For years the Roman Republic had been sliding toward disaster. If we are to pick a single point when the entire crumbling structure lurched past the point of no return, it is probably the moment when the senate voted to undo all that Drusus had done and was trying to achieve. Those present had no idea of the events their vote would set in motion. Within the next decade a huge number of those senators – by some estimates between half and three-quarters – would be dead, and most would have died violently.
