The Roman Republic

This is Unit Six of Western Civilization One, part one of two: the Roman Republic, from the legend of seven fifty-three to the Mediterranean held by sixty-three B.C.E. Unit five closed on Greek culture going east without Greek politics. Carry one idea through this part. Rome grew by absorbing. Where Athens ruled allies who could not leave, Rome offered defeated Latins citizenship without the vote in exchange for loyalty and troops, and every conquest fed the next army. That precedent of three thirty-eight took Italy by two sixty-three, beat Carthage in three wars, took Greece, and by sixty-three left only Egypt independent. The constitution that ran it was a set of checks, two consuls, a Senate for life, assemblies where the rich voted first, and beneath the offices a public institution the anchor calls clientage. Part two takes the century in which the same conquests destroyed the Republic. By the end you will be able to give Rome's site and legend and answer the sample question on the Senate. To name the offices and tell how the orders' conflict ended. To explain absorption and annual war. To tell the Punic Wars and why Hannibal lost. And to trace the East to sixty-three, and describe Romanitas and clientage.

Two entries on site, legend and Senate: the ford where the trade routes crossed and the wolf, and the body that carried over from monarchy to Republic.

A ford, a wolf, and a traditional date.

WC1 0501 Rome's Site and Rome's Legend

Rome sat on defensible hills beside a Tiber ford where trade routes crossed between the Greek south and the Italian north. Its legend gave it Romulus and Remus, the wolf, fratricide, and April twenty-first, seven fifty-three B.C.E. The anchor calls it a legend, and important for Rome's self-image of force. Treat seven fifty-three as the traditional date, not a record.

The body the kings left behind.

WC1 0502 Etruscans, Kings, and the Senate That Outlived Them

Rome's early kings ruled with powerful Romans advising in an elected senate. The Etruscans supplied trade, the phalanx and renamed Greek gods, and the anchor finds no evidence they ruled Rome. In five oh nine the last king was overthrown, and rex became a hated word no emperor ever used. The exam's third sample question asks what carried over from monarchy to Republic: the Senate.

Three entries on the constitution and the orders: the offices and their checks, the plebeians' gains from four ninety-four to two eighty-seven, and the law posted in the Forum.

Checks by term, by colleague, by class.

WC1 0503 Consuls, Imperium, Senate, Dictator, Assembly

Two consuls held imperium for one year each, checked by the term and by each other. The Senate of life-appointed aristocrats controlled finances and by one thirty-three proposed and vetoed law. The Centuriate Assembly, voting by wealth class, elected consuls and declared war, and the rich could always outvote the poor. A dictator held full imperium in a crisis and was expected to step down.

A secession, two tribunes, and a new aristocracy.

WC1 0504 Patricians and Plebeians: The Conflict of the Orders

About one hundred patrician families faced the plebeians from about five hundred to three sixty. In four ninety-four a threatened secession won two tribunes with a veto, debt slavery was banned, and in two eighty-seven plebiscites became law. The parallel is Athens's debt crisis, with a different ending: wealthy plebeians joined the patricians, and the result was a new aristocracy, not equality.

Law made public, not equal.

WC1 0505 The Twelve Tables, 451 BCE, and Roman Law's Branches

At plebeian insistence the Twelve Tables were posted in the Forum in four fifty-one, law made public, with a legend of ten men sent to study Solon's laws. Roman law divided into private and public law, and the Law of Nations for conquered Italy, an early idea of universal justice. Posting the law did not equalize it, and part two reads what the Tables protected.

Two entries on Italy by absorption: citizenship without the vote after three thirty-eight, and the annual war and deliberate terror that took the peninsula.

Citizenship without the vote.

WC1 0506 The Latin League, the Celts, Pyrrhus, and All Italy by 263

Celts sacked Rome about three ninety, the anchor giving two dates. In three thirty-eight Rome beat its Latin League and offered citizenship without the vote in exchange for loyalty and troops, the precedent of conquest feeding power. Pyrrhus won twice about two eighty, and all Italy was Roman by two sixty-three. Citizenship without the vote is the key: Rome grew by absorbing.

As fanatical as Sparta, with huge armies.

WC1 0507 Annual War and Deliberate Terror

Rome fought nearly every year, and the anchor records rape, slaughter, enslavement and annihilation, Veii about three ninety-three. Polybius said the intent was terror. Greed and glory drove it; aristocrats rose by triumph while slaves worked at home. The anchor cites Harris's warning against power worship, voiced as the anchor's, and calls Rome as fanatical as Sparta but with huge armies.

