The Crisis of the Late Republic

and the Imperial Solution

• What were the consequences of Rome’s territorial expansion? (117 AD)
• What political crises undermined the Republic’s institutions and political culture?
• What was the nature of the Augustan solution to the crisis of the Republic?

Key Terms

1) Spartacus 6) princeps and the “Principate”

2) Latifundia 7) Augustus’ Family Values Campaign

3) Gracchi Brothers

4) The Rubicon

5) Augustus

I. The Consequences of Expansion

• The Decline of the Civic Ethos: Sallust’s Critique

o Corrupt Provincial Governors

• The Transformation of the Army

• Influx of Slaves and the New Slave Economy

o Spartacus Slave Revolt (73 BCE)

o Latifundia and the Decline of the Farmer Citizen

o Mass Impoverishment, Social Inequality, and the Urban Underclass

• The Gracchi Brothers and Political Violence

• The Militarization of Politics and the End of the Cincinnatus Ideal

o Marius and Sulla

o Julius Caesar

o The First Triumvirate: Caesar, Pompey, Crassus

o Caesar Crosses the Rubicon 2

o The Senate and the Assassination of Julius Caesar

II. The Roman Civil War and the Imperial Solution

• The Second Triumvirate: Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus (vs. Cassius and Brutus)

• Octavian vs. Antony and Cleopatra

o The Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

• Octavian becomes “Augustus”, prefers princeps

• The Principate (27 BCE -14/284 CE) and the Appearance of Republicanism

• Peace, Stability, Security

• Imperator (23 BCE)

• Consul, Tribune, Pontifex Maximus, and Censor

• Commander in Chief and Reform of the Army

• Reform of Provincial Administration

• Co-opting Elites: The Senate and Equestrians

• Restoring “Traditional” Morality: Augustus’ Family Values Campaign

• The Cult of Augustus

o Virgil’s Aeneid