Why wasn't the Republic successful in governing Rome?

Question

Ancient Rome

Answer 1

The Republic was successful until several things happened

First, Marius' reforms led to armies being more loyal to their general than to the Republic. The reforms were necessary (otherwise, consuls were forced to recruit and train armies constantly on the fly).

Previously, to join the Roman military, a Roman had to be able to furnish his own equipment. Marius changed that by allowing any citizen to join, and the state would furnish the equipment, in return for a 25 year enlistment, followed by the state giving the soldier a plot of land. This provided the poor their best chance to improve themselves, so they flocked to join the military - giving Rome it's first true standing army. Unfortunately, this professional standing army was not indoctrinated to be loyal to the state, so they were often loyal to their generals.

This meant that generals became more powerful than the Senate, and the Senate had no way to check them.

Secondly, the Republic began to experience extremely sensationalist politics in the last century, where the powerful and wealthy attempted to squelch any attempt to change the status quo via political roadblocks and outright violence (starting with the mob violence against both Gracchi brothers). Once things began to be settled via false claims of treason and mob violence, the Marian reforms began to cause problems as competing generals would march on Rome or attack each other in the field (for example, Sulla and Marius). No one managed to put an end to this, and it quickly led to a breakdown within the Republic - imagine if various divisions US army actually fought each other every time their generals had a disagreement.

Ironically, Caesar's overthrow of the Senate, and Augustus' consolidation of the Empire led to the exact same problem as soon as there was a lapse in leadership - leading to what's sometimes called the Crisis of the Third Century.