The History of the Constitution of the Roman Empire is a study of the ancient Roman Empire that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC until the abolishment of the Roman Principate around 300 AD. In the year 88 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla was elected Consul of the Roman Republic, and began a civil war. While it ended within a decade, it was the first in a series civil wars that wouldn't end until the year 30 BC. The general who won the last civil war of the Roman Republic, Gaius Octavian, became the master of the state. Octavian was the adopted son and heir of Julius Caesar. In the years after 30 BC, Octavian set out to reform the Roman constitution. The ultimate consequence of these reforms was the abolition of the republic, and the founding of the "Roman Empire". Octavian was given the name "Augustus" by the "Roman Senate", and became known to history as the first "Roman Emperor". While it is true that Octavian sought power for himself, it is also true that the old constitution had ceased to function properly. This simple fact had caused much of the turmoil of the prior century. Octavian's reforms did not, at the time, seem drastic, since they did nothing more than reorganize the constitution. The old offices and institutions were not altered in any other way. The reorganization was revolutionary, however, because the ultimate result was that Octavian ended up with control over the entire constitution. During the reigns of future emperors, the constitution that Octavian had left behind transitioned into outright monarchy.
Read more about History Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire: Augustus' Constitutional Reforms, From Tiberius To Vitellius, The Flavian Emperors, From Nerva To The Abolition of The Principate
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, roman empire, history, constitution, roman and/or empire:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Roman Empire stood appalled:
It dropped the reins of peace and war
When that fierce virgin and her Star
Out of the fabulous darkness called.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“It is an immense misfortune to the empire to have a king of such a disposition at such a time. We are told and every thing proves it true that he is the bitterest enemy we have.... To undo his empire he has but one truth more to learn, that after colonies have drawn the sword there is but one step more they can take.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)