10a: Introduction

It was the end of the Roman Republic as they knew it, nobody felt fine. War after war, political maneuver after political maneuver, scandal after scandal - the Republic decided to burn out rather than fade away. The real question was: how would Romans know for sure when the Republic was dead? And what would they find to replace it?

In segment 10b: Life During Wartime, Rome refused to grant citizenship to her Italian allies,thereby tipping off the utterly avoidable Social War of 91-88 BC. Rome's first civil war would have lasted longer, were it not for the murder of 80,000 Roman nationals in 88 BC. No question that Rome had to deal with the instigator, King Mithridates of Pontus. But first Marius and Sulla duked it out for the privilege of fighting Mithradates. In 87 BC, Sulla is the first general to march his client army upon Rome. Marius fled, but returns after Sulla left to fight Mithradates. You get the picture. The era was also marked by blanket grants of multi-year proconsular imperium - needed to wipe out legitimate threats such as Spartacus or the Pirates - but also a breeding ground for the development of dangerous client armies.

Segment 10c: The First Triumvirate covers the last full decade of the Roman Republic, from 60 BC to 50 BC, when the Roman world was dominated by three men: Pompey, Crassus and Caesar. The so-called First Triumvirate was not a legal or even formal arrangement, but an agreement that Rome's three most powerful men would help look out after each other's best interests. The Senate and especially the optimates could only sit and watch and try not to get killed in the streets. Caesar got to raise a client army and conquer Gaul; Pompey got a lucrative command in Spain, and Crassus got himself killed trying to conquer the Parthians. Once the triumvirate had shrunk to two men, it became possible for the Senate to win Pompey over and provoke a civil war with Caesar.

In segment 10d: Fall of the Roman Republic, the Republic dies. Caesar killed it by defeating Pompey in 48 BC. After two years of mopping up resistance, he confronted the question of how he should reorganize the state. For the first time in his career, Caesar was out of ideas. It seemed as though he was trying to establish himself as King of Rome. Even though the old Republic had clearly failed, some Senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus decided that it was worth another try, and that Caesar had to go. On the Ides of March 44 BC, Caesar was turned into a human pincushion. The assassins thought they would seize power, while Caesar's pal Mark Antony thought he would seize power. Meanwhile, an 18 year old named Gaius Octavius learns that his Uncle Julius has adopted him in his will and that he is the heir to Caesar's legacy...