PREFACE

This essay will be a polemic analysis and critique of the structural flaws inherent to the Roman Republic and the societal values it was centered around. I am deeply invested in Roman history (not in a homoerotic romaboo way), and it is unfortunate to see how often historical takes and studies fall into the trappings of 'great man theory' or the narrative of the ruling patrician class in a top-down analysis. In addition to disregarding the 'great man theory', I will be disregarding moral relativism. Roman history involves many misfortunes, genocides, tyrannies, oppressions, enslavements, etc; it will take away from the entire point of this writing to disregard it as just a 'product of its time!' Romans weren't poor babies that didn't know what they were doing. Additionally, I will make plentiful comparisons to contemporary society when it best fits what I'm saying, though I trust a lot of these comparisons will be picked up on without me even needing to mention it.

This is likely to be the initial essay on this topic, with another one planned sometime in the future. Of course, given that this will cover Roman history and society (from the declaration of the Res Publica in 509 BCE to the fall of Rome in 476 CE), it will be broad in scope. As a result, this essay will be focused on the Roman Republic, with the second essay addressing the Roman Empire. I wish to provide a comprehensive understanding of Roman history, with the focus not being on the retelling of events, but rather on providing a comprehensive view of what Rome was and what events shaped it. On the surface, my goal is to shine a light on the structural rot in Roman civilization, but given just how influential the polity was to all of post-antiquity human history, it's a much-needed analysis of the genealogy of our current age. I doubt it'll be on the minds of most, but for those wondering, I will not be addressing the Eastern Roman/Byzantine empire in nearly any meaningful capacity; it simply is not part of the scope. I find the Byzantine Empire fascinating in its own right, but it grew to be distinct enough as a polity, even if they still wanted to refer to themselves as 'Roman'. The historicity of the Roman Kingdom and the early republic is very murky at best, with few sources being written centuries later. This essay requires an approach of accepting the traditional Roman narratives, not as fact, but as an acknowledgement of what the ancient Romans based their entire society and ideology around, for these foundational myths would go on to formulate their behaviors and superstitions. With all that aside, I want to share that I am not much of an academic writer; I just want to share my thoughts coherently, so I don't care about holding some kind of standard like that. I, of course, have a mix of ancient and modern sources. I don't care about wasting my time with citations, so you can ask me if so desired for any sources on particular topics. Many events in the history of the Republic will be glossed over or omitted, for as much as I consider events such as the Servile Wars to be very important to our current age and just interesting in general, for brevity's sake, I can only address the main pivotal events of the Republic.

INTRODUCTION

"Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam"

This proverb, first written by French theologian Alain de Lille, has long been the gold standard by which historiography treats Roman society. Better known in the English rendition as "All roads lead to Rome." While based on the reality that all major roadways of the Roman Empire literally led to Rome, this remains true today in every facet. In this essay, my primary goal is to dismantle the 'Great Man' theory, where it was the fault of individuals, such as Julius Caesar or Lucius Cornelius Sulla, that the Roman Republic met its end in a silent whimper. The material reality shows that the Republic collapsed under its own structural contradictions: a ruling class that preached liberty while practicing oppression, and an economic system that necessitated perpetual plunder of the provinces and other peoples. The trappings of Roman ideology and religion made it impossible for people to break free from the cycle of decay, despite how obvious it was to many what was happening around them. Many men thought that they alone could save the republic, save Rome, yet all they could do was prolong or accelerate the collapse. Every approach was tried under the umbrella of Roman ideology, from the reactionary dictatorship of Sulla to the populism of the Gracchi and Caesarians. From the foundations of the Res Publica, the trap was already set, and no individual had the power alone to stop structural entropy and material conditions.

THE HOLLOW FOUNDATION

Traditional Roman historiography stated that the brothers Romulus and Remus, along with their followers, decided to establish the city of Rome along the River Tiber in 753 BCE, though the two would bitterly argue over minor details such as which hill to establish the city on. These quarrels would culminate in Romulus murdering his brother Remus and becoming the first sole ruler of the fledgling city-state. One of Romulus' first acts would be to establish a senate of 100 men. These first senators would go on to establish the 'patrician' class, and everyone else, rich or poor, was plebeian. His descendants would continue to be kings of the city and would court the masses, in a formula seen in many future monarchies, as a pillar to curb the power of the aristocracy. The widely accepted historical narrative painted the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom in 509 BCE as a liberation from an unjust tyrant, while in reality, it was a coup d'état by the aristocracy, replacing the absolutism of one king with the absolutism of two consuls and the senate. Having their power checked so thoroughly harmed the interests of the patricians that they swore a solemn oath to never be ruled by a king again. This 'liberation' would only improve the standings of the patricians, as now they did not have a check on their power, and the plebeians were either stuck with the status quo or simply worse off.

