It took two men to wrestle Rome back from chaos and turn a republic into an empire. In the first century BC, Rome was a republic. Power lay in the hands of the Senate, elected by Roman citizens.

According to the law of the Roman Republic, any provincial governor leading troops across the border back into Italy would be declared a public enemy. It was, quite simply, an act of war.

He returned to Rome in 60 BC and, the following year, was elected consul, the highest office in the republic. Now holding real power, Caesar allied himself with two key people, Pompey and Crassus.

Over two hundred years and many wars and battles later, the Roman Republic grew to take over most of what is now Italy…and by 100BCE it had grown even larger, reaching Asia and North Africa.

The decade-long research, published recently in Roman Urbanism in Italy, rewrites the timeline of the ancient empire’s collapse. So far, at sites across the city Interamna Lirenas ...