Week 5: Daily Blog Day 7 – Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Daily Blog Day 7 – Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Question: Was Rome better off as an 'empire' than as a republic?

            Rome itself is a great and wondrous accomplishment. Starting as a republic, Rome flourished and as an empire Rome grew, but eventually fell. You can look at this situation two ways. The first is simply as a republic Rome was made great, so that today we learn about it in our history classes. Plus, in general, the republic had a good end result for Rome, and did not end the empire. On the other hand, as a republic Rome was lost as the republic brought a decline and then inevitable a fall. Consider for a moment, if Rome had stayed a republic, do you think it would have survived longer, possibly even to now, or would it also have ended like it did as an empire? Is there really any big of a difference if it ends this way or that? This brings me to my second way that we need to look at the Roman republic verses the Roman Empire. You can look at what each part brought to Roman and possibly all civilizations after that.  This includes the good and then the bad, or the pros and cons of each. As a republic, Rome was brought a balance, which probably became their greatest strength. At its best in 500 BC to 100 BC, the republic was based on the rule of law and a unwritten constitution. This unwritten constitution consisted of the three elements democracy, monarchy, and oligarchy. Also, as a republic Rome was not ruled by one man which does not necessarily go along with our idea of a republic. It had two annually elected Consuls. The Consuls were of the highest authority with complete veto power of the other; although, they could never rule for more than one year. This made nobody above the law. All of the roman citizens could vote too. On the other hand, we have the Roman Empire. This was based on one emperor with absolute power. This goes back to what we learned about Alexander the Great with power and how it corrupts, as well as, what I talked about in my last essay on the insane tyrants called the Julio-Claudians.  In the third century, there was a point of crisis in which the empire nearly collapsed, but it held together for another century and a half. You must remember all that it probably took to stay strong during that time. It must have helped having all of the strong willed, soldier emperors. In the end though, they did not reform the system so that new emperors would be better decided, so eventually weaker emperors gained power and Rome finally collapsed once and for all. Therefore, I believe that Rome was better off as a 

republic, but I feel like what happened had to happen for our world to be what we are today.

Sources:

http://www.historum.com/ancient-history/4266-roman-republic-vs-roman-empire.html