To understand the structure of the Republic, one must first understand the ideology of Roman society. The Mos Maiorum, or 'The Way of the Ancestors', was effectively an unwritten constitution for the general psyche of society, forming the backbone of Roman governance until the fall of the republic. Tradition taught that these ancestral customs maximized liberty while also inculcating a sense of duty and resolve in the citizenry. The most important concept to the Romans was the notion of Libertas. This concept was fundamentally different from our values of liberty, with the oligarchical Roman worldview requiring liberty to oppress others to attain Libertas. The patricians would make ample reference to the Mos Maiorum when it best suited them, using it to justify the stifling of plebeian movements as 'against tradition' while eagerly dropping any pretense of tradition the moment it proved beneficial to them. The values on which this small city-state was built would grow increasingly untenable as Roman society expanded exponentially until it encompassed the entire Mediterranean. The collegial system, intended to prevent tyranny, completely fell apart in the provinces, where governors ruled as warlords in their own personal fiefdoms. The elite clung to the Mos Maiorum domestically while violating every tenet of it abroad, resulting in a schizophrenic self-cannibalizing state that preached liberty through despotism.

A key aspect of the Roman political machine, as well as many familiar to us, was the system of patronage, an economic shackle to complement the ideological prison of the Mos Maiorum. The reciprocal bond between patron and client permeated every level of society. A wealthy patron would provide legal protection and economic aid to his clients, and in exchange, the client was expected to remain obedient in political matters. This system structurally discouraged the poor from exercising their own class interests, dependent on the 'charity' of the patricians for their own survival. This relationship turned the electorate into a collection of private armies rather than independent citizens, a growing issue in the late republic.

The early Roman Republic was defined by class warfare, rather than consensus. In these early stages, the plebeian masses had effectively no political leverage at their disposal. Only in 494 BCE, 15 years following the proclamation of the Res Publica, suffering from crippling debt, was the first plebeian mass action organized. The Secessio Plebis, or 'Secession of the Plebs', would involve the mass withdrawal of plebeian citizenry from the city of Rome, to be encamped miles outside the city, akin to a modern strike, absconding from the city and refusing to serve in the army. The senate responded by sending a former consul, Menenius, to quell the plebs. He came bearing a metaphor, in short equating the patrician class to the stomach, and the plebeian class to the rest of the body, both mutually dependent on the other. The historian Livy portrays the plebeians as being swayed by this metaphor, when in reality it was the concessions granted by the senate that ended their stand. The most notable concession was the establishment of the office of Tribune of the plebs, a position reserved only for plebeians, which could act as a check on the power of the consuls and could represent the plebeians.

Even the most moderate of concessions as the establishment of the Tribunate, would foster the resentment of the patricians, reaching a boiling point in 491 BCE, while a grain shortage was already looming over the city. Patrician general Coriolanus made a demand to the senate to withhold grain from starving plebeians unless they consented to the abolition of the young tribunate. He would be exiled soon after for this treachery, and Coriolanus returned, heading an army of Volscians, a neighboring rival tribe of the Romans. Soon defeated, his efforts would go on to show the myopic lengths the patricians would go to crush any attempts at popular sovereignty.

THE POISON OF EMPIRE

The patrician class developed a formula to channel plebeian frustration and to maintain the fragile economy. Roman society would rally around the cause of destroying its enemies and plundering their societies, with the spoils being dispersed to the poor and rich alike. This formula would go on to inspire many nationalist strategies thousands of years later in the pursuit of class collaboration. By 264 BCE, the internal contradictions of the Republic were already proving to be undeniable, yet the erstwhile struggles were not sufficient to stop the Republic in its tracks.

In its attempts at rapid expansion, the Romans would find themselves rivaling the Carthaginian Empire, a Phoenician trading empire based in modern-day Tunisia. The Republic's formula would reach its apex, and its breaking point, with the rise of Carthage's infamous general, Hannibal Barca. When tensions between the Romans and Carthaginians led to the inevitable war, Hannibal embarked with his forces on a campaign to wreak havoc across the Italian peninsula, in the heart of the Republic. After numerous humiliating defeats at the hands of Hannibal, the Romans finally came out victorious, though with a devastated countryside. A class of freeholding Italian farmers who were the main pool of manpower for the legions, now destroyed. As these small farmers died in war or abandoned their land, their plots were absorbed into the vast estates of the wealthy, known as the Latifundia, now to be worked with a new influx of slaves. Over time, society underwent a radical restructuring from a shared hardship of agrarian work to a new rich class that embraced competitive accumulation. The rich only got richer off the spoils of war, while the poor lost their land and flooded into the city, creating a volatile urban proletariat.

