Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Roman Republic

A seated man, wearing a laurel wreath and an elaborate toga, recoils from a group of men, one of whom has a dagger.

Die Ermordung Cäsars (The Murder of Caesar), an 1865 painting by Karl Von Piloty. (This image is in the public domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21H.331

As Taught In

Spring 2016

Level

Undergraduate

Cite This Course

Course Description

Course Features

Course Description

This course explores the political, social, and economic factors commonly offered to explain the fall of the Roman Republic: growth of the territorial empire, increased intensity of aristocratic competition, transformation of the Italian economy, growth of the city of Rome and dependence of the urban plebs, changes in military recruitment and dependence of soldiers on their generals. There is an emphasis on the reading of ancient sources in translation, including Cicero, Sallust, Caesar, Augustus, Appian, Plutarch, and Suetonius.

Related Content

William Broadhead. 21H.331 Julius Caesar and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Spring 2016. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.


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