The Senate family, which ruled Rome for hundreds of years, continued to rule the country as if Rome's vast conquest of the Mediterranean world had not changed anything. But they were all wrong, and everything has changed. Today Rome is a cosmopolitan city where you can start a variety of careers, realize many dreams, and make a lot of money. Rome became the cultural epicenter of the ancient world, with Greek philosophers, musicians and celebrity chefs flocking to rome, and their presence helped rome create a cultural awakening.
Rome's attitude toward its Greek subjects was always more contradictory. The Romans, of course, acknowledged that they had benefited greatly from greece, and they even erected several statues of the wisest and bravest Greek figures in the Forum of the Assembly at the direction of the oracle of Delphi. As the Romans gradually came into contact with the Greek world, they realized the superiority of Greek culture, not only in art, architecture, literature, philosophy, etc., but also in many other things, but also in many other things that the Romans did not like. The Greeks were frivolous, talkative, too clever, and slightly decadent in spirit. Greek male citizens maintained sexual relations with each other (Roman men were generally only allowed to do so with slaves or lowly foreigners). Greeks also performed physical exercise and athletic competitions naked. Even their highly praised thinking skills were sometimes too much for the more conservative Romans to accept. In 155 BC, Athens sent a group of top philosophers to Rome, one of whom was the skeptic Caneadès. One day he defended political justice, but the next day he sought justification for political injustice. The serious Cato was disgusted by this morally contradictory sophistry and ordered the Athenians to extricate themselves from Rome so as not to corrupt their youth.
In addition to sodomy and brain racing, Rome's annexation of an empire created many more serious problems. Throughout the 2nd century BC, a series of military victories earned huge sums of money, and a large amount of it went into the pockets of parliamentarians. They are keen to invest in real estate and use their newly acquired wealth to buy the best arable land, much of which is still in the hands of smallholder farmers. On the peasant side, on the other hand, many of them were heavily indebted, because male laborers were recruited into the army, often for many years. Thus, a war for land ensued, with small Farmers in Italy driven out of their homes, and their farmland part of a large estate, belonging to the extremely wealthy parliamentarians. The landless peasants joined the ranks of the urban proletarians, and they could not have stayed as agricultural laborers, because the wars against carthage and the Hellenistic kings had captured a large number of slaves and prisoners of war, and these people were already oversupplied.
Most parliamentarians turn a blind eye to this social unrest and the discontent it has sparked. Occasionally, however, some of them came forward and decided to take action, the most famous of which were the brothers Tiberius Gragu and Gaius Gragu. They came from a well-connected family of senators and were idealistic offspring among the people of the clan. Their maternal grandfather was Scipio Afrighanus, who had surrendered to Hannibal, and their sister was married to Scipio Imiliarnas, the man who destroyed Carthage, while their father had been a successful politician and general, twice serving as consul. Their mother, Cornelia, was widely praised for her nurturing demeanor and dedication to her sons. She even refused to be proposed by the Egyptian king Ptolemy, because only in this way could she concentrate on raising her sons, and Cornelia spared no expense in their education.
The Gracchus have wealth, influence, talent and charisma. But neither Tiberius nor Gaius had any intention of following a smooth and orderly political path, such as undoubtedly reaching the pinnacle of his career in the future as an important military general, head of the provinces, and consul of the republic. They want to change the world more than just conquer it. This made the young brothers extremely unpopular among the aristocratic circles they came from. In particular, the issue they set out to deal with, land reform, can be described as a thousand waves stirred up by one stone. Of all the actions of the Gragus brothers, they are most dangerously exposed to breaking the rules in order to achieve their goals.
