Early Roman Republic

  General Description   The last of the Roman kings, the tyrannical Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (’the Arrogant’), was expelled by a revolt of some of the leading Roman aristocrats in 509 BCE. Vowing never again to allow a single person to amass so much authority, the revolutionaries established in place of the monarchy a republican system of governance, featuring a senate composed of aristocratic men and a series of elected political and military officials. The Roman Republic was a remarkably stable and successful polity, lasting from 509 BCE until it was transformed into an imperial state under Augustus in 31 BCE (though the exact date is debated, as this was not a formal transformation). We divide the Republic into an early (509-264 BCE), a middle (264-133 BCE), and a late (133-31 BCE) period. The early period is notable for the establishment of the governing institutions of the new Republic, a lingering tension between the wealthy, senatorial elites and poorer members of society (the ’plebeians’), and the establishment of Rome as the preeminent power in the Western Mediterranean.
In 390 BCE, just over a century after the establishment of the Republic, Rome suffered a near-fatal defeat at the hands of Gallic tribes, who invaded Italy from southern France and breached the city walls. Rome quickly recovered, however, and throughout the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE proceeded to conquer all of their neighbours in Italy, notably the larger and more populous Sabine, Etruscan, Samnite, and Graeco-Italian peoples. ^[1] Over the course of this dramatic expansion, Rome established colonies of Roman citizens throughout Italy and gained access to important sources of natural wealth in the process. ^[2] The rise of Rome in the west eventually caught the attention of other Mediterranean powers, notably the Punic peoples of North Africa. Indeed, the central narrative of the Middle Republic period is the continued expansion of Roman hegemony into the eastern Mediterranean.
Population and political organization
Rome during the Republican period possessed no written constitution, but was governed largely through the power and prestige of the Senate, with a clear respect for precedent and for maintaining Rome’s traditions. ^[3] A primary goal of the early Republic was to establish clear checks on the power of any single ruler - the military office of chief commander was in fact split between two generals (consuls), while the chief priestly and legislative posts were split among different people (individuals were restricted from holding multiple offices at once) - and popular assemblies voted on new laws. The first codification of Roman law was laid down in this period (mid-4th century BCE) in the form of the Twelve Tables, a series of legal proclamations establishing certain penalties and procedures for enforcing ritual and customary practices. ^[4]
Consuls were drawn from the senatorial elite - Rome’s wealthy aristocratic families - until 367 BCE, when plebeians were first entitled to stand for this prestigious office. ^[5] This change followed a period known as the ’Conflict of the Orders’, a time which poses intractable problems for historians because most sources date from after 367 BCE. ^[6] The conflict essentially pitted Rome’s wealthy elite, who enjoyed nearly all of the prestige and power of political office as well as controlling most of the city’s agricultural land, against the poorer members of society (plebeians), mainly small-scale or tenant farmers who had contributed to Roman territorial expansion by serving as soldiers during the wars of the early Republic. ^[7] Early on in the Republican period, in 494 BCE, the plebeians essentially went on strike, refusing to march to war against a coalition of tribes from central Italy. ^[7] A settlement was reached when Rome’s aristocrats extended to the plebeians the right to vote for certain magistrates, known as the Tribunes of the Plebs (essentially the ’people’s magistrates’). This was an important office charged with looking after the needs of Rome’s poorer citizens, who held veto powers against decisions made in the Senate. Nevertheless, tensions between the aristocrats and the plebeians lingered throughout the 4th century BCE.
Romans of this period did not distinguish between what is today termed ’secular’ and ’sacred’ authority; although individual magistracies had distinct functions, the same person often held both religious and political offices over the course of their lifetime, as they were thought to be part of essentially the same sphere of governance. The Republic featured a substantial array of religious offices and institutions intended to determine the will of the gods or to please them through the proper performance of rituals and the maintenance of large public temples. ^[8] These public auspices were the basis of magisterial power in the Republic. ^[8] Auspices were sometimes taken by consuls and other officials, for example before important military engagements, ^[8] but were mainly managed by specialist elected priests and full-time priestesses (such as the Vestal Virgins) and other priestly offices supported by the state. ^[9]
As Rome defeated nearly all other powers in the region during this period, establishing colonies and turning many former enemies into new allies and confederates, the territory it claimed increased dramatically until it included nearly all of central and southern Italy. This amplified its agricultural wealth and access to other natural resources, leading to a period of economic and demographic expansion. Rome grew from around 100,000-200,000 people at the beginning of the period to perhaps as many as 1,000,000 by the start of the Middle Republic. ^[10]

[1]: (Cornell 1995) Tim J. Cornell. 1995. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC). London: Routledge.

[2]: (Bispham 2006) Edward Bispham. 2006. ’Coloniam Deducere: How Roman Was Roman Colonization during the Middle Republic?’, in Greek and Roman Colonization: Origins, Ideologies and Interactions, edited by Guy Bradley, John-Paul Wilson, and Edward Bispham, 73-160. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.

[3]: (Brennan 2004, 31) Corey T. Brennan. 2004. ’Power and Process under the Republican "Constitution"’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, edited by Harriet I. Flower, 31-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[4]: (Adkins and Adkins 1998, 46) Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins. 1998. Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[5]: (Adkins and Adkins 1998, 42) Lesley Adkins and Roy A. Adkins. 1998. Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[6]: (Beck et al. 2011, 5) Hans Beck, Antonio Duplá, Martin Jehne and Francisco Pina Polo. 2011. ’The Republic and Its Highest Office: Some Introductory Remarks on the Roman Consulate’, in Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic, edited by Hans Beck, Antonio Duplá, Martin Jehne and Francisco Pina Polo, 1-16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[7]: (Raaflaub 2005) Kurt A. Raaflaub. 2005. ’The Conflict of the Orders in Archaic Rome: A Comprehensive and Comparative Approach’, in Social Struggles in Archaic Rome, edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub, 1-46. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

[8]: (Brennan 2004, 37) Corey T. Brennan. 2004. ’Power and Process under the Republican "Constitution"’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, edited by Harriet I. Flower, 31-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[9]: (Culham 2004, 131) Phyllis Culham. 2004. ’Women in the Roman Republic, in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, edited by Harriet I. Flower, 139-59. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[10]: (Scheidel 2008) Walter Scheidel. 2008. ’Roman Population Size: The Logic of the Debate’, in People, Land, and Politics: Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC-AD 14, edited by L. de Ligt and S. J. Northwood, 17-70. Leiden: Brill.