Editing Roman Republic (section)

===End of the Republic===

====First Triumvirate====
{{Ancient Rome and the fall of the Republic}}
{{Main|First Triumvirate}}

Pompey returned from the [[Third Mithridatic War]] at the end of 62&nbsp;BC. In the interim, before his return to Italy, the senate had successfully suppressed a [[Catilinarian conspiracy|conspiracy and insurrection]] led by a senator, [[Lucius Sergius Catilina]], to overthrow that year's consuls.{{sfn|Gruen|1995|pp=422–425 (supporters), 429–431 (goals and failure) }} In the aftermath of the conspiracy, which was abetted by popular discontent, the Senate moved legislation to temper unrest in Italy: expanding the grain dole and implementing other reforms.{{sfn|Gruen|1995|pp=432–433}} Pompey, landing in [[Brundisium]], publicly dismissed his troops, indicating that he had no desire to follow Sulla's example and dominate the republic by force, as some conservative senators had feared.{{sfn|Wiseman|1992|pp=360–361}} He attempted to have his eastern settlements passed by the Senate; ratification was not forthcoming, due to the opposition of Lucullus, [[Crassus]], and [[Cato the Younger]].{{sfn|Wiseman|1992|p=364}}

After Julius Caesar's election as one of the consuls of 59&nbsp;BC, Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus engaged in a political alliance (traditionally dubbed by scholars as the [[First Triumvirate]]).{{sfn|Morstein-Marx|2021|p=120}} The alliance greatly benefited the three men: Caesar passed legislation to distribute state lands as poor relief while also providing land for Pompey's veterans; he also had Pompey's eastern settlements ratified; for Crassus, he secured relief for tax farmers and a place on agrarian commission.{{sfnm|Gruen|1995|1p=90|Wiseman|1992|2p=364}} Caesar won for himself the political support needed to acquire a profitable provincial command in Gaul and secure his political future.{{sfn|Gruen|1995|p=89}}

Attempting first to pass portions of his programme through the Senate, Caesar found the curia obstinate. He thus unveiled his alliance with Pompey and Crassus and moved his legislation before the people instead.{{sfn|Gruen|1995|p=91}} Political opposition to the allies was immense.{{sfn|Gruen|1995|p=92}}

Caesar also facilitated the election of the former patrician [[Publius Clodius Pulcher]] to the tribunate for 58. Clodius set about depriving Caesar's senatorial enemies of two of their more obstinate leaders in [[Cato the Younger|Cato]] and Cicero. Clodius attempted to try Cicero for executing citizens without a trial during the Catiline conspiracy, resulting in Cicero going into self-imposed exile. Clodius also passed a bill that forced Cato to lead the invasion of Cyprus, which would keep him away from Rome for some years. Clodius also passed a law to expand the previous partial grain subsidy to a fully free grain dole for citizens.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=113}}

[[File:Caesar campaigns gaul-en.svg|right|thumb|Map of the Gallic Wars]]
{{Campaignbox Gallic Wars}}
After his term as consul in 59, Caesar was appointed to a five-year term as the proconsular Governor of Cisalpine Gaul (part of current northern Italy), Transalpine Gaul (current southern France) and Illyria (part of the modern Balkans).{{sfn|Santosuosso|2008|p=58}} Caesar sought cause to invade Gaul (modern France and Belgium), which would give him the dramatic military success he sought. When two local tribes began to migrate on a route that would take them near (not into) the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, Caesar had the barely sufficient excuse he needed for his [[Gallic Wars]], fought between 58 and 49.

Caesar defeated large armies at major battles 58 and 57. In 55 and 54 he made [[Caesar's invasions of Britain|two expeditions into Britain]], the first Roman to do so. Caesar then defeated a union of Gauls at the [[Battle of Alesia]],{{sfn|Santosuosso|2008|p=62}}{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=212}} completing the Roman conquest of Transalpine Gaul. By 50, all of Gaul lay in Roman hands.

Clodius formed armed gangs that terrorised the city and eventually began to attack Pompey's followers, who in response funded counter-gangs formed by [[Titus Annius Milo]]. The political alliance of the triumvirate was crumbling. Domitius [[Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 54 BC)|Ahenobarbus]] ran for the consulship in 55, promising to take Caesar's command from him. Eventually, the triumvirate was renewed at Lucca. Pompey and Crassus were promised the consulship in 55, and Caesar's term as governor was extended for five years. Beginning in the summer of 54, a wave of political corruption and violence swept Rome.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=114}} This chaos reached a climax in January of 52, when Milo murdered Clodius in a gang war.

In 53, Crassus launched a Roman invasion of the Parthian Empire (modern Iraq and Iran). After initial successes,{{sfn|Matyszak|2004|p=133}} his army was cut off deep in enemy territory, surrounded and slaughtered at the [[Battle of Carrhae]], in which Crassus himself perished. Crassus's death destabilised the Triumvirate. While Caesar was fighting in Gaul, Pompey proceeded with a legislative agenda for Rome that revealed that he was at best ambivalent towards Caesar.{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=214}} Pompey's wife, Julia, who was Caesar's daughter, died in childbirth. This event severed the last remaining bond between Pompey and Caesar. In 51, some Roman senators demanded that Caesar not be permitted to stand for consul unless he turned over control of his armies to the state. Caesar chose civil war over laying down his command and facing trial.

