How Rome Turned from Republic into Empire

Classical Republic

Roman transition from Republic into Empire begun with Punic Wars and ended with Ceasar's coup, his death and later Augustus's consolidation of power.

People often pay little attention to what Rome was before Punic Wars, but it was this period that Romans themselves understood as normal and natural state of their society. Without understanding this period, it is not possible to understand Rome. 

Early Rome was a city state, one among many other city states in what is now southern Greece and Italy. It that regard it was much like Greek Athens or Delphi. Each such city state was in various ways different from its neighbors, but all of such city states had certain traits in common that set them apart from say Persians or Egyptians, whose societies were organized in a fundamentally different non-city state way.

City states were fundamental building blocks of such society. Each would have a distinct body of citizenship, their own institutions, laws, elected or otherwise offices and so on. However, such city states would exist in a sort of international community where they would have diplomatic relationship with other city states, forming various international organizations, such as Achaean League or Italian Foederati for pursuit of their interests.

In that regard they were similar to modern 1st world countries. Foederati or Achaean League were very similar to modern day NATO. Much like then there are differences between say the United States and Estonia, but they still have more in common compared to say China.

Map of these times like to depict Rome as in control of southern Italy but that is misleading. Rome did not rule over all this places in the same manner a modern Italy would. Instead, they were Roman Foederati. They paid Romans tribute and Rome in exchanged guaranteed their security and would interfere to defend them should an outsider invade them. That is how they got in war with Cartage in the first place. 

Siracuse (then a city state) decided quit Cartage security network and join the Roman one instead. Rome sure welcomed a new client as that meant more money for them. Cartage however saw Siracuse and whole Sicily is their sphere of influence and wanted it to stay this way. 

Cartage did try to reach a demarcation agreement with Rome where they would each stay out of their agreed upon spheres of influence and lock city states in each area into paying security racket money (tribute) to one or the other side, but Romans refused.

Punic Wars that triggered Change

War over whom Siracuse owes protection money ended up much larger than each side originally anticipated. To cover the cost, victorious Romans imposed a high reparation of Cartage to cover these costs. Romans also took Sicily as their sphere of influence, after all city states there would rather pay tributes to winners than to losers, it's safer this way. 

To cover these costs Cartage decided to abandon the whole security rachet business, fire all the soldiers they had less those needed to guard the city of Cartage itself and instead focus on their traditional business, trade and colonization. 

Needless to say, such turn of events upset Carthaginian military. Now unemployed and poor they vowed revenge in Rome which they attempted without agreement with Carthaginian government. The resulting Second Punic war was even more brutal than the first one. Ultimately Romans once again prevailed but they had countless of angry clients to deal with aftermath. 

Other Italian city states paid Rome for security and that meant keeping their farms and cities safe and undestroyed. That Rome failed to do as Hannibal was only defeated after he destroyed pretty much everything of value in Roman client states. To compensate their clients and restore their protection business Rome once again imposed reparations of Cartage as well as restrictions on military.

Transitional Expansionist Rome

However, after Second Punic War Roman thinking begun to evolve. During Second Punic War Romans fought not just in Italy Sicily and Cartage itself but this time also in Spain. In Spain they saw not the city states they were accustomed to but rather colonial possession of Cartage that Cartage cleverly exploited. That was the secret of Carthaginian wealth and Romans wanted the same. 

At the end of Second Punic War Rome took Spain from Cartage. That made Rome wealthier. Most important however it gave Rome a source of wealth alternative to the money they got form Foederati and Rome wanted to exploit it. They started thinking that other areas around them can have such wealth somewhere, so they decided to sponsor military expeditions to these areas.

Thus, begun expansionist transitional stage of Roman history. With that Rome begun to expand in every direction imaginable. First Gaul (modern North Italy and France), later Greece then Anatolia and eventually the crown jewel of Roman Empire crown, Egypt.

In this state Rome was constantly evolving and changing. New provinces kept adding more and more wealth and diversity to live. Romans finally understood that city states and their relationships were not all there was to life. Other places live differently, and Rome had to adopt to work with that if they were to benefit from wealth there.

Traditional commitments to Foederati were becoming increasingly unimportant in a greater scale of things. New provinces were much more wealthy than Italian city states. Relationship with Foederati continued, however.