In the late 1930s and late 1920s BC, the Gracchus directly challenged the political status quo twice. Their plan is ingenious. Rome had accumulated a large public land reserve during its conquest of Italy and the central Mediterranean, and the brothers were ready to redistribute it and set up a system of grain subsidies in Rome. However, these proposals will push themselves against their fellow parliamentarians, directly confronting the latter, who has already allocated large amounts of public land to themselves. In addition, the Grachus brothers sought to get the reform package passed in the form of law, and the tactics they used made many in the Senate even more opposed to them. The Senate would never pass their legislative applications, so the Gracu brothers took advantage of a loophole in the system to cleverly circumvent them. The Gracchus managed to elect themselves as civilian retainers, a position originally created in the 5th century BC to protect the interests of the commoners in the Senate. These dignitaries had a wide range of powers, the most important of which was to pass legislative applications at the Citizens' Assembly and to be able to veto proposals of members of the Senate. When the Gragchu brothers' land reform plan was rejected in the Senate, the proposal was directly referred to the Citizens' Assembly. This move infuriated the Senate and created an eternal hostility towards the brothers. The parliamentarians realized that there was no legal way to stop the Gragus brothers, so they took matters into their own hands. In 133 BC, Tiberius was beaten to death by the parliamentarians at Capito Hill with sticks and slats. In 122 BC, Gaius and 3,000 of his supporters were brutally killed, this time with a sword. Eventually, both brothers were buried on the Tiber River.
The Gracchus left behind a devastating legacy, brutally killing their enemies even more than anything they had ever done. Their actions showed the world that it was possible to challenge the authority of the Senate. Today, any clever young politician knows the shortcut: become a vigilante and then "tell the world" that he has the authority of the people. At the same time, the Citizens' Assembly was awakened to the enormous power it could exercise. The Senate no longer had the prestige and authority that it had enjoyed for hundreds of years. After 400 years of relative calm, political strife ended in violence, thus opening the final scene of the bloody last decades of the Roman Republic.
The Senate chose narrow self-interest and abandoned more pressing social reforms, thus leaving more problems for the future. The whole of Rome was filled with indignant veterans, and the italian soil was surrounded by slave revolts everywhere. These upheavals highlighted rome's over-reliance on slave labor and its own conundrum of recruiting new recruits. The soldiers of the Roman legions had to be property owners, but the debt dilemma and the land struggle among the parliamentarians severely depleted the potential landed soldiers. The Senate will soon find that if they can't solve these problems, then someone else will solve them.
In 20 years, the Roman general Gaius Malleus had abolished the property access of soldiers and began conscripting landless poor people. He declared: "I am sorry, but the noise of the battlefield makes me lose the provisions of the law. "Since the state does not pay soldiers, this becomes the responsibility of the generals, who usually distribute the spoils of war. As a result, the troops had their own channels of livelihood, loyal to those who led them, not to the state. As for the rest of the Republic, it can only be said that they have been surrounded by armed groups of private armies. The Roman Senate did defeat the Gracchus, but they only paved the way for the rise of a new class of military strongmen.
Malleus himself is apt example. He had violated regulations by making an exception for seven terms as consul, and on at least one occasion sent soldiers to storm the assembly square and break the heads of several political opponents. Lucius Cornelius Sula, who had been Malleus's aide-de-camp, later became his main rival, and this man went even further. When Sulla's political position and military leadership were threatened by the enemy's machinations, he marched straight to Rome twice, and both times he got his wish. In 82 BC, after the second occupation of Rome, Sulla carried out weeks of wanton massacres, followed by the formalization of this political violence, known in history as the "denial of human rights" campaign. Lists were posted in the Assembly Square with the names of many of the disenfranchised — all of whom, according to Sulla, were "enemies of the state." There is no legal penalty for killing these unlucky eggs, and there are even rewards to reward them for their heads. This punishment was also passed down from generation to generation in the accused families, whose estates were immediately transferred to the State Treasury, and whose children and grandchildren were not allowed to serve in state organs and the Senate.
