How a Republic becomes an Empire

The first season of HBO’s Rome has come to a bloody close. The ending was predictable, but that didn’t stop this twelve episode series from being the best thing showing on American television in years. It’s a ripping good drama, to be sure. But the series also captures a political phenomenon that the new Star Wars trilogy tried and failed to show on the big screen: how a republic becomes an empire.

At the start of the series, Rome is a representative republic, but the Senate is ruled by the nobility. The common citizens suffer desitution as the work is done by slaves. After a civil war breaks out, the popular Caesar vows to solve this with a dictatorship designed to appeal to the common man. The catch: he plans to install himself as a living God in the process. The nobility are part of the problem, but Caesar would be a meglomaniac dictator. Republic or Empire, which is more just?

It isn’t just an issue for the audience: we see the characters contemplate how to be true to their republican ideals. Citizen and soldier Lucius Vorenus and noble aristocrat Brutus both contemplate how to be true to their republican ideals. If nothing else, the series shows us that the choices faced by all sides are not easy decisions. Rome has one more season coming up in which we’ll see the conclusion of the political transformation and the end of the Roman Republic. But much more blood will be spilled before the transformation is complete.