Overview
The Roman Republic was not a modern democracy but a system of magistracies, Senate, assemblies, custom, hierarchy, and civic obligation.
Importance
Its fall cannot be explained by one man alone. It collapsed when empire, inequality, army loyalty, political violence, and moral exhaustion overwhelmed institutions built for a smaller world.
In the Livarva Trilogy
The entire Livarva project is an inquiry into how this Republic failed through the lives of Sulla, Caesar, and Cato.
Ancient Sources
Polybius, Book VI; Cicero, De Re Publica and De Legibus; Sallust, Bellum Catilinae; Livy; Appian, Civil Wars.
Modern Scholarship
Theodor Mommsen, History of Rome; Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic; Fergus Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic; Harriet I. Flower, Roman Republics.