by Scott Powell

In the previous installments in this series we looked at the rise of the Athenian Democracy, the dramatic episode of the execution of Socrates that illustrates democracy's tragic flaw, and then the rise of the Roman Republic, whose government implemented a novel and invaluable principle -- the protection of individual rights.

In this final chapter of our story of the Ancient world's two greatest cities and their governments, our unpleasant but instructive task is to trace the decline and fall of the Roman Republic. 
This story is a powerful reminder of what a republic is, and how difficult one is to maintain -- a lesson imminently applicable to American life here and now.

In 494 BC, as we saw, the Roman plebeians wrenched special protections from government's power from the unwilling hands of the patrician aristocracy.  Henceforth, all citizens of Rome would be protected from the arbitrary use of force by the government against the people. The plebeian tribunes would now act solely in the capacity of protecting rights.  (Today, the same functions are performed in the far more articulated and complementary roles of police officers, defense attorneys, and judges.)

Subsequent to Rome's first great step forward, it became evident that the protection afforded by the tribunate was too limited.  So the plebeains agitated for greater measures to secure rights.  After a second secession, the plebeains obtained a written code of laws -- the famous Twelve Tables, and during the same period, the powers of the tribunes were expanded to allow them to veto the creation of laws or the acts of the patrician government before they could go into effect.  This blanket power -- like the veto of the American president today -- created another barrier between the people and potential tyranny.

Class distinctions slowly eroded due to the commercial growth of Rome, and the Lex Canuleia of 445 BC was passed to permit the intermarriage of plebeians and patricians. Finally in 367 BC, participation in the executive power of the government was made available to plebeians as well, as they earned the right to occupy the consulship, which along with the tribunate, represented one of the pinnacles of political power in Rome.  (Tribunes and consuls tended to balance each others powers. Consuls functioned as heads of state, leading the government in creating and executing the laws, whereas tribunes could stop laws from coming into force and being enforced.)

At this point, sadly, political progress in Rome ceased, and a regressive trend began.  Starting about 405 BC, Rome began the career of conquest that would render it into the most powerful and important civilization of Ancient times.   Over the the next century and a half, Rome conquered Italy.  At first, it seemed as if the Romans had found a way to be both conquerors and patrons of progress.  The people of conquered cities were allowed to achieve full Roman citizenship by working their way up through a carefully crafted system of gradations in political rights.  (This is how it became possible for later champions of the Republic such as Cicero, who was not from Rome, to participate in the highest reaches of Roman government.)

But in 264 BC, Rome took a decisive turn for the worse.  It was at this point that the first Punic War against Carthage began, and it was at this point that the Romans began to abandon the idea of assimilating new people into their unique political system.  Having conquered Sicily from the Carthaginians, the Romans made it their first "province."  This meant that the people there would be ruled by Rome, not brought into the fold.  Roman governors, called "praetors," would be able to oppress the local citizenry at will, and Roman citizens would be able to purchase ever more slaves from among the conquered.

As Americans know all too well, slavery is incompatible with a republic.  Sadly, the Romans never learned this truth.  As they expanded their conquests to include the whole of the Mediterranean, slavery also expanded.  Then, just as slavery corrupted American culture in the South two millenia later, it corrupted Roman culture in the provinces.  The unjust treatment of provincials, and the brutality with which slaves were treated began to yield all kinds of political upheavals, of which the most famous is perhaps the slave risings led by Spartacus -- which was in fact the third such servile rebellion,  c.72 BC.

As the wars and civil conflicts resulting from the creation of an empire continued to mount, the Romans became desperate for the government to restore order to their lives.  Generals were entrusted with the command of  huge armies required to put down provincial and servile rebellions, and the more effective they were the more likely the Romans were to be drawn to their standard, when the bickering of politicians seemed to produce no results.

At the heart of every great leader's aspirations during the late period in the history of the republic thus featured the notion of rising to power through military exploits.  Julius Caesar, far from the being the first to do so, simply  proved to be the most able.  Allying with Pompey and Crassus to form the "First Triumvirate," he postured as a champion of the republic, while acting to achieve dictatorial powers for himself.  The Romans were seduced by his "glorious" conquest of Gaul, which he used to propel himself -- albeit briefly -- to nearly absolute power.

With Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic fell once and for all.  Nominally, the Republic survived until the Principate of Augustus, c.27 BC, and the Romans continued to refer to their government as a republic until the fall of the Roman Empire 500 years later, but in truth, the republic had withered away even before Caesar delivered the fatal blow.  The Romans had begun to abandon the idea that a government should protect the rights of its citizens 200 years before Caesar's rise, and the slow, torturous decay of their political culture by almost immeasurably small steps had ultimately taken its toll.

For Americans today, the fall of the Roman Republic should serve as a warning. Great civilizations do not always collapse by being conquered or destroyed by external enemies. Sometimes they slowly implode by their own people losing sight of the values that made them great. America, the first Republic of the modern world, was founded on the explicit defense of individual rights -- to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  The Founders had learned the lessons of Rome's rise and fall well, and created an even better government.   Now, however, Americans have largely forgotten not only Roman history but their own.  In other words, they have lost sight of some of the key values that made America great: knowledge of history, and the appreciation of the importance of individual rights that it fosters.  If we do not regain those values, our fate will be the same as Rome's.