The Roman Republic: The Political History

Hi bros! Today, as I said, I'm wearing the history teacher's suit. (Well I'm actually just wearing a suit, because I don't really know what an history teacher's suit looks like...)

Anyway, Today's lesson is about the Roman Republic, a very important part the Roman history. It marks the beginning of the huge changes in Rome: political, cultural, economical and obviously territorial changes. The Republic lasted about half a millennium, so I'll just draw an overview as short as I can. Firstly, I'll speak about the Republic in a political aspect and then in a next article the territorial expansion.

Political history: 

After the expulsion of the last King of Rome (509 BC), the Republic was founded and a struggle for the control of power began between the two Roman social classes: the patricians and the plebeians.

- the patricians are members of a ruling class family group, called gens. 
- the plebeians are the other free citizens of Rome, the ordinary people, such as artisans and traders.

Social Hierarchy in the Roman Republic

Little explanations on this picture: senators are assimilated to patricians, and equites are middle class people, who have a big impact in the military life of Rome (they are like wealthy plebeians who ride horses at war and have a high military grade). I'm not talking about them because they are not playing a huge role in those conflicts.

In the early Republic, patricians took power and founded an oligarchy (power to an elite) ruled by the Senate, a council of patricians. None of the plebeians were represented in this presumed republic. After a multitude of conflicts and civil wars, plebeians obtained the right to be represented in a special council: the Plebeian Tribune, which had the power of veto over the acts of the Senate and the magistrates. The consul magistrates were the most powerful people in the Republic; they take care of the budget, the defense and other administration business and are two at sharing the title.

Take a look at this fantastic organization chart (with lots of arrows in many directions), which explains the institutions of the Republic.

In 133 BC, after a long time and many conflicts, all the free citizens of Rome were finally represented and had a real impact in the Roman political life, and thus Rome became one of the first Republic in World history (after Vaishali in India and Athens in Greece).

Nevertheless, this relatively fair political system got threatened in late Republic by internal unrest. In 1st Century BC, at least twelve civil wars and rebellions occured. Involving the slaves and the citizens of Rome (the Servile Wars), Rome and its Italian allies (the Social Wars) and the citizens of Rome themselves. 

All these troubles led to the ascension of Octavian and the foundation of the Roman Empire (27 BC).

Next time the territorial expansion of Rome and its explanation. 

Citations : 

images from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Roman_Republic) and google images