This has probably been asked before, but can someone explain

>>857363
>Empire wasn't prime
Okay lad

>>857370
I mean prime republic of course, which would mean when the republican government was running at its best, not necessarily when the state was at its best, which probably would have been under Caesar

Until the late period it was all about family alliances and was mostly realpolitik kind of shit where nobody really cared what they voted for as long as it helped you politically. Also you had to have once been a consul to be worth a damn in the senate

Better question. How would the Napoleonic wars have gone differently if Napoleon had access to dinosaur cavalry?

The Republic was a system that, in its heyday from c.500BC to c.100BC, was based on the rule of law, and a cleverly balanced constitution that was not a written document.

Polybius wrote, it is this balance between the 3 elements, democracy, monarchy, and oligarchy which gave ancient Rome its greatest strength.

Two annually elected Consuls held the highest position of power. They could veto each other, so neither had absolute power, and they were strictly limited to one year in power.

This system greatly helped to prevent the kind of tyrannical abuse of power that happens all to often in dictatorships and monarchies.

>>857744
There were some that were consuls like 3 separate times though. Just not consecutive. I suggest reading "the last generation of the republic" by Gruen. It explains how everything worked pretty well and then it explains why it stopped working.