Alexander Kwok

The Fall of the Roman Republic

The first of many internal and external factors that caused for the collapse of the Roman
Republic was its changed policy of expansion. Before the Republic started to expand and gain an
overseas empire, it limited itself mainly to the Italian Peninsula, conquering the neighboring
tribes throughout the late 6th century through 3rd century, for the sake of protecting itself. The
Republic's policy was that through conquering other belligerent, neighboring tribes, they would
protect themselves by attacking before they were attacked. After conquering these neighboring
nations, the Republic would then try to treat each fairly benevolently in order to gain their
loyalty to Rome. Some of these tribes would be allowed to keep their own forms of government,
while turning over the running of foreign matters to the Roman state, as well as contributing
more farmer-soldiers to the Roman army whenever it went abroad (Wes. Civ., 120). These
conquered states and tribes would then receive in return the Roman promise of “universal
citizenship”, which differed from that of the Greeks through full citizenship no matter whatever
one's lineage was. The only thing that mattered to many people now was that they were a part of
this universal Republic across the Peninsula. (Burnstein)
However, in the years following the First Punic War with Carthage, Rome started to
change its motives from one mainly to protect its own territory, to an attitude where the
patricians in the Senate were furthering their own agenda for more power, riches, and wealth.
This meant that instead of trying to win the loyalty of the people that it conquered throughout the
war through making alliances with them, Rome instead turned conquered people into slaves for
the wealthiest citizens of the empire to purchase. Furthermore the patrician class was also able,
through this exploitation of the conquered people in the provinces, to exploit the different
provinces through corrupt taxation methods and to capture people as slaves to sell and use in
their latifundia to gain new profits. (Burnstein)
Throughout this period of expansion abroad, a large part in the exploitation of newly
conquered nations through corrupt taxation was caused by the patrician-controlled Senate, as
well as a combination of plebeians seeking more of a short-term gain, rather than long term
interests. These taxation practices were enforced through a “patron-client” relationship that was
common between many patricians within the senate and plebeians throughout the provinces that
wanted fame and a higher social status (Wes. Civ., 118). In order to gain a higher social position
with the elite, the tax collectors would ally themselves with the oligarch-dominated senate,

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whose connections would then allow the tax collectors to fill a certain quota and keep the rest of
the money for themselves. In return, the tax collectors would be influenced by their wealthy
patrons to tax the poor more unjustly. Since many of the judges in the Republic were appointed
and approved by the Senate, the judges would side with the tax collectors and the Senate against
the poor, to further their own social status. This practice not only widened the gap between the
rich and the poor in the Republic, as well as increasing the social tensions between the two. But
it also added to the sense of hopelessness and disloyalty that the poorer citizens of the Republic
would have then. (Burnstein) Even though for many of the judges, tax collectors, and aristocratic
Senate this arrangement benefited them in the short term, this also reinforced a sense of opulence
and richness that the Roman oligarchs could obtain if they just had the right connections. This
also raised the expectance of many in the patrician class to what they believed was their right to a
higher standard of living and wealth, in expense to those of the yeoman and proletariat class.
Another factor of the collapse of the Roman Republic was the adding of slaves into the
economic balance between the patrician class and the yeoman farmers. As the Roman Republic
started to expand abroad beyond the Italian Peninsula, its yeoman farmers were away from their
fields longer than before. Before the farmers would be all right, due to the closeness of the wars,
meaning that they would have time to harvest and sell their crops for profit. Now, with the wars
meaning that these farmer-soldiers were going abroad for a longer amount of time and more
frequently, they would come back to their farms in disrepair and have to repair them. This would
mean that when it came time to harvest their crops, the yeomen wouldn’t be able to make a
profit, let alone break even. As they wouldn’t be able to raise enough money for their livelihood
to pay land taxes to the Republic, they would then borrow money from the wealthy to try and
pay the taxes, which would only postpone the inevitable. As the upper class oligarchs kept
demanding more time spent trying to conquer neighboring countries for just pure greed and
wealth, these yeomen would be directly affected. This pattern of coming back to find everything
in disrepair and having to borrow money from the rich would keep on repeating itself throughout
history. However, this was only the tip of the iceberg in what was happening with the yeomen.
As the wars abroad grew more frequent, fueled by the oligarch’s desires for more wealth
through corrupt taxation and slaves, so did the latifundia that would form powered by the newly
acquired slaves, which negatively affected the yeomen class lifestyle. Before this expansion, the
yeomen of the Republic were its core. They were the ones who would farm and raise crops, not

