Timeline¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents a chronological skeleton of Roman history from its legendary foundation in 753 BC to the establishment of the Augustan principate in 27 BC. The timeline’s core narrative thrust is the transformation of Rome from a small city-state under Etruscan kings into a Mediterranean empire, and the internal class conflicts that shaped its political institutions. The early entries document the Struggle of the Orders: the first plebeian secession in 494 BC, the establishment of the Tribunes and the Plebeian Council, and the codification of the Twelve Tables in 451-450 BC. The Licinio-Sexian laws of 367 BC, which mandated that one consul be a plebeian, and the Lex Hortensia of 287 BC, which made plebeian council resolutions binding on the state, mark the formal resolution of this class struggle within the framework of the Republic.
The timeline then charts Rome’s external expansion through a series of wars: the Samnite Wars (343-290 BC) securing central Italy, the Pyrrhic War (280-275 BC) extending control to the south, and the Punic Wars (264-146 BC) establishing dominance over the western Mediterranean. The destruction of Carthage and the annexation of Greece in 146 BC are presented as watershed moments, after which the internal contradictions of the Republic become acute. The entries for the Gracchi brothers (133-121 BC) introduce the period of civil strife, with Tiberius Gracchus murdered by senatorial supporters after passing land reform legislation, and his brother Gaius killed by a consul-led militia. The military reforms of Gaius Marius in 107 BC, recruiting from the propertyless class, are noted as a pivotal change that created armies loyal to commanders rather than the state.
The final section of the timeline covers the collapse of the Republic through a series of civil wars, proscriptions, and dictatorships. The Social War (91-87 BC), the march of Sulla on Rome (88 BC), and the Sullan dictatorship (81-79 BC) demonstrate the use of military force to settle political disputes. The slave revolts, particularly the Spartacus rebellion (73-71 BC), are interspersed as evidence of the explosive class tensions beneath the surface of Roman society. The timeline concludes with the formation of the First Triumvirate (59 BC), Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon (49 BC), his assassination (44 BC), the Second Triumvirate, and the final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium (31 BC). The conferral of the title ‘Augustus’ on Octavian in 27 BC marks the endpoint, the moment when the Republic’s formal institutions were subordinated to one-man rule. The chapter offers no interpretation of its own, but the selection of events—emphasising class conflict, military conquest, and the breakdown of republican norms—provides a factual foundation for a Marxist analysis of the Roman state.