As the Gauls moved through Etruria, the land of the Etruscans, many Etruscan cities were destroyed. In BC, the Gauls attacked the city of Rome. The Romans were unable to defeat the Gauls in battle and the Gauls advanced on the city.
Many Romans fled, but the senators and a few soldiers stayed on top of one of the hills of Rome. The Gauls then destroyed most of the city. The Romans have two stories about the invasion of Rome by the Gauls.
In one, the sacred geese living in a temple on top of the Capitaline Hill alerted the Romans on the hilltop about the advancing Gauls trying to sneak up the hill. In the second stories, Camillus, a Roman who had been asked to leave the city, returned with an army and drove out the Gauls.
We are not sure if these stories are true, but one thing is for sure, the Romans were deeply affected by the invasion of the Gauls, and vowed that Rome would never be invaded again. Because of the invasion of the Gauls, the Romans, now weakened, were attacked by the Latins. It took many years, but Rome defeated the Latins and other enemies.
Whenever Rome won a war, they allowed the defeated people to rule themselves, as long as they were loyal Roman allies. The Roman army grew as it added allies of defeated people. Rome also granted Roman citizenship to defeated people. In this way Rome expanded its territory and influence beyond the city limits of Rome, creating a Roman condeferacy.
Soon, no one group of people outside of the Roman confederacy could stand up to Rome. None of these groups of people were in the Roman confederacy, and they saw Roman expansion as a threat. At the Battle of Sentinum, Rome defeated the alliance. During battles, the consuls led Roman armies. The legendary Roman hero of this battle was Decius Mus, one of the Roman consuls at the battlefield. Decuis Mus had a dream the night before the battle that one of the consuls would die, but the Romans would win the battle.
During the battle, the Romans were losing the battle, so Decuis Mus sacrificed himself by riding his horse directly into the enemy lines to inspire his troops. The move was successful, Decius Mus was pulled from his horse and killed, but the Romans rallied and won the battle.
The Romans call this self-sacrifice devotio. Romans left garrisons within newly conquered territories, but also offered Roman citizenship to the conquered people. Newly built Roman roads connected Roman territory, and allowed Roman soldiers to move quickly from one area to another in Italy if trouble arose. An interesting character in ancient times was King Pyrrhus of the Hellenistic kingdom of Epirus. As you have read in the chapter on Alexander the Great, Olympias, Alexander's mother, came from Epirus, a neighboring kingdom of Macedonia.
Pyrrhus was impressed by the past conquests of Alexander, and felt that he too could carve out a vast empire. Therefore, when the Greek city-state of Taras Tarentum in Latin in Southern Italy asked Pyrrhus to send an army to defend them from the Romans, who had declared war on Taras in BC, it was not surprising that Pyrrhus sailed across the Adriatic Sea with an army.
The defense of Taras, and the possibility of defeating the Romans was just the adventure Pyrrhus was looking for. Pyrrhus brought along his friend and trusted advisor, Cineas. It was Cineas who did most of the talking and negotiating with both friend and foe in Italy. Pyrrhus also brought with him 20 war elephants, originally from India. As this was the Hellenistic Age, Hellenistic armies brought elephants to battle against each other, but this would be the first time the Roman army had ever faced, or even seen these beasts.
Pyrrhus carried the elephants over the Adriatic Sea from Epirus to Italy, and amazing feat, and the first amphibious attack by war elephants in history. When Pyrrhus entered the city of Taras, he was not impressed with the people whom he came to defend. The people of Taras were lazy; they over-ate and attended plays, while they expected Pyrrhus to fight for them. Pyrrhus closed the amphitheaters to stop the plays.
Pyrrhus then forced the men of Taras to join the army, and he worked them into shape. Pyrrhus would not fight for lazy men who did not care to defend themselves.
The Roman horses were terrified of the elephants, and although Pyrrhus won the battle, he admired the strength and courage of the Roman army. Pyrrhus admired the organization of the Roman army, and the fact that all of the dead Romans had wounds in the front of their bodies, no Romans had fled the battlefield that day. The terms were that Rome must end the war with Taras and allow Pyrrhus' army to move about Italy.
