FREE ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPATE

THE PRINCIPATE

CHAPETER 12
THE PRINCIPATE
This chapter talks about the Principate the form of government of the early Roman Empire.
It talks about the people who where instrumental in bringing about a long era of peace
and stability. The first was Julius Caesar who was a man of many talents. He was a
brilliant general, an astute politician, and an author. His political intuition and
unswerving faith catapulted him to important political and military offices. He had two
allied in his rise to power; a disgruntled general named Pompey and an ambitious
millionaire named Crassus. The three formed an extralegal coalition of political bosses,
which came to be known as First Triumvirate. Caesar spent a lot of time in Gaul leading
his army on conquests with great results. He managed to establish his reputation as one
of history's foremost military scientists. Everyone did not like Caesar. The Senate did
not like his policy of redistributing the land to the lower classes. Pompey on the other
hand felt threatened by Caesar stunning military success. So Pompey joined forces with
the Senate and declared Caesar a public enemy. This infuriated Caesar who defied the
Roman constitution and led his loyal army into Italy. He defeated Pompey and the hostile
senators. Pompey fled but later was killed. The Senate had no choice but to appoint
Caesar dictatorship for life.
Caesar used his power to reform the Republic along logical, practical lines. He
introduced a radically new Julian calendar. Caesar's reforms were immensely beneficial,
but he tried to do too much to fast. On the Ides of March (March 15) some senatorial
conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius stabbed him to death in the Senate. With the
killing of Caesar they believed that Tyranny was dead. They were wrong. Caesar's
assassination resulted in fourteen more years of civil strifes. During this time we have
everyone fighting each other for the right to lead Rome. We have Brutus and Cassius
struggling against the would-be heirs of Caesar. The heirs struggling among themselves.
Marc Antony, Caesar's trusted lieutenant, who defeats Brutus and Cassius in battle and
for a short time, takes command. He has Cicero, Rome's supreme literary craftsman,
murdered for his hostile words against him. But Marc Antony's reign was a short one. Once
he fell out of favor the people turned against him and his celebrated wife, Queen
Cleapatra. They both committed suicide. Finally from all these struggles a merged a young
man, Octavian (also known as Augustus), Caesar's grandnephew and adopted son. Octavian
was not a great general like Caesar but he was superior as a political realist. Under
Octavian leadership Rome prospered to tremendously. Octavian completed what Caesar had
started, the transformation of the Roman state from Republic to Empire. Octavian's
historical reputation lies not in his 
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military victories but in his accomplishments as peacemaker and architect of the Roman
empire. This reformation of Rome gave the Mediterranean world for the first time two
centuries of uninterrupted peace. Classical culture also spread all over the Empire.
Octavian accomplished the seemingly impossible task of one-man rule with the republican
traditions. He preserved the Senate; he retained the elected republican magistracies. He
never wanted to be a dictator like Caesar; he was more diplomatic. He eventually was
granted more power then Caesar ever had. Octavian was given the novel name of Augustus,
this had no specific power but it represented a reverence-almost holy. Augustus lived
modestly. He ruled with a keen sensitivity toward popular and senatorial opinion and a
respect for tradition. Rome had no written constitution, but it had political customs
that Augustus treated with cautious deference. Rome lost political liberties under the
Principate, but it gained peace, security, and justice under the first princeps of
Augustus. 
This new Principate regime brought about a surge of optimism, patriotism, and creative
originality. The Augustan Age is the climax of the Roman creative genius in the fields of
arts and letters. The Augustan poets employed Greek models and ideas, but in original and
characteristically Roman ways. The urbane and faultless lyrics of Horace, the worldly,
erotic verses of Ovid, the majestic cadences of Vergil these were some of the best that
came out of that era. 
After the death of Augustus the Principate grew steadily more centralized and more
efficient. Unfortunately some of the emperors that followed Augustus in the first-century
where less than competent. We had the childish cruelty of Emperor Nero, and the bizarre
antics of Caligula, who wallowed in the pleasure of watching his prisoners tortured to
death. Thank god that during the second century A.D. the Roman emperors retained the
traditional attitudes exemplified by Augustus, even though they came up short in the
political wisdom area. The rulers between A.D. 96 and 180 where Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelious they have been called five good emperors. One main
issue, which these emperors solved, was the problem of succession. In each case, the
previous emperor would adopt as his son and successor a younger man of outstanding
ability. This policy was both intelligent and necessary. The only one of the emperors who
broke this tradition was Marcus who chose his own son, the incompetent Commodus, as his
heir. Under these five emperors imperial policy was humane and, to a degree
compassionate. The Stoic emphasis on human brotherhood and social and political
responsibility influenced it. These emperors viewed their authority as a trust. The
cultural epoch from the death of Augustus to 
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the death of Marcus was known as the silver age. During this time many major works of
literature of synthesis where produced. Such as Plutarch, in 
his Parallel Lives, it provides biographies of famous Romans and Greeks. Suetonius' Lives
of the Caesars. Tacitus whose histories trace the course of the early Empire carefully
and vividly. Throughout the silver age, classical culture spread outward and downward.
Alexandria, retained its commercial and intellectual importance, producing brilliant
early Christian and Jewish theologians as well as several distinguished scientists who
developed and synthesized the achievements of their predecessors. Galen, a medical
scientist produced a series of works on biology and medicine that dominated these fields
for more than a thousand years. The silver age produced an effortless blend of Greek and
Roman traditions. Of all the achievements of this epoch perhaps the most far-reaching is
the development of imperial law. The Jus Gentium or law of peoples slowly transformed the
Roman code into a legal system suitable to a vast, heterogeneous empire. All this
intellectual and great accomplishments came to an end with the death of Marcus. Under the
reign of Commodus the enlightened imperial rule came to an end. This brought about a
century of military despotism, assassinations, economic and administrative breakdown,
cultural decay, and civil strife that nearly destroyed the Roman State.