Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was the Roman Republic formed?
The Roman Republic (Latin: Rēs pūblica Rōmāna, Classical Latin:[ˈreːs ˈpuːb.lɪ.ka roːˈmaː.na]; Italian: Repubblica romana) was the era of classical Roman civilization beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom, traditionally dated to 509 BC, and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire. It was during this period that Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.
This article is a list of fictional characters in written fiction and other forms of media set during the period of the Roman Republic and/or the Roman Empire. This list is subcategorised by the position of each character - whether they are actual Roman citizens, Roman provincials (non-Romans who were not actual slaves) or slaves.
Authority for this ideal was found once more among the classical, and especially the Roman, political authors and historians. But since the Roman writers wrote during a time when the Roman republican ideal was fading away, its forms but not its spirit or substance being preserved in the Roman Empire, the 18th-century American and French revolutionaries read them with a spirit to determine how the Roman republic failed, and how to avoid repeating that failure. In his "Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Antient Republicks", the English Whig historian Edward Wortley Montagu sought to describe "the principal causes of that degeneracy of manners, which reduc'd those once brave and free people into the most abject slavery." Following this reading of Roman ideals, the American revolutionary Charles Lee envisioned a Spartan, egalitarian society where every man was a soldier and master of his own land, and where people were "instructed from early infancy to deem themselves property of the State... (and) were ever ready to sacrifice their concerns to her interests." The agrarianism of Thomas Jefferson represents a similar belief system; Jefferson believed that the ideal republic was composed of independent, rural agriculturalists rather than urban tradesmen.
These widely held ideals led American revolutionaries to found institutions such as the Society of the Cincinnati, named after the Roman farmer and dictator Cincinnatus, who according to Livy left his farm to lead the army of the Roman republic during a crisis, and voluntarily returned to his plow once the crisis had passed. About Cincinnatus, Livy writes:
When the Roman Republic was formed in 1798 and took over the Papal States, it annulled the requirement for Jews to live only in the ghetto; and a Tree of Liberty was planted in Piazza delle Cinque Scole ("Piazza of the Five Synagogues"). However, when the Papal States were restored in 1799, the ghetto was reestablished and Jews who had left were compelled to return to the ghetto.
Roman authors would also use the phrase "res publica" in the sense of the era when Rome was governed as a republic, that is the era between the Roman Kingdom and the Roman Empire. So in this case "res publica" does distinctly "not" refer to the Roman "Empire", but to what is generally described as the Roman Republic.
Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture. Roman architecture flourished in the Roman Republic and even more so under the Empire, when the great majority of surviving buildings were constructed. It used new materials, particularly concrete, and newer technologies such as the arch and the dome to make buildings that were typically strong and well-engineered. Large numbers remain in some form across the empire, sometimes complete and still in use to this day.
The republican sense of the term derives from "libera res publica" (literally, "the free public thing/affair"), a term used by Roman historians for the period of the Roman Republic, though not all "free states" have been republics. The historical German free states and the Orange Free State of Southern Africa were republican in form, however the Congo Free State and Irish Free State were governed under forms of monarchy.
The city of Florence was established in 59 B.C. by Julius Caesar. Before the death of Matilda of Tuscany in 1115, the city had been part of the Marquisate of Tuscany founded in 846 A.D. The city did not submit readily to her successor Rabodo (r. 1116-1119), who was killed in a dispute with the city. It is not known precisely when the city formed its own government independent of the marquisate. The first official mention of the Florentine republic was in 1138, when several cities around Tuscany formed a league against Henry X of Bavaria. The country was nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire.
One chapter and several generations later, the Romans have long since reestablished their republic. These Romans, largely out of need, have adopted a practice of Cultural Romanization more pronounced than the historical Romans did: large numbers of Germans have been adopted into the Roman society, forming a large proportion of both the legions and the Senate. A series of auspicious omens prompt the Senate to send a delegation south into Latium. The expedition leaders are subtly but immediately at cross purposes: the commander, Marcus Scipio, a scion of the ancient patrician Cornelii Scipiones family, is wholly motivated by a desire to reestablish the Republic in the Mediterranean basin. His deputy, Titus Norbanus, one of the newer, Germanic Romans, seeks personal glory, at least in part to ensure that the Germans (particularly his own family) remain as powerful within the expanded Republic as they do under the current scheme.