The healing of terror intensified, and the ugly deeds were all carried out by the "former slaves" who had been liberated by Sulla. They will be escorted from their homes by the accused, and the victims will no longer be seen alive, but some will be nailed to the assembly square. Even more evil than that, every freed slave named himself lucius cornellius, their liberator, as if the whole of Rome were filled with thousands of murderous, vengeful Sullas. When Sulla's henchmen set out to liquidate old accounts or start making a profit from it, the slaughter party gained more momentum. The multitude of people who end up on the "denial of human rights" blacklist have nothing to do with Sulla's enemies. In the first wave of assassination purges, more than 1,500 people were said to have been killed, while the final figure reached about 9,000.
Implicit in Sula's "human rights denial" is a practical consideration, which is that Sula needs a lot of cash and land to reward his battle-hardened soldiers, who number about 120,000. The confiscation of property from the dispossessed, together with the massive land grabs throughout Italy, helped him meet this need. The Senate was utterly frightened, and they gave Sulla political discretion. In other words, Sulla was given the seat of dictator, which reflects the personal power he now exercises.
Unusually, when Rome was already bowing to her feet, Sulla began to re-establish the authority and dignity of the system, which he had previously tried so hard to undermine and denigrate. In a series of reforms, Sulla strengthened the legislative power of the Senate and deprived the Citizens' Assembly and the Commoners Assembly of the powers they had accumulated at the expense of the Senate. Under Sulla's policy changes, the Senate once again became the undisputed supreme authority of the Roman Republic. Sulla also legislated against anyone imitating what he had done, and generals were now not allowed to leave their provinces or wage war without the approval of the Senate. In 79 B.C., when Sulla's work was done, he abruptly gave up his dictatorial seat and retired to live a small life, notorious for his absurdity. He died the following year, which is perhaps not surprising. His epitaph reads: His goodness surpasses that of any relative or friend, and his tyranny overshadows all enemies.
Sulla failed to resolve the political crisis that was destroying the Republic. His attempts to strengthen the authority of the Senate by spreading terror and carrying out assassinations only exposed in vain the extent to which political violence eroded the state. A new generation of ambitious people had grown up under Sulla's protection, and although the former mentor had reshaped the authority of the Senate, there was absolutely no reason in their eyes not to follow the path that Sulla had originally followed. The biggest winner of this institutional land annexation was Gnaeus Pompey. Sulla relies on violence to some extent because, despite his generational fame, he is not well-connected and has little money. Pompey, by contrast, was both wealthy and powerful. His father was an important general and a consul, and his family estate was also very large. When he answered Sulla's call, the 23-year-old Pompey personally appeared in front of the world with three legions, all of which were pulled up in these ancestral lands. Pompeo did not use force, for fear that by doing so he might not be able to reach the pinnacle of political power through the parliamentarian ladder, which was what he deserved. What deeply frustrated Pompey was the length of time it took to attain the position of consul, and the fact that the title of consul could not satisfy Pompey's ambitions. His goal was to make the whole of Rome recognize him as the greatest man in the world. To achieve this, Pompey repealed many of the policies that Sulla had previously implemented to ensure the dignity and authority of the Senate.
The powerful powers of the civilian assembly, which had previously been stripped away by Sulla, were secured by Pompey, a move that greatly helped Pompeo's cause. A large number of loyal supporters, escorted by Pompey, were elected to the new "enhanced" civilian convention, which allowed Pompeo to effectively kidnap the Roman Republic. Any bill that might harm his interests in the Senate was rejected, while the legislative proposals he approved and hated were simply passed at the Citizens' Assembly. By the decades of the mid-1st century BC, the institutions of the Roman Republic had become instruments of tyrants, and this was exactly what the whole system should have guarded against. A few vague promises of cheap rations and land reform could easily buy the population off. The time has come when the upper echelons rule the country by means of petty favors.
