| This year the Italian capital has been awarded with the | | | | For each one of these charges three main principles |
| Bit tourism award 2009 in the category “Italian | | | | was to be followed: the annuity, or the observance of |
| city”. This certainly confirms the fact that the city | | | | one year mandate (the charge of censor was an |
| during the years has been established as the most | | | | exception, that could last up to 18 months), the |
| loved by tourists for its beautiful architectonic heritage, | | | | collegiality, or the assignation of the same charge to at |
| but also thanks to the richness of exhibitions and | | | | least two men at a time, each one of them exercised |
| events proposed, able to surprise and involve both | | | | a power of mutual veto over the actions of the other |
| Italian and foreign tourists. Rome is the heir of a | | | | one, and the gratuity. |
| glorious past; one of the most interesting moments in | | | | The second pillar of the Roman Republic was the |
| its history was the period of the roman Republic. | | | | popular assemblies, that hold various functions, among |
| The roman Republic (Res publica Populi Romani) was | | | | which the one to elect magistrates and to vote for the |
| the govern system of the city of Rome in the period | | | | laws. The social composition was different from one |
| between the 509 BCE and 27 BCE, when Rome was | | | | assembly to another; among these assemblies the |
| administered by an oligarchic republic. This long | | | | most important body were the assemblies of the |
| republican period also coincides with most of the | | | | century, where the weight in the voting was |
| roman conquers in Europe and in the Mediterranean | | | | proportional to the census, according to a mechanism |
| Sea, especially between the III and the II century BCE; | | | | (the one of the division of income brackets in |
| during the I century BCE, Rome has instead been | | | | Centuries) that made preponderant the weight of |
| devastated by internal conflicts caused by social | | | | patrician families. |
| changes, but this was also the century with the biggest | | | | Starting from the agricultural reform proposed by the |
| cultural and literary flowering, thanks to the encounter | | | | tribune Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 133 BCE, the |
| with the Hellenistic culture, the real symbol of | | | | political convulsions became always more serious, |
| “classic” during all the next centuries. In 27 BCE | | | | causing the rise of a series of dictators, civil wars and |
| the military expansion extended the territory of the | | | | temporary armed truces, during the successive |
| Republic to include the entire Italian peninsula, the | | | | century. The roman world was going to become too |
| Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily Islands, most of the Gaul, of | | | | ample and complex for the republican institutions. |
| the Iberia, of the Balkans Peninsula, of the coastal | | | | The clash between three strong men, Caesar, |
| region of Asia Minor and North Africa, Egypt and | | | | Pompey and Crassus became unavoidable, when |
| Greek. | | | | Caesar refused to release command. His victory over |
| The powers before reserved for the king, (army | | | | the other two allowed him assuming the command |
| command, juridical power and maximum religious | | | | and the title of dictator, acquiring full powers. |
| authority) were assigned to two consoles and, for | | | | But at his death by the conspirators, did not follow the |
| what regards the religious field, to the pontifex | | | | restoration of the Republic but a new period of wars |
| maximus. With the increasing complexity of the | | | | during which two contenders, Augustus and Mark |
| Roman state, the institution of other offices was | | | | Antony, fought to have the absolute power, |
| necessary such as aediles, censors, quaestors, | | | | considering the Republic already surpassed. |
| tribunes who constituted the magisterial power. | | | | |