Roman Republic

The **Roman Republic** was a period of Roman history from 509 BC to 27 BC, during which Rome was ruled by an aristocratic republic. In 509 BC, Lucius Junius Brutus led a revolution against the Etruscan-ruled Roman Kingdom after Lucius Tarquinius Superbus' son raped the Roman noblewoman Lucretia, and Brutus sacrificed his life in the defense of the nascent republic against a monarchist reaction at the Battle of Silva Arsia. The new republic was influenced by a mix of Latin, Greek, and Etruscan elements, with a Roman Senate annually electing two consuls to serve as heads of state, military commanders, and magistrates.

While Rome was inspired by Greek democracy, it created a new form of government, an oligarchic "republic", in which a small number of large families monopolized power in the government. Roman society was divided into these influential and aristocratic *patricii* and the common *plebes*, and the patricians dominated Roman politics for centuries, although the plebeians held representation through the office of the Tribune of the Plebs. The Republic's domination by powerful families and class antagonisms led to numerous civil wars and social and political crises, which would ultimately lead to the Republic's downfall in 27 BC and the rise of the Roman Empire.

The Republican era saw the start of Roman expansion beyond the city's immediate surroundings; by 300 BC, Rome was in control of the Latium region; by 270 BC, almost the entire peninsula (except for the lands of the Etruscan League in the north) was under Roman control. Rome annexed its Latin, Samnite, Etruscan, Italic, Gallic, and Greek neighbors over the next several decades, and, in 264 BC, Rome began its first war with another major power, Carthage, in the first of the Punic Wars.

By 220 BC, Rome had gained control of southern France, northern Italy, and Illyria, and, after the Second Punic War's end in 201 BC, Rome gained control of Hispania. Rome began to interfere in the affairs of other nations, defeating the Seleucids at the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC and creating the client state of Pergamon in Asia Minor. In 168 BC, the Romans conquered Macedon, followed by the destruction of Carthage and the conquests of North Africa and Greece in 146 BC. From 75 BC to 60 BC, the Romans also gained hegemony over the Levant and Anatolia, conquering much of eastern Asia Minor and creating vassal states in Pontus, Galatia, and Cappadocia; conquering Syria from the remnants of the Seleucid Empire, and turning Ptolemaic Egypt into a vassal state.

From 58 to 52 BC, the Roman general Julius Caesar conquered much of Western Europe in his Gallic Wars, adding France, the Low Countries, parts of Germany along the Rhine, and a portion of southern England to the Republic. He became powerful enough to form the First Triumvirate with the brilliant general Pompey (who had led the Roman campaigns in the east) and the wealthy politician Marcus Licinius Crassus, whose death at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC led to the Triumvirate's collapse. In 49 BC, when the Senate attempted to strip him of his army, Caesar and his loyal veteran legions invaded Italy, starting "Caesar's Civil War". Caesar's populist *Populares* fought against the conservative, pro-Senate *Optimates* under Pompey, and the Senate and Pompey were forced to flee to Greece after Caesar quickly took control of Italia. Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, after which Pompey fled to Egypt and was killed; Caesar then defeated Pompey's allies or client states across the Republic, and he was able to declare himself "dictator for life" in 44 BC, which was followed by Caesar's assassination on 15 March of that year.

Following Caesar's death, his right-hand man Mark Antony, his adoptive son Octavian, and his cavalry commander Marcus Aemilius Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to govern the country. In 36 BC, they defeated the last of the Pompeians under Pompey's son, Sextus Pompey, by invading Sicily and crushing Sextus' fleet at Naulochus. Shortly after Lepidus' defeat, the Triumvirate fell apart as Lepidus was deposed due to his insistence that his legions remain in occupation of Sicily, which Octavian claimed for his own portion of the Republic. This left Octavian in control of the western provinces and Antony in control of the eastern provinces, and the two men's old rivalry worsened as Antony fell under the spell of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, who convinced him to hand over Rome's eastern provinces once he died.

In 31 BC, after Antony's last wishes to be buried in Egypt and not Rome were publicized, Octavian declared war on Antony, defeating Antony and Cleopatra's navy at the Battle of Actium before besieging them in the Egyptian capital of Alexandria in 30 BC. Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide rather than surrender, and the Ptolemaic Kingdom, the last of Alexander the Great's successor kingdoms, was annexed to the Republic as the province of Aegyptus. Octavian was awarded with sole consular powers and credit for every Roman military victory (as his generals were assumed to be acting under his command), and, in 27 BC, he was granted the use of the name "Augustus", the title *Princeps* ("Prince"), and the title "Imperator Caesar", making him an Emperor. Although the Roman Senate continued to have nominal power, and Augustus was never formally a monarch, his accession to the title of "Imperator" marked the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.