Roman Republic Research Paper

Decline of Roman Republic / Rewrite

The Beginnings of the mighty Roman empire as we know it today was actually quite humble. "The Roman heritage can be traced back to an early civilization of settlers from the Indo-European immigrants who between 2000
B.C. and 1000 B.C. had began to settle around the Northern Italian peninsula"(World History: The Human Experience). Of all the settlers the
Romans are said to have arose from a mysterious group called the Etruscans, which ruled northern Italy around 900 B.C. to 500 B.C. The Etruscan society was made up of upper class families who owned land, or were priests. "The other class in the society was the slave laborers" (World History: The Human
Experience). During the Etruscan period
The senate lost power to the
Roman General Gaius Marius in 107 B.C., who took on reforms to strengthen the weakening Roman empire (Decline and Fall of Rome, Nardo). In 88 B.C. a new army formed where the soldiers owed allegiance to their commander and not the republic. This army under the rule of General Lucius Cornelius Sulla wanted to end Marius's command so therefore Sulla had his legions capture Rome and drove Marius out. The result was seven years of civil wars. Sulla, as dictator, tried to build a more solid senate but failed to take power away from the
Assembly of Tribes (World History, Human Experience). The civil situations in the senate was also in distraught, members would use violence to solve many disputes. In 70 B.C. Julius Caesar ,Gnaeus Pompey, and Crassus became consuls.
Later in 60 B.C. the three ruled together, although it proved to be a bad plan
(Decline and Fall of Rome, Nardo). Meanwhile during this time period Crassus dies in battle leaving Pompey and Caesar to hold power. Pompey then worried whether Caesar would attempt to gain power by using his legions, and ordered
Caesar to leave the legions in the north and return to Rome. "Caesar
The west would go to
Maximian, while the richer east went to Diocletian. Then in AD 305 civil wars again started, until Constantine took power over the whole empire in AD 324.
Later the west region would be ruled by Theodosius I. During this period of time because of weak rulers Barbarians and Huns began to settle into territories that were once Roman. In AD 395 Theodosius died causing the West and East empires to split forever. King Alaric became the first to conquer the city of Rome in 800 years (Decline and Fall of Rome, Nardo). By AD 476 the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus was over thrown by barbarians.
As for the eastern region, it became prosperous as the west lost ground. It's geographic location made it a prime location for trade between Asia and Europe. The ruler Justinian who was in power from AD 527 to 556, regained some of the lost western territories, but because they did not have a strong army they did not achieve much in terms of winning wars, instead they focused on religion (World History, Human Experiences).As the once extravagant empire begins to crumble into smaller and smaller pieces another barbarian tribe called the Lombards took