The military reforms of Gaius Marius resulted in soldiers often having more loyalty to their commander than to the city, and a powerful general could hold the city and Senate ransom. This led to civil war between Marius and his protegé Sulla, and culminated in Sulla's dictatorship of 81–79 BC. In the mid-1st century BC, three men, Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, formed a secret pact—the First Triumvirate—to control the Republic. After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, a stand-off between Caesar and the Senate led to civil war, with Pompey leading the Senate's forces. Caesar emerged victorious, and was made dictator for life.
The Roman Republic was facing internal problems that would cause it to ultimately collapse into the Roman Empire. Including social unrest between the classes and military entering into politics, among other reasons, the Roman Republic crumbled under itself and gave way to the beginning of new government. A second triumvirate ended with civil war and the Republic was over; however, Octavian created the Roman Empire in its place. Because of the stabilizing government, strong legal system and increasing trade, the Pax Romana was able to remain tied together for about 210 years. The Roman Republic was struggling to remain in power but the social unrest was a not a helping factor in helping the Republic to last for a while longer.
Just when the Romans were paying the Gauls, so that the Romans could obtain their freedom, a Roman General by the name of Marcus Furius Camillus, turned up with an army put stop to the payment and defeated the Gauls. The Romans felt the social and political consequences of the sack of Rome of 390 BC for centuries after the initial sack. However, some historians believe that there we no such ramifications from the sack its self. After the sack and after a brief war with the Gauls in which the Romans came out victorious, life had not gotten back to normal. The Romans now lived in a state of fear and panic of facing another sack.
During these campaigns Caesar revealed his thirst for military glory and prominence among the people of Rome. In Gaul Rome was faced with a legitimate problem. An armed force of Belgian Gauls was preparing an attempt to expel the Romans from Gaul. Caesar took the offensive and protected the tribes who had earlier subdued to Rome. During the period of 58-56 Caesar benefited from his Gallic campaigns.
He showed his military genius time and time again in the campaigns in Italy from 218 onwards, but even he could not prevent the final defeat for Carthage at Zama in 202. He spent his later years in exile, first at the court of the Seleucid king Antiochus III and finally in Bithynia, where he poisoned himself rather than face Roman captivity. Roman accounts of Hannibal mention his cruelty and greed, but there is much evidence to the contrary, such as the respect he showed for the bodies of fallen Roman generals and the care he took of his men and his animals. Why the Second Punic War was an important event The Second Punic War was important both from the perspective of the feats accomplished and tactics developed on both sides, as well as the political consequences. Hannibal pushed the borders of what was considered possible by successfully marching a force of 50,000 men, 9000 horses and 37 elephants across the Alps, and in doing so passed into legend.
Brutus' tragic flaw is that he is nationalistic, very gullible, and is too honest. These flaws allowed people to manipulate his trust, his honesty, and his patriotic beliefs. During Caesars rein, the public was mostly pleased with having Julius Caesar as their emperor but there were people who were outraged and were determined to stop this from happening. The conspirators, as they were called, were a group made up of senators and men of high status in Rome. The two most important men were Marcus Brutus and Cassius.
Imperialism had divided the Roman Empire into two halves, east and west, with one getting steadily weaker. The migrations of people mixed barbarian and Roman culture. The Roman army was later allowed to marry while in service. This caused questioning of loyalties and morale when fighting the culture that the Roman soldiers had integrated into. This combined with a weak senate, too many slaves and many weak leaders interspersed with a few good ones caused the fall of the Roman Empire.
They would lead until Caesar had enough military experience out of France to come in and defeat both their armies to become dictator. This would eventually lead to his death along with civil wars after bringing the Roman Empire down. It seemed to be a step backward for civilization due to the fact when the Roman Empire was at its peak there was free elections, new finding in science, art, literature and other fields of education. Along, with a stable government where people could pick their senators. However during the middle ages this all seemed to come crashing down, due to civil wars and peoples push for power over the entire Empire.
“He ran for pontifex maximus… Caesar won by a comfortable margin. As a result, Caesar’s political career left him heavily in debt” (Keko). After the bona dea scandal, Caesar was forced to divorce Pompeia (as mentioned before) to sustain his reputation he had built so far. Still in debt, Caesar aligned with Crassus to pay his debts in return for political support and securely “assumed the governorship of Spain”. Now at 60BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey had secured an uncomfortable alliance – the First Triumvirate - but was necessary for any future
To some extent, I agree with this statement as John had many faults such as, he was a bad fighter and the people of medieval England liked their kings to be great warriors. He lost all of the land in France and some sources written by barons say that it was because he was idle and was not bothering to fight. He was also over taxing the barons which obviously was not sensible as the barons in medieval times had a lot of power. If they inherited land, king John would get a large share of it, or if they didn’t want to fight in a battle, they would have to pay a large amount of money to the king. However I also disagree with this statement for as many reasons as I agree with it, one being that Johns brother was Richard the Lion Heart.