The modern term "republic", despite its derivation, is not synonymous with the Roman "res publica". Among the several meanings of the term "res publica", it is most often translated "republic" where the Latin expression refers to the Roman state, and its form of government, between the era of the Kings and the era of the Emperors. This Roman Republic would, by a modern understanding of the word, still be defined as a true republic, even if not coinciding entirely. Thus, Enlightenment philosophers saw the Roman Republic as an ideal system because it included features like a systematic separation of powers.
Isis's cult reached Italy and the Roman sphere of influence at some point in the second century BCE. It was one of many cults that were introduced to Rome as the Roman Republic's territory expanded in the last centuries BCE. Authorities in the Republic tried to define which cults were acceptable and which were not, as a way of defining Roman cultural identity amid the cultural changes brought on by Rome's expansion. In Isis's case, shrines and altars to her were set up on the Capitoline Hill, at the heart of the city, by private persons in the early first century BCE. The independence of her cult from the control of Roman authorities made it potentially unsettling to them. In the 50s and 40s BCE, when the crisis of the Roman Republic made many Romans fear that peace among the gods was being disrupted, the Roman Senate destroyed these shrines, although it did not ban Isis from the city outright.
A Roman villa was a country house built for the upper class in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, similar in form to the hacienda estates in the colonies of the Spanish Empire.
Like other aspects of Roman life, sexuality was supported and regulated by traditional Roman religion, both the public cult of the state and private religious practices and magic. Cicero held that the desire to procreate "(libido)" was "the seedbed of the republic," as it was the cause for the first form of social institution, marriage, which in turn created the family, regarded by the Romans as the building block of civilization. Roman law penalized sex crimes "(stuprum)", particularly rape, as well as adultery. A Roman husband, however, committed the crime of adultery only when his sexual partner was a married woman.
The Greek historian Polybius, writing in the mid-2nd century BCE, emphasized (in Book 6) the role played by the Roman Republic as an institutional form in the dramatic rise of Rome's hegemony over the Mediterranean. In his writing on the constitution of the Roman Republic, Polybius described the system as being a "mixed" form of government. Specifically, Polybius described the Roman system as a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy with the Roman Republic constituted in such a manner that it applied the strengths of each system to offset the weaknesses of the others. In his view, the mixed system of the Roman Republic provided the Romans with a much greater level of domestic tranquility than would have been experienced under another form of government. Furthermore, Polybius argued, the comparative level of domestic tranquility the Romans enjoyed allowed them to conquer the Mediterranean. Polybius exerted a great influence on Cicero as he wrote his politico-philosophical works in the 1st century BCE. In one of these works, "De re publica", Cicero linked the Roman concept of "res publica" to the Greek "politeia".
The constitution of the Roman Republic was not formal or even official. Its constitution was largely unwritten, and was constantly evolving throughout the life of the Republic. Throughout the 1st century BC, the power and legitimacy of the Roman constitution was progressively eroding. Even Roman constitutionalists, such as the senator Cicero, lost a willingness to remain faithful to it towards the end of the republic. When the Roman Republic ultimately fell in the years following the Battle of Actium and Mark Antony's suicide, what was left of the Roman constitution died along with the Republic. The first Roman Emperor, Augustus, attempted to manufacture the appearance of a constitution that still governed the Empire, by utilising that constitution's institutions to lend legitimacy to the Principate, e.g. reusing prior grants of greater imperium to substantiate Augustus' greater imperium over the Imperial provinces and the prorogation of different magistracies to justify Augustus' receipt of tribunician power. The belief in a surviving constitution lasted well into the life of the Roman Empire.
Early Roman literature was influenced heavily by Greek authors. From the mid-Republic, Roman authors followed Greek models, to produce free-verse and verse-form plays and other in Latin; for example, Livius Andronicus wrote tragedies and comedies. The earliest Latin works to have survived intact are the comedies of Plautus, written during the mid-Republic. Works of well-known, popular playwrights were sometimes commissioned for performance at religious festivals; many of these were Satyr plays, based on Greek models and Greek myths. Lucretius, in his On the Nature of Things explicated the tenets of Epicurean philosophy. Towards the end of the Republic, Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid, built on Homer's ancient Greek epic, the Iliad, to make the Trojan prince Aeneas an ancestor of the Roman people.
