It took two men to wrestle Rome back from chaos and turn a republic into an empire. In the first century BC, Rome was a republic. Power lay in the hands of the Senate, elected by Roman citizens.

But there is one inescapable aspect of empire that the commentators missed. Empires are weak. It is republics in contrast that are strong. The United States is a republic that has been operating ...

Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, ...

Skeleton Crew focuses heavily on piracy but also highlights one of the biggest failures of the New Republic in this era.

Although his own rule was unremarkable, his victory in the civil war replaced a republic, ruled by the consuls and the Senate, with an empire, reigned over by emperors and their hereditary successors.

Adoptions under the Republic have often been deduced from nomenclature alone, a technique now discredited for examples from the Imperial period (Chapter 6; Salomies [1992]). This discussion is ...

Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, ...