Pompey soon made a lot of money, he seized a number of government positions and military leadership, and won many great victories. From 67 BC to 63 BC, he faced the Mithridates king in the northern region of present-day Turkey, during which time Pompey signed peace agreements without consulting the Senate and incorporated large areas of territory into the country without approval. He acted in Asia Minor and Syria like a Hellenistic king. He minted coins and printed his own portraits on them; He named many cities after himself, and was even worshipped as a deity. Pompey could now count on the loyal support of these countries and the thousands of officers and men who were desperately working for them. In 62 BC, Pompey triumphed and gave himself the name "Magnus", which means "great man". But Pompey was no joke, he was able to inject 480 million sesters into the Roman treasury at once. Pompey's overhaul of the Orient was an unprecedented success, with annual revenues remitted from those regions increasing by 200 million to 340 million Sesters each year. Pompey is a vivid example of how Rome's enormous material gains and territorial expansion over the previous century would fundamentally upset the delicate political balance of the Republic.
In the Senate, the traditionalist political clique "Aristocrats", led by Cato the Younger (Cato Sr's great-grandson), tried unsuccessfully to resist Pompey. The Senate refused to approve Pompey's eastern settlements and his proposal to provide land for his soldiers. At this point Pompey simply went to the Citizens' Assembly, where the proposals were swiftly adopted. When the Senate tried to tighten their loose muscles, nothing highlighted their weakness and incompetence more than this act. Further humiliation of the Senate was coming, and it would also be a fatal blow to the Roman Republic. Pompey met two political opponents, Marcus Crassus and Julius Caesar (Pompey's father-in-law). Both were overwhelmed by the conservative forces of the Senate and were stripped of their political wings. These three ambitious men formed a secret alliance to protect their own interests, known in history as "three-headed politics." Caesar would be given his consul's seat, Pompey would secure eastern settlements and land for his officers and men, and Crassus would win tax breaks for his merchant clients, who were his main source of political support. The trio had the support of the general public, military power and vast financial resources, and a group of tamed civilian officials on standby. With the help of such a big net, they will achieve their goals.
In 59 BC, Caesar was easily elected consul. When the legislative proposal for the "three-headed politics" was blocked in the Senate, it was immediately handed over to the Citizens' Assembly and quickly adopted. The "aristocrats" tried to obstruct Caesar and transfer him to the backcountry of Italy. Caesar reacted by having the Citizens' Assembly grant him the post of Governor of Gaul in the west and Illyricum in the east. Both were troublesome and troublesome hot spots, where war was inevitable, and the spoils of war—necessary for Caesar, who lacked gold and silver—were indispensable.
In 53 BC, the "three-headed politics" became two men, with Crassus suffering heavy losses at the Battle of Calais and himself being killed by the Parthians (the Parthian Empire posed a threat to Rome's eastern territories in the Near East). Pompey was jealous of Caesar's glorious achievements in Gaul, and became more and more receptive to the proposals of the "aristocratic faction", who were trying to make Pompey break with Caesar. Eventually they pushed forward the bill to prematurely end Caesar's term as commander of Gaul, while Pompey stood idly by and did not help his theoretical allies. At this moment, Caesar must have known that the alliance between the two had come to an end.
In 50 BC, the senators demanded that Caesar return to Rome and relinquish command of his army. Civil war is now unavoidable. The parliamentarians were led by Pompey, who had heeded the call of the "aristocrats" and joined their cause. Caesar either conceded defeat unconditionally and accepted the enemy's all-round ferocious attack; Either take up arms against Pompey and the "aristocratic faction". Caesar chose the latter, and he led his army across the Rubicon River into northern Italy, thus beginning the bloodiest and most costly civil war in Roman history.
If this war is fought to preserve the soul of the Republic, it is increasingly difficult for us to discern who the guardians of the soul are, or what those people are defending. By 50 B.C., the "aristocratic faction," which boasted itself to be the political guardian of the traditional senate, seemed like the remnants of a swarm of dogs jumping off the wall. They will only rely on the glory of the past that has long passed, and they will not be able to adapt to the requirements of their time for the management of superpowers. According to Cicero, Cato Jr.'s problem was that he thought he was living in Plato's "Republic" rather than rome's "political dung pit." The fact that those people needed Pompey to carry out the united front work was precisely a harsh exposure of the weakness of their own strength and the inadequacy of their own problems, because it was supposed to be a typical example of what they fought against. Pompey would not stand up for anything and take responsibility, the only thing he cared about was his own "great deeds". The only eternal feature of his fickle political career is his never-ending personal ambitions.
