What did the Roman Empire think of the Republic?

I am under the impression that the populace arent well learned enough to care. Maybe the patricians.

The common people didn't even realise the republic collapsed. After all, Augustus called himself princeps, meaning first of the senate, and a lot of relics from the republic, like the cursus honorum, were left almost untouched.

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>>2387588
The distinction between Empire and republic isn't as clear as most people think it is. In the early period of the Empire most people would have made no difference. For them it was still the republic just more stable because one noble actually decided the Civil wars that ravaged the late republic. Also the early emperors have much more in common with republican dictators (Augustus sometimes allowed other people to be Consul similiar to Putin allowing his Medwedjew to be president) in the titles they were granted and the way they ruled. Augustus ruled so long that most people,especially commoners, couldn't really remember the time of the republic and the ones that could only remebered Civil war and instability. So for them it only seemed natural too accept another emperor/first citizen/dictator. The roman emperors started resembling emperors in the so called Dominate starting in the late antiquity about 284 AD. The earlier period of the Empire the Principate was still very rooted in the republic and its an outsiders/historians view to make such a clear distinction.

>>2387610
Nice information here. Where did you learn the Roman history with this level of detail?

>>2387610
What about in the later years when it was clear to everyone that they were in fact an empire? How did historians of the time (such as they existed) view the republic?

>>2388096
it's in the high school textbook, you retard

>>2388145
Fuck you.

>>2388096
University. Took a course on rome back when i still studied history. Really interesting but i changed to law in order to make some money.

>>2388116
Historians were patricians so we only know how they thought about emperors. A lot of the Bad ones probably were really popular with the common people. Also there a certain topoi in Roman historiography. Every emperor who was disliked by the patricians suddenly slept with his sister, similiar how every african dictator is supposed to be a cannibal. Roman history mostly just transports the unfiltered biases of the author and was often used to actually critique the events of the present in a discrete way.

I am not an expert on the late antiquity but too answer your question to the best of my knowledge and a Dose of speculation:

They probably had no idea how the republic was apart from some mythified stories. Most commoners had no clue what the republic was like when Augustus died and when the Dominate started so many generations had passed that no one had an idea of the republic apart from a heavily distorted picture more in the realm of mythology.

Aristocrats interested probably knew a little more. But Romans had a severe case of great man history so they probably thought Sulla and Caesar were similiar to their contemporary emperors.