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Main article: Roman
Republic
According to tradition and later writers such as Livy,
the Roman
Republic was
established around 509 BC,[27] when
the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin
the Proud, was deposed by Lucius
Junius Brutus, and a system based on annually electedmagistrates and
various representative assemblies was established.[28] Aconstitution set
a series of checks
and balances, and a separation
of powers. The most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together
exercised executive authority as imperium,
or military command.[29] The
consuls had to work with thesenate,
which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, orpatricians,
but grew in size and power.[30]
Other magistracies in the Republic include tribunes, quaestors,aediles, praetors and censors.[31] The
magistracies were originally restricted to patricians, but were later opened to
common people, orplebeians.[32] Republican
voting assemblies included the comitia
centuriata (centuriate
assembly), which voted on matters of war and peace and elected men to the most
important offices, and the comitia
tributa (tribal
assembly), which elected less important offices.[33]
In the 4th century BC Rome had come under attack by the Gauls, now extending
their power in the Italian peninsula beyond the Po Valley and through Etruria.
On 16 July 390 BC, a Gallic army under the leadership of a tribal chieftain
named Brennus, met the Romans on the Banks of the small Allia River just ten
miles north of Rome. Brennus defeated the Romans, and the Gauls marched directly
to Rome. Most Romans had fled the city, but some barricaded themselves upon the
Capitoline Hill for a last stand. The Gauls looted and burned the city, then
laid siege to the Capitoline Hill. The siege lasted seven months, the Gauls then
agreed to give the Romans peace in exchange for 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of gold.[34] (According
to later legend, the Roman supervising the weighing noticed that the Gauls were
using false scales. The Romans then took up arms and defeated the Gauls; their
victorious general Camillus remarked
"With iron, not with gold, Rome buys her freedom.")[35]
The Romans gradually
subdued the
other peoples on the Italian peninsula, including the Etruscans.[36] The
last threat to Romanhegemony in
Italy came when Tarentum,
a major Greek colony,
enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus
of Epirus in
281 BC, but this effort failed as well.[37][38] The
Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman
colonies in
strategic areas, thereby establishing stable control over the region of Italy.[39]
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