Roman Government Essay

The answer is “yes” with no doubt about it, the Roman Army and war were the central shaper of Roman history alongside the government, culture and the economy because in history these things go together hand and hand or they are a factor of one another. However the government, culture and the economy together were more important in shaping the history of Rome than the army and war alone. The people of Roman overthrew the Etruscan kings to form their own form of government which they called a Republic. They understood changing the structure of the government was key to transform their civilization and to give the majority of their people a voice. Republic means a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives …show more content…
Patricians were the rich families who had the wealth with a lot of power. Ninety percent of the Roman population was Plebeians; therefore they used their number to demand to participate in the government which they couldn’t do before the Republic was established. After long years of fight, Plebeians were represented in republic by Tribunes, who had the power of veto the laws (lecture note Williamson-rise of Rome). This allowed them to have a constitutional right to reject a decision or proposal made by a law-making body. All these policies become possible for the majority of Romans because they changed how the government function and limited the power of the …show more content…
In late 753 BC The Roman Government pass a law saying to serve in the army, on need to be a landowner (Lecture note Williamson-Expansion and Crisis of Rome). This rule didn’t affect Rome until they started fighting big wars against big kingdoms with a lot of power and resources. This forced Roman citizen armies to stay in the fight for years. A citizen army means the individual had other jobs beside fighting and most of them were farmers. When they come back their farmland was ruined and this put them under economic problems(lecture note Williamson-expansion and crisis of Rome). A number of farmers sold their land to rich people, which mean they can’t give service in the army because they didn’t have land. This became not just an economic problem, it questioned the effectiveness of Roman power because the number of army personnel was declining. The government stepped up to solve this particular problem. They passed a new rule to help out the soldiers as well as to recover Rome’s power that was declining. The soldiers signed a contract for twenty years and at the end of their years, they woulded given land, if there was a land available( lecture note Williamson-expansion and crisis of Rome). These rule motivate the army to conquer more land and to be loyal to their generals. Marius was a good example of this. He was a successful general who conquered a lot of