The Roman Senate seemed to agree until Appius Claudius, an old Roman who had once been a senator, but stepped down due to his age and blindness, stood up and gave a great speech that convinced the Romans to continue the fight. The Romans sent Fabricius, an honest but poor man, to Pyrrhus' camp to try to convince Pyrrhus to release the Roman prisoners of war captured at Heraclea. Senate : this was composed of members, who were former magistrates. It established laws, had control over magistrates and decided on foreign policy.
They were elected for a year. They were very similar to our ministers. The career of a Roman politician lasted 10 years, and it was called cursus honorum the "sequence of offices" or the "ladder of honours", so to say. The rights of the plebeians were protected by tribunes, who were elected officials and members of the senate. If you mean the Roman consuls, the political office, there were two consuls who served for one year.
The members of constituent assembly are elected by the members of the provincial assemblies. The Roman legislature consisted of the various voting assemblies which were determined by tribe and wealth.
They were the ones who elected the officials and passed the laws. The elected officials were the tribunes, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls and were drawn from members of the senate for the most part. The senate was a group of wealthy individuals who acted as a debating and consulting force. Bear in mind that the ancient Roman senate was in no way like our own present day senates. The Roman senate came from the Latin root word senex which means an old or a senior person and its function was very different from those of today.
The government at the beginning of the Early republic was controlled by the patricians, the aristocracy though the heads of state being drawn from their ranks and through their monopoly over the membership of the senate.
Through this the patricians were able to monopolise power despite the popular assemblies having the power to elect the heads of state and to vote on bills. At the beginning the Republic did not have a separate judiciary. The development of the government of the Early Roman Republic was characterised by an increase in the number of offices of state and the rich plebeians commoners gaining access to these offices and the senate and obtaining power-sharing with the patricians.
A separate judiciary developed with the creation of a chief justice the praetor. The Republic was headed by two annually elected consuls who were also the heads of the army. At the beginning they were the only officers of state we know of.
There is no record of other officials. Over time 4 more offices of state were created. At the beginning the consuls were said to have been quite like kings as their powers were undefined and therefore unlimited. The senate, which under the monarchy had been the advisory body of the king, continued to be an advisory body, this time for the consuls.
Its members were not elected. It did not vote on legislation, but provided advice on the formulation of laws and could reject laws which had been approved by vote on the grounds of technicalities. Bills were proposed by the consuls to the popular assemblies. The Republic also retained the popular assemblies established by the 6th king: the assembly of the soldiers and the assembly of the tribes. Both assemblies could vote on bills.
The former could also vote on war or peace and elected the consuls. Both assemblies also acted as court of appeal, the former for capital punishment cases, and the latter for other cases.
At the beginning the consuls also presided over trials. The patrician monopoly of power caused rich plebeians to agitate for access to power in the year long Conflict of the Orders between patricians and plebeians.
By the end of the Early Republic, they succeeded in obtaining power-sharing. The proposing of bills shifted from the consuls to the plebeian tribunes and the vote on bills shifted from the mentioned assemblies to the plebeian council. These tribunes and council were established during the first plebeian rebellion in BC. The members of the Rajya Sabha are elected by the state legislative assemblies. The members of the senate that spoke for the Roman Republic were given the name the Tribunes.
Recordings of assemblies are not to be put on the internet for download. They are only for members of the congregation who could not attend. Marcellus and Flavius were tribunes at or near the time of the assassination of Julius Caesar. Rome at the time was an oligarchy run by leading members of a small number of powerful families Marcellus and Flavius were members of these families that were in competition with the Julians, basically.
There are members in Indian Rajya Sabha in which are elected indirectly by legislative assemblies and 12 are nominated by President. There were only two "branches" of government in ancient Rome. They were the Senate and the Roman people. The elected officials were members of the senate either before or because of their election but they were elected by the assemblies. The officials were the tribunes of the plebs, which originally was an office formed to look after the interests of the plebeians, but it soon deteriorated into a political tool for ambitious politicians.
There was the office of aedile, which controlled the city's infrastructure, weights and measures and trade. Next was a quaester who was a treasury man. He could be considered a state accountant. Then came the office of praetor which was a judicial position with authority to lead and raise armies if necessary.
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