How did the Roman Republic integrate conquered peoples?

by BontoSyl

It's been a little over 24 hours, so I'm throwing this back up here.

I was wondering how the Roman Republic was able to maintain a nation built, as far as I can tell on military conquest, together for centuries without it being in constant revolt.

I'm mostly interested in early Rome before it expanded outside of Italy, but more information would be appreciated.

So:

  • How did the Romans keep people in conquered places from revolting or declaring independence at the first opportunity?
  • Were conquered people better off when ruled by Rome? If so, what made Roman rule superior to "barbarian" rule?
  • What potential weaknesses were there in whatever system Rome chose? What were the strengths?
ryekongstad

Hi. I will try to do my best in covering your questions here. Sorry for any grammar errors, Iam not a native english speaker.

You asked "How did the Roman Republic integrate conquered peoples?" And provided three sub-questions:

  • How did the Romans keep people in conquered places from revolting or declaring independence at the first opportunity?

So to answer your first question. Usually you were offered the "carrot or the stick". You could either accept roman rule, but keep some of your own officials, gods, holidays etc but pay taxes to the Roman state. Later when the Republic evolved to the Empire (circa 44 bc, or 31 bc if you count the battle of actium for the beginning of the Roman Empire) the conquered people were offered the chance to become roman citizens with all it's benefits. And they would quickly adopt the roman culture alltogether.

If a tribe/city/people didnt accept the carrot they would get the stick. Which meant death to most of the men and slavery for the rest, this was possible due to the military. The roman military was was superior for many reasons. They were extremely well disciplined and drilled, they fought for their own lives, they belived in "just wars", they never gave up and the legionaires were very patriotic.

  • Were conquered people better off when ruled by Rome? If so, what made Roman rule superior to "barbarian" rule?

If you by Barbarian mean the Celtic tribes in Northern Italy, France, Spain and Portugal then the short answer would be probably be no, they werent better off. But the Romans thought of their culture as superior. To be fair a lot of civic improvements, infrastucture and social security were passer on to the conquered areas. 

As a side note. Today many historiens even speak of a celtic genocide, 100 of thousands of Celtics were killed by the invading romans, and many of them probably didnt see the Romans as anything other than Barbarians themselves.

  • What potential weaknesses were there in whatever system Rome chose? What were the strengths?

By system do you mean the politcal system? If so, corruption was a major weakness. There is also the patron-client system which became the norm of social and political structure after the punic wars (264 to 146 bc). It was a system were the Patron (a wealthy roman aristocrat) gave protection to his clients, the clients however were required to support their patron in any way. This system led directly to a guy like Ceasar being able to get such immense popularity and control over the "democratic" institutions. 

Let me know if you want to know more.

Sources:

A History of World Societies, Mackay, John P. På sporet af Romerriget (danish book) S.P.Q.R A History of Ancient Rome