The Roman Republic Commits Suicide: A Cautionary Tale for America
Why Study Rome?
Americans have focused on comparisons between Rome and America twice in American history. The first time was during the period from before the Revolution to after the ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, when the founding fathers and others looked to the Roman Republic for ideas and inspiration on how to structure the new government. After the American Revolution, the founding fathers, having read the Roman authors detailing the collapse of the Roman republic, worried about internal threats to the survival of their new republic.
The second time was when the United States became a superpower, especially after WWII, and then again after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Commentators compared America to the Roman Empire at the height of its power. There was some discussion about how America becoming a permanent warfare state would affect democracy and civil society.
And now a third time. Have Americans and their leaders concluded that the costs of maintain global leadership and power are too high? That the creation of the global economy under American rules and protection is responsible for domestic economic problems including stagnant and declining incomes of many Americans while a small elite controlling and managing global corporations are becoming very rich? Will the resulting domestic political conflicts lead to fewer resources and lessened commitment to the global order America created? In short, can America, like Rome, be both a republic and a global power?
It is difficult to appreciate today how extraordinary was the Roman Republic. The city was governed for 500 years without a king or conqueror. Power was not concentrated in one person; leaders were elected. Nowhere else in the world, except in parts of Greece and overseas Greek cities, was there the idea of citizenship. Nowhere else could power be shared and transferred peaceably through elections. Nowhere else were conflicts resolved through compromise and according to rules of law. Nowhere, not even Athens, was more democratic, in terms of the percent of the male adult population who voted and the rights of citizenship.
Many of the American founding fathers read Roman historians. Roman historians generally praised Rome’s republic, its political structure, and its underlying civic and individual virtues. They condemned Rome’s subsequent emperors as tyrants and their society as corrupt. This learning had a profound effect on American political thinking and governmental institutions.
Historians like to write about the “decline and fall of the Roman Empire.” But of more historical relevance for the United States now is the last 100 years of the Roman Republic (146-49 BC). It was during this period that Roman legions, after the final destruction of Carthage, conquered western Europe and the Mediterranean world. The Republic created the Empire. But the consequences of these military victories undermined and then destroyed the Republic.
How did this happen? Could it have been avoided? What does this say about the relationship between becoming an imperial power, military power, internal security and liberty? How does being a global superpower impact domestic society and politics? Can a republic become a global superpower and survive as a republic? Are there any possible lessons to be learned from Rome’s experience?
The Suicide of the Roman Republic: The Building of Empire and the Projection of Military and Political Power
The Roman Republic did not "fall" or "collapse." It did not fail because of one dramatic event such as Julius Caesar and his legions crossing the Rubicon River in 49 B.C., invading Rome and later declaring himself Dictator. The Roman Republic weakened and then committed suicide, or was killed, over a long period of time.
Rome, like America, began its modern history by overthrowing a foreign king and declaring a republic. But even before, America had a long history of local self-government; the American Revolution was partly caused by England's attempt to impose more control on its American colonies. The subsequent republican government was partly modeled on Rome' republic. This is not surprising. Both countries were suspicious of concentrating power in one man and wanted to diffuse power. But not too far; both believed that political power and government offices should rest in the hands of a political elite with "civic virtue." Civic virtue included ideas about contributing to the common good, focusing on national interests, and gaining personal status by contributing to the welfare of the state.
Both republics were founded - their basic constitution and laws were written, representative institutions established - when both countries were agrarian societies based on landowning farmers.
The Roman Republic lasted approximately 500 years, If America's experience with self-government begins in the early 1600s, America has had some form of representative government for about 400 years.
One way Rome grew, as did America, was taking in immigrants, no questions asked.
In America, immigrants played a similar role. In both cases, citizenship was extended to the new sources of manpower.
For hundreds of years, republican Rome expanded by fighting local enemies on the Italian peninsula. The American equivalent was expanding across the American continent and avoiding overseas conflicts. Jefferson, who approved the Louisiana Purchase against his prior beliefs, said that America was creating "an empire of liberty."
All Roman male citizens, mostly land-owning small farmers, were liable to conscription. Armies were led by one or two elected consuls, who served for one year. The campaigning season was usually short, as soldiers had to return to their farms to harvest their crops.
The American version was local militas. In colonial times, all white males beween the ages of 16 and 60 were required to be members of local militas. Required time of active service was usually 30-60 days and militas only fought locally. They chose their officers. They could be activated if there was a local threat such as fighting Indians on the frontier or the British in the Revolutionary War. After the Revolution, Americans opposed the idea of a permanent standing army. Until December 7, 1941.
