Plutarch - Fall of the Roman Republic Research Paper

Plutarch - Fall of the Roman Republic - Research Paper Example Despite the person based accounts, which to an extent seem like a mere collection of biographies, Plutarch provides a detail discussion on the underlying forces and factors that undermined and eventually ended the Roman Republic. Plutarch discusses historical figures not as mere personages of history but as prime movers of events. Plutarch’s style in which discussions of historical events are pegged on the lives of individuals has influenced historical references up to today. An example is the analysis of the Agricultural Crisis in Rome where â€Å"Hannibal’s invasion had destroyed farms and farmland.†3 At the center of the Agricultural Crisis were the Gracchus4 Brothers, â€Å"Tiberius Gracchus elected tribune in 133 B. C. promised to help the farmers. He called for taking of public land and distributing it among the landless farmers.†5 This clearly contains Plutarch’s style wherein individual persons are at the center of major events most especially events that precipitated to the decline and eventual end of the Roman Republic. Moreover, analysis of the period of decline up to the end of the Roman Republic centers on the personas of the individuals that were identified to being so influential and powerful that their personality, life and ideas forged the destiny of Rome. â€Å"The disintegration of the Roman Republic is the first example in European history of the collapse of a constitutional system. One school of thought contends that individual generals and would be dictators like Julius Caesar and Pompey destroyed the traditional political system of Rome through ruthless ambition. According to this view, the Commanders of the Roman army, acting like feuding Mafia dons, turned their armies inward upon the Constitutional system.† 6 From another source, â€Å"Julius Caesar's adoptive son, Octavian, became, like Augustus, the first  emperor of Rome. According to modern ways of looking at things, this or the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March 44 B.C. marked the official end of the Republic of Rome.