ABSTRACT
The Roman Republic is traditionally conceived as the long period beginning with the expulsion of the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, in 509 BC and ending with the advent of the first emperor, Augustus, victor at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. With Augustus came the Principate. The history of the Roman Republic, over this period of almost half a millennium, is the history of the growth of a small and rather insignificant city-state into an imperial power which ruled the whole Mediterranean basin and stretched beyond. It is the history of the social, political and economic pressures and tensions entailed in this expansion. The aim of this essay is to explore the pressures and tensions of the Republic so as better to understand the Principate. Selectivity of the highest order is demanded by limitations of space: matters covered in depth elsewhere in this collection, e.g. provincial government (Part 6, Chapter 15), will be deliberately neglected here. Change dominates history — creates it, ultimately — but there is also continuity. Continuity was far more important in Roman ideology. Roman society was little concerned with progress and the future: tradition (mos maiorum) and the past were all-powerful and all pervasive. Change for the good was essentially the restoration of tradition and the past. Innovation was dangerous: it threatened decline. Of course there was change but that change was structured, conceived and justified in terms of the restoration of the past (see North, 1976, on conservatism and change in Roman religion).
