The Roman imperial cycle spanned some thirteen centuries.  During this period Roman life was transformed from its small, local seat of authority in Central Italy into its new stature as the outstanding power in the Mediterranean area.  Economically it extended from peasant proprietorship and a use economy to a market-money economy; from a society of working peasant farmers to an economy resting upon war captives reduced to slavery; from an economy based on production for trade and profit to an economy based on power-grabbing, special privilege, speculation and corruption; from an austerity economy based on primary production to an economy based on affluence, exploitation, and gluttony.

These revolutionary transformations in the Roman economy were accompanied, politically, by hardening of the division of Roman society along class lines with the resulting contradictions, antagonisms, and class struggles, including open class warfare.

Domestic contradictions, confrontations, civil strife and formal civil war were present throughout the entire history of Rome.  They existed in embryo in the earliest days of the original settlements on the seven hills over which the city of Rome eventually spread.  As Rome and its interests became more complex socially and more extensive geographically the number and variety of contradictions, confrontations, civil and military conflicts increased correspondingly.

In terms of individual human lives the changes which took place in Roman society during the six or seven centuries that elapsed between the early Roman settlements and the reign of their Emperor Augustus were profound and far-reaching.  Many communities of diverse and often incompatible backgrounds and interests were herded together, helter-skelter, into the City of Rome, Latium, the Italian nucleus and the subsequent alliances, federations, conquests, consolidations into colonies, occupied areas, provinces and spheres of influence.  The greater the number and diversity of these interests and relationships, the greater the probability of conflict.  This empire building process was not gradual and directed with scrupulous care to preserve the amenities and niceties of polite social intercourse.  The job was done by and under the direction of military leaders who are traditionally in a hurry to get results.  The subordinates who carried out military decisions were volunteer-professional soldiers, mercenary adventurers and conscripts drawn form the four corners of the empire.  As the empire grew in extent and as its troubles multiplied, the military was more frequently called upon to take over and iron out difficulties.

Domestically, in the city of Rome and its immediate environs, there were several sharp lines of cleavage; between Roman citizens and non-citizens; between the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the working proletariat and the idle proletariat; between the rich and the poor; between freeman (citizens) and the slaves who grