Roman Empire Civilization
The Romans can be seen as one of the most complex civilizations of its time by examining its economy, technology, and religion. As a result of Roman civilization, many changes took place such as, the growth of the Roman economy through its tribal beginning to its historical rise to power. As a result of the civilization, there was a positive rise of technology and the changes were noted in the religious forms. The Roman Empire was composed of three tribes Latins, Sabines, and Semites. Greek civilization also marked the beginning of human development in terms of business and other social areas in major cities such as Patras and Larissa.
Democracy during the Ancient days in Roman and Greece
Democracy can be defined as the ability to express or participate in a political contest without being intimidated or without favoritism. It is the natural existence of the rule of Law in the society. During the early period in the Roman and Greece Empire, there existed kings and queens who had the mandate to come up with policies and decision makers in the running of the government. Athenian democracy was initiated in Athens, one of the Greek city-states and Athens was the first known democracy that was well documented and was more relevant and powerful during the Ancient times. By 500 BC, democracy started spreading in most parts of Roman Empire and the Etruscan Kings were opposed by the Roman aristocrats rule in Roman Empire. However, they could not get rid of the Kings hence they had to entice the poor in the society to help them in fighting the war.
The Roman Empire was full of radicalism and many elites in the Ancient days were against Monarchy rule. In 510 BC, Sparta together with the Athens united to bring down the tyrannical kingdom of Hippias. Athens took the opportunity to introduce a democratic form of government which lasted almost 200 years. A year later, the Romans overthrew the absolute power of Tarquinius and replaced it with the Roman Senate, which as a generally true republic lasted about 450 years the reason why Tarquinius was easily replaced by the Senate was because the system had weak political structure that could not respond to the crisis especially after 512 BC. However, the Athenian democracy was full of individualism and was based on personal interest such as the interest to use the army in fighting the people who were outside the wall.
Many people criticized the Athenian democracy since according to their definition on democracy it meant that democracy belonged to certain group or clique of people. They viewed society like a modern stock company and that democracy is like a company where all shareholders have an equal say regardless of the scale of their holding one share or ten thousand, it makes no difference. They regarded this as manifestly unjust. In Aristotle, this is categorized as the difference between arithmetic and geometric equality.
Democracy was far from being the normal style of governance and the beliefs on which it was based were in effect a minority opinion. In comparing the military structure in both countries, it is worth acknowledging that the Roman Empire had a strong military that was well organized as compared to the Greek Forces.
During the reign of Caesar Augustus, he abandoned all the citizen-soldiers and replaced it with fully qualified soldiers that were well paid by the Empire the military was well organized in terms of coordination. Soldiers were well distributed in the Empire and the legendary troops were paid to patrol around the Empire. Even though in Greek the soldiers were centrally placed to guard the State, it was not well organized and financed as compared to Romanian soldiers who earned up to 900 sesterces in a year. The Greek soldiers were earning almost half of what was paid to the Roman soldiers.
Similarity between the two Ancient forms of Government
It is worth noting that the two forms of government experienced worst form of governance based on Monarchy in Roman Empire and tyrannical rule in Greece. The two forms of government can be said to be grounded on dictatorial rule that led to revolution in both countries. In Roman Empire, Tarquinius was replaced with the Roman Senate and in Greece the people opposed the tyrannical rule that led to formation of Athenian democracy that was also opposed by the elites who claimed that it did not include the majority rights. Both political system in the Ancient time were undemocratic and based on hereditary, where leadership was transferred from one generation to the next.
Ancient Social aspects in Rome and Greek
Rome was the largest city of its time and the population was huge and required a good system of government that could ensure that there was food security. Before the civilization process in both Ancient States, people were involved in several activities from trade to agriculture. For instance, in the Roman Empire, Italian Peninsula in 10 BC, people were farmers who grew food crops along the Mediterranean Sea and as a result, the Roman Empire expanded to be one of the largest Empires in the world. It is worth noting that the Roman political aspect and changes were influenced by the agricultural activities that took place due to the increased population that required a proper government with good structures that could ensure that the interest of the majority were met.
As a result, there was a paradigm shift of power from the monarchs to Oligarchy form of government. This was a form of governance that was based on the decision of a group of leaders leading in a bad way vis--vis to autocracy that is composed of good leaders. In Greek city states, most people had a unique way of life. They valued trade as a means of earning a living and few were involved in farming as compared to the Romans. The two Ancient States experienced class conflict as a result of exploitations and control of means of production that were managed by the upper class that exploited the citizens and mistreated the poor. The kind of class conflict that was marked with a lot of changes was the class of conflict in Ancient Roman Empire when the lower class were against the rule and legislation of the Roman laws that only favored the oligarchs.
Even though there was no major difference in the types of laws that were used in both States, it is worth noting that the Roman laws gave the senate a lot of power and authority in terms of controlling the economic resources and this was the reason why most of the Ancient Romans were against the form of government that was in place during the leaderships of the Oligarchs. Despite the fact that the senators were powerful and authoritative, they could not come up with policies or legislation individually but required the support of the majority.
Conclusion
Although the Greek democracy and the Roman republic have many resemblances, they also have many differences. Ancient Greek democracy and the ancient Roman republic may seem the same but they are actually both similar and different in three significant ways how the system of a democracy and a republic work, how each government elected their officials, and how the hierarchy of each system was oriented. Finally, civilization in both Ancient States led to major changes both in social and political aspects.
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