Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Roman Republic
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this history course on why the Roman Republic collapsed, tracing the growth of the territorial empire, sharpened aristocratic rivalry, the transformation of the Italian economy, the swelling city of Rome and its dependent urban plebs, and changing patterns of military recruitment that tied soldiers to individual generals rather than the state. Readings center on ancient sources in translation: Cicero, Sallust, Caesar, Augustus, Appian, Plutarch, and Suetonius, used to test competing explanations against the primary evidence. Materials include the syllabus, readings list, and assignments as posted by MIT, free to access with no certificate offered. The course works through the last century of the Republic case by case, from land reform fights to civil war, asking what combination of institutional strain and personal ambition actually brought it down.