Julius Caesar’s death included twenty-three brutal senators, an apparent close friend that turned out to be an enemy, a community that loved their leader, and a whole lot of power. Julius Caesar was the most powerful figure in the history of the Roman Republic, and at the time was gaining unlimited power. Caesar gained so much power, that he was being considered as the “King of Rome”. Power became the key to life in Rome, and the Senate was frightened by Caesar’s tremendous amounts of power. Due to this fear, they began to plot a plan to bring down Caesar.
The term, mos maiorum, which is the “way of the elders”. The Romans believed that old rituals turn out to be good things. The term res nouge means new, which to Romans means a dangerous way. The first Brutus lived in 509 BC, was the cousin of the king, and had a major sex scandal with a woman named Cucricia. During this time, there was a party that all of the wives went to. All of the husbands of the wives were discussing who had the best wife. There was an attempt to prove who had the best and they saw Cucricia not attending the party and tending to her husband’s needs at home.
They found her to be the best wife due to the fact that she was very loyal to husband. Tarquinius lusts for her and attempts to force sex upon her. She refuses yet, if she did not than, he would have killed her and revealed that she slept with a slave, which would bring dishonor to her name. After, she contacts Brutus, Collotinas, and her father claiming that she was raped and decides to kill herself. Due to this, Brutus dethrones Tarquinius as king and claims that there will “never be a King of Rome again. ” The Second Brutus was a close friend of Julius Caesar, the arm of Gaul.
Caesar was a man with many significant virtues such as, dignitas, popularis, and virtus. As Caesar began to gain significant power, Brutus was afraid, and agreed with the senate of creating the idea of bringing down Caesar. Brutus became the head conspiracy of killing Caesar for having too much power. The twenty-three senators surrounded Caesar, and when Caesar died he died with twenty-three stabs representing that each senator got to kill part of him. Yet, the one to finish Caesar was Brutus his once close friend that turned to the dark side.
The senators used mos maiorum to decide Caesar’s fate as he gained power rapidly. They decided since the elder Brutus claimed that there shall never be another “King of Rome”, that it was the right choice because it was the way of the elders. These two stories connect to each other making the statement, “There will never be a King of Rome again”, a true statement. In Greek the name “Brutus” means fool, and in based off of these two stories, Brutus plays the role of the fool. Rome valued virtues such as, uprightness, how a person relates to others.
Faithfulness, keeping one’s obligations regardless of the cost. Piety (pietas), showing respect. Gravity (gravitas), Respecting oneself. Dignity (dignitas), Status in the eyes of others. Authority (auctoritas), meant to do whatever he recommended not because law required them to. Cincinnatus accepted dictatorship of Rome and took his soldiers to battle. They won a righteous battle, and they cam home in triumph. Everyone in Rome was looking forward to their new king Cincinnatus to bring them forward as a community.
Yet after fifteen days of dictatorship, Cincinnatus resigned his dictatorship because, he did not want to have the responsibility of someone so great. Cincinnatus represented in one person all the virtues to which later romans attributed the Republic’s rise to greatness. Early Rome was described as a golden age, whose people embraced a simple lifestyle uncorrupted by excessive luxury. At the time Money became an important part of roman life because, Rome wanted its status to increase. In this new way of life, the Roman value system was not always great.
The atron-client system was a master (the patron) who told their client to advertise for his business, so it becomes more popular. A patron was a man that lived high on the social hierarchy, and represented kindness to his client. The patron referred to his client as a friend rather than a servant. In the system, a patron could be a client or vice versa, it was all based on their social hierarchy. The Cursus Honorum and the Structure of the Government included many sections of people. The major people of the hierarchy included the Senate, Dictator, and the Censor.
These three sections of the government had the most power and determine most choices for Rome as a group. The slightly less important people were the Consuls, Praetors, Aediles, and the Quaestors. The lowest part of the government included the Tribunes, Tribal assembly, and the Centuriate Assembly. These people were known as Representative bodies or just normal citizens. The social class of Rome included the Patricians and Plebeians. Patricians were members of the upper class, while Plebeians were the common people of Rome.
If a Roman citizen was high enough in the social hierarchy, then that person could become a Consul, which is the highest form of government. Caesar was known as one of the highest forms of government, Caesar was technically a dictator. This led to his death because Rome was anti-king and they were very afraid of what he was becoming. Rome’s major point of expansion was after 509 BC when they took control of the land that was directly near the city of Rome. They began to search for more land during 400-250 BC.
They won battles and expanded beyond the Italian peninsula. Finally, during 120 BC Rome had expanded out from Spain to modern day Turkey. Rome’s expansion was known to increase the power and influence of the city significantly. Due to the major expansion of Rome, the people gained profit as well. Although it seems as if everyone is benefiting from the expansion of Rome, it is not true. Latifundia is known as, large farms bought by the wealthy that were worked, run by slaves. Farmers were sent to fight for Rome in war leaving their families alone in the farm.
This created trouble because, without the man in the household there was no one to get the crops that would feed their families each night, which leads to starvation and many deaths upon families. The Senate took away many jobs by giving them to slaves so the city would not have to pay the workers. Now since there were no jobs or places to live, everyone attempted to move to the city, which was crowded enough itself. Although at first it seemed like piling on more and more each time seemed good, there was a bad outcome in the end which caused loss of jobs, places to live, and lives of the people.
Two men named Tiberius and Gaius were part of a rich family, and they supported the Plebeians in an act to fight for the correct rights. Tiberius came first attempting to come up with a plan causing Rome to limit latifundia’s to three hundred acres. The wealthy did not like this plan, so in showing that they didn’t like it, they killed three hundred of Tiberius’ supporters, which represented that the three hundred law was not going to happen. Sacrosanctity means to be protected. It would be a crime against Gods to kill a political leader. Yet, in 133 BC Tiberius is killed and that is a violation of sacrosanctity.
About ten years after Tiberius is killed, Gaius enters the Senate and continues what his brother did. In an attempt to get rid of the patron-client system the Senate brings hatred towards him, which brings overwhelming pressure. A few days later Gaius commits suicide. The Erosion of the Republic occurred during the second half of the first century (50-31BC). Factors that lead to his were, mutual obligations, corruption of the “way of elders”, faced dangerous new threats that demanded immediate military responses under competent commanders.
A major event that may have been the beginning of the problem was when seven thousand slaves escaped from Sicily during 131-134 BC. Also, war broke out in Jugartha during 112 BC. Everything began to fall apart. Rome even wanted a new leader to look up to. They wanted a man not born into the privileged circle of the highest nobility at Rome, but who had the abilities and military skill to propel him to election as a consul and the great status, influence that this office brought with it. A man named Gaius Marius from a family of equestrian order in central Italy was a man in the running for the job.
He raised his reputation by fighting in the North African war and won election of consuls in 107 BC. This made him a “new man” He took over a new position as the general of the military. Rome’s military honor is a rare recognition granted only to generals who had won stupendous victories. Marius was rising with power but the Senate did not like that because, he was seen as a threat to their pre-eminence. That is one of the main reasons why he was not chosen to be a high social elite in the Roman Senate.