A result of the Republic's expansion was that it needed new frameworks for its bureaucracy to handle the influx of land and citizens; thus, the position of Proconsul would be established. Those appointed as Proconsuls would serve as provincial governors, an office designed for tyranny. Proconsuls would reign as absolute monarchs with little to no accountability for actions undertaken in their province. Many provincials were not lucky enough to have Roman citizenship either, being ultimately unprotected by the law. A proconsul only had a 1-year term to extract as much profit from his province as possible, leaving with enough to pay off his debts, and to bribe the jury for any potential corruption trial, with the rest of the profits being kept by himself. The 'great men' of the late republic would be born from this proconsular system, utilizing their governorships to amass wealth and the loyalty of their provincial legions for their own aims.

With proconsuls representing the provincial tyrants, the publicani would represent their vultures. Rome employed a series of private tax-farming enterprises to strip the provinces bare of any valuables. It served to be an inherently exploitative system, to enrich the equestrian class at the expense of the state and the populus. Publicani contracts required bonds of up to 500% of expected revenue, serving as a barrier for entry for all but the ultra-rich. While senators were de jure barred from this practice, they often served as silent patrons, demanding a cut of the profits. This system would prove so corrupt that, in the case of Publius Rutilius Rufus's attempt to stop the Publicani from extorting his province, the equestrians rigged a trial and exiled him. The surplus revenue from this system never reached the public treasury, instead fueling the bribery and patronage networks of the elite.

The moral rot of this new imperial age would end up best personified by the destruction of Carthage. Following successive defeats, Carthage would end up as little more than a Roman client state, stripped of any offensive capabilities, unable to wage war without Roman permission. By 151 BCE, Carthage had paid its indemnities to Rome and adopted a peaceful trade-based economy, representing the ideal of peaceful prosperity. Through this decision to adopt a subservient attitude to Roman influence, Carthage's elite failed to realize that it was the very existence of their society that was a threat to the Roman psyche. When Cato the Elder visited the city in 153 BCE, he was beholden to the wealth amassed by Carthage's new peaceful trade endeavors. Upon witnessing the wealth ripe for plundering, Cato returned to Rome to vehemently argue for the destruction of Carthage. Ever conducive to the prospect of wealth, the senate acquiesced and gave a carte blanche for the Roman client king of Numidia (located around present Algeria) to launch incessant raids into Carthaginian territory. Carthage naturally issued requests to Rome for permission to use military force to defend its borders, which were categorically rejected at each turn. Eventually, Carthage was left with no other option but to covertly launch a counter-attack without Roman approval, prompting accusations that Carthage was violating its peace treaty. The Carthaginians meekly submitted before any Roman force could be mobilized, and in turn, total disarmament was demanded of the beleaguered nation. The Romans concluded their negotiations with the demand that the city of Carthage be abandoned completely, with residents moving 10 miles inland, effectively demanding that the Carthaginians abandon everything that provided them with their sense of identity, a demand clearly made to be rejected. The entire Carthaginian society was mobilized in the defense of their city with makeshift weapons. After a brief siege of the city, Carthage fell to Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, and the Roman senate ordered that the city be razed. 750,000 citizens were killed in the ensuing genocide, and only 50,000 people would survive, just to be sold into slavery in the aftermath.

Scipio bore witness to a fire that raged for 17 days, a mass spectacle of death and Roman militarism, and it is told by the historian Polybius that Scipio wept at the sight.

For he knew that Rome would one day befall this very same fate.

THE ELITE'S WAR ON REFORM

By 133 BCE, the structural pressure caused by the influx of slave labor and the dispossession of the peasantry had reached a critical point. Many saw the writing on the wall and hoped to save the ailing republic, one notable figure being a tribune of the plebs, Tiberius Gracchus. Tiberius was by no means a radical proto-socialist as depicted today, but rather a moderate reformer who simply thought it would be conducive to a good republic to treat its citizens as if they had some value. His main political charter would be advocating for the proper enforcement of already existing laws that limited how much ager publicus, public land, one man could legally occupy, a law that generations of equestrians had been violating to expand their slave plantations. His goal was rather conservative in nature: to repopulate the wartorn countryside with freemen eligible for military service, as a solution to incessant manpower shortages for the legions.

