(The government of the United States, in which power is shared among the president, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, is modeled on the Roman Republic, and the pledge of allegiance to the flag mentions “the republic . . . Then, supposedly, no one man can dominate Rome all male citizens will be free, and equal. They see themselves as Romans because they believe in the Republic and because they repudiate kingship so that power can be shared among the elected rulers, the aristocratic patricians who make up the Senate, and the people. Both Cassius and Brutus equate Rome with the Republic and the values it purports to embody. that drove the reigning dynasty from Rome, abolished kingship itself, and established the Roman Republic. The Tarquin drive when he was called a king.Īs many in Shakespeare’s audience might have known, Rome began as a kingship that lasted some 150 years until Lucius Junius Brutus, ancestor of this play’s Brutus, led an uprising in 510 B.C.E. My ancestors did from the streets of Rome Th’ eternal devil to keep his state in RomeĪ few scenes later (2.1), Brutus wrestles with the question of whether Caesar intends to become king, and recalls his own namesake: There was a Brutus once that would have brooked Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! . . . Diocletian (reign 284 to 305 A.D.When Cassius tries to persuade his friend Brutus that they must halt Julius Caesar’s rise to power, Cassius speaks of an idealized “Rome” of the past in which kingship was unthinkable: And, many historians believe, it would plant the seed in the minds of foreign nations that the previously “unconquerable” nation of Rome could indeed be toppled. Rome’s inability to rescue its own sovereign would deal a seismic blow to the mystique of power the Romans held over the world. The emperor went on to die in captivity under unknown circumstances. The unprecedented capture sent shockwaves through the Roman Empire, only to be exacerbated by the fact Valerian was never rescued. In 260 A.D., after the Battle of Edessa against the Persians, Valerian (a notorious persecutor of Christians) became the first Roman emperor to be taken as a prisoner of war. Publius Licinius Valerianus makes the influential list less for what he did than what was done to him. His book Meditations is largely regarded as a literary masterpiece. A fervent adherent of Stoicism-a Hellenistic school of philosophy that claimed that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker was key to gaining universal reason-the emperor (who was famously portrayed in the Oscar-winning Gladiator) is widely regarded as one of history’s most essential philosophers. Known as the “emperor-philosopher,” emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus produced writings now considered philosophical canon. After his murder at the hands of dozens of members of the senate, Rome officially transitioned from a democracy to an imperial society. These reforms made Caesar increasingly popular with Rome’s commoners while alienating him from its elite (and leading to his eventual infamous assassination). As leader of the Roman Republic, Caesar increased the size of the senate to represent more Roman citizens, established the Julian calendar (the 365-day, 12-month calendar still in use worldwide), granted Roman citizenship to all those living under Roman rule and redistributed wealth among the poor. Aside from being a successful general, conquering Spain and Gaul-feats that greatly expanded the size, power and wealth of Rome-Caesar enacted a number of foundational reforms that would set up the oncoming Roman Empire. But it’s impossible to tell the story of Rome (or its eventual transition from a republic to an empire, without mentioning Julius Caesar. Technically, as the last ruler of Rome’s Republican era, Gaius Julius Caesar was never recognized as an emperor. Over that time, Rome was ruled by scores of kings, dictators and emperors who expanded it from a small city to an empire spanning nearly 2 million square miles and consisting of, historians estimate, anywhere from 50 to 90 million inhabitants. So who exactly left an indelible mark on ancient Rome?įrom its inception to its collapse in 476 A.D., ancient Rome had three distinct periods: Regal Rome, (753–509 B.C.), when monarchs ruled Republican Rome (509–27 B.C.), when Roman elected its governors and Imperial Rome (27 B.C.–476 A.D.), when a supreme ruler oversaw the empire, and in early years did so alongside the elected senate. The more-than-1,000-year span of influence that began with the founding of Rome in 753 B.C. While its influence on western civilization, in particular, has been ubiquitous, its remnants can be found virtually everywhere, from our calendar and political systems to our alphabet. Few periods in history have had a greater impact on humankind than that of ancient Rome.
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