During this same period, When the victorious Pompey returned to Rome, he formed an uneasy alliance known as the First Triumvirate with the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus (who suppressed a slave rebellion led by Spartacus in 71 B.C.) Pertinax governed for only three months before he was assassinated. Unlike Valentine’s Day, however, Lupercalia was a 1. In his masterwork, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, historian Edward Gibbon selected 476 CE, a date most often mentioned by historians. The power of the monarch passed to two annually elected magistrates called consuls. The crisis has been further noted by historians for widespread social unrest, economic instability (fostered, in part, by the devaluation of Roman currency by the Severans), and, finally, the dissolution of the empire which broke into three separate regions. The Western Roman Empire would become re-invented later as The Holy Roman Empire (962-1806 CE), but that construct, also, was far removed from the Roman Empire of antiquity and was an `empire’ in name only.The inventions and innovations which were generated by the Roman Empire profoundly altered the lives of the ancient people and continue to be used in cultures around the world today. The Roman Empire, founded in 27 B.C., was a vast and powerful domain that gave rise to the culture, laws, technologies and institutions that continue to define Western civilization. Rome then fought a series of wars known as the Rome’s military conquests led directly to its cultural growth as a society, as the Romans benefited greatly from contact with such advanced cultures as the Greeks. In 27 B.C., Octavian assumed the title of Augustus’ rule restored morale in Rome after a century of discord and corruption and ushered in the famous Augustus’ dynasty included the unpopular Tiberius (14-37 A.D.), the bloodthirsty and unstable The reign of Nerva (96-98), who was selected by the Senate to succeed Domitian, began another golden age in Roman history, during which four emperors–Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius–took the throne peacefully, succeeding one another by adoption, as opposed to hereditary succession. Augustus ruled the empire from 31 BCE until 14 CE when he died. Historians believe people first began publicly meeting in the open-air Forum around 500 B.C., For almost 30 centuries—from its unification around 3100 B.C. and 123-22 B.C., respectively) ended in the reformers’ deaths at the hands of their opponents.Gaius Marius, a commoner whose military prowess elevated him to the position of consul (for the first of six terms) in 107 B.C., was the first of a series of warlords who would dominate Rome during the late republic. A popular uprising was said to have arisen over the rape of a virtuous noblewoman, Lucretia, by the king’s son. Previously, Roman religious belief was state-sponsored and the rituals and festivals went to enhancing the status of the government. The legions declared for General Vespasian as emperor and marched on Rome. None of these aquatic innovations would have been possible without the Roman aqueduct. By 91 B.C., Marius was struggling against attacks by his opponents, including his fellow general Sulla, who emerged as military dictator around 82 B.C. First developed around 312 B.C., these The Roman Forum, known as Forum Romanum in Latin, was a site located at the center of the ancient city of Rome and the location of important religious, political and social activities. The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117 CE), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization.By 285 CE the empire had grown too vast to be ruled from the central government at Rome and so was divided by Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305 CE) into a Western and an Eastern Empire.