The Roman Republic Period

The Roman Republic Period ran from the traditional overthrow of Rome's monarchy in 509 BC to the establishment of one-man rule under Augustus around 27 BC, five centuries in which Rome expanded from a single city-state to the dominant power of the Mediterranean world. Its political system divided power between annually elected magistrates, most notably two consuls, and the aristocratic Senate, with an evolving set of popular assemblies giving ordinary citizens, the plebeians, a growing if unequal share of power after the Conflict of the Orders. The Republic's final century was marked by escalating civil wars among ambitious generals, Marius and Sulla, then Caesar and Pompey, and finally Octavian and Mark Antony, a cycle of violence that ended with the Republic's own institutions unable to survive the concentration of military power in individual hands.