The Causes and Development of Political Violence in the Late Roman Republic
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.211220.199How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Rome; the Roman Republic; the Roman Empire; Roman economy; imperial transformation; political violence
- Abstract
This essay attempts to provide a possible perspective on a topic of long-term controversy-how the Roman country converted from a republic into an empire. By reading materials written by ancient historians, combined with some further conclusions drawn by modern scholars, the author focuses on the original motives and interests of different classes in Rome and analyzes the causes of the early Republic’s political balance and its subsequent collapse, as well as the origin, the development, and the influence of political violence. The author believes that the traditional political order of the Roman Republic collapsed due to the economic impact derived from several major expansion wars in the third and second century BC. And political violence then became the coordinator and the arbiter of Roman politics. Finally, in order to accommodate the demand to establish a new balance based on political violence, with Caesar’s victory in the civil war being the milestone, the Roman institution gradually evolved into a dictatorship. The author hopes that this essay could appeal to people to discard ideological or moral standpoints and analyze the imperial transformation of the Roman Republic according to the objective historical conditions and universal human nature.
- Copyright
- © 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Zefu Sun PY - 2021 DA - 2021/12/24 TI - The Causes and Development of Political Violence in the Late Roman Republic BT - Proceedings of the 2021 4th International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2021) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 1164 EP - 1174 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211220.199 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.211220.199 ID - Sun2021 ER -