If the "gifts" given by the vast size of the Empire produce the epitome of narcissistic individualism like Pompey, then Julius Caesar is basically nothing. Throughout the "three-headed politics" period, he kidnapped the political organs of the Roman Republic for personal gain. This is very obvious, when he went to justify his decision to cross the Rubicon River, he did not mention the word republic or freedom at all, but claimed that in his eyes personal dignity was more precious than life. It seems that the era of individualism has indeed surfaced in the long river of history.
The civil war itself was short-lived. Pompey and the "aristocrats" immediately disagreed on military tactics. Caesar, on the other hand, was not accountable to anyone, and he acted quickly and decisively, forcing Pompey to retreat to Greece. Caesar tried to negotiate a solution with Pompey, but was pushed away. Caesar then defeated Pompey's army in Spain and moved to Greece in 48 BC, where the Battle of Fasaro decisively crushed Pompey's forces. Seeing the remnants of the enemy scattered over the battlefield, Caesar said, "They have long deserved it." This sentence shows that no one in the world has ever been willing to take responsibility for a civil war.
Pompey fled to Egypt, but he was killed as soon as he came ashore. The order was given by a group of pharaoh's staff, all of whom wanted to make friends with Caesar. Pompey, Pompey, to celebrate the military triumph, made a self-portrait of himself out of pearls, which swung through the streets of Rome, but eventually became a headless corpse on the beaches of Egypt. The cut-off head was presented to Caesar, who burst into tears.
The civil war was still in full swing, and Pompey's sons and the remaining "aristocratic" hardliners were still leading the resistance, but it was an increasingly hopeless cause. Caesar led his army to North Africa and then swept through Spain, uprooting the remnants of Pompey's great cause. In the north African port of Yutika, Cato jr., who remained self-righteous until his death, was willing to commit suicide rather than surrender. Given that his opponents were either dead or in chaos, Caesar had become the undisputed ruler of Rome, and now he had to consider the form in which this rule should be exercised. Caesar's strategy was completely different from that of Sulla, who had previously occupied such a position of political hegemony. Under his rule, there was no longer any "denial of human rights" or illegal land annexation, and former enemies were treated with touching pity. Cicero, for example, had sided with Pompey and the "nobility", and after a rapport with Caesar, he was allowed to return to Italy.
Under Caesar, debt reforms reduced social poverty, and the state planned new colonies for those without land, as well as road construction and sewer pipe works to provide jobs and improve Italy's infrastructure. Faced with a shattered national economy by war and chaos, Caesar developed a series of revival reforms, such as the restoration of the income port tax and the introduction of a new gold currency system. Caesar's active administration benefited not only Italy itself, but also the irrational tax system was thoroughly examined and revised in the major provinces, and a large number of provincials were granted Roman citizenship. Many loyal followers were promoted to the enlarged Senate.
Julius Caesar's reform actions showed that it was easier to achieve a fair and decent government under the rule of a single man. The city-state of Rome is now a world power, and the political turmoil of the previous century proves that the Roman system failed to evolve to meet the needs. The Rome superpower needed the staunch staying power and far-sighted grandeur of its leaders, not just minor political tinkerings, and the politicians who had made the short-term decisions all knew their terms would end within a year. Competition within the Senate elite, which had previously provided a steady boost to Rome's rapid expansion, had relegated to a bloody conflict of cannibalism for the spoils of war.
Caesar's greatest problem was how to position himself within the framework of the republic's power, and the reach of individual power was unprecedented within the system. This problem was later solved by him, which he never had time to solve. At first, Caesar, like Sulla, tried to deal with it by sticking to his dictatorial position, but this was not a long-term solution. Caesar ruled Rome as a dictator, though he took pains to conceal this and often exuded the respect he deserved for the political organs of the Republic. Although Caesar took over as consul, the idea of treating him as just another member of the Senate was patently ridiculous.
