History of the Roman Empire

The rise of the Roman Republic was based in part on the fact that men competed with one another for political prominence. The wealthy used their own money to build public buildings, throw entertainments and maintain the roads. This type of behaviour was common across the cities of the Mediterranean thanks to the spread of Greek culture under Alexander the Great and his successors. But things had now changed within the Roman world where wealthy men didn't need to serve in the army to make money. Then the raids of the Goths and the Vandals fractured the sense of security that had led men to live in towns with no walls. And the easygoing tax regime of the early empire was replaced by the imperial bureaucrat carefully