The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

Polybius was a gifted theorist, by the time he was writing his history in the mid-100s the balance he admired had already been disrupted. The Senate had emerged from the Punic Wars stronger than it had been since the First Secession of the Plebs in the 400s. During the Punic Wars the annual changeover of senior military commanders became a hindrance to war planning and the Senate collectively began to take the lead in developing and executing policy. The senators also became adept at ensuring subservient clients were elected tribunes. By the end of the Punic Wars the consuls, the tribunes, and Assemblies no longer acted as a check on the Senate, but as an extension of it. Even as Polybius wrote his paean to Roman constitutional balance, the senatorial aristocracy was sliding into repressive oligarchy.28