====Caesar's civil war and dictatorship====
{{Campaignbox Caesar's civil war}}
{{Main|Caesar's civil war}}

[[File:Retrato de Julio César (26724093101).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|The [[Tusculum portrait]], a [[Roman sculpture]] of [[Julius Caesar]]]]

On 1 January 49, an agent of Caesar presented an ultimatum to the senate. The ultimatum was rejected, and the senate then passed a resolution declaring that if Caesar did not lay down his arms by July of that year, he would be considered an enemy of the Republic.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=115}} Meanwhile, the senators adopted Pompey as their new champion against Caesar, passing a {{lang|la|senatus consultum ultimum}} that vested Pompey with dictatorial powers. On 10 January, Caesar with his veteran army crossed the river [[Rubicon]], the legal boundary of Roman Italy beyond which no commander might bring his army, in violation of Roman laws, and by the spring of 49 swept down the Italian peninsula towards Rome. His rapid advance forced Pompey, the consuls and the senate to abandon Rome for Greece. Caesar entered the city unopposed. Afterwards Caesar turned his attention to the Pompeian stronghold of Hispania (modern Spain){{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=217}} but decided to tackle Pompey himself in Greece.{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=218}} Pompey initially defeated Caesar, but failed to follow up on the victory, and was decisively defeated at the [[Battle of Pharsalus]] in 48.{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2016|p=227}}{{sfn|Lane Fox|2006|p=403}} Pompey fled again, this time to Egypt, where he was murdered.

Pompey's death did not end the civil war. In 46 Caesar lost perhaps as much as a third of his army, but ultimately came back to defeat the Pompeian army of [[Metellus Scipio]] in the [[Battle of Thapsus]], after which the Pompeians retreated yet again to Hispania. Caesar then defeated the combined Pompeian forces at the [[Battle of Munda]].

With Pompey defeated and order restored, Caesar wanted to achieve undisputed control over the government. The powers he gave himself were later assumed by his imperial successors.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=134}} Caesar held both the dictatorship and the tribunate, and alternated between the consulship and the proconsulship.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=134}} In 48, he was given permanent tribunician powers. This made his person sacrosanct, gave him the power to veto the senate, and allowed him to dominate the Plebeian Council. In 46, Caesar was given censorial powers,{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=135}} which he used to fill the senate with his partisans. He then raised the membership of the Senate to 900.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=137}} This robbed the senatorial aristocracy of its prestige, and made it increasingly subservient to him.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=138}} Caesar began to prepare for a war against the [[Parthian Empire]]. Since his absence from Rome would limit his ability to install consuls, he passed a law that allowed him to appoint all magistrates, and later all consuls and tribunes. This transformed the magistrates from representatives of the people to representatives of the dictator.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=137}}

Caesar was now the primary figure of the Roman state, enforcing and entrenching his powers. His enemies feared that he had ambitions to become an autocratic ruler. Arguing that the Roman Republic was in danger, a group of senators led by [[Gaius Cassius]] and [[Marcus Brutus]] hatched a conspiracy and [[Assassination of Julius Caesar|assassinated Caesar]] at a meeting of the Senate on 15 March 44. Virtually all the conspirators fled the city after Caesar's death in fear of retaliation.

====Second Triumvirate====
{{Main|Second Triumvirate|Liberators' civil war|War of Actium}}
{{multiple image|total_width=400
|image1=Venus and Cupid from the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus at Pompeii, most likely a depiction of Cleopatra VII (2).jpg
|image2=Venus and Cupid from the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus at Pompeii, most likely a depiction of Cleopatra VII (5).jpg
|footer=This mid-1st-century&nbsp;BC [[Roman wall painting]] in [[Pompeii]] is probably a depiction of [[Cleopatra VII]] as [[Venus (mythology)#Epithets|Venus Genetrix]], with her son [[Caesarion]] as [[Cupid]]. Its owner Marcus Fabius Rufus most likely ordered its concealment behind a wall in reaction to the execution of Caesarion on orders of [[Octavian]] in 30&nbsp;BC.{{sfn|Roller|2010|p=175}}{{sfn|Walker|2008}}}}
The civil wars that followed destroyed what was left of the Republic.{{sfn|Abbott|2001|p=133}}

After the assassination, Caesar's three most important associates, [[Mark Antony]], Caesar's co-consul, [[Octavian]], Caesar's adopted son and great-nephew, and [[Lepidus]], Caesar's {{lang|la|[[magister equitum]]}}, formed an alliance known as the [[Second Triumvirate]].{{sfn|Goldsworthy|2003|p=237}} The conspirators were defeated at the [[Battle of Philippi]] in 42.

Following Philippi, Rome's territories were divided between the triumvirs, but the agreement was fragile. Antony detested Octavian and spent most of his time in the East, while Lepidus favoured Antony but felt himself obscured by his colleagues. Following [[Bellum Siculum|the defeat]] of [[Sextus Pompeius]], a dispute between Lepidus and Octavian regarding the allocation of lands broke out and, in 36&nbsp;BC, Lepidus was forced into exile in [[Circeii]] and stripped of all his offices except that of {{lang|la|[[pontifex maximus]]}}. His former provinces were awarded to Octavian.

Antony, meanwhile, married Caesar's lover, [[Cleopatra]] of [[Ptolemaic Egypt]], intending to use wealthy Egypt as a base to dominate Rome. The ambitious Octavian built a power base of patronage and then launched a campaign against Antony. Another [[War of Actium|civil war]] broke out between Octavian on one hand and Antony and Cleopatra on the other. This culminated in the latter's [[Battle of Actium|defeat at Actium]] in 31&nbsp;BC; Octavian's forces then chased Antony and Cleopatra to [[Battle of Alexandria (30 BC)|Alexandria]], where they both [[Death of Cleopatra|committed suicide]] in 30&nbsp;BC.

Octavian was granted a series of special powers, including sole {{lang|la|imperium}} within the city of Rome, permanent consular powers, and credit for every Roman military victory. In 27, he was granted the use of the name "Augustus", from which point he is generally considered the first Roman emperor.{{sfn|Luttwak|1976|p=7}}