Chapter 6 of 10All chapters
Chapter 6 of 10
Rome
Republic to empire.
The republic
Rome expanded from a city to control of the Mediterranean under a system of consuls, senate and assemblies, strained increasingly by the wealth and armies that expansion produced.
- Civil wars ended the republic in practice before any formal change.
- Augustus kept republican forms while holding real power.
The empire
Two centuries of relative stability, roads, aqueducts and law, resting on conquest and mass slavery. The western half fragmented in the fifth century while the eastern continued as Byzantium for another thousand years.