As Rome conquered surrounding towns and territories, some of them were given the choice of becoming subordinated allies. In exchange for some privileges, including local rule and citizenship rights for local elites, allies were expected to provide “auxillary” military forces to the Roman army. Rome drew on this expanding manpower pool. Often, in both the Republic and Empire, the number of auxillary troops were more or about the same as the number of soldiers who were Roman citizens.
Similarly, America did not treat purchased or conquered territory as colonies. Most of the existing population and new America settlers enjoyed the same rights as Americans in the original states. New states were formed with the same government structure and political rights as the older states.
After WWII, the United States, like Rome, was able to turn former enemies into allies. American and allied military forces were combined into military structures like NATO, dominated by the United States.
Rome and Carthage: The Beginning of a Superpower
As Rome became the dominant power in Italy, Carthage became the dominant economic and trading power in the western Mediterranean. Rome had an army but no navy; Carthage had a strong navy to protect its merchant ships and Mediterranean trade. Rome and Carthage had a long history of treaties and alliances with each other. They had different sphere of influence with no important geopolitical areas of conflict.
Rome and Carthage did come into contact in Sicily. Sicily was close to both Rome and Carthage, sat astride important shipping lanes in the Mediterranean, and was a source of grain for Rome. Both Rome and Carthage had city-state allies in Sicily, although most of Sicily was dominated by Carthage and the independent city-state of Syracuse. But Rome had recently completed its conquest of southern Italy. As allied troops demonstrated in World War II, Sicily was a convenient staging area for invading southern Italy. Carthage in Sicily and Rome in southern Italy were now only a few miles apart.
The Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage lasted off and on from 264 BC until 146 BC. The First Punic War was during 264-241 BC, the Second between 218-202 BC, and the Third between 149 and 146 BC. The climax was the Second Punic War, when Hannibal invaded Italy, defeated one Roman army after another, and threatened Rome and its Italian allies.
Carthage could only defeat Rome if they built an army, invaded Italy and threatened Rome. Rome could only defeat Carthage if they could build a navy and defeat the Carthaginian navy, thus clearing the way for Roman legions to invade North Africa and conquer Carthage.
Rome fought a life or death struggle against Carthage for the dominance of the western Mediterranean. Carthage was Rome’s equivalent of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Rome eventually triumphed over Hannibal and Carthage because of its ability to mobilize all of its citizen manpower supplemented by troops from Italian allies, appoint long-term commanders and officers, create a navy, and send its legions overseas. By the end of the Third Punic War, Rome was a strong military force in the Mediterranean world and could project its military over long distances.
In the period before the Punic Wars, Rome typically conscripted yearly enough men to fill two legions, about 10,000 men. The size of this force was sometimes doubled by military quotas Rome imposed on its Italian allies. During the Second Punic War, large Roman armies were annihilated again and again by Hannibal and had to be rebuilt. At the battle of Cannae, it is estimated that the Roman army had 80,000 men (and over 60,000 of them were killed by Hannibal's forces). By the end of the Second Punic War, the Roman army had an estimated 100,000 men. From then on, Roman legions would fight and be stationed throughout the Roman Empire. Throughout the period of the Roman Empire, Rome tried to maintain a permanent standing army of over 200,000 men. This put economic and administrative strains on Rome that Rome's tax system and republican institutions found it difficult to manage.
A rough analogy might be America between its entrance into World War I (1917), World War II, and the Cold War with the Soviet Union until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Rome as a Superpower
Again, almost all of the Roman Empire was conquered while Rome was still a republic. The "Roman Empire" as a form of government substituted monarchical rule for a combination of oligarchy and representative democracy.
In the last 100 years of the Roman Republic, from the end of the long war with Carthage to Julius Caesar establishing a dictatorship in 49 BC, Roman legions and auxillaries conquered Spain, France, the Lowlands, North Africa, the Balkans, Greece and Macedonia, Turkey and Asia Minor to the Black Sea, and most of the eastern Mediterranean as far as Syria. In the middle of these conquests, Rome fought a major civil war with its Italian allies. These conquests brought great wealth to Rome, with serious domestic political consequences.
Roman legions often fought more than one war at the same time. Conquests and pacification often took many years, sometimes decades. Rome needed a much larger army able to campaign for long periods of time and permanently occupy distant territories. Short-term conscripted citizens were replaced by long-term professionals, who signed up for as long as 20 years. The Roman army transitioned from a conscripted militia of short-term citizen soldiers to a well-trained, well-equipped permanent force of professional soldiers and officers. As did the American army after Vietnam.
