Caligula opened with popular reforms—amnesties, tax relief, transparency—but after a severe illness turned to theatrical provocations, fiscal exactions, and ritual self‑cult, alienating elites and Praetorians and prompting his assassination: coercive strategy over madness.
How Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus transformed the late Roman Republic: agrarian reform, grain laws, rise of populares, and the turn to political violence.
How Rome’s tribunes transformed politics: sacrosanct veto, popular legislation, and the revolutionary careers of the Gracchi, Saturninus, and Sulpicius.
Discover the forgotten constitutional mechanisms that powered Rome's 500-year republic and continue to influence modern governance. Learn how the balance between patricians and plebeians created a remarkable system of checks and balances that modern democracies still emulate today.