-
A Roman legend about two boys, Romulus and Remus, being raised by wolves and eventually fighting each other with Romulus being the victor was invented to explain the origins of the city of Rome. The importance of the legend is that it explains the Roman values of force, power, and accepting no equals.
-
At the beginning of the Roman civilization, a neighboring people, called the Etruscans, ruled over Rome. During this time, Rome was ruled by Etruscan kings, making the government a monarchy.
-
In 509 BCE, the Romans overthrew the last Etruscan king and established a full Republican form of government, with elected senators making all of the important political decisions. The Roman dislike towards kings was so great that no leader would ever call himself king again, even after the Republic became an empire.
-
For 140 years (from about 500 BCE to 360 BCE) an ongoing class struggle occurred in Rome, in which the plebeians fought to get more political representation. In 494, they threatened to simply leave Rome, rendering it almost defenseless. The class struggle in Rome was the beginning of the downfall of the Roman Republic.
-
The work of the Gracchus brothers initiated a violent revolution in the Roman Republic. The brothers were reform-minded politicians. The older brother was clubbed to death by senators while the younger brother killed himself to avoid being killed by other politicians. The deaths of the Gracchus brothers proved that true power in the Roman Republic was shifting away from rhetoric and toward military might.
-
After a full-scale civil war shook Rome in 83-82 BCE, a general called Sulla was victorious and named dictator of Rome in 81 BCE. He greatly strengthened the power of the Senate at the expense of the Plebeian Assembly and then retired to a life in his private estate. The problem for the Roman Republic was that, even though Sulla ultimately proved that he was loyal to the republican values, other generals might not be in the future.
-
The First Triumvirate was made up of Julius Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. Pompey had created the alliance to make the Senate authorize land and wealth for his troops. Crassus and Caesar both hoped to be appointed to lead Roman armies, but Caesar also hungered for wealth and glory. The three had so much political power they were able to achieve all of their demands.
-
Caesar waged a brutal war against the Celts of Gaul and was victorious. His victories made him famous and immensely powerful. In Rome, senators feared his power and called on Pompey to stop him. In 48 BCE, Caesar defeated Pompey's forces and declared himself dictator of Rome for life. Julius Caesar set about creating a new government that answered directly to him.
-
Following Caesar's death, the Second Triumvirate was formed, made up of Mark Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus. When Mark Antony and Cleopatra declared her son to be the heir to Caesar and not Octavian, Octavian defeated their forces and began the process of manipulating the institutions of the Republic to transform it into an empire.
-
There is not a definitive answer for the fall of Rome. Many factors contributed to Rome's fall, such as the civilization growing corrupt and weak over time, being infiltrated by invaders, or simply just having transformed into a different, more diverse set of societies.
