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Lost power of the ancients5/17/2023 But it took a bloody civil war and a brutal campaign, in which he and his allies posted lists of their enemies names in the Roman Forum and quite literally paid for their heads to be delivered to them on spikes, before Rome returned to any semblance of stable leadership. His assassins were forced to flee the city and later take up arms against his allies.Īugustus would eventually emerge as Rome’s sole ruler. Caesar had been immensley popular, and his right-hand man, Mark Antony, played on his popularity to stoke public sentiment against his assassins. Their was some truth to their claim, of course, but in reality Caesar’s senatorial assassins had murdered Caesar to secure their own positions of power. Vincenzo Camuccini, the Assassination of Julius Caesar (1806) Eliminating a dictator who threatened to transform the Roman Republic into a Roman autocracy. The Death of Caesar the Rise of AugustusĪugustus’ propulsion into political life came in the wake of the assassination of his adopted father, Julius Caesar, in 44 BC.Ĭaesar’s body was not yet cold on the marble floor of Pompey’s Senate House when his assassins started claiming they had acted for the good of the Republic. Take the case of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus. The period from the end of the Repblic and beginning of the Empire (the turn of the 1st century BC – AD) furnished some paricularly violent transitions of power. And as the Roman Empire’s territory expanded, and its coffers grew fuller, so too did the stakes among those vying for its control. Why? Because it was individual generals and politicians (they were one and the same in Rome) that guaranteed their veterans their pensions – normally in the form of land. Secondly, the Roman army – the vehicle through which ambitious generals secured control over Rome – found itself increasingly loyal to individuals rather than the State. In reality, the big decisions were taken behind closed doors, over banquets and at social events. Superficially, Rome was fairly democratic: politicians would canvas and conduct their business in the public eye in the Roman Forum. The Republic’s many voting comittees, assemblies and colleges, where different social classes carried varyingly weighted votes, opened the way for corruption and meant that a small group of rivalling families were able to monopolize power for most of the Republican period. Transitions of power were rarely smooth in ancient Rome.įirstly, the Roman Republic operated on an electoral system so complicated that it makes the US Electoral College or British Parliament seem as sensible as they are logical.
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