The republic, indeed, was doomed. A hundred years of
dissension and civil warfare proclaimed clearly enough the failure of the old
order. Rome was a city-state suddenly called to the responsibilities of
universal rule. Both the machinery of her government and the morals of her
people were inadequate for so huge a task. The gradual revolution which changed
this Roman city-state into imperial Rome, judged by its results, is perhaps the
most momentous movement in the annals of mankind. Let us summarize its course.
A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION
In 133 B.C. Roman society had been corrupted and enfeebled
as the result of foreign conquests. The supreme power in the state more and
more tended to fall into the hands of a narrow oligarchy—the senatorial
nobility. Its dishonesty and weakness soon led to efforts at reform. The
attempts of the Gracchi to overthrow the Senate's position and restore popular
sovereignty ended in disaster. Then, in quick succession, arose a series of
military leaders who aimed to secure by the sword what was no longer to be
obtained through constitutional and legal means. Marius, a great general but no
politician, could only break down and destroy. Sulla, a sincere but
narrow-minded statesman, could do no more than prop up the structure-- already
tottering—of senatorial rule. Pompey soon undid that work and left the
constitution to become again the sport of rival soldiers. Caesar, triumphing
over Pompey, gained a position of unchallenged supremacy. After Caesar's death,
imperial power was permanently restored in the person of Octavian. The battle
of Actium in 31 B.C. made Octavian master of the Roman world.
THE FUTURE
But the Romans were not yet an old and worn-out people. On
the ruins of the old republican order it was still possible to build up a new
imperial system in which good government, peace, and prosperity should prevail
for more than two centuries. During this period Rome performed her real, her
enduring, work for civilization.
