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The effects of the Roman Empire conquests

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Please explain to me how all of the Roman conquests actually affected Rome? Did it lead to more and more power or was it a direct contribution to the Empire's ultimate downfall?

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Solution Summary

This solution explains how the many conquests of Rome affected the Empire itself. The direct contribution to the Empire's ultimate downfall are determined.

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I have posted an article below written by: UNRV History, titled 'Roman Slavery', 2006. This article describes how the continued conquests of the Roman empire actually led to its downfall. It is very ironic that each successful conquest brought the rupublic closer and closer to its own ruin.

Slavery was an important part of the ancient world, and it was an integral piece of Roman daily life and the economy. Though slavery was practiced all over the Mediterranean, and was abundant in the east, its impact in other places was not felt nearly as much as it was in Rome and her Empire. As the Romans consolidated their position on the Italian peninsula and began the systematic conquest of the Mediterranean region, millions of slaves were incorporated into Rome and the Italian countryside.

Though slavery was prevalent in households throughout the city itself, it was on the farms and plantations where it had its greatest effect. The Roman conquests of Carthage, Macedonia and Greece in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC altered what was once a luxury and privilege for the ruling elite into the predominant factor driving both social and economic policies for the Republic as a whole. The mass influx of slaves during this time period first was a sign of great wealth and power, but later destabilized an already fragile Roman class system. Farms originally run by small business families throughout Italy were soon gobbled up and replaced by enormous slave run plantations owned by the aristocratic elite. Cheap slave labor replaced work for the common man and the roles of the unemployed massive grew to epidemic proportions. These issues had a great destabilizing effect on the social system which had a direct role in the demise of the Republic. As the rift between Senatorial elite (optimates) and social reformers (populares) grew, the use of the unemployed, landless, yet citizen mobs were an overwhelming ploy grinding away at the ability of the Senate to govern. Though there are many factors involved in the Fall of the Republic, slavery and its effects rippled throughout every aspect of that turbulent time period.

Not only did slavery help push the Roman lower classes into organized mobs, but the slaves themselves understandably revolted against oppression. The 3 servile wars in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, with the rebellion of Spartacus in the ...

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