Explain the evolution of Rome from republic to empire

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

After the Latins overthrew the Etruscans, in 509 B.C.E., the Roman territories slowly evolved a government "of the people" (res publica). The republic consisted of a powerful class of large landowners, the patricians, and a more populous class of farmers and small landowners called plebeians. At first, the wealthy patricians controlled the lawmaking process, but the plebeians eventually gained increasing political influence.
But no sooner had Rome become a Republic did it adopt an expansionist course that would erode these democratic achievements. Obedience to the Roman state and service in its powerful army contributed to the rise of Roman imperialism, which proceeded by means of long wars of conquest similar to those that had marked the history of earlier empires. Rome seized every opportunity for conquest, and by the end of the first century B.C.E., the empire included most of North Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Greece, Egypt, much of Southwest Asia, and the territories constituting present-day Europe as far as the Rhine River.
By its authority to handle all military matters, the Senate became increasingly powerful, as did a new class of men, wealthy Roman entrepreneurs (known as equestrians), who filled the jobs of provincial administration. The army, by its domination of Rome's overseas provinces, also became more powerful. The first century B.C.E. was an age of military dictators, whose competing claims to power fueled a spate of civil wars. As bloody confrontations replaced reasoned compromises, the Republic crumbled.