HumanitiesClassicsHistoryAncient HistoryPolitical HistoryRoman HistoryAncient RomeClassical AntiquityEarly RomeRoman ConquestRoman EmpireRoman Political InstitutionsAncient Roman Political InstitutionsHereditary MonarchyImperial MonarchyLate Roman EmpireRoman AntiquitySenate HistorySenate Relations
THE PURPOSE of this paper* is to enquire why and how, after the decline and disappearance of the first Dynasty, a second Dynasty came to be established in Rome. The founder of the Roman Empire achieved two remarkable feats, apart from his spectacular rise to supreme power; he established a hereditary monarchy in the most aristocratic, conservative, and antimonarchical of all ancient states, and he succeeded in securing the acceptance, if not the enthusiasm, even of the Roman Senate for both the monarchic and hereditary principles. Some opposition did manifest itself later on, and to this reference will be made below; for the moment, the voices of dissent were silent.