Roman Republic

The Roman Republic, known in Latin as *Res publica Romana*, was a period of classical Roman civilization that started with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy—traditionally set in 509 BC—and concluded in 27 BC when the Roman Empire was established after the War of Actium. Over this time, Rome’s influence grew from its local area to dominance across the entire Mediterranean.

Roman society blended Latin and Etruscan cultures, along with Sabine, Oscan, and Greek influences, particularly evident in its religion and gods. Its political system emerged around the same time as direct democracy in ancient Greece, featuring collective, annually elected magistrates overseen by a senate. Elections were held yearly, but the Republic was an elective oligarchy rather than a democracy, with a few powerful families controlling most high offices. Institutions evolved 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 early foes included Latin and Etruscan neighbors, as well as Gauls, who sacked Rome around 387 BC. After that attack, Rome conquered most of Italy within a century, becoming a major Mediterranean power. Its chief rival was Carthage, leading to three wars. Rome defeated Carthage at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC and soon became the ancient Mediterranean’s dominant force. It then undertook a series of difficult conquests, overcoming Philip V and Perseus of Macedon, Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire, the Lusitanian leader Viriathus, the Numidian king Jugurtha, Pontus’s Mithridates VI, the Gaulish chieftain Vercingetorix, and Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra.

At home, the Conflict of the Orders saw the patrician elite clash with the more numerous plebeians; this was resolved peacefully, with plebeians gaining political equality by the 4th century BC. The late Republic, starting in 133 BC, experienced intense internal strife, often described—though anachronistically—as a struggle between conservative *optimates* and reformist *populares*. The Social War, fought over citizenship and Roman dominance in Italy, escalated civil violence. Mass slavery sparked three Servile Wars. Domestic political violence, combined with powerful semi-autonomous generals, led to civil wars that destroyed the Republic. The first involved Marius and Sulla. A generation later, civil war erupted again in 49 BC between Julius Caesar and Pompey. Caesar won and was appointed dictator for life, but he was assassinated in 44 BC. His heir Octavian and lieutenant Mark Antony defeated Caesar’s assassins in 42 BC, then fell out, leading to Antony’s defeat alongside his ally and lover Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Octavian became Rome’s dominant figure, and the Senate granting him the title Augustus in 27 BC is widely considered 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 often views these accounts as quasi-mythological tales of an aristocratic coup within Tarquin’s family or a result of Etruscan occupation, not a popular uprising.

**Rome in Latium**

**Early Campaigns**

Traditional histories say Tarquin tried to regain the throne through the Tarquinian conspiracy (involving Brutus’s own sons), wars with Veii and Tarquinii, and a conflict with Clusium, but all failed. The Republic’s early wars were expansionist. Rome defeated the Sabines and nearby cities one by one, overcoming rival Latin towns at the Battles of Lake Regillus (496 BC), Ariccia (495 BC), Mount Algidus (458 BC), and Corbio (446 BC). However, it suffered a major loss at the Battle of the Cremera (477 BC) against the Etruscan city Veii, later avenged at the Battle of Veii (396 BC), when Rome destroyed the city. By this period’s end, 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, 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 were the Cornelii, Aemilii, Claudii, Fabii, and Valerii.