Was the end of the Roman Republic and start of the Empire good bad for them?

The republic was doomed after the assassination of the gracchi brothers and the Marian reforms.

I agree that there probably wasn't much difference to the average citizen whether Rome was a republic or empire. The last century of the Republic was full of civil war, so I suspect that the Republic might not have ever regained stability and that a change in government was inevitable.

On the other hand, centralizing authority did lead to some problems in those days with communications so slow. An emperor leading an offensive in the east couldn't effectively control things on the German border. This lead to some decentralization in the later empire, maybe even becoming the beginning of feudalism.

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Have you listened to death throes of the republic by Dan Carlin?

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Not yet but I definitely will have to check that out.

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Not yet but I definitely will have to check that out.

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You should listen to Death Throes, then Punic Nightmare right after that.

I would argue the empire was the downfall of the Romans, but it greatly benefitted some of the other countries under their rule

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The Republic was ill-served to administer a large empire. However, the rise of the emperor destroyed the classes that gave Rome its strength.

There were Emperors who tried to give more power back to the Senate but the Senate refused, such was how low they sank.

When Rome reached its true crisis of life or death, the leaders that would've sprung from those classes to save Rome were nowhere to be found as those classes were destroyed or emasculated.

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I have to agree with this.

The Roman civilization could have never reached the heights it did without becoming an empire, but at the same time becoming an empire destroyed what made it great to begin with.

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The Republic wasn't really that democratic of an institution.

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The Republic "wasn't that democratic"?

You don't say.

I think you need a narrower question to start from. It was good for who? The common people, the aristocracy, the merchant class, the power elite?

From a general standpoint, I think everyone in Rome benefited from a closure to the hostilities of the 1st century BC. We are talking about 80 years of instability, infighting and bloodletting. So Augustus coming into power, and the Pax Augusta that followed, were good years for Rome.

The average Roman likely didn't experience much change other than a little less fear that they weren't going to get conscripted by the next man in power. So that's not bad at all.

Time, changing attitudes, and movements of people starting changing Rome afterward.

Here's a Roman history thought to consider, regarding the Western Empire and its inability to thrive and survive. A lot of folks overlook this one. Consider where all the big cities were in the Roman Empire. They were all in the East. Think about the great cities of the West.

Not much to choose from, is there? Especially considering the size of some of these Eastern cities.

Think about the populations of those cities compared to the West.

There's really no comparison. The West was a backwater compared to the East. Is it any wonder that people and Roman focus moved East when things started getting tough in the West?

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This was not a frequent practice. Caesar most famously did it.

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Sulla and Marius laid the groundwork for it first. Caesar learned from them.

Generally, I think the Republic was woefully inefficient. When the status quo or slow growth is demanded, that's generally a good thing. When change is required, inefficiency has to go bye bye. For illustration, take Hannibal. Had he been emperor of Carthage rather than a relatively unliked, mistrusted, and exceedingly envied general, there would have been no Rome as we know it. Rome would have fallen having expanded only to Sicily and parts of Iberia, after which those areas would have fallen under Carthaginian dominion.

This was not lost on the Romans. It's why they had the position of Dictator, even during the Republic. And as more and more dictatorships and multiple consulships were attained by great men of Rome, more and more other great men wanted the same thing.

Combine rampant ambition with woeful taxing policies and terrible treatment of plebeians, (who, oh by the way, were the Republic's soldiery) including the near outright theft of plebeian property after they had been at war defending or expanding the Republic, PLUS the rise of the Roman Knight class and the twisting of the Tribune position into a position of serious power, the Republic was an absolute mess even before the end of the Punic Wars.

And so, as disenfranchised masses are wont to do, when Marius answered the problem of how to field the legions when property had fallen into the hands of so few by pushing for the legions to be paid for their service, these disenfranchised masses clung to the great, populist men whom the masses believed would represent their interests.

Enter the Civil Wars.

So was Rome better off a Republic? Not after the defeat of Pyrrhus, in my opinion. Before that? Maybe. But as has been said by others, a vast empire such as Rome, one that conquered so many peoples, needed to be ruled by an emperor or, perhaps, fewer men than the Republic allowed. But after the defeat of Pyrrhus and certainly after the defeat of Carthage, the Republic was a shite show and desperately needed reform, to which its Senate families were extremely resistant.

And so they held on until it was impossible to save it and it, rightly, died. The empire was more stable for some time, and eventually, as excess, luck of the draw on who was emperor, and the sheer girth of the empire, weighed even the emperor's ability to govern and it fell as well.

So I'd say they were better off as an empire. Certainly they are more importantly historically as a result of becoming an empire than they would be if they were simply a Republic, if for no other reason than longevity.

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