Late in the 130s bc, the Roman Republic metaphorically crossed the Rubicon (although Caesar's actual crossing would not happen for another 80 years). In 133 bc, the tribune brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (the Gracchi Brothers), took it upon themselves through largely extra-constitutional means to drain the Roman swamp of corruption and dismantle the avaricious elites that comprised a sort of Roman Deep State located within the Roman Senate and extended throughout the Roman administrative-state apparatus. The Gracchi Brothers' efforts at agrarian reform set off a chain reaction of intense, to-the-death struggles - a tit-for-tat spiral of extra-constitutional measures between the tribunes and senators and leading eventually to the assassination of Tiberius and later, his brother Gaius. The Brothers Gracchi saga greased the skids for the Old Republic's final descent - already underway nigh on a century since the end of the Punic Wars - into tyranny, with the rise of Julius Caesar, dictator perpetuo, in 44 bc.
By 133 bc, Rome had fallen under the control of what today we would call political crime families ensconced in the Senate, who worked hand-in-glove with government functionaries and actors outside the formal political system. These elites were amassing vast and unprecedented wealth while the rest of Rome was being impoverished. Senators were manipulating the Roman political system to their personal benefit and to the great detriment of the Roman people. Foreign conflicts that had turned into "forever wars" were draining the Roman treasury. The burden fell especially heavily on the land-owning Roman Legionnaires, who not only had to fight the wars but also were helpless to prevent their farms from deteriorating and failing in their absence and their land reverting to state (i.e., Senate) ownership.
Hey, not bad, the author almost got it right. However, the brothers Gracchi and Julius Caesar were similarly fighting against the oligarchy and trying to open Roman government to those ruled by it.
The so-called Roman Republic was run for centuries by about three dozen extended families, the Senate was not elected, and Senators served because they volunteered, but had to belong to one of those families.
The Roman city-state started its empire with the conquest of Ostia around 400 BC. Rome was sacked by the Gauls around 390 BC, and Gallic settlement of northwestern Italy was something Rome learned to live with, but the Gauls were always seen as a threat.
Carthage was similiarly ruled by a small number of families, all of them rivals but more or less equals. The Carthaginian army was run by them, but largely mercenary in character. The city had a great navy, not surprising for a Phoenician colony. It was the expanding power in the western Med, and in continual conflict with the other Phoenicians colonies, with various locals, with the Greeks, and ultimately with Rome. After Hannibal spent more than a decade fighting Romans and others in Italy, and was finally evac'd to defend Carthage from the brilliant Scipio Africanus. Rome wound up with a fulltime standing army, a practice that endured until the Turkish sack of Constantinople in AD 1453.
BTW, Hannibal was a real psycho, and while he had his moments, basically he's been grossly overrated; also, Carthage was the aggressor in the Punic Wars.
Roman conquest of Iberia (Spain and Portugal) took almost 200 years to finish up, and began as Scipio's way of depriving Carthage of valuable territory and a source of military manpower.
Due to the Alexandrian successor-state in Greece having supported Carthage, forty years after Hannibal, Rome decided to settle that old score and conquered Greece in 146 BC, the same year Carthage was finally destroyed. About ten years later the first of three slave revolts in Italy (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Servile War; Spartacus led the last one, 73-71 BC) began, and the necessity of a fulltime Roman army was greatly clarified, although lifting the burden of slavery apparently never occurred to the oligarchy.
Pompey the Great (who was a mere six years older than Julius Caesar) served under Sulla, served in the Third Servile War, defeated and/or had murdered various surviving members of the faction of Marius, cleaned up a mess in Anatolia and added one of the top two or three most prosperous and profitable provinces to the Roman holdings, added Judea, defeated pirates, campaigned throughout Italy and Transalpine Gaul, and his third wife was Julius Caesar's daughter (died giving birth). He was ruthless, effective, resourceful, and very highly interesting. When he turned on Caesar, Caesar knew what he was dealing with, and he wasn't going to just lay down his arms and go off to retirement someplace where he'd be murdered by Pompey's agents.
Imperator was an acclamation bestowed on great leaders in Roman history, including Pompey the Great himself. As an office, beginning in earnest with Augustus, it represented the development of a fulltime executive, officially as Consul. Consuls had always served in pairs, with veto power over each other; starting with Augustus, the emperor appointed his consulsar colleague, typically a member of the family, usually much younger, and that consul would serve and train by administering Roman city affairs. The fourth emperor, Claudius, revived the office of Censor to give himself a fallback authority and additional powers.
The Senate became more representational, a necessity in a far-flung Empire. Roman society and politics became upwardly mobile.
Caesar was murdered in an extrajudicial act. Visitors to Rome today can see the place where his body was cremated by the grieving Romans. AFAIK, there's no trace anywhere in the old Empire where his murderers have marked burials or any other honors.
Later