Rome’s antiquated tax system had difficulty paying for the greatly expanded costs of the army. New legions were sometimes financed by private individuals, usually from the patrician class (Marius, Pompey, Caesar), to further their ambitions and power.
Legionnaires were often loyal to their general, not Rome, and expected to be rewarded with booty, bonuses and land. Conquered territories were often considered power bases for the general and his legions that conquered them.
Later in the Empire, Roman legions were increasingly used to patrol and defend frontiers. The most important frontiers were far from Rome - the Rhine River, the Danube River, and roughly the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers in Syria and Iraq. Two thousand years later, American troops fought and stood guard along some of the same frontiers.
Domestic Consequences of the Empire
The new wealth and the military needs of the Empire weakened the foundations of the republic. The patrician class of senators and their clients seized much of the increased wealth, first as military commanders receiving much of the immense booty. After a province was established, the Senate appointed provincial governors and staff from their own ranks. This was another opportunity to get rich quickly. Some of this private wealth was spent back in Rome to buy power and influence. Senators and ambitious politician/generals used bribery, gangs, assassination and patronage to control and manipulate the Roman population and their popular assembles and elections.
As earlier in the Republic, private influence was also gained by sponsoring public buildings, lavish games, spectacles, and entertainment for the increasing population of Rome; this was a common way to gain influence with the volatile mobs and plebs in the streets. But now the elites also enjoyed “conspicuous consumption,” a new level of luxury.
During this transition period, there was an explosion of population of Rome, going from about 200,000 to one million in about 50 years. Many of the new residents were the poor and dispossessed, first from Italy and then from all parts of the Empire. Many were slaves. But the Roman government did not create new institutions to govern or manage the larger city and its unemployed. Wealthy elites were seen as venal and corrupt. Demagogues arose to articulate plebeian anger and frustration.
Rome was able to provide security along trade routes and sea lanes. More long-distance trade was made possible by the increased security of the Mediterranean world. Rome increased its imports of grain and other products to feed its growing urban population. Rome’s wealthy upper-classes imported luxury goods.
Local citizen farmers found it increasingly difficult to compete with the cheaper imported grain and other agricultural products. Many went into debt and lost their farms. Wealthy patricians were able to seize much of this land. Dispossessed farmers drifted into Rome and other cities, joined the army as professional soldiers, or became tenant-farmers or laborers on the landed estates of the wealthy. Patricians increasingly used slaves to work their plantations. It is likely that this new wealth and income was concentrated in the hands of a small group, mostly patrician clans.
The Empire and the new Roman “global economy” created new opportunities for a class called publicani. The Roman government “outsourced” much of the economic and financial management of the Empire to the publicani. This group of imperial merchants and moneylenders grew rich handling long-distance trade, collecting taxes in the provinces, supplying the army, and managing the Empire’s finances. Government contracts were given to influential senators, who subcontracted to their publicani clients. Primitive limited liability corporations were created to spread risk.
As this concentration of power and wealth played out, the hard-won political privileges and power the plebeian classes gained earlier were eroded. Successful generals dominated the Senate and had themselves elected consuls for long periods of time or dictators (rulers with extra-legal authority).
The link between Rome’s citizens and citizen army was broken. Generals pursued personal glory and power through military conquest. Ambitious patricians and newly-wealthy generals financed the creation of new legions. Professional soldiers were recruited from the lower classes and the provinces. Politician/generals such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Julius Caesar used wealth and booty captured in military campaigns to reward their legions and buy political power and influence when they returned to Rome. Legions, far from Rome, shifted their allegiance from Rome to their commanders. Roman legions loyal to one general fought wars against Roman legions loyal to another general. Successful generals became consuls or dictators with emergency powers. This dynamic reached its climax when ambitious generals like Sulla and Julius Caesar committed the ultimate treason to the Republic by marching their legions into Rome and seizing power. After more fighting among legion armies, Caesar’s adopted successor, Octavian (later named Caesar Augustus) became the first emperor in all but name. In an act of historical symbolism, Augustus ordered his thugs to kill Cicero, the great republican orator. The Republic was dead.
The End of the Roman Republic
Octavian (Caesar Augustus) did not destroy the institutions of the Roman Republic. He finished “hollowing” them out, completing the process began by his uncle Julius Caesar and Caesar’s predecessors (Marius and Sulla, Caesar's former commander).
Augustus was able to do this with a minimum use of violence but only after 13 years of warfare and the elimination of political rivals and defenders of the Republic. The Senate and elected magistrates continued to exist but were totally subservient to Augustus. He wrote the laws. Caesar Augustus, not the Senate, appointed the generals and provincial governors who ruled the empire. He named his successor. The Senate lost all domestic political power.