For some, the answer is very simple. If Caesar was already the uncrowned king, why not simply be the eighth king of Rome? In 44 B.C., a "diadem" (i.e., crown) was mysteriously placed on a statue of Caesar, while bystanders at the ceremony cheered and called him "Rex." Caesar himself responded to the incident by saying that he was not a "Rex" but just Caesar, and the truth behind the farce was that "Rex" actually belonged to a Roman surname. Caesar was a mature and wise man who understood how dangerous it would be for him if someone insisted that he had directed this royal farce. The monarchy was despised and incompatible with the entire republican edifice built by Rome. So the crown was swiftly removed, and anyone who mentioned Caesar by the title of king was denounced and threatened with prosecution. These slanders and rumors about Caesar's imperial ambitions led him to very publicly refuse the crown that was given to him at the Celebration of The Prophet Muhammad. Held annually, the festival is intended to purify the city and pay tribute to the she-wolf, which feeds the twins of Romulus and Remus. There is no better occasion than this to publicly reject the long-cherished wish of the emperor that should have been fulfilled.
Caesar does not seem to have a master plan. He simply hurriedly carried out a series of simple and convenient tinkering, while at the same time groping around for longer-lasting solutions. The man who seemed to have the answer to everything didn't know how to put himself in the right place, but others had already made up their minds. For many of the older senate elites who survived the Civil War, the mere peace provided by Caesar would cost centuries of power, and the price was too heavy. They detected signs of Caesar's lack of respect for the Senate and other political institutions of the Republic, such as the failure of Caesar to stand up and pay homage to him when a delegation of the Senate was sent to confer a series of honors on him. In addition, the senate elite had been forced to swear to protect Caesar's life. They hated it so much that they decided to break their oath.
On March 15 of the Roman calendar, a group of parliamentarians murdered Julius Caesar. One of the Assassins was Marcus Brutus, a member of the "Aristocratic Faction", pardoned by Caesar and later approved to enter Caesar's inner circle. When Caesar recognized that it was him, caesar is said to have shouted "Et tu, Brute...", meaning "Brutus, even you..." This phrase is full of betrayal sentimentality and echoes throughout history for hundreds of years. According to legend, Caesar fell at the feet of a statue of Pompeii and then slowly died.
After a brief shock, an angry urban mob blasted the conspirators out of Rome and then out of Italy. Although the conspirators claim to be fighting for freedom, they have little support except in their own small circle of friends. Brutus and his associates, immersed in the arrogance of their personal passions, forget that Caesar succeeded precisely because the Senate had failed to act decisively and decisively or generously toward the citizens, and their citizens had not forgotten this.
Fortunately, Caesar had already designated an heir, and his debut looked bad. He was Caesar's nephew Octavian, and his adopted son, an 18-year-old who was not dry and weak, and had not experienced the bloody political farce of the late Republic. Cicero has criticized that despite Octavian's potential, we should "appreciate, respect, and replace him." But Cicero would eventually regret his contempt. Octavian soon showed a ruthless sense of politics far beyond his youth. He quickly assembled two Roman legions and served the Senate slyly, at a time when the Senate was desperate to curb Mark Antony's ambitions. This man was Caesar's most powerful aide-de-camp and Octavian's main rival. Octavian first contained Antony and marched into rome to claim the position of consul, completely ignoring the fact that he was only 20 years old. The Senate, on the other hand, was as cowardly and docile as usual, and had to comply. However, Cicero's group felt that Octavian could be deceived by the favor of the high-ranking official Houlu and the Senate, but later events immediately proved that they had miscalculated. In November 43 BC, Octavian reached a private agreement with Mark Antony and another of Caesar's supporters, Marcus Rebida, in which the three divided not only the political office of the Roman Republic, but also the entire country.
