The Roman Republic, where did it all go wrong?

[Kagemusha]

I would say that it was the Roman republic that killed "the republic". The republic failed to change itself into a institution that could have lead the growing area of Rome. The republic failed to understand that Rome had begun to be more then just city of Rome. So already when the Empire had been formed there really wasnt a Roman republic anymore. Rather just an oligarchy in city of Rome that treated the provinces as means of personal blunder. Unfortunately the same continued also during the reign of emperors. Basically the Romans were unable to shift their idea of Rome being a multinational empire from it being a city state at any point during their Empire and that was large part of their downfall.

[Reverend Joe]

I would say that it was the Roman republic that killed "the republic". The republic failed to change itself into a institution that could have lead the growing area of Rome. The republic failed to understand that Rome had begun to be more then just city of Rome. So already when the Empire had been formed there really wasnt a Roman republic anymore. Rather just an oligarchy in city of Rome that treated the provinces as means of personal blunder. Unfortunately the same continued also during the reign of emperors. Basically the Romans were unable to shift their idea of Rome being a multinational empire from it being a city state at any point during their Empire and that was large part of their downfall.

Yeah, that's what I came to understand from a class I took on the history of Rome -- granted, it was just one 200-level class, but the professor was damn good at what she did. In her opinion, it was a change of attitude after the subduction of the Samnites and allies that led to Rome's eventual downfall; until then, wars had been conducted for the purposes of defending Rome, but after the city came to dominate all of the Italian peninsula its leaders gained a taste for victory and expansionism. As a result, not only would they begin to focus on constant expansion of power, rather than maintaining the status quo as before, but Rome's citizen-soldiers ended up being sent away to war for years, rather than for seasons. The results of this are pretty complicated, but basically Rome lost its social stability.