Three entries on Carthage: the first war and the province it created, Hannibal in Italy, and Scipio, Zama and the sack of one forty-six.

A trading partner turned enemy, and a new kind of territory.

WC1 0508 The First Punic War and the Birth of the Province

Carthage, Phoenician-founded, was a trading empire and long a Roman partner; Punic means Phoenician. A quarrel in Sicily brought war in two sixty-four; Rome learned naval warfare and won by two forty-one, and Carthage ceded Sicily while Rome seized Corsica and Sardinia besides. The provincial system was born: tribute, and a senatorial governor with enormous power. The province outlived the Republic.

Every battle won, and the war lost.

WC1 0509 Hannibal in Italy: Cannae, Fabius, and No Surrender

Hannibal crossed the Alps in two eighteen with the anchor's sixty thousand men and never lost a battle in Italy. At Cannae in two sixteen, a witness name, his smaller army enveloped Rome's, and Fabius Maximus, dictator, answered with delay. He had no siege train, the south did not defect, and Rome never surrendered. Hannibal won every battle and lost the war; learn why.

Zama, Cato, and a sack without salt.

WC1 0510 Scipio Africanus and the End of Carthage, 202 and 146

Scipio took Spain by two oh seven, invaded Africa, and beat Hannibal in two oh two at Zama, a witness name, taking the name Africanus. Cato's Carthage must be destroyed won a third war, one forty-nine to one forty-six, and the city was sacked; Polybius's remark on terror was about this sack. The salted-earth story is not literally true, the anchor says.

Four entries on the East and how Rome worked: Greece taken to Corinth, Mithridates and Pompey, what Rome took from Greece, and the client networks that decided everything.

Geniuses, and treacherous.

WC1 0511 Rome Takes Greece: Philip V to Corinth, 146

Philip the Fifth's alliance with Carthage brought Rome east in two oh one. Macedon lost in one ninety-seven at Cynoscephalae and in one sixty-eight at Pydna, witness names, and was split into puppet republics. In one forty-six Rome destroyed Corinth, tens of thousands killed or enslaved, and its plunder fed Roman taste for Greek art. Rome saw Greeks as geniuses and as treacherous.

Only Egypt left.

WC1 0512 Mithridates, Pompey, and the Mediterranean by 63 BCE

By one forty Rome controlled almost the whole Mediterranean from Spain to Anatolia. Mithridates the Sixth of Pontus fought three wars from eighty-eight, a liberator to his followers, and died in sixty-three, the year the Seleucid remnant ended. Pompey organized the East, and only Egypt stayed independent. Provinces meant tribute and governors, and most subjects were not citizens.

Strong and honest, by their own account.

WC1 0513 Romanitas and What Rome Took From Greece

Romans saw themselves as strong and honest and Greeks as brilliant but shifty, yet imported Greek art, slave-tutors, Stoicism and above all rhetoric, preferring realistic portraits, warts and all, to Greek idealization. Romanitas, the anchor's term, meant civilized, a speaker, a fighter, self-sacrificing, working within the structure. Dictators stepped down until the first century B.C.E.; the anchor's C.E. is a slip.

Not hidden influence, a public institution.

WC1 0514 Clientage: How the Late Republic Really Worked

Patrons, men and women, secured contracts, commissions and land for clients, and clients voted as directed, blocked rivals and escorted patrons in public as a show of strength. Assemblies, Senate, ten tribunes, consuls and courts still met, but client networks decided. Clientage was a public institution, not hidden influence, and the average plebeian went unrepresented while wealthy client-plebeians ran the Plebeian Assembly.

Look at what you can now do. You can give Rome's site at a Tiber ford and its legend of seven fifty-three, say what the Etruscans supplied, and answer the sample question: the Senate carried over from monarchy to Republic. You can name two consuls with imperium, a Senate for life, assemblies voting by class, and a dictator expected to resign, and tell how a secession won tribunes, a ban on debt slavery, plebiscites as law, and Twelve Tables that were public but not equal. You can explain that Rome grew by absorbing, citizenship without the vote from three thirty-eight, and that it fought nearly every year with terror as the intent. You can tell three Punic Wars, the province they created, and why Hannibal won every battle and lost the war. And you can trace Greece and the East to sixty-three, describe Romanitas, and say that client networks decided. Part two opens on the free farmer those conquests were destroying, and the century in which land, murder, loyalty and choice ended the Republic.