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The Roman Revolution

Conclusion: Failure of the Republic

Why had the Republic failed?

This is an unfair question because the Republic lasted for almost five hundred years, one of the longest runs for any government system. The more proper question would be why did the Republic succeed, especially when it was such a patch job?

But we humans are far more fascinated by the failings of the mighty than by their successes, and the problem of the fall of the Republic has occupied historians for hundreds of years. The causes are myriad and complex, and I shall not try here to sort the all out, but I'll list at least the more important factors.

One was the failure of the Senate. The Republic was, in its essence, the Senate, and in the crisis of the late Republic, the Senate proved itself unworthy. In the face of need for radical reform, it proved too conservative and unwilling to change. The example of citizenship for the Italian allies illustrates this.

Moreover, the Senate proved unable to provide great leaders when they were needed. The great figures of the late Republic were men who went outside the Senate for their careers. To set against them, one can find only Cicero, and he came much too late.

Also, the Senate failed to follow a consistent course. Opportunism and self-interest dominated, and as a body the Senate proved unable or unwilling to place the interests of the Republic foremost.

The crisis that put the Senate to the test, however, was not of the Senate's making. There were flaws in the Roman state, flaws that, once exposed, could neither be repaired nor hidden again.

Most notably, Rome was not protected against military dictatorship. Once the army got involved with politics, as an instrument for political ends, no one was able to get it out again. In the end, the army alone dicated the course of Roman politics, and that spelled the Republic's doom.

Connected with this was the use of political violence. Roman law and politics was unable to deal with the political gangs, the assassinations, the terrorism, the proscriptions. Starting with Tiberius Gracchus, the story of the Roman Revolution is in part the narration of the increasing reliance on force to achieve political ends. The end of that narrative covers a quarter century of almost unbroken civil war. Few political structures could survive that.