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Submitted by: Iain Surman
The story of Rome is one of adaptation. Rome lasted as an imperial power for about 800 years, but only because it kept changing. The early growth of Roman power sprang from a zealous and rapacious republicanism that eventually threatened to destroy the Republic itself. Unlike Athens, however, Rome restructured to resolve the tension between Republic and Empire. Subsequently, Rome began to resemble the Persia of Cyrus and Darius in the measures it took to cope with its increasing size and multiculturalism. In the end, the extension of Roman citizenship made it hard to continue speaking of an empire at all.
Citizens
After 1200 BCE, the eastern Mediterranean entered a dark age and tribes from around the Danube overran both Greece and Italy. Much of central Italy became settled by Latins. In the 8th century BCE, as a new Greece was forming, three Latin tribes came together as the Romans, in the hills around a crossing point on the River Tiber. Here they farmed pigs and traded salt from the mouth of the river. They had a king, who was advised by a council of 300 elders known as the senate.
To the north were the Etruscans. From their heartland in Tuscany they gained control of a string of cities and, around 625 BCE, became kings of the Romans. They built a sewerage system to drain the valley and create the Forum, an area where the hillside villagers could meet to trade and discuss matters. Scattered villages now became a city.
Etruscan trade between northern Italy and Magna Graecia (‘Greater Greece’) in the south brought Greek civilization to the Romans and drew attention to a bridge they had built across the Tiber. To defend this bridge, an army of all those able to arm themselves was created, with soldiers organized into ranks depending on the equipment they could afford. The first rank kitted themselves out like Greek infantry, with swords, spears, heavy armour and shields they would lock together to create a solid barrier.
By 509 BCE, the nobility of Rome was largely Etruscan, but this did not stop them throwing out their king, Tarquin, following his son’s rape of Lucretia, a wellknown noblewoman. The Roman kingdom now became a res publica – a ‘concern of the people’.
To prevent a return to absolute rule, the new Republic strengthened the senate. It received the power to pass law and oversee the appointment of government. Rome was now led by two consuls, professional civil servants elected annually by the senate after climbing a ladder of promotion. In practice, however, transfer of power to the senate was a gradual process.
The senate was staffed by the patrician class, the old nobility, and two hundred years of the plebeians (the rest of Rome’s citizens) pushing for political representation kept it weak. General strikes won the plebeians their own assembly – and, moreover, access to the senate for the wealthy among them (as senators were not paid). Eventually, political agitation faded as a new senatorial class of nobles and rich businessmen came to dominate government.
The Republic was based on an idea that resonated far beyond the senate, however: the idea of the Roman citizen, a free man of property. Since all property was owned by male heads of families, there was only one citizen for each household, whatever its size.
The property requirement went back to the Etruscan army; citizenship meant having the means to help defend the Republic. With this came the right to vote and other privileges, but most citizens were farmers for whom cooperating to protect and extend their homesteads meant having a stake in society in and of itself. The citizen army was the basis of Roman identity.
With the Etruscan kings gone, trade with the south declined and Rome turned to its Latin neighbours, leading a league of cities to take territory and open trade. Peeved at not sharing equally in the spoils, the other cities rose up against Rome in 340 BCE, only for Rome to abolish the Latin League, absorb its possessions and continue its own expansion.
Roman expansion within Italy was nevertheless a subtle matter. Most of the defeated Latins were made Roman citizens and this became a general pattern. Territory was seized, garrisons were stationed in key locations, roads were built radiating out from Rome, but conquered peoples were often given citizenship or classed as allies with partial rights. Rome benefited from both; citizens paid tax and served in the army, allies paid tribute and supplied their own troops. Beyond this, the different peoples of Italy were becoming used to Roman institutions and Roman culture.
About the Author: Taken from the Atlas of Empires, the book tells the story of how and why the great empires of history came into being, operated and ultimately declined, and discusses the future of the empire in today’s globalized world. Visit
newhollandpublishers.com/details.asp?pid=9781847730640&t=Atlas
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