A History of Rome
A History of Rome
Rome was originally established as a small city state which showed great promise for becoming a dominant force in the Mediterranean. With a strong Republican government which provided fair and efficient institutions that gave all Romans a voice in politics, as well as a powerful, well- consolidated army, and many resources that provided for a prosperous economy, Rome had just the right ingredients to accomplish this task. However, a large regional state was the limit to what Rome’s republic could handle efficiently. As a regional state, it had a hard enough time reaching constitutional compromises between the different social classes. As a sprawling empire it wouldn’t be feasible to allow enough constituencies a voice in the government to prevent crippling class tensions. For hundreds of years different rulers toyed with different ideas of designing a political structure that would maintain the empire.
Indeed their efforts kept the empire alive for a long time, but its deafening flaws couldn’t be concealed forever and they would eventually cripple Rome. The inevitable truth was that someone’s interests were always left out in Roman government policy. The Roman masses, the commoners and slaves that made up the workforce would always wind up suffering at the expense of the wealthy classes. They would take refuge in monotheistic religions, especially Christianity, which gave the commoners hope that by devoting themselves to god and not immoral Emperors they would someday rise above their current situations. As more and more plebes became Christians, the workforce which was the backbone of Roman economy began to die out. Similarly, ambitious generals lost their loyalty to the Emperor and began pursuing their own interests causing disunity in the army. All these factors promoted the “internal bleeding” of the Roman empire. This caused the empire to break up and made it externally defenseless, eventually leading to foreign invasion.
As Rome continued to grow, the discrepancy of wealth between social classes continued to widen. Rome would conquer lands and distribute them to wealthy aristocrats who would then organize them into huge plantations called latifundia. These would drive small farmers in the area out of business and force many into slavery.
The Gracchi brothers were one of the few voices in Roman government that represented the interests of these lower classes. Though, they soon found out the immense difficulty in bringing just social reforms as they hit a brick wall...