To the Romans of the Republic, the forest was as much feared as the trackless Hercynian Forest would be when they encountered that. In 310 BCE the Roman Senate, even after the rout of the Etruscans at Sutrium, charged the consul Fabius Maximus Rullianus not to enter this woodland in pursuit of the Etruscans, and when it emerged that he had done so, all Rome was struck with terror. The Silva formed a natural barrier between Ancient Rome and Etruria.
The Constitutional reforms of Augustus were a series of laws that were enacted by the Roman Emperor Augustus between 30 BC and 2 BC, which transformed the Constitution of the Roman Republic into the Constitution of the Roman Empire. The era that began when Augustus (then named Imp. Caesar Divi Filius, but often called Octavian by historians) defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the final war of the Roman Republic in 30 BC, and ended when the Roman Senate granted Augustus the title ""Pater Patriae"" in 2 BC.
Julius Caesar was one of the three leaders of the First Triumvirate of the Roman Republic. After the other two members of the Triumvirate died, Julius Caesar became so popular he was proclaimed 'Dictator for Life', but the senate of the Roman Republic saw this as the end of the Republic, so, on the Ides of March (March 15) of 44 BC, the Roman Senate, including Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger who was a friend of Caesar went to the Senate, and when Caesar arrived, they stabbed him to death. When he was dying, Caesar is said to (in a play by Shakesphere) have looked at Brutus and say "Et tu, Brute?", or "And you, Brutus?". However, there is no record as to whether or not Caesar actually said these things. Soon after this, the Second Triumvirate was formed, ending in the collapse of the Roman Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire by Augustus Caesar.
Over the years, the Roman constitution continuously evolved. By the late 5th century BC, the Constitution of the Roman Kingdom had given way to the Constitution of the Roman Republic. By 27 BC, the Constitution of the Roman Republic had transformed into the Constitution of the Roman Empire. By 300 AD, the Constitution of the Roman Empire had been reformed into the Constitution of the Late Roman Empire. The actual changes, however, were quite gradual. Together, these four constitutions formed four epochs in the continuous evolution of one master constitution.
Also relevant to the history of direct democracy is the history of Ancient Rome, specifically the Roman Republic, beginning around 509 BC. Rome displayed many aspects of democracy, both direct and indirect, from the era of Roman monarchy all the way to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the Senate, formed in the first days of the city, lasted through the Kingdom, Republic, and Empire, and even continued after the decline of Western Rome; and its structure and regulations continue to influence legislative bodies worldwide. As to direct democracy, the ancient Roman Republic had a system of citizen lawmaking, or citizen formulation and passage of law, and a citizen veto of legislature-made law. Many historians mark the end of the Republic with the passage of a law named the "Lex Titia", 27 November 43 BC, which eliminated many oversight provisions.
The Habsburg rule in several parts of Italy continued in various forms but came to an end with the campaigns of the French Revolutionaries in 1792–1797, when a series of sister republics were set up with local support by Napoleon and then united into the Italian Republic (Napoleonic) under his Presidency. In 1805 the Republic became a new Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic), in personal union with France.
The history of the Constitution of the Roman Republic is a study of the ancient Roman Republic that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC until the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The constitutional history of the Roman Republic can be divided into five phases. The first phase began with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Kingdom in 509 BC, and the final phase ended with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Republic, and thus created the Roman Empire, in 27 BC. Throughout the history of the republic, the constitutional evolution was driven by the struggle between the aristocracy and the ordinary citizens.
The Constitutional Assembly convened on 8 February and proclaimed the "Roman Republic" after midnight on 9 February. According to Jasper Ridley: "When the name of Carlo Luciano Bonaparte, who was a member for Viterbo, was called, he replied to the roll-call by calling out "Long live the Republic!"" ("Viva la Repubblica!"). That a Roman Republic was a foretaste of wider expectations was expressed in the acclamation of Giuseppe Mazzini as a Roman citizen.
The Roman Republic was the phase of Ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. 