However new provinces demanded ever increased military and political attention. Unlike Foederati they did not govern themselves, so Romans had to govern them on their own. 

Unlike Foederati city states or even Rome itself, Romans would govern provinces in an authoritarian manner. A Senate appointed military governor would control both civilian and military affairs in any given province.

Romans did not put too much thought into how to govern and simply game military all the authority. A decision that would come to bite them later on. However, in their defense, in the world of city states no one had any ideas on how to govern anything beyond a city state. All governance was limited to a city state level.

There were some areas like Judea and Egypt where Romans at first worked with local rulers, but eventually Rome assumed direct rule. More often that happened due to local governance collapse rather than due to Roman willful abolition of their rule.

It was this era that eventually culminated in a huge red map where Rome is shown in control of all of the Mediterranean and half of Europe. That map too is misleading. It does not mean that everything in red lived just like Rome itself. Far from it. Roman law, its rules, sophisticated political system and way of life never extended beyond the city of Rome itself. Some semi-balance of international law existed south of Rubicon River in Italy but north of it was mostly a martial law meets law of the jungle.

Romans never saw a need to expand its way of life to provinces. They saw provinces as nothing more than source of wealth and slaves for their city state society in Rome itself. In that regard you can compare Rome relationship with provinces to Spain's relationships with its numerous colonies. However, Romans were much more exploitative that Spanish ever were. 

How Expansion Changed Rome

However, all this expansion eventually begun changing Rome itself. Province and military that ruled it became increasingly more and more important. Military governors and their legions controlled ever increasing wealth and played ever increasing role in Roman society. That role was far greater than Roman Republic originally envisioned. With the wealth they controlled they were nearly more powerful that Republic itself

Eventually Roman Senate itself started to realize that a few individuals who made it big in the provinces gradually evolving from heroes who brought Rome wealth and fame into a threat to Roman society and political system. 

By the late Republic Rome needed provinces more than provinces needed Rome. A few powerful warlords from provinces carved spheres of influence and formed triumvirates to control Roman society from shadows. Senate was increasingly concerned with safety of the republic system but at the same time increasingly powerless to do anything about them.

End of the Republic

Eventually a concerned Senate decided to revoke a rule of a certain governor of Gaul and ordered him to return to Rome, surrender command of his legions and resume civilian life. One governor against the whole Rome. There is nothing one can do in his situation or is it. 

Nonetheless, after some hesitation on the banks of Rubicon River, the governor took the gamble and defied this order. 

That governor was of course Julius Ceasar, and he delivered Roman Senate a rude awakening on the level of real power they now possess.

Sure, Ceasar won the resulting civil war and installed himself dictator, but that was not the most revolutionary thing he did. There were other dictators for life who did rule for a time but eventually either died or sometimes surrendered their power and Rome returned to being a republic again.

What Ceasar did differently was managing public support. Ceasar used was wealth he acquired in Gaul to win over Roman public. Ceasar used his wealth to organize feasts and entertainment for Roman public for free.

With average Romans (plebians) behind him Ceasar was much more powerful than any dictator before him. Ceasar backed candidates would win every single publicly elected office there was, including vaunted Public Tribune who could veto Senate's decisions. Ceasar got his aide Mark Anthony elected to this office and he used to block anything that his boss did not like. Mark Anthony filibustered Senate until they agreed to make Ceasar sole Consul, Dictator for life and Pontifex Maximus (in charge of religion). That was like adding insult to injury.

In a futile attempt to restore republic Senators assassinated Ceasar, but they could not destroy the political machine Ceasar has created. Mark Anthony and Ceasar's heir Octavian Augustus simply inherited the political machine and used it with the same efficiency. 

Augustus even refined it, so it produced better outcomes without as little outrage as possible. Unlike Ceasar Augustus opted to not elect himself to all these offices, but simply staff them with loyalists just like Ceasar did to Public Tribune office to preserve a facade of the republican rule.

However, in reality it was Augustus who held all the strings. After Augustus defeated Mark Anthony, his unilateral autocratic rule was complete. Rome became an autocratic military dictatorship.

I will write about Roman Empire in a separate article.