ABSTRACT
The political turmoil that began with the Gracchi was matched by continued social, economic, and cultural ferment. In Italy, the problems that had contributed to the Gracchan crisis were often made worse by the series of domestic wars inaugurated by the Social War in 90 BC. Politically, those who were the last generation of the Roman Republic had not been able to preserve the traditional constitution. They did not meet the challenges produced by the acquisition of a vast empire and the great social and economic changes that had ensued. Culturally, however, they must be credited with great accomplishments. In art, architecture, rhetoric, and they were worthy successors to the Greeks of earlier generations. They had advanced the distinctive blending of Greek and native Italian traditions that were the hallmark of Roman culture to the point where the next generation of Roman artists, architects, and thinkers could produce a new Golden Age.
