The correct answer is B. The fall of the Roman Empire was a consequence of a Roman civil war between the plebeians and the patricians.
Explanation:
The Roman Republic was a period of ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the fall of the monarchy, traditionally dated about 509 BC, and its replacement by the government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by the senate. A complex constitution was gradually developed, centered on the principles of a separation of powers and checks and balances. Except in times of national emergency, public offices were limited for a year, so that in theory at least no individual wielded absolute power over their fellow citizens.
Society was hierarchical. The evolution of the constitution of the Roman Republic was heavily influenced by the struggle between the patricians, landowning aristocrats, who traced their ancestry in the early history of the Kingdom of Rome, and the plebeians, the much more numerous citizens. Over time, the laws that gave patricians exclusive rights of access to the highest offices were repealed and weakened, and the main commoner families became full members of the aristocracy. The leaders of the republic developed a strong tradition and morality that required public service and patronage in peace and war, making political and military successes inseparable.
During the first two centuries of its existence the republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance from central Italy to the entire Italian peninsula. For the next century, it included North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, and what is today southern France. Two centuries after this, towards the end of the first century BC, included the rest of modern France, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, despite the republic's traditional and legal restrictions against any individual acquisition of permanent political powers, politics were dominated by a small number of Roman leaders, with their alliances punctuated by a series of civil wars. The winner of one of these civil wars, Octavian (later known as Augustus) reformed the republic as a principality, with himself as the "first citizen". The senate continued to sit and debate. Annual magistrates were elected as before, but the final decisions on matters of politics, war, diplomacy, and appointments were privileges of Augustus through his management of a number of separate powers simultaneously. One of his many titles was imperator from which the title "emperor" was derived, and is commonly called the first Roman emperor.
