more so would Caesar.

[Julius Ratus]

I have to disagree with you there Phil. I think GW would absolutely recognize the political system of the US in the 21st century. And what's more so would Caesar.

 

 

[Julia C]

If Augustus had retired like Sula then some other ambitious general would have wanted power, creating endless civil wars. What Augustus did when he created the Principate was create stability. Sula had set the mould, and there was no going back. If Augustus had retired it is likely that either Rome would not have lasted nearly so long, or someone else would have founded the the Principate and the outcome would have been the same.

 

I don't think this is necessarily the case. Sulla, ostensibly, had a reason for his march on the City. It may have been out of a lust for power, or he may have consciously felt that the use of the concilium plebis to strip commands from lawfully appointed proconsuls was dangerous to the Republic.

 

Sulla wasn't the first ambitious general, he was emblematic of an entire breed of ambitious generals who would use various legal tricks to gain commands for themselves at the expense of others.

 

The Principate may have been amazingly stable, but it had no accountability. It was the opposite of the republican system, really, where all the consuls were accountable after their short term of office but the limitations of the lex Ogulnia (and various others that restricted reelection) also lead to haphazard leadership. The good thing was that a poor leader would be out of office in a year, whereas an incompetent Princeps would continue to rule until he was killed or died naturally.

 

Did Tiberius really rule the Empire when he went to his luxury resort on Capri

[sullafelix]

It's still tattoed on my ankle does that count?

[Aurelianus]

I agree with you, Julia, a combination would have been ideal, but after Sula the republic was an ideal, nothing more. Like comunism it is a wonderful and 'moral' thing, except it would not have worked because of human nature. If Aug had retired or not had a successor then another successful general would ask himself 'they did it. why cant I?'. Rome would then have been plunged into civil war after civil war, and i think that even mad Caius would have been preferable to that.

 

I think what im trying to say is that after three (five if you count Marius and Pompey) men had established a primacy over the republic others would enevitably follow.

 

If perhaps Aug had tryed to give the senate a bigger roll in decisions, say for example created something like the modern day system, where the monarch forms the executive (government), but he has to pass things through the senate to achieve success. Perhaps he could have then given the tribunes of the plebsa more institutionalised position. But then all that would have required him admiting himself to be a monarch...

[Kosmo]

I do not think that the roman political system was too good regardless if we talk about the Republic or the Empire.

The Republic failed to create a birocracy needed to administer an empire so it used politicians with huge authority over army and locals and that led to further problems.

They also had no concept about representative democracy and this meant citizens from increasingly distant areas had no power and no interest in the Republic.

The most important problem was the power that plebs got based on their citizenship and military service and could use it to extract bribes from the rich politicians. And the rich got richer on war spoils (misuse of political power) that were bound to end sometime.

So the Republic had to change in the forms we see today but this are the fruit of complex political relations started during the Middle Ages and not fit for the expansionist slave based Rome.

 

That's a "what if?" to unrealistic for me. But still fun...

[Julia C]

Aurelianus--I was thinking about much the same things earlier, vis-a-vis constitutional monarchies, and I was wondering if the role of the princeps senatus could have been revised a bit.

 

Polybius loved to remark on the perfect balance of the Roman state, but its startling impermanence was one of the problems in the system. Taking the old republican office of princeps--stripping away any Augustan connotations--and making it out to be a sort of semi-permanent magistracy would have been ideal. The position was already given to the most esteemed member of the Senate--fleshing it out and giving it an apolitical purpose could have helped provide the stability that the late republic needed.

[caldrail]

At some point in time, any curious scholar of Roman history asks that ultimate "what if" question - what if the Roman empire, in all its glory and splendor, survived? Of course, the city of Rome survived several terms of barbarian rule and centuries of invasions throughout the Middle Ages, mainly thanks to the stability of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. However, for kicks and giggles, lets think along different lines.

 

Suppose Marcus Aurelius, or any of the later emperors, succeeded in returning Rome to a true republic, as it had been in the first century B.C. With the stabilization of infrastructure within Rome, the de-mercinization of the army could occur, and the East-West split never would have occurred. The population of Rome could have remained strong, especially since they would still be receiving royalties from the booming eastern trade, instead of Byzantium. With all these factors, 476 A.D. couldve marked a decisive defeat of the Visigoth tribes instead of the end of the Western Empire. From this point on, I leave it up to you to decide - what wouldve, couldve, or shouldve happened?

 

A timeline I devised is as follows -

- With a still strong military, Rome could have kept its posession of Judea, eliminating the need for and of the Crusades

- Another conquest of Germania could have Romanized the whole north of Europe, eliminating centuries of history that would have later fueled Hitler's ideals of German supremacy. This same Romanization of Germany could have prevented the Reformation and the beginning of Protestant faiths.

- Roman power, lasting well into 14th and 15th centuries, could have prevented both Moorish invasions of Spain and Ottoman invasion of Turkey, and maybe even the holy land. Conflict over Jerusalem may have never happened, both then and now. Hard to imagine, huh?

- In the age of exploration, Roman influence could have been extended throughout Africa and into the New World. In other words, we would all still be speaking Latin!!!

- As mentioned above, the absence of Hitler and the Nazi regime could have prevented WWII.

 

And most importantly...SPQR would have won the 2006 WORLD CUP!! BOOOH!!

 

Of course, I am only scratching the surface of endless possibilities, so this is what I ask you now - what if Rome had returned to a Republic, and survived the barbarian invasion of 476 AD? Would SPQR and her posessions still be on our maps today? I'm very interested to see what you guys have to say!

 

~ T. Cornelius Brutus

 

All empires collapse eventually. Rome expanded by absorbing or conquering established nation states with existing infrastructures. Expansion slowed to crawl when Rome encountered the wilderness, something it hadn't really tackled until it reached Germania. Originally they began to colonise but the Varian disaster changed their policy. The wilderness was not for them. It was only for military gain that Rome expanded into britain, dacia, and the middle east. There was less to gain by that time, since Rome was well established and personal ambition of the generals was turning inward.

 

It has been said that the worst enemy of Rome was Rome itself. Now I agree with that absolutely. By the time we reach the pax romanus Rome was no longer the dynamic civilisation it had been, it was moving on momentum and this would ebb away.

 

There is no way in my view that Rome would have survived as a post-principate republic. Having set the precedent for despotic rule the old standards had been eroded. There wasn't the will to make Rome greater than it already was.

 

I'll go further. Without strong individual leadership Rome would have fragmented faster than it did. It was the weakening of the senate that saw the arrival of the emperors, and although some opportunities did arise the senate never regained its former vigour. Roman democracy had failed in favour of autocratic strength. Rome was looking inward more and more and this would have occurred anyway regardless of which political system it adopted or had foisted upon it.

 

The old wealth of Roman conquest was being squandered and increasing administration costs were paid by ever higher taxes. Legionary service was becoming a necessary evil rather than a proud calling. Foreigners were increasingly rising to high position. Whether Rome was a republic or empire it made little difference. The internal and external pressures were the same.

 

Now if Marcus Aurelius really had rebuilt the republic with 'steadfastly loyal Maximus' as its guardian, how long could that have continued? Until said Maximus was too old or too weak to influence it. Then the rebellions would have begun and another king/dictator/emperor would have assumed power, at least over part of the former neo-republic. Other parts would have split away and much the same way as diocletians legacy, civil wars would have reduced the former empire to ruin.

 

I say the New-SPQR was doomed. It would have lasted a few decades at most, and its demise would have brought Rome to its knees far quicker than history did.