Who Was Responsible For Fall Of Republic

[pompeius magnus]

I always like this topic for its variety of opinions. I vote for the Gaius Marius and his reforms of the military. Even though it was a necessary reform, it left the soldiers loyal to the generals instead of the mighty republic which would lead to its vast civil wars in its closing years.

[Ursus]

I think the Republic as it existed simply wasn't able to deal with the stresses of empire and was doomed to fall sooner or later under external and internal pressures. It's hard for me to pinpoint one individual above the rest. One warlord or another would have eventually ended it.

 

Tom Holland makes the point that Pergamum gave the Romans their first real taste of empire. SO maybe the king who died and left Pergamum in his will to the Romans did more than anybody to topple the provincial Republic. :-)

[Primus Pilus]

It's so hard to answer that. Each event is a piece of the puzzle, the ever toppling dominoes really. I will still vote for Caesar. Why? Well he did take the fateful step that truly ended any chance for the Republic. Had he submitted to Republican authority the civil war may have been delayed for a considerable time. Though there were others who very much wanted supreme authority, only Caesar had the military means.

[pompeius magnus]

I myself also believe that the republics downfall was inevitable, however it is very controversial to say that an event was inevitable. So I did the next best thing, select the individual who led to the generals gaining power over the republic.

[Eckner]

I also think that the crucial blow to the republic was delt by Ceasar. He was the one who crossed the line which eventually led to Augustus taking power and the republic turning into the dictatorship known as Rome.

[Spurius]

I cast a vote for Sulla.

 

He was the prototype for the sucessful seizing of power principably through force. Pompey and Crassus rose to power under his wings, and while Caesar avoided death he used Sulla as a model...changing Sulla's cruelty for political forgiveness.

 

If Sulla had chose to simply overthrow the Republic instead of reactionary reformation in his image...then we may have been berift of Julius and had no Octavian to stabilize the Empire and become Augustus.

 

In any event, after Sulla the Republic was dead. The Empire was just waiting for someone to take off its mask.

[pompeius magnus]

Actually the majority of Senators dispised Sulla and shortly after his departure from dictator to drunken fool to corpse his political reforms were undone. If he had overthrown the republic it would have been most likely restored as their were no popular generals or political leaders to take his place. Pompey and Caesars rise would be decades away.

[Spurius]

Pompey Strabo achieved his sucess by becoming Counsul and supporting Sulla during the civil wars. Even as he was dying, he came to Sulla's aid in his fight against Marius.

 

Gnaeus was active during this time and reaped the riches and veteran warriors of his father's legions. Gnaeus firmly attached himself to Sulla, he even married Sulla's step-daughter. And after Gnaeus had more or less switched sides, Sulla still still tolerated him.

 

I still hold that the "Social Wars" down to the battle at Colline Gate killed the Republic. Caesar, for instance, was replaying what Sulla had already done...we just know more about it because JC was one of the best PR people in history. It was Sulla, IMHO, who killed the Republic. The ones who followed just pushed the corpse over and stood on it.

 

BTW: This doesn't mean Sulla was particularly good at governing. It just meant he wielded the blunt force that let the corruption overtake the body of the Republic.

[Primus Pilus]

I agree that Sulla had an incredible impact, and that's why I had a hard time 'voting' on this. Each event is tied into one another. Without each thing occuring, perhaps the next doesn't happen at all, or happens in a different way.

 

There is no question regarding the impact of Sulla, setting a precedent for marching on Rome and putting oneself before the state, but most of his legislation was reversed after his death. The power struggle between the two factions continued for another 25 years after Sulla, but his actions did pave the way for the successive Imperatorial leaders.

[dnewhous]

What exactly were the military reforms of Marius?

[Primus Pilus]

Marius Reforms the Legions

[dnewhous]

After reading that I am reminded of a very fundamental problem with Roman society which is not in the poll and which makes the poll invalid.

 

SLAVERY AND SERFDOM.

 

Why pay people an honest wage for working your land when you can force slaves/serfs to do it for you?

[Spurius]

Why pay people an honest wage for working your land when you can force slaves/serfs to do it for you?

 

Obviously, slavery did become a major concern of the Romans, but why have free people working?

 

1) Tradition.

2) Patronage. It is better to set someone up and have have them in debt to you than to be forced to pay for their upkeep. You set someone up in business, say a smith, and you can call on their services for free or very cheaply. If you own a slave smith, you have to pay care and upkeep on the forge, the smith and his family need to fed and clothed, and you have to buy the materials for him to forge.

 

Plus, if you are climbing the public office ladder the more people in patronage to you the more voices in your favor. If you have a big enough following, someone more powerful than you may let you go into patronage to him. Then more doors open to wealth and power.

 

It's after you get greed on an epic scale that the teams of slaves and bondsmen start working huge estates. It became cost efficient to keep and move around teams of specialized men to work larger areas than resident slaves or freemen. Patronage shifted from services to currency when tax farming in the eastern empire made coins more important than grain to the mega-rich. Hence, grinding agricultural slavery became normal instead of family servitude.

 

So, patronage was smarter than slavery until coin became more important than grain or service. At least that is my understanding, as always...there is room for error.

 

That change over was during the time of the late republic and made people like Crassus possible. Men like Marius, Sulla and Pompey Strabo made eastern exploitation possible. So, like a broken record I keep coming back to: Sulla. Like a dead carp's smell you can't avoid.

[pompeius magnus]

"After reading that I am reminded of a very fundamental problem with Roman society which is not in the poll and which makes the poll invalid."

 

Perhaps reading the topic heading would help you understand a reason for it not being included in my list of problems. Going further slavery and serfdom were not what you are thinking of them as. When the republic was created following the expulsion of the last King Rome was a small city, so it could rely on its ability to use just the nobility as the backbone of its army. As Rome expanded and conquered more lands, they just didn't have enough men from the nobility to form a strong army, mostly because of the recklesseness with lives by some generals. The reforms of Marius were a necessary component but ultimatly led to a changing in loyalty of the troops. Most of the slaves, or a better term would be servants, that worked in the Roman realm were prisioners of war from beaten armies, or conquered provinces. Race wasn't a huge discrimination in Rome as blacks could have a prominant part in the government. For example Lucius Dominitius Ahenobarbus was black and also a counsel as well as Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica.

[dnewhous]

I wasn't talking about racism at all. I am saying prisoners of war and people from conquered territories should never have been made slaves in the first place.

I am well aware that slavery has been with mankind since the beginning, but it wasn't until I learned about the Marius reforms that I realized how devestating it was to the common people of Rome.

 

My point is that if the peasantry was free - whether farmers, or paid, or even indentured servants, then letting common people into the army would not have been a problem.

 

You can't have democracy (or a republic) when the majority of your people are landless poor. It doesn't work. Ever.

 

The effects of this are a problem even now. Most people in England do not actually own the land upon which they have their home!

 

Unlike what some Europe loving leftist economists think, private property is the cornerstone of prosperity and freedom.