The more I learn about the late Republic, the more I realize that one of their cardinal institutions led to so much of the trouble that helped break down the Republic - simply, the patron-client system, where people automatically gave their allegience to patrons, who took care of them in turn, and the more patrons you had, the greater your clout and power, your chances of forcing through legislation you wanted, your prominence in the Republic, your fame.

It seems to me that this system of patronage made perfect sense for a small Republic, but we came into instant problems the second Romans started gobbling up the rest of the world. When your actions - like Pompey's in the East - meant that you enfranchized millions of people in one war or another - whole states! - and they looked to you as their patron, that threw the whole carefully-managed system of checks and balances in disarray - the checks and balances that kept any one Roman from ruling the rest. When you could INHERIT 2 zillion clients, as they did from family to family, the men who went out to govern Spain, or conquer Gaul, or take over Hellas, simply stood to gain so much power that people back in the Senate continually fought against commands, commissions, or proconsular designations that would lead to that kind of situation . . . even if, in the process, they shot down ideas, plans, proactions that would have benefitted the Republic as a whole.

I was really struck by this in thinking about Augustus. As you know, he made his legions take an oath to him personally - not to Rome - and thus, they became his clients in a sense. That could be inherited. The extremely bright prof who was discussing this, noted that part of Augustus' Byzantine struggles to create a successor that would, somehow, have both Julian and Claudian blood, was partly that this candidate would inherit his own clientela and, thus, an infinity of power and clout.

If they'd simply dropped the bluidy system, it might be that many Republican problems could have been worked out!

And as a side-note to Cal's post on special commands . . . I agree that most proconsulars by Caesar's time were aware of the need for commands long enough to ACCOMPLISH something - but from the time Pompey was given command to destroy the Pirates, and given imperium exceeding every other governor at the same time, the precedent for Augustus' claim of imperium maius was just a matter of time. Didn't they see the implications?