The Roman Republic Becomes an Empire
Questions: Answer in your notebooks.
The End of the Republic. Out of the chaos emerged Julius Caesar, a talented general, ambitious for power, who was determined to make sweeping changes to Rome. His military successes, especially his victory over the Gauls extended Rome's empire into what is now France. His victories made him wildly popular with his soldiers and with the people of Rome. Ordered to return from Gaul to Rome without his army by an alarmed and threatened Senate, Caesar defied the Senate by "crossing the Rubicon" river with his army into Italy. (This phrase has entered the English language and means taking a decisive step from which you cannot return.) Civil war again erupted with Caesar victorious over the armies of the Senate. Although he kept the Senate and other features of the republican government, he took the title "Dictator for Life" and was, in fact, the absolute ruler of Rome, a virtual king.
Between the year 48 BC when he seized power and 44 BC, the year of his death, Caesar embarked on an ambitious program of reforms. he created public works projects to employ Rome's poor; he distributed public lands, he extended citizenship to newly conquered peoples, and he reorganized the government of Rome's territories outside Italy, the provinces.
Fearful that Caesar intended to create a monarchy, a group of Senators assassinated him on the steps of the Senate on March 15, 44 BC--the famous "Ides of March." Julius Caesar remains a figure of controversy among historians. Should he be regarded as a destructive force in Roman history--the assassin of the Republic? Is he better seen as a man ambitious to reform a Republican government grown hopelessly corrupt? Among historians, the debate about who was the real Julius Caesar rages on.
After the assassination of Caesar Rome again plunged into the chaos of civil war. Octavian Caesar, grand nephew to Julius and his adopted son and heir, allied himself with Marc Antony, a leading general and friend of Julius Caesar. Together they defeated the armies of the Senate and divided the Empire between them, each ruling half. Octavian Caesar became suspicious of Marc Antony's alliance with Cleopatra, the powerful Queen of Egypt, and in 31 BC, at the battle of Actium, Octavian defeated his enemies. Marc Antony and Cleopatra both committed suicide, leaving Octavian Caesar as sole ruler of Rome.
The formal end of the Republic can be dated to the year 27 BC, when Octavian accepts the title Augustus--the majestic one, truly a title fit for a king. Octavian uses this title as his name. He is careful to insist he is not a king--he calls himself princeps: "first citizen" of the Republic. It is interesting that this word is the basis for the word "prince," because whatever Augustus might say, the Republic is dead and the Roman monarchy or Roman Empire has begun.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. After 27 BC, Augustus was the unchallenged ruler of Rome. His long reign, from 27 BC to AD 14 marked an end to the era of civil war, a continuation of reforms begun under Julius Caesar, and the beginning of a remarkable era of peace, order, and prosperity: the era know as the Pax Romana.
The Pax Romana (27 BC to AD 180) was a time when revolts were few, government was effective, and economic prosperity was wide-spread. Stretching from Britain to Mesopotamia, the Roman Empire united nearly 100 million diverse peoples. The same law bound together Britain, Italians, Greeks, North Africans, and a host of others. While some areas resisted this process of Romanization (uprisings of Jews in Judea and Gauls in present-day France, for example), most people viewed themselves as Romans, even though they had never set foot in Italy.
The good times begin to come to an end after 180. Rome had never worked out a reliable method for choosing a new emperor, and after 180, a series of powerful generals vied for power, often plunging Rome, once again, into civil war. Germanic tribes from Northern Europe and Asian nomads from the East attacked Rome's borders with increasing success and plundered its cities. The chaos caused disruptions to the economy, weakening trade. Other economic factors, such as heavy taxation and an over-reliance on slavery also weakened the economy of the empire.
Two powerful emperors, Diocletian (d. 305) and Constantine (d. 337) tried to halt the decline (partly by dividing the empire into eastern and western halves), but their efforts were not successful.
At the end of the 300s and early 400s, Germanic and Asian tribes over ran much of the Empire and began to set up tribal kingdoms in the old Roman provinces. The traditional date for the "end of the end" is the year 476, when the Germanic chief Odoacer overthrew the last the Roman emperors of the Western half of the Empire: Emperor Romulus Augustulus.
The Eastern Roman Empire, from its capital city of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) will continue to hold on for nearly 1,000 years, but the Roman Empire in the West had fallen.
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Introduction. One of the most important achievements of Roman civilization was the establishment over a wide area of a code of law based on principles, organized according to reason, and--in theory-- applied universally. It had a powerful influence in shaping the character of Western civilization long after the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Early Republic. During this period, Roman Law was characterized by its gradual extension to the plebeian class. The first great accomplishment was getting the laws written down and displayed publicly in the Forum—the Twelve Tables. . This was accomplished by 450 B.C. By 350 B.C., plebeians had won the right to hold most public offices, including the right to elect one consul from the plebeian class. By 250 B.C., the popular Assembly won the right to have its decision exempt from veto by the Senate. Power, however, remained in the hands of an elite—no longer an elite by birth (patricians), but and elite by birth or wealth (patricians and wealthy plebeians). Since voting in the Assembly was not by secret ballot, bribery by the wealthy was widespread.
Law of the Nations. Toward the end of the Republic, a body of law developed to deal with the expansion of Rome and its rule over foreign peoples. The Law of the Nations incorporated Greek principles from Stoic philosophy, which recognized the rights of foreigners. The Law of the Nations and Roman Civil Law for its citizens in Italy merged into one law code as citizenship was extended widely throughout the empire.
Code of Justinian. In the 6th century A.D., the Eastern Roman Emperor, Justinian, ordered the codification of all existing Roman Law into one code—the Code of Justinian. During the Middle Ages, the organization of this code influenced the development of Canon Law, the law code of the Roman Catholic Church. After the Renaissance, the Code of Justinian provided the basis for most European legal systems up to the nineteenth century.
Key Legal Principles of Roman Law. In the words of the Code of Justinian, “law is the art of the good and the fair.”
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Questions:
Our tyrant deserved his death for having made an exception of the one thing that was the blackest crime of all…Behold, here you have a man who was ambitious to be king of the Roman People and master of the whole world; and he achieved it! The man who maintains that such an ambition is morally right is a madman; for he justifies the destruction of law and liberty and thinks their hideous and detestable suppression glorious…For oh ye immortal gods! Can the most horrible and hideous of all murders—that of the fatherland—bring advantage to anybody, even though he who has committed such a crime receives from his enslaved fellow-citizens the title of “Father of his Country”?
Dio Cassius: In Defense of Caesar and Monarchy. The reputation of Julius Caesar changed over the centuries. Some 250 years after Caesar’s assassination, the Roman historian and politician Dio Cassius, writing in Greek, acknowledged that while not wholly benevolent, the “monarchy” of Caesar was superior to the republican government of Rome.
His slayers, to be sure, declared that they had shown themselves at once destroyers of Caesar and liberators of the people: but in reality they impiously plotted against him, and they threw the city into disorder when at last it possessed a stable government. Democracy, indeed, has a fair-appearing name and conveys the impression of bringing equal rights to all through equal laws, but its results are seen not be agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but it is a most practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of them…successes have always been greater and more frequent in the case both of cities and of individuals under kings.
It happened as follows, and [Caesar’s] death was due to the cause now to be given. He had aroused dislike that was not altogether unjustified; except so are as it was the senators themselves who had by their novel and excessive honors encouraged him and puffed him up, only to find fault with him on this very account…