Augustus curtailed citizen rights, especially the right to free speech and dissent. He punished anyone who had the courage to criticize him. He was above the law and any legal constraint.
In summary, during the last decades of the Roman Republic there was a breakdown of a sense of community, political compromise and sharing power and responsibilities, and “civic virtue.” Rome’s republican institutions were not strong enough to stand up to the new opportunities for personal power and wealth presented by military success and the creation of conquered territories.
The Roman people were tired of decades of internal violence and political chaos. Augustus promised a return to the “domestic tranquility” destroyed by the creation of the Roman Empire. He attempted to legislate traditional morality and republican virtues to a society dominated by a wealthy elite, a society that was no longer republican. He failed.
American and Rome
Remember, Roman, that it is yours to lead other people. It is your special gift.
Virgil, The Aeneid
We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.
Former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
Later Roman historians and commentators lamented the passing of the Republic and its grounding in ideals of civic virtue, citizenship, law, checks and balances of political power, and popular elections. Both Rome and America thought they could erect political and legal institutions to contain selfish behavior dangerous to the republic. James Madison, a keen student of the history of the Roman Republic, was acutely aware of this problem when he wrote and submitted the first draft of the Constitution. Madison, like the other “founding fathers,” believed that survival of the new republic depended on the “civic virtue” of its citizens, exemplified by Washington. But Madison also knew, from reading Roman history and his experience in American politics, that he could not count on future American leaders to be as virtuous and selfless. So he constructed the Constitution, with its separation of powers, to protect the republic from tyrants, oligarchs, and demagogues with unbridled ambition. He also supported the Bill of Rights to protect individuals from the arbitrary power of the state. Or a man who wanted to be an emperor.
In Rome’s case, military and political expansion, the increased wealth of the powerful political elite, and personal ambition overwhelmed the republican institutions of Rome.
I doubt if anyone considers the U.S. military a threat to democracy. But there are other effects. One is that American foreign policy makers, like those of Rome, rely heavily on the use of military power to solve problems. They ignore the lessons about the limits to military superiority found in the American Revolution and Vietnam. Military victory can unleash local resistance and “endless wars,” the kind Rome fought along its many frontiers.
And the cost. Because the U.S. attempts to project global power, the U.S. military is expensive, the largest single item in the federal budget. (Maintaining Rome’s legions was the largest item in Rome’s budget.) This year’s military budget is around $900 billion; total national security costs over $1 trillion a year. American politicians and taxpayers refuse to pay the price of global power. Instead, this year, and in many prior years, the cost of the military was paid for with borrowed funds. The size of the national debt grows. The United States is financing its military and foreign power with a credit card. Many of the lenders are foreign institutions, including foreign governments.
America may not be able to managed its accumulated debt in the future. The national debt is growing larger, and faster than the economy, because of the government’s continuing inability to tax Americans to pay for both domestic welfare and global military dominance. This may be Paul Kennedy’s “imperial overstretch.”
The second concern is the new definition of national security. National security now includes “homeland security.” Domestic security policies challenge individual privacy and liberties, the rule of law, and civil liberties. Again, these are fundamental to the functioning of American democracy.
Republic and Empire
Could Rome be both a republic – could it keep its republican institutions and civic virtues – and an imperial power? Can America? In Rome’s case, the answer was no. Its republican institutions were too weak, weakened by incessant civil war and a newly wealthy elite taking power away from citizens, plebs, and their tribunes. So far, in America’s case, the answer is yes, but with significant changes to its government and stresses to its society. There is rising domestic opposition to the costs and burdens of being a global military and economic power. But then, the Roman Republic lasted for about 500 years and was an expanding military power over much of this period. The resulting western Roman Empire lasted for another 450 years and the eastern part (Constantinople) another 1,000 years after that. The American imperium only began in 1945, a mere 76 years ago. It is too early to answer the question.
But we can ask how well America has managed its role as a world power and what are the risks to that power. The history of Rome may provide some clues. Maybe we can learn to avoid some of Rome’s mistakes. Maybe we can learn from some of Rome’s more successful policies. Even if comparisons are highly tentative and imperfect, this exercise might give us different perspectives on American power.
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Cicero was the last great defender of the Roman Republic. Here he is denouncing the generals, patricians and demagogues who were subverting the Republic. In his view, they were committing treason against the republic. Cicero was proscribed (declared an outlaw with a bounty on his head), hunted down and murdered by a Caesar Augustus assassination squad.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
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