Politics of the Late Republic

A comprehensive revision hub for OCR A-Level Classical Civilisation (H408). Fourteen topic pages covering the collapse of the Roman Republic, from constitutional foundations to the death of Cicero.

OCR H408 · Component Group: Politics of the Late Republic

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Timeline: 133 - 43 BC ▾

Key Figures ▾

Foundations

The Roman Republic: How It Worked

Senate, magistracies, cursus honorum, optimates vs populares, mos maiorum, and the political vocabulary of the Republic.

Breakdown Begins (133–78 BC)

The Gracchi (133–121 BC)

Land reform, political murder, the first senatus consultum ultimum, and the precedents that broke the Republic open.

Marius and Sulla (107–78 BC)

Military reforms, the first march on Rome, proscriptions, dictatorship, and the template for Caesar.

Key Figures & Ideas

Cato and Political Thought

Stoicism, mos maiorum, obstruction, and the question of whether principled resistance helped or harmed the Republic.

Cicero: Early Career and Consulship

Novus homo, In Verrem, concordia ordinum, the Catilinarian conspiracy, and Cicero's peak and vulnerability.

Crisis & Collapse (60–43 BC)

The First Triumvirate (60–53 BC)

Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus; Cicero's anxiety; the triumvirate's formation, impact, and fracture.

Clodius and Cicero's Exile (58–57 BC)

Popular politics, exile as political weapon, Cicero's emotional collapse, and his compromised return.

The Fifties: Breakdown (56–50 BC)

Luca, Caesar in Gaul, Pompey's drift, and the Republic's failure to find a constitutional solution.

Fam. 2.4 Fam. 2.11

Civil War (49–45 BC)

The Rubicon, Cicero's agonised indecision, Pharsalus, Cato at Utica, and the death of the Republican ideal.

Att. 8.8 Att. 9.4 Att. 9.11a

Caesar's Dictatorship

Dictator perpetuo, reforms, clementia, the rex question, and the conspiracy forming.

The Ides of March (44 BC)

The conspiracy, assassination, Antony's funeral speech, and Cicero's reaction to the deed without a plan.

Aftermath and Cicero's Death (43 BC)

The Philippics, the Second Triumvirate, proscriptions, and the death of the Republic's last great defender.

Fam. 10.6 Fam. 10.28

Analysis & Exam Preparation

Cicero's Letters: Style and Form

Comparative epistolary analysis across all 11 prescribed letters. Register, tone, Greek code-switching, and Cicero as a source on himself.

Themes and Exam Prep

Cross-cutting themes, 30-mark essay questions with model argument structures, and source-based question practice.

Connections Between Topics