At home , the Republic similarly experienced a long streak of social and political crises , which ended in several violent civil wars . At first , the Conflict of the Orders opposed the patricians , the closed oligarchic elite , to the far more numerous '' plebs '' , who finally achieved political equality in several steps during the 4th century BC . Later , the vast conquests of the Republic disrupted its society , as the immense influx of slaves they brought enriched the aristocracy , but ruined the peasantry and urban workers . In order to solve this issue , several social reformers , known as the '' Populares '' , tried to pass agrarian laws , but the Gracchi brothers , Saturninus , or Clodius Pulcher were all murdered by their opponents , the '' Optimates '' , keepers of the traditional aristocratic order . Mass slavery also caused three Servile Wars ; the last of them was led by Spartacus , a skilful gladiator who ravaged Italy and left Rome powerless until his defeat in 71 BC . In this context , the last decades of the Republic were marked by the rise of great generals , who exploited their military conquests and the factional situation in Rome to gain control of the political system . Marius ( between 105 – 86 BC ) , then Sulla ( between 82 – 78 BC ) dominated in turn the Republic ; both used extraordinary powers to purge their opponents . These multiple tensions led to a series of civil wars ; the first between the two generals Julius Caesar and Pompey . Despite his victory and appointment as dictator for life , Caesar was murdered in 44 BC . Caesar 's heir Octavian and lieutenant Mark Antony defeated Caesar 's assassins Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC , but then turned against each other . The final defeat of Mark Antony and his ally Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC , and the Senate 's grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian as '' Augustus '' in 27 BC – which effectively made him the first Roman emperor – thus ended the Republic
murdered
Assassination of Julius Caesar
Roman Republic