This is the oldest group at AW, but I still find, here and there, that we've left out some important areas of discussion. Many of you know I'm working on Web Site # 6 (I'm a glutton for punishment) about the Brothers Gracchi. I've been submerged in reading on that subject, and I realize we didn't have one great handy-dandy thread to discussion the broader "prequel" issues to the life of Julius Caesar, which really only cover, at most, a half-century before his birth.

So this is a place to discuss - ha! - just WHY the Roman Republic caved. I presumed we've all read Syme, and I'm working my way through Gruen (although I disagree with a lot he's saying, the viewpoint is valid, I suppose). But for the Gracchi web-site, by far the hardest thing I find is to try to create the context of the times that led to the Gracchi.

My overview statement so far is something along the lines that the mos maoirum worked so long as no one was willing to violently push the envelope concerning how the Roman orders related to one another, but when partisanship hardened into an inability to compromise in order to fix really tough problems, the Republic was in deep trouble. And the explosion into Empire HAD created new problems, or severely exacerbated old ones, that made reforms absolutely necessary. When you add the hardening of faction to that the use of violence to break the gridlock, you supped with the Devil.

Sounds like the American Congress, frankly.

Anyway, purely selfishly, I'd love to pick the brains of some of our scholars to see how THEY view the prequel that made Caesar possible.
Any thoughts on this?