ABSTRACT
The final century of the republic was, from one viewpoint, one of violence, disruption, greed and the victory of individual ambition over the welfare of the state. Alternatively, it was the inevitable outcome of the failure by the patrician-plebeian aristocracy to exercise the flexibility and tolerance which had characterized the evolution of the republic in its early days. By 100, Rome had become the mistress of much of the Mediterranean, either as provinces, such as Spain or Africa, or as client states, such as the kingdoms of the east.
