Founders & the Republic

A deck by Kenji Dvorak · 16 cards

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the final decades of the Roman Republic. As a young man, he was a partisan and protégé of the dictator Sulla, after whose death he achieved significant military and political success.

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, and writer who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises of the Roman Republic that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. The extensive writings of Cicero include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy, and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists and the innovator of what became known as "Ciceronian rhetoric". Cicero was educated in Rome and in Greece. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the era of classical Roman civilisation beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire following the War of Actium. During this period, Rome's control expanded from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world.

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He was often called "the richest man in Rome". Crassus began his public career as a military commander under Lucius Cornelius Sulla during his civil war. Following Sulla's assumption of the dictatorship, Crassus amassed an enormous fortune through property speculation. Crassus rose to political prominence following his victory over the slave revolt led by Spartacus, sharing the consulship with his rival Pompey the Great.

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. Marius held the office of consul seven times, more than any other Roman in the Republican period. Rising from a family of smallholders in a village called Ceraetae in the district of Arpinum, Marius acquired his initial military experience serving under Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia in 134 BC. He won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BC and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections. Barely elected praetor in 115 BC, he next became the governor of Further Spain where he campaigned against bandits.

Cato the Elder

Marcus Porcius Cato, also known as Cato the Censor, the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write history in Latin with his Origines, a now fragmentary work on the history of Rome. His work De agri cultura, a treatise on agriculture, rituals, and recipes, is the oldest extant prose written in the Latin language. Cato's epithet "Elder" distinguishes him from his great-grandson Cato the Younger.

Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, also known as Cato the Younger, was an influential conservative Roman senator during the late Republic. A staunch advocate for liberty and the preservation of the Republic's principles, he dedicated himself to protecting the traditional Roman values he believed were in decline. A noted orator and a follower of Stoicism, his scrupulous honesty and professed respect for tradition gave him a political following which he mobilised against powerful generals of his day, including Julius Caesar and Pompey.

Roman Kingdom

The Roman Kingdom, also known as the Roman monarchy and the regal period of ancient Rome, was the earliest period of Roman history, when the city and its territory were ruled by kings. According to tradition, the Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding c. 753 BC, with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in central Italy, and ended with the overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Roman Republic c. 509 BC.

Tiberius Gracchus

Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman politician best known for his agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. He had also served in the Roman army, fighting in Africa during the Third Punic War and in Spain during the Numantine War.

Romulus and Remus

In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are twin brothers whose story tells of the events that led to the founding of the city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus, following his fratricide of Remus. The image of a she-wolf suckling the twins in their infancy has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the ancient Romans since at least the 3rd century BC. Although the tale takes place before the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the earliest known written account of the myth is from the late 3rd century BC. Possible historical bases for the story, and interpretations of its local variants, are subjects of ongoing debate.

Lucius Junius Brutus

Lucius Junius Brutus was the semi-legendary founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of its two first consuls. Depicted as responsible for the expulsion of his uncle, the Roman king Tarquinius Superbus after the rape and suicide of Lucretia, in the traditional accounts it is he who led the overthrow of the Roman monarchy. He was then involved in securing the abdication of fellow consul Tarquinius Collatinus, and the suppression of a plot to restore the Tarquinian monarchy.

Scipio Africanus

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus was a Roman general and statesman who was one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the greatest military commanders and strategists of all time, his crowning achievement was the defeat of Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, which earned him the honorific epithet Africanus.

Gaius Gracchus

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus was a reformist Roman politician and soldier who lived during the 2nd century BC. He is best known for his plebeian tribunates in 123 and 122 BC, during which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish colonies outside of Italy, engage in further land reform, reform the judicial system and system for provincial assignments, and create a subsidised grain supply for Rome.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman patrician, statesman, and military leader of the early Roman Republic who became a famous model of Roman virtue—particularly civic virtue—by the time of the late Republic.

Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman of the late Roman Republic. He came to prominence for his military exploits and was the first general during the late republic to march on Rome and win a civil war. After purging his opponents, he assumed the dictatorship, sought to strengthen the republican system through constitutional reforms, and resigned his plenary powers after their enactment.

Spartacus

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic.