Late 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 Late Republican period began once Rome was firmly established as the major power throughout the Mediterranean basin. By the end of the period, Romans had taken control of the entire Mediterranean region, with further territorial expansion into North Africa, Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt. Success abroad, however, was not matched by stability at home. The Roman state entered a prolonged period of crisis during the 1st century BCE. Civil wars were frequent, pitting different military leaders such as Sulla, Pompey the Great, and Julius Caesar and their supporters against each other. An underlying tension persisted between the wealthy and elite and the rest of the population. These tensions intensified in 133 BCE, when a Plebeian Tribune (an elected official charged with looking after the interests of the poorer members of society) named Tiberius Gracchus proposed legislation to redistribute land that had been taken over (legally and extra-legally) by wealthy aristocrats to landless Romans, particularly those who had served in the army. This move upset the ruling elite, leading to a riot in the streets of Rome and, ultimately, to Gracchus’ death. The city’s different political factions were polarized by these events, leading to a series of violent contests for power by military leaders supported either by the elites (notably Sulla and Pompey the Great) or styled as champions of the people (Marius, Caesar, and Octavian/Augustus).
The period of civil war, and with it republican government at Rome, effectively ended in 31 BCE when Octavian (soon to take the title of Augustus as the first ruler of the imperial Roman state, known as the Principate) defeated Mark Antony and the Egyptian army led by the Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra at the battle of Actium.
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. ^[1] 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.
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. ^[2] These public auspices were the basis of magisterial power in the Republic. ^[2] Auspices were sometimes taken by consuls and other officials, for example before important military engagements, ^[2] 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. ^[3]
Despite the internal strife, Rome remained essentially unchallenged by external forces and continued to make military advances. The significant reforms of the consul Marius helped modernize the ever-expanding Roman army around 105 BCE by removing property qualifications for military service, paving the way towards a fully professional fighting force. The period also saw some extensive engineering projects that increased urbanization and economic development: roads, aqueducts, bridges, amphitheatres, theatres, public baths, as well as Roman administrative and legal institutions spread alongside the military throughout the Mediterranean. Though this time was a period of political instability, it also was the start of a ’golden age’ in the cultural history of Rome, with literary figures like Cicero, Horace, Sallust, Caesar and Catullus, among others, leaving important and influential writings.
The population at the dawn of empire was around 30 million people, with Italy itself supporting between 5 and 10 million, thus apparently experiencing population growth despite the repeated bouts of civil war. ^[4]

[1]: (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.

[2]: (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.

[3]: (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.

[4]: (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.