1. Origins¶
Core Argument¶
The origins of Rome are veiled in myth, but archaeological and linguistic evidence permits a partial reconstruction of its early development. Rome’s geographical position—commanding the Tiber crossing and the salt flats—was of decisive economic and strategic importance, with the salt trade underpinning its early prosperity. Early Roman society was organised into gentes (clans), curiae, and tribes. Engels catalogues the characteristics of the Roman gens, including common property, mutual inheritance, and the right to elect and depose chiefs. The Senate, composed of gentile chiefs (patres), gradually crystallised into a hereditary patrician aristocracy. The rex was an elected military leader and high priest, not an absolute monarch. The rise of private property from revocable communal land grants generated sharp class divisions, reflected in the extreme patriarchal family where the pater familias held absolute power over wife, children, and property.
Rome’s development was profoundly shaped by contact with more advanced peoples, particularly the Etruscans, who dominated the city for roughly a century. Under Etruscan rule (late seventh–early sixth centuries BC), Rome was transformed from a cluster of villages at a higher stage of barbarism into a thriving urban centre, with major public works including the Capitoline walls, the Pons Sublicius bridge, and the Cloaca Maxima sewer system. The Etruscans’ higher economic and cultural level explains their dominance, and their influence ended remnants of the gentile constitution while strengthening the tribal aristocracy.
Rome’s military shifted from clan-based warfare to the Greek phalanx, requiring disciplined, property-owning infantry. This created a fundamental social contradiction: the plebs, who formed the bulk of the infantry and included wealthy members, were excluded from political power under the old patrician constitution. As Aristotle notes, as heavy infantry grew stronger, more gained a share in government. The old gentile order was replaced by a state constitution based on territorial division and property. The Centuriate Assembly divided the male population into six property classes; the cavalry and first class held 98 of 193 votes, an inbuilt majority. Livy records that voting rarely extended beyond the first class, concentrating power among the wealthy. Attributed to King Servius Tullius, this constitution set the stage for the future patrician-plebeian struggles that would define the early Republic.