The establishment Senate's response revealed the true attitude of the elite when a fellow tribune by the name of Marcus Octavius vetoed the bill at the behest of the rich. Tiberius went on to have him impeached by popular vote, arguing that the tribune had been betraying his mandate to the plebeians. Tiberius's commitment to this bill would not earn him the passage he so eagerly sought, but rather assassination, at the behest of a patrician-led mob. The death of Tiberius marked a turning point in the Republic's history; the patricians sent a clear message that the Mos Maiorum was dead, and social progress would be met with bloodshed. Tiberius's brother, Gaius Gracchus, would attempt to continue his legacy nearly a decade later, with the Senate responding with its Consultum Ultimum, a death warrant for the killing of Gaius and his supporters. Any notion of peaceful reform lay dead with the Gracchus brothers.

The Senate's dogged refusal to share power extended beyond the city limits of Rome to the Italian allies (socii), groups of tribes who were forced into the republic under non-citizen status. These socii would provide a massive portion of manpower for Rome's legions, but received none of the benefits. For decades, the Roman elite treated the Italians as second-class subjects, subjected to arbitrary beatings and exclusion from land distribution. In 91 BCE, a reformist politician by the name of Livius Drusus attempted to bestow citizenship on the socii, with the expected outcome of assassination with the Senate's approval. This impediment by the Senate resulted in the beginning of the Social War, a civil war that killed 300,000 and only resulted in the devastation of the Italian peninsula. Rome only won by conceding what the socii originally demanded, citizenship. The Social War would become an exemplary metaphor for the patricians, willing to burn Italy to the ground rather than voluntarily dilute their own power and influence.

The chaos of the Social War paved the way for the rise of an infamous warlord, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a true product of his environment. Sulla broke the ultimate taboo by marching his legions into Italia proper, the core of the Republic, where legions had been forbidden to cross unless led by an elected magistrate (such as a consul). This symbolic act would prove to every future Roman general that absolute power could be within arm's reach for anyone willing to march an army to Rome. Sulla claimed he was saving the republic, but the dictatorship he established was merely a reactionary fantasy. He went on to strip the tribunate of any power, packed the Senate with his allies, and abolished the grain dole, which had hitherto fed the poor of Rome. To secure his reign, he instituted the Proscriptions: a regular posting of a list of names declared enemies of the Republic, with any listed name representing a bounty to be murdered with impunity, their properties immediately confiscated by Sulla. Thousands were murdered as a result of the Proscriptions, not just political enemies, but wealthy citizens with property and wealth coveted by Sulla and his allies. It was his political mandate to turn back the clock to the 'better times' of the early republic. Following the death of Sulla, his order would collapse, with his constitution soon repealed; his reactionary attempts at returning to tradition only served to build the scaffolds on which the republic faced its death.

OBSTRUCTION AND COLLAPSE

As Sulla would be immortalized as the butcher of the Republic by historians, Cato the Younger would be considered the Saint of the Republic, a conservative senator dedicated to preserving the Republic where Sulla failed, a stoic martyr who stood firm in the face of tyranny. Cato was determined to save the now terminal republic, and in his resolve, he committed himself to petty obstructionism and refusal to compromise on anything he opposed. Cato weaponized the Mos Maiorum not to protect the people, but for his own petty qualms and conflicts. Cato was famous for his tactic of the filibuster: speaking continuously in the Senate until sunset to prevent a vote from being called. He used this tactic often, not against tyrannical overreach, but against mundane administrative necessities that underwent the grave risk of slightly benefiting his rivals. When the publicani asked for relief on their tax contracts during an economic downturn, Cato blocked it for months to spite Crassus, a fellow senator. When famous general Magnus Pompey asked for land for his veterans, Cato blocked it to facilitate Pompey's humiliation. By paralyzing the legal channels of government, Cato proved that the Senate was simply no longer a possible vessel for any semblance of change, necessitating reformers to find other approaches.

