The Roman Republic and Roman Imperial System as Governments in Rome
The words “republic” and “imperial” inspire very skewed ideas within modern Americans, who tend to concentrate of social differences and assume that a Republic is always fair, carries out perfect justice, and sticks to a social contract, while an imperial system is brutal, heartless, and overall tyrannic. However, reading the history of Rome tells us that the transition from a republic to an imperial system caused many things to change and yet fundamentally many things did not change.”Several factors distinguished the Roman Republic from the Roman Empire, including the function of the government itself, the armies, and the social environments.
The biggest functional difference among the late republic and early imperial governments was basically that the republic could not regulate the large empire and the imperial system was able to. One main issue raised by the Roman republic’s size was that it could not control the army which caused multiple civil wars and led to political assassinations. In contrast, centralized power held by an emperor along with a smaller personal army was essentially enough to keep the military in check.”A republic might be presumed to have a more peaceful foreign policy, but in reality both the republic and the imperial governments were involved in savage wars of conquest. In fact, most expansion of the Roman Empire happened as a republic. ‘Rome was an empire long before it was imperial’ (Nish, 2005, para. 3). ”
However, political participation could be the difference that the modern onlooker might consider between an imperial system and a republic. ‘While it is true that the ‘common man’ had more political power under the Republic the reality was that in both systems it was really only a select few who had the true political power. The real irony may arise from the fact that the imperial system had times when it acted far more in the favor of the ‘common man’ than the Republic ever did’ (Nish, para. 4). While this statement is true, the standard ancient Roman citizen was in fact either a slave or a woman, and had no political power regardless.
Despite the social similarities, the two forms of government are certainly different.
The Roman Republic ran off of a collection of documents that collectively acted as a constitution similar to what America has today. Their constitution had multiple details meant to prevent tyrannic rule and a basic system of checks and balances. It is renowned for its specific term limits and collegiality, in which each office was shared by at least two people. Romans held this constitution as almost holy for the majority of the Republic and parts of the Imperial era because it was considered the reason why Rome had become so dominate. However, the Roman Republic functioned more as an oligarchy than a republic. The Senate held its power mainly because it was the only permanent form of government. Also it was the one body where debate was allowed. Executively, the government was run by a set of elected magistrates (Staff, 2009, para. 4). Most importantly were the two Consuls, who had the power to head armies, introduce legislation, and basically were the head of government. Some other positions included the Censors; who took the census, the Praetors; judges, and the Tribunes; who were supposed to protect the lower classes from the higher classes (Nish, 2005, para. 8). The Romans realized that in an emergency their republic might be rendered incompetent; so they created an emergency position, the dictator, who could be elected for six months and constitution would be suspended for that time.
At this time there was a small group of very rich and the rest of the citizens of Rome divided into basically two social class. This divide in the social structure of Rome caused two major political schools of thought to rise. The Optimates were republican conservatives representing the fleeting concerns of the higher-ups, and the Populares were basically populist reformers. Tensions between the two increased as issues stemmed from Rome’s rapid expansion. This, along with the decreasing ability of the Senate to control the military, lead to several civil wars that ultimately resulted in Augustus becoming Rome’s first emperor (Wasson, 2016, para. 18).
The imperial system of government started by Augustus is recognized for ‘being able to guise an authoritarian dictatorship behind a quasi-constitutional framework’ (Nish, 2005, para. 12) The way he gained power was by moving power from assemblies to the senate, stacking the senate with his own supporters, then having the senate decide to elect him as emperor for life. Also the imperial system had a small personal army called the Praetorian Guard. This army was allowed to function in Rome, which was a first for the militaries. The imperial age can roughly be divided between the Principate, and the Dominate (Nish, 2005, para. 13). Principate emperors called themselves ‘princeps,’ or first citizens, rather than describing themselves as something similar to an emperor, while Dominate emperors called themselves kings.
Conclusion
Despite these differences both of these governmental systems were distinctly Roman inventions. The republic design can be found throughout history, even in modern day America. Separately, the two Roman governmental systems had their own ways of prospering. Together, these systems constructed a distinctly Roman age. The Roman Republic government was almost fool-proof with systems in place to prevent corruption, however this very corruption in the form of Augustus is what formed the imperial system. Each form of government functioned well; ultimately one could not be considered superior to the other. The change in times and rapid expansion on Rome forced the government to adapt and change to keep up.