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only for their own benefit, but also the whole Republic. Whenever there was a war, they would
be the workforce that would enlist in the army to help fight abroad, only to return and tend to
their farms. However, with the addition of slaves and patrician latifundia, as well as more
frequent conquests abroad, their lifestyle changed into one of a class that was outsourced and
struggling to survive. These farther conquests abroad meant that yeoman farmers would be more
and more away from their farms and crops. Many yeomen would go back to their farms and
crops, only to find them in disrepair and nearly unable to harvest or sell anything for a profit. The
addition of slave workers, who would work for free, also allowed the latifundia to harvest and
sell more crops, and set the price for crops at a lower, non-profitable price for the yeomen.
Because of this price lowering, yeomen were unable to make a profit and even pay off the taxes
on their land. Eventually, many of the yeomen had no choice but to sell their land and go to the
capital to find work. Yet, much of these proletariat farmers would not be able to find work, even
in the capital, due to the large amount of slaves. This caused the Republic to become further
burdened, not only by a growing sense of discontent among its own growing population of the
proletarian class, whom would try to scratch by and make a living; but also because of the
constant threat of slave revolts in the latifundia and the mines. (Burnstein) As Diodorus Siculus,
the Greek historian, stated in writing about the effects of the Sicilian slave revolts occurring in
135 BC, “…whereby many cities met with grave calamities, innumerable men and women,
together with their children, experienced the greatest misfortunes, and all the island was in
danger of falling into the power of fugitive slaves”. (Sources, 78) This quote really gives a
substantial view of what the universal fear was with any population of a large amount of slaves,
the slave revolts. Even, as Diodorus Siculus states, there was a danger that the slave revolts could
get out of hand and seize the whole island, later on though Siculus would describe details of the
revolt when it did come to taking over and dealing with the citizenry. Yet the language in this
quote does provide a clue as to how the Roman Republic felt about slaves and any slave revolt.
As time wore on and the problem grew worse due to the fact that the rich were becoming
accustomed to their lifestyle and what they viewed as a right within their place in the Republic;
the Senate would work not to address the issues, but to keep them in place so they could further
their own goals and ambitions, instead of the state’s. This conflict of interest between those more
concerned for the Republic’s lower class, and those more concerned with their own upper class
wealth led to a schism in the Senate and Assembly of people into two main “parties”, the

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Optimatus and the Populares, each who tried to change the Republic and further their own goals
through policy. The Optimatus was primarily ruled by those in the upper circles of the Republic
using the idea of social Darwinism, that only they had the “leisure to study and have good
judgment” in making key decisions. (Burnstein) On the other hand the Populares, formed by the
Gracchi Brothers, tried to change the Republic through non-violent means, by introducing a
variety of measures to counteract the Optimatus. When Tiberius Gracchus was appointed
Tribune he made himself a force for change that would endanger the way of life for the patrician
class that had long dominated the Senate and Roman society. Plutarch states in a biography of
Tiberius Gracchus a line said by Gracchus that really identifies to the situation most yeomen
were facing,
“The wild beasts that roam over Italy have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in. But
the men who fight and die…houseless and homeless they wander around with their wives
and children. And it is with lying lips that their imperators exhort the soldiers in their battles,
to defend sepulchres and shrine, for not a man of them has a hereditary altar…but they fight
and die to support others in wealth and luxury…they have not a single clod of earth that is
their own”
This quote said by Tiberius Gracchus shows really the plight of the proletariats and the
decreasing yeomen class, that even though they were wandering the streets of the capital, search
for jobs, searching for homes, searching for a way of life, they couldn’t have one. He then goes
back to saying that even though they didn’t own any of this land/wealth that they must have still
yearned for; they continued to fight for those who had it. They didn’t complain or try to reason
with the Senate by using their military contributions as the bargaining chip, but they continued to
fight. Yet even though there were people, like the yeomen and the proletariats who would fight
and commit themselves to Rome, the wealthy patricians continued to think about short-term gain
and their own wealth, not the “greater good” of the Republic.
He proposed laws that would redistribute the latifundia land that the oligarchs had held
for so long into plots of land that the proletariats, a growing free, but poor, class, could then use
to farm and begin to support the Republic once again. This would have, in effect, changed the
landscape of the Republic more to one where its citizens would continue to support the Republic
as a whole. However, the patrician class would’ve had to give up not only the large tracts of land
for their latifundia, but also the wealth that would’ve come with the extravagant lifestyle they

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had grown accustomed to. So, when Tiberius Gracchus sought to be reelected as Tribune for
another term, the Senators took this as a sign that he was trying to hold onto power and thus
change the fabric of the Republic that had benefitted those who sought their own self-interests.
Soon after, he was killed along with many more of his followers in a massacre orchestrated by
the Senate. After his brother, Gaius Gracchus came to power and tried to improve conditions for
the proletariats by allowing them to buy grain at a lower price; the patricians took this as a sign
of more unwanted change and killed him as well, along with his followers.
While the Gracchi brothers could have ended up essentially “saving” the Republic with
the various reforms that they introduced, the self-minded views of the patrician class in the
Senate set the Republic’s values and beliefs behind those of the wealthy. Furthermore, the killing
and assassination of both Gracchi brothers proved to be a fatal blow to the Republic, telling the
Populares that no more could be done using policy and that force was the only other way to
triumph over the Optimatus. This led further to the supporting of two main generals, Marius and
Julius Caesar, within the Roman army who used a combination of intimidation and influence to
assure the goals of the Populares were met. Instead of responding in a manner that would work
towards a peaceful compromise in favor of the Populares, the Optimatus supported two more
army generals who would generally oppose those of the Populares. Although this eventually
failed, it did set a continuing tone of contention between the two sides of one where force is
always a means for policy, over discourse and compromise.
Furthermore, the defeat of both Optimatus generals by the Populares-backed army
factions led to the rise of a leader whose rule would be, in part guaranteed by the force of the
army who was loyal more to the leader, rather than Rome. This continued trend would eventually
spell out the downfall of the Republic to those who would try to dissent against the different
army generals and get caught in the middle. Whereas before the wars abroad there was a sense of
unity not only throughout the Republic through universal citizenship, but also throughout the
army of Yeomen, the sense that one could not depend on the Republic allowed these loyalties to
split apart and realign towards those who could use force to back up their political rule. The
Roman state was, in part founded through principles of the western tradition, such as the idea
that through reason one could draw conclusions, as well as the idea of civic participation and
dialogue. These were the same principles that allowed the Roman Republic to become a bridge
between the Empire and the Greek civilizations. These were the same principles passed on and

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held by Aristotle, and yet, the Roman Republic eventually didn’t follow these principles to the
core and thus became a Republic in name only.