Roman Republic

The Roman Republic (Latin: *Res publica Romana*) was the period of classical Roman civilization that began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally in 509 BC, and ended in 27 BC when the Roman Empire was established after the War of Actium. Over this time, Rome grew from controlling just its local area to dominating the entire Mediterranean world.

Roman society blended Latin and Etruscan cultures, along with Sabine, Oscan, and Greek influences—most evident in its religion and pantheon. Its political system, which emerged around the same time as direct democracy in ancient Greece, featured collective, annually elected magistrates overseen by a senate. Although elections were held yearly, the Republic was an elective oligarchy rather than a democracy, with a few powerful families largely controlling the top offices. Roman institutions changed significantly to meet challenges, such as creating promagistracies to govern conquered provinces and, after the Social War in the late Republic, granting citizenship and senate seats to Italians from the peninsula.

Unlike the Roman Empire’s Pax Romana, the Republic was almost constantly at war. Its earliest enemies were its Latin and Etruscan neighbors, as well as the Gauls, who sacked Rome around 387 BC. After that sack, Rome conquered most of Italy within a century and became a major Mediterranean power. Its greatest rival was Carthage, against which it fought three wars. Rome defeated Carthage at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC and, in the following decades, became the dominant force in the ancient Mediterranean. It then undertook a long series of difficult conquests, defeating Philip V and Perseus of Macedon, Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire, the Lusitanian leader Viriathus, the Numidian king Jugurtha, the Pontic king Mithridates VI, the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix, and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

At home, during the Conflict of the Orders, the patrician elite clashed with the more numerous plebeians. This was resolved peacefully, with plebeians achieving political equality by the 4th century BC. The late Republic, starting in 133 BC, saw intense domestic strife, often anachronistically described as a conflict between *optimates* (conservatives) and *populares* (reformers). The Social War between Rome and its Italian allies over citizenship and hegemony greatly expanded civil violence. Mass slavery also sparked three Servile Wars. Political violence at home, combined with powerful semi-autonomous generals, led to civil wars that broke the Republic. The first involved Marius and Sulla. After a generation, another civil war erupted in 49 BC between Julius Caesar and Pompey. Despite his victory and appointment as dictator for life, Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar’s heir Octavian and lieutenant Mark Antony defeated Caesar’s assassins in 42 BC, but then split, leading to Antony’s defeat alongside his ally and lover Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Octavian became the dominant force in Roman politics, and his receipt of the title Augustus from the Senate in 27 BC is often seen as the end of the Republic and the start of the Roman Empire.

**History**

**Founding**

Rome had been ruled by elected, lifetime monarchs chosen by the Senate. The last king was Tarquin the Proud, who, according to tradition, was expelled in 509 BC after his son Sextus Tarquinius raped the noblewoman Lucretia. The monarchy was supposedly abolished in a revolution led by the semi-mythical Lucius Junius Brutus, with the king’s powers transferred to two consuls elected for one-year terms, each able to veto the other. Modern scholarship views these accounts as quasi-mythological details of an aristocratic coup within Tarquin’s own family or a result of Etruscan occupation, not a popular revolution.

**Rome in Latium**

**Early campaigns**

According to traditional histories, Tarquin tried several times to regain the throne, including the Tarquinian conspiracy (involving Brutus’s own sons), wars with Veii and Tarquinii, and a war with Clusium. These attempts failed. The Republic’s first wars were expansionist. Rome defeated the Sabines and local cities one by one, overcoming rival Latin cities at the Battles of Lake Regillus (496 BC), Ariccia (495 BC), Mount Algidus (458 BC), and Corbio (446 BC). However, it suffered a major defeat at the Battle of the Cremera (477 BC) against the Etruscan city of Veii, later avenged at the Battle of Veii (396 BC), when Rome destroyed the city. By the end of this period, Rome had conquered its immediate Etruscan and Latin neighbors and secured itself against nearby Apennine hill tribes.

**Plebeians and patricians**

From the revolt against Tarquin through the early Republic, Rome’s patrician aristocrats dominated politics and society. They initially formed a closed group of about 50 large families, called *gentes*, who monopolized magistracies, state priesthoods, and senior military posts. The most prominent families were the Cornelii, Aemilii, Claudii, Fabii, and Valerii.