In 70 BCE, shortly after Spartacus’s defeat, Cicero prosecuted Gaius Verres on behalf of wealthy Sicilians seeking compensation for thefts during his governorship. The case launched Cicero’s career. After two weeks, Verres fled into voluntary exile in Marseilles with his stolen wealth, living there until 43 BCE when he was killed, allegedly for refusing to surrender Corinthian bronze to Mark Antony. Cicero circulated the full text of his speeches, which survive as a litany of Verres’ crimes: extortion, profiteering, and systematic theft of artworks. He recounts how Verres crucified Publius Gavius, a Roman citizen, despite Publius’s cries of “Civis Romanus sum” (“I am a Roman citizen”) (254). While judging the case from Cicero’s partisan account is difficult, Beard suggests Verres’s flight suggests guilt.

The case epitomizes controversies over Roman rule as the empire evolved from an “empire of obedience” to an “empire of annexation” (197). The words provincia (“responsibility”) and imperium (“governance”) acquired their territorial meanings (“province” and “empire”), raising questions about provincial government, the rights of the governed, and who could be trusted with empire administration. Toward the end of the second century BCE, “new man” Gaius Marius built a career on military victories, serving as consul seven times. This shows the empire’s demands encouraged Romans to grant vast resources to individual commanders for extended periods, challenging Republican structures. Pompey and Julius Caesar became rivals for autocratic power. Beard argues that the Republican empire itself created the emperors.

Roman rule in the provinces ranged from exploitative to negligent. Cicero’s governorship of Cilicia in the late 50s BCE contrasts sharply with Verres’s depredations and illuminates some of the practical and administrative difficulties. Exploitation remained a problem and a permanent criminal court had been established in 149 BCE to provide foreigners with redress against extortion. The descriptions of the law used against Verres by Cicero, part of Gaius Gracchus’s reforms, show sophisticated legal draftsmanship, supported by archaeological evidence of law codes. The law also aimed to police senators’ conduct. Only senators and their sons could be prosecuted, and juries were drawn exclusively from non-senatorial equites (knights). This created conflicts of interest, as some equites were tax contractors (publicani) operating companies that collected provincial taxes. Equestrian jurors were sometimes accused of bias against governors who restrained tax collectors. Sulla reassigned juries to senators and, shortly after the Verres trial, legislation shared them between the two groups.

Sallust’s essay on the war against Jugurtha analyzes Rome’s failure to defeat the North African ruler who secured power in 118 BCE, killing rivals and Roman traders in 112 BCE. Jugurtha’s prior military service with Rome aided his effectiveness. Rome’s ineffectual response for years prompted accusations of senatorial bribery and incompetence. Sallust highlights Marius, serving under the aristocrat Quintus Caecilius Metellus in Africa. When Marius sought the consulship in 108 BCE, Metellus dismissively discouraged him. Marius was elected anyway, and a popular assembly vote transferred the command to him. Marius reformed the army by recruiting all citizen volunteers, regardless of property, creating a quasi‑professional force dependent on commanders for land and booty. This destabilized politics, turning legions into private militias. The popular assembly asserted the people’s right to appoint generals over the senate’s.

In 66 BCE, Cicero supported giving Pompey a special command with vast resources against Mithradates, who had orchestrated a massacre of Romans and Italians in 88 BCE. Cicero admitted commercial interests influenced him and pointed to Pompey’s recent success clearing pirates in three months, followed by resettlement. He argued that new problems required solutions beyond traditional short-term offices. Pompey, a noted rule-breaker who rose fighting for Sulla, became consul at 35, bypassing junior posts. Given the eastern command, he spent four years redrawing the empire’s map through military action and diplomacy. Beard argues that Pompey merits consideration as Rome’s first emperor. His eastern treatment prefigured imperial honors: his head on coins, worshipers called Pompeiastae, cities named after him, and divine titles. In Rome, his massive theater complex dedicated in 55 BCE was an imperial-scale innovation. In 63 BCE, he received permission to wear triumphal dress—the costume of Jupiter—at circus races, though he reportedly used it only once.

In 60 BCE, Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar formed the unofficial “Gang of Three”  (278). Roman observers like Cato the Younger saw this secret alliance as the Republic’s downfall. The alliance achieved immediate goals: Caesar became consul for 59 BCE, passed legislation for his partners, and secured a Gallic command, although Crassus was killed at Carrhae in 53 BCE fighting the Parthians.

Cicero’s letters provide vivid microdetail of the 50s BCE, though they may exaggerate disorder. The career of Publius Clodius Pulcher illustrates Cicero’s bias. Their enmity began when Clodius was tried for infiltrating an all-female rite; Cicero testified against him. As tribune in 58 BCE, Clodius engineered Cicero’s exile, introduced radical laws including free grain, and used street gangs. He was killed in a brawl in 52 BCE. Political innovations were attempted, such as Pompey’s election as sole consul. In 59 BCE, Caesar’s co-consul Bibulus resorted to religious obstruction, claiming to “watch the heavens” (283) to halt Caesar’s legislation.

Caesar’s Gallic campaigns (58-50 BCE), described in his Commentaries, brought vast territories under Roman control, including part of Britain. The pressing issue became reintegrating Caesar into Rome without force. Legal controversies arose over his command’s end date and his eligibility for another consulship. In December 50 BCE, the senate voted for both Caesar and Pompey to relinquish commands, but they ignored it.

Around January 10, 49 BCE, Caesar crossed the Rubicon river—Rome’s traditional boundary— with a legion, a taboo in Roman law. His companion Gaius Asinius Pollio reported Caesar quoted Menander: “Let the dice be thrown,” (287) expressing uncertainty. Four years of civil war followed across the Mediterranean. Pompey was defeated at Pharsalus in 48 BCE and murdered in Egypt. Caesar took until 45 BCE to overcome remaining adversaries in Africa and Spain and Pharnaces, Mithradates’s son. He became an absent dictator, making only fleeting visits to Rome.

In Egypt, Pompey was murdered by a local dynast hoping to ingratiate himself with Caesar. At Caesar’s 46 BCE, the slogan “Veni, vidi, vici” (290) commemorated his victory over Pharnaces. Controversially, he also displayed paintings of his Roman enemies’ deaths, including Cato and Metellus Scipio, causing crowds to weep.

On the Ides of March (March 15), 44 BCE, about 20 senators murdered Caesar in Pompey’s senate house, days before he was to depart for a Parthian campaign. The assassination is presented in Roman sources as defending libertas against tyranny. Caesar had initiated vast reforms, including the Julian calendar. He launched colonies, resettled the poor, reduced the grain dole, and extended citizenship. He was granted extravagant honors: his head on coinage, permission to wear triumphal dress, temples, a priesthood, and his house decorated like a temple. At the Lupercalia a month before his death, Mark Antony offered him a royal crown, which Caesar ambiguously rejected. Caesar held the dictatorship in various forms from 49 BCE, finally for life in 44 BCE. He controlled elections, once having Gaius Caninius Rebilus elected consul for only half a day, outraging conservatives. His defining slogan was clementia (mercy), pardoning defeated enemies. This monarchical virtue was seen as the antithesis of Republican libertas, provoking opposition. The assassins’ motives mixed self-interest and principled defense of Republican traditions. A coin they issued gave the date “EID MAR.” (295). The assassination did not restore the Republic but led to another civil war and permanent one-man rule.