That seems to be 19th century historical revisionism. The only thing we really know about them politically is they were diverse but all wanted power to remain with the senate, compared to the other faction of populares that focused on popular assemblies.

It's not 19th century historical revisionism to regard the Senatorial aristocracy as deeply conservative (in the sense of maintaining the supremacy of the aristocracy against reforms from the lower-class), especially the Senatorial aristocracy of the Late Republic. The Senate was the aristocratic bastion of the Republic's system, and openly so. The Optimates pretty freely used the term boni amongst themselves to imply conservative leanings or joining the conservative faction.

The core issues of the Optimates were not diverse in the least - it would be more correct to say that political allegiance was often fluid and that there was no formal boundary for membership - the description was more 'conservative and liberal' than 'Republican and Democrat', to use an Americentric comparison.

There were a few core ideologues who were lifelong adherents of a faction, whatever their reasons (Cato amongst the Optimates and Caesar amongst the Populares for some famous examples), a larger number of moderates who generally, but not always, aligned with the faction (Cicero for the Optimates, Memmius for the Populares), and a much larger number of opportunists, who swapped with the changing winds (Crassus and Catiline, starting with the Optimate faction and shifting to the Populares; Pompey, starting with the Optimates, shifting towards the Populares, and then back towards the Optimates).

Is it not so that there was a point at which Roman soldiers, who were drawn entirely from land-owning citizenry, had the empire eventually caught between the need for concessions to non-Roman Italians and the cause of the populares? All the land being owned by great estates, the equestrian class gaining increasing economic power due to optimates not being interested in commerce, and all the trouble that was caused once the Gracchi brothers demonstrated the true power of using the tribune position in ways not anticipated by political norms? I confess I only have a few overview courses under my belt. My point was only that the late republic's interests abroad became a source of material disparity that was likely to collapse eventually - drawing a crude and/or sly comparison to current events.

When I made references to democracy, I was speaking only of the fact that there was voting being done - even though there was, I understand, an amount of flaws and limitations to democratic expression that we would not find inspiring even though our own systems are so badly flawed. I did call them pretenses of democracy.

HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT

The way I see it, the difference between Sulla and Caesar is that one restored the republic in the end, and the other didn’t (or didn’t have the time to). I don’t mean to say that Sulla was in any way better than Caesar - In fact, he was far, far worse - but the Republic did survive him, and many of his reforms were repelled after his death.

Many of Caesar's reforms were also repealed after his death, though. Just because they were repealed by people claiming to be his defenders doesn't change that.

After Caesar’s death, the Republic existed in name only because, as you said, the Second Triumvirate immediately followed, which was as much democratic as Sulla’s dictatorship. Basically, after Sulla there was still a Republic to return to, while Caesar paved the path for nothing but dictatorship.

The Second Triumvirate's power was only enabled, though, by the breakout of civil war. If Caesar had died of a heart attack in his sleep on the Ides of March, it's doubtful that the figures of the Second Triumvirate would've been nearly so well-placed to seize such extraordinary power.

I think it’s poignant that what we call the “second” Triumvirate was an official commission, while the first one was an informal agreement among powerful individuals - the fact that Caesar and his merry companions had to do it in secret is meaningful proof that the Republic was still “somewhat” functional, while it had already been irremediably ruined by the time the second Triumvirate was born.

See, this I have to strongly disagree with - the secrecy of the First Triumvirate was not proof of the Republic's functioning, but rather proof that the First Triumvirate was a very different beast than the Second. There's a reason I compared the Second Triumvirate to the extraordinary commands post-Sulla rather than the First Triumvirate.

The First Triumvirate was a political alliance wherein three powerful politicians sought to achieve their goals without uniting the reactionary (in both senses, but in this case, in the sense of literal reaction - opposing anything that seemed too likely to succeed) opposition against them. Not that their goals were largely anything laudable, but the First Triumvirate was not-unusual-politiking whose only unusual feature was the small number of men involved compared to past-such alliances - itself a result of the Late Republic's dysfunction.

The Second Triumvirate - as you mentioned - was an official commission wherein figures were granted extraordinary and unconstitutional powers, not simply powerful politicians agreeing to cooperate in the face of an opposition all-too-eager to unite against them. The First Triumvirate did nothing illegal by the laws and norms of the Republic (or nothing illegal by its existence - obviously arguments can be made for several of the Triumvirs' individual actions as politicians); the Second Triumvirate inherently bypassed the legal norms and processes of the Republic.

This entire conversation is, of course, a huge oversimplification of far, far more complex historical events that I would certainly not be able to summarize in a shitty Lemmy post: looking for a single person responsible for the collapse of an entire political system is an exercise in futility; as futile as pointing to THE cause for the fall of the Roman empire.

Of course, I agree entirely with that!

That being said, it’s impossible NOT to include Caesar (and Sulla, and many others) among those responsible, and Caesar would certainly be one of the prime suspects, since he was the one on the crime scene when the Republic was found dead.

I would (and did) argue that Caesar predeceased the Republic, but if we're regarding the Second Triumvirate as proof of the Republic's death, then Caesar was on the crime scene when the Republic was found dead, but quite literally as a fellow corpse. It would seem more intuitive to me to treat the squabbling couple as both murdered by the same forces, regardless of the history of domestic violence.

EDIT: I didn’t mean “Shitty Lemmy post” but "Shitty Lemmy comment’, ie. I was talking about my own comment. I love your memes, I would never insult you :)

Don't worry, I understood you meant 'shitty Lemmy comment' as the futility of any Lemmy comment tracing out the causes of the Republic's fall to an academic degree, not any comment already made in particular!