Compared with the infamous "three-headed politics" of the previous session, today's latecomers are even more direct in their contempt for the state apparatus than the former. The state system and formal political procedures were simply shut down. This year's "three-headed politics" has appointed all the chief executives in its posts, many of whom have advanced many years. At the same time, they launched a brutal purge against the enemy, dwarfed by the blood-stained "denial of human rights" of the former "triumvirate." The head of the accused must be brought before the "three-headed politics" to verify the correctness before the reward can be awarded; The authorities not only gave money to slaves who killed their masters, but also granted freedom. Those who merely showed sympathy for the fugitives and offered asylum were punished with death. For all this kind of thing, the reasons for the "three-headed politics" are sober and wise, but they make people shudder. They had learned their lesson from Julius Caesar, who had died at the hands of those who had been forgiven by him, and the "three-headed politics" preferred to strike first. Cicero had unwisely insulted Mark Anthony in a series of brilliant speeches, paying a heavy price for his scathing eloquence. Cicero was wanted and killed, and his head was later ridiculed and abused by Antony's vengeful wife.
The "three-headed politics" next shifted attention to those who murdered Caesar, who in 42 BC were swept away by Philippi in Macedonia. The victors rewarded themselves with vast provincial command: the provinces of Gaul and the East were owned by Mark Antony, while Africa belonged to Rebida. On the face of it, it seems that Octavian was a loser in this big share of the spoils, because he only got Italy, Spain and Sardinia. At this time, Italy was still weak and divided by years of civil war, and Spain and Sardinia had no chance of giving him military glory or wealth. But Octavian had other plans. He knew in his heart that Rome's political, religious, and cultural importance made it a much larger asset than the vast resources of The provinces under Antony combined. Octavian succeeded in placing his soldiers on Italian soil, thus gaining the loyalty of his army. Then he confronted the poor lepida, who was always the lightest of the "three-headed politics." So there are only two players left.
Octavian's iron fist grew stronger and stronger, while Mark Antony weakened. Antony suffered a crushing military defeat at the hands of the Parthians, while at the same time maintaining an open ambiguity with Cleopatra, Cleopatra, Cleopatra. As a soldier and politician, these scandals have tarnished his reputation. Octavian, on the other hand, launched a propaganda campaign against Antony, portraying him as a debauched drunk, subject to a decadent and depraved oriental woman. Octavian then made a difficult move: he managed to get the whole of Italy to swear an oath of allegiance to him personally against the Queen of the East and her cohort, Mark Antony.
By this time the war was on the line, and in September 31 BC, the two sides clashed in Yaksing, Greece. Although Anthony was numerous, he suffered a crushing defeat. Octavian was already the undisputed master of the whole of Rome. His position was certainly much stronger than that of Caesar, the righteous father who defeated Pompey at Fasaro, and there were very few enemies whom Octavian needed to pardon or execute, for most had already lost their heads, and the new generation loyal to Octavian was introduced into the senate aristocracy.
The question for Octavian today is how to deal with the republican system, which seems out of date and absurdly out of touch with current political realities. Monarchy should have been outside the equation, but most Romans were clearly willing to temper political freedom in exchange for a good life from devastating civil war. Octavian came up with the answer by changing his name to "Augustus," the "savior of the nation," while introducing a dictatorial political system and always carefully whitewashing it with the continuity of policy and the traditional old system.
In the 1930s BC, Polybius saw the rise of Rome as evidence of a historical cyclical model in which societies went through monarchies, oligarchies, democracies, mob politics, and finally returned to monarchy. He speculated at the time that rome was in the oligarchy stage. But if Polybius had been alive in 31 BC and had seen the city of Rome under the control of the first emperor, perhaps he would have changed his mind completely. Under Augustus, the Roman Empire had a stable, glorious new future. Rome's political express seems to have accelerated its return from the stage of oligarchy and mob politics to the monarchy, without setting the site of democracy.