Mortal Republic How Rome Fell into Tyranny

Edward J. Watts, Matt Kugler

eAudio - 2018

Learn why the Roman Republic collapsed — and how it could have continued to thrive — with this insightful history from an award-winning author. In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean's premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise. By the 130s BC, however, Rome's leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between p...oliticians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars — and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus. The death of Rome's Republic was not inevitable. In Mortal... more