The End of the Roman Republic 146 to 44 BC: Conquest and Crisis

The Edinburgh History of Rome

by Catherine Steel

A crucial and turbulent centuryBy 146, Rome had established itself as the leading Mediterranean power.Over the next century, it consolidated its power into an immense territorial empire. At the same time, the internal balance of power shifted dramatically, as a narrow ruling elite was challenged first by the rest of Italy, and then by military commanders, a process which culminated in the civil war between Pompey and Caesar and the re-establishment of monarchy. Catherine Steel tells the history of this crucial and turbulent century, focussing on the issues of freedom, honour, power, greed and ambition, and the cherished but abused institutions of the Republic which were central to events then and which have preoccupied historians ever since.Key " traces the processes of change which transformed Rome from a republic to a monarchy" explores a period of political crisis in relation to its military and cultural dynamism" analyses the political culture of the Roman Republic as a dynamic and evolving system which reflected changes in citizenship and in the ruling elite

Genres: History, Roman History, Nonfiction, World History, European History, Ancient History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gripping read.

Occasionally suffers from being overly dense, detracting from an otherwise compelling narrative explanation of both political systems and rupture with tradition in the late Republic. Enhanced by a lucid chronology and informative annotated bibliography. An up-to-date guide to a complex chapter in Rome's history.

[Robert Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume gets better and more lucid the farther you get into it. It presents chapters that give overviews of the political history during this period followed by chapters that are more thematic and explanatory of these events. I do think that the chapters giving the overviews of political history could be more explanatory, as it often just drops several names at a time without explaining who these individuals are. Therefore, this seems more like a book for those who already have a fairly thorough background in the Late-Republican period.

I would also prefer the writing to be a bit more entertaining, such as including interesting bits of recorded facts to help make the history more interesting. For instance, there are hardly any details about the relationship between those men of the First Triumvirate—in fact, I don't think the book mentions a triumvirate at all. The author also doesn't mention all of the drama between these major characters, such as Caesar arranging a political marriage between his daughter, Julia, and Pompeius.

Overall, though, it is a great book that is lucidly writing, especially in the chapters explaining the gradual fall of the Roman republic and setting up why it transformed into a principate.

[Robert Jeens · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was a freshman in university I was told that the collapse of the Roman Republic had three causes: 1) the institutions suitable to govern a city could not be stretched to govern an empire, 2) the ambitions of great men, and 3) when a citizen's militia was transformed into a professional army, it was an example of one and a temptation to two. I think that Steel would say there was something else, or more fundamental, going on. There was a class war. There was constant tension between the citizens of Rome and the oligarchy in the Senate, in which the people’s weapons were the magistrates they elected. These magistrates became more powerful and, as well as destroying the power of the Senate, in the end, also destroyed the power of the citizens. The story is more complicated than that because not all magistrates supported the people and men like Pompey and Julius Caesar did not rely on their magistracies for power: they relied on their military commands and their magistracies were expressions of their power rather than their source. But there was still a pattern.
I have to say that I did not like this book very much. I found the narrative too detailed and I could not see how much of it was relevant to her thesis: she just wrote about various happenings and I did not understand why it was there. And she leaves out very important events. For example, she casually mentions that Caesar crossed the Rubicon without ever saying why. Her prose is leaden. If you do not already know this story, do not read this book, because you will only get confused. Rather, try Tom Holland’s “Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic”. It has a much more engaging and straightforward narrative. Maybe part of the reason I didn’t like it is that I read it as a pdf. I hate pdfs. I want to flip the pages and smell the paper.
That being said, the book opens with a great description of Roman government in the mid-first century BC: the three groups, the Senate, elected magistrates, and the adult male citizens of the city, their powers, and how the dialogues between them were carried out. There were democratic, oligarchic, and monarchical elements in the government. Magistracies were limited to one year, after which the server went into the Senate, and so ambitious men had limited power. There was nothing to coordinate the parts. Political violence was organized, not uncommon, and often not punished. You need to know how the Roman Republic was structured to understand how it broke down.
The periodization of the book is controversial, but here is how she sees it. In 146, Roman armies had destroyed Carthage and Corinth and Rome stood dominant in the Mediterranean. That created great wealth, but it also created challenges of governance. She chooses 44 BC to end the book because that is the year that Julius Caesar both established his dictatorship for life and was murdered for it by the Senate. After that, there were a series of Civil Wars and truces until Octavian became Augustus and established the Empire.
I do not want to go into a repetition of her narrative, but one element of it that stood out for me was her emphasis on how the Social War fundamentally changed the nature of the Republic so that it never functioned as effectively as before. The most important thing to understand about the Social War is that the result was that all Italians became Roman citizens. With still a small oligarchic Senate. This affected the composition of the army because now all Italians could be Roman soldiers who did not necessarily have much loyalty to Rome: rather, their loyalty was often to their commander. Sulla was the first such commander to lead an army into Rome and, after terrorizing and remodeling the Senate, he tried to restore its power. This all happened in the years between 91 and 78 BC and had two effects. First, Roman citizens throughout Italy now wanted to get their power back from the Senate. Second, Sulla was an example to other ambitious men that power from outside the city of Rome could be used to overthrow the Roman government. Any real consensus on who should hold power in Rome broke down.
This is a rather drab presentation of great events, but it still offers the insights of a specialist professional historian. Mostly it is about the role of institutions, but you can see the ideals of freedom, honor, power, glory, greed and ambition peeking from behind the matter-of-fact prose if you look hard enough. You can see a pattern of ambitious men taking more than they were supposed to and sometimes getting away with it, which led to the next man doing slightly more, and etcetera until the end. I’m not sure if class war was the most important reason for the fall of the Republic, but it certainly was a reason.
Aristotle said that the best constitution is a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and many political theorists, including James Madison, have agreed with him. Polybius believed that one of the reasons that Rome lasted so long and became so powerful was because of that constitution. Political theorists also use the Roman case as an example of how democracy can be turned to tyranny when the instruments of the people, in a legitimate fight against entrenched oligarchy, also crush the rights of citizens. In fact, Machiavelli recommended it. Rome is not now. Our technology has changed, and we know things that they did not. Human nature, power, and the problems of government, however, remain the same.

[Mihovmihail55 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably the most frustrating history book I have read. Makes you feel like an investigator trying to piece together what happened. Extensive previous knowledge of the period seems to be required: certain major events are only briefly alluded to and the reader receives almost no explanation of legal procedures and criminal charges that seem crucial to the narrative.

The previous volume in this series ("Rome and the Mediterranean 290 to 146BC" by Nathan Rosenstein) did an excellent job in presenting a succinct chronology of events and making arguments for their causes. This one suffers from a drastic decrease in quality in the former category and is incomplete in the latter.

There are probably more paragraphs on Cicero than anyone else in this book (possibly excluding Sulla), and while his writings are a major primary source he was certainly not a more important participant in events than Marius, Pompeius, Crassus and especially Caesar! I looked up the author and indeed they have specialised extensively in studying Cicero and his works, which explains the focus but leaves me even more dissatisfied with having read the book.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of a complicated time, when Rome staggered from crisis to crisis. College level, with lots of references.

[Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brings back memories- I was reading these, a while back, when meeting David Brumley and Dwan Song while passing through Berkeley. I was working through the whole set in my spare time.