Fall of the Roman Republic | Ryan Ranch

Course Description:

Rome's republican government was one of the earliest examples of representative democracy in the world and in many ways, the most successful. The traditional date of its beginning is 509 BCE and it lasted until 27 BCE, making it also one of the most enduring. In the previous course, we looked at the rise of Rome from a minor city on the Tiber to an empire virtually encompassing the Mediterranean. It was by most measures a great success story. But it came to a violent end and, even though the empire continued, it was never again governed as a republic. It was replaced by the one-man rule of an authoritarian emperor. Rome had become the most powerful force in the world yet it couldn't retain the very government that had led to its success. How did this happen? Why did it devolve into a one-man rule? Did its very success contribute to its fall? We will examine these questions and much more in this revealing four-part series.