A timely book to read. “Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny”, by Edward J. Watts, ISBN 978-0-465-09381-6, 336 pages (2018).
The decline of the Roman Republic was a long process with many characters and many twists in the tale, but it can be summarized quite simply: a Republic rots from the head.
The Roman Republic began around 509 BC, when the Romans expelled their last king, and lasted until about 27 BC when Caesar’s heir Octavian became Emperor Augustus – although the Republic had obviously been degenerating for centuries before that.
The Republic was at its height in 280 BC when King Pyrrhus invaded Italy and won a major (although expensive) victory over the Romans. When the Roman Senate sent Fabricius as an emissary to negotiate terms, Pyrrhus did the normal thing of trying to bribe him into accepting a deal which was unfavorable to Rome. Fabricius turned down the bribe, saying that his reputation in Rome was worth more to him and his descendants than any amount of gold. In contrast, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome in 49 BC, frightened Roman Senators abandoned the city and ran.
An interesting assertion in Watts’ account is that the role of huge estates owned by the wealthy and worked by slaves (a la Spartacus) may have been over-stated as a contributor to the decline of the Republic. The underlying problem was Roman law – a farm had to be divided equally between all the male heirs. Over time, the size of each individual farm became insufficient to support a family. Since Roman citizens were expected to provide their own military equipment, those descendants of farmers became too poor to be eligible for military service. Additionally, agricultural production fell, making Rome dependent on imports of grain from North Africa.
While the situation was obviously deteriorating, Senators fiddled around enriching themselves (often through corruption), failing to address the issues. The Gracchi brothers in the 130/120s BC proposed land reforms to correct the situation, but they were murdered by forces acting for the ruling Senators, and land reform died with them. The Roman military changed as indigent citizens were hired, armed, and paid by generals, with the soldiers owing allegiance to their particular general rather than to the Roman Republic. All this led eventually to Caesar, and the end of the Republic, probably unlamented by the vast majority of the Roman population.
The particulars of the situation in the West today are of course very different from Roman times, but the story seems all too familiar. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
