ABSTRACT
Carthage and Corinth, two great cities of the ancient world, crashed to their ruin amid smoke and flame in 146 .., destroyed and sacked by Roman troops. Thirteen years later a Roman tribune, Tiberius Gracchus, was clubbed to death in a fracas led by an ex-consul. These tragic episodes showed clearly that Rome’s power throughout the Mediterranean world was dominant and unchallengeable, but that her internal stability was weakened and threatened. She was gaining the whole world: must she at the same time lose her own soul? Could a city-state govern an empire? Could Rome adapt her institutions to meet the challenge of her increasing responsibilities? Above all, could she produce sufficient men of insight and goodwill who would persuade both the governing class and people to face squarely the pressing problems of the day and to seek solutions for the common good even when this might involve some sacrifice of individual gain by leaders and common man alike? If statesmen failed to grapple with urgent political, economic and social problems, and if sections of the community selfishly set their own interests before the well-being of the whole which now embraced Rome, Italy and an overseas Empire, then stresses and tensions might overstrain the stability of the body politic and the days of the Roman Republic would be numbered.1