Julius Caesar emerged onto the Roman political scene not as an aberration, not as a savior, but as a symptom, same as Sulla. He was the inevitable result of a system where the rule of law was a mere fantasy. While the senate offered the masses abstract lectures on Libertas, Caesar became an unabashed radical by offering them tangible, material benefits, bread and circuses. Caesar was still a warlord who built his power on a mountain of corpses; his infamous conquest of Gaul was no civilizing mission. To pay off his massive debts from consular campaigns, and to secure his Dignitas, Caesar took his political mandate as proconsul of the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum (current day Northern Italy and Dalmatia/Croatia) and led rogue campaigns into Gaul on a genocidal path seeking glory and wealth. By this time, Gaul was home to millions of diverse tribes of Celts across present-day France and the Low Countries, a rich region which had been relatively unscathed by Roman legions. Following years of campaigning across Gaul, nearly 1 million were slain at Roman hands, with another million Gauls being sold into slavery across the Republic. His famous memoirs, the Commentaries, were not a historical retelling of fact, it was a perfectly crafted propaganda piece to embellish his victories and to portray his slaughter as glory.

The assassination of Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BCE is often romanticized as a last stand for freedom, being nothing of the sort. Many of the senatorial conspirators were not fighting for the liberty of the Roman people, but rather for the nostalgic vision of a lost Republic, where their class privileges remained unchecked. They were resentful of Caesar for usurping their right to plunder the provinces and dominate the courts. Their failure was total as they fundamentally misunderstood the disease they were trying to excise. They assumed that by killing the tyrant, they could turn a new leaf on a new Republic, reminiscent of 509 BCE. But the republic wasn't killed by Caesar; it had committed suicide over many centuries when it chose empire over justice. The conspirators killed the man, but not the conditions which created him.

FROM REPUBLIC TO AUTOCRACY

If the assassination of Caesar was a tragedy, the aftermath was a farce written in blood. The vacuum left in his wake was not filled by the restoration of liberty, but by a fresh set of replacement warlords, a triumvirate by Octavian, Mark Anthony, and Lepidus. Unlike the warlords of before, the likes of Pompey and Caesar, this triumvirate was an open and legal military junta. Their first act of governance was to reintroduce the faded legacy of Sulla with the second round of Proscriptions. While Sulla's dictatorship had the veneer of ideological justification, these new Proscriptions were nothing but naked banditry. These warlords needed to pay 43 legions, and the easiest way to procure funds would be to murder Rome's wealthy and seize their estates. The most symbolic victim was the renowned orator Cicero, a man of respect who utilized oration to defend the Republic's ideals, only to be hunted down like a dog and decapitated, his head nailed to the Rostra in the Roman Forum. The era of debate was over; the sword now ruled over the pen.

The final collapse came when Octavian, having defeated his fellow warlords, returned to Rome as sole master of the new order. He didn't declare himself king, as the stigma was omnipresent since the fall of the kingdom of yore; he instead claimed to restore the republic in a period known as the Principate. Octavian would then adopt the name Augustus, reinstate the Senate, the consuls, and the elections, all for political theatre. He held the Maius Imperium, the sole source of legitimate power, and the loyalty of the Roman legions. Augustus formalized the autocracy that the elite had long been practicing in the provinces; he brought the tyranny of the proconsul home to Rome. The Roman Republic died not in a triumphant last stand, but in a meek whimper at the hands of a rigid, kleptocratic ruling class steadfast in tradition.

THE BOOMERANG RETURNS

The fall of the Roman Republic was no tragedy of fate, nor the result of ambition, but a prolonged suicide. The Roman elite chose to murder reformers rather than share the land, to burn Italy rather than share citizenship, and to starve the poor rather than share their grain. By the time Caesar crossed the Rubicon himself, the Res Publica was already a corpse. The institutions Cato and Brutus fought to protect were not bastions of liberty, but hollow shells designed to facilitate the freedom of the few to exploit the many. For 500 years, the elite had built a machine of oppression, and in the end, it consumed itself.

A state cannot practice tyranny abroad and expect to maintain liberty at home. The absolute power that proconsuls wielded over provincials created a class of men who could no longer function as equal citizens. These warlords treated Rome exactly how they treated their provinces, as a polity to be conquered and looted. We study this not to mourn the loss of old architecture, but because the structural rot of Rome is the genealogy of our own age. The same patterns are ever-present: an elite that insulates itself from reality, the hollowing out of the middle class to service global capital, and the paralysis of political institutions that are bought and sold to the highest bidder. The same machinery that crushed Carthage and enslaved Gaul was always going to turn inward, because tools of domination recognize no permanent boundaries. We study Rome not to save our own crumbling republics, but to recognize the pattern: when a society chooses empire over justice, hierarchy over equality, and plunder over sharing, it has already written its own ending. It need only wait for the next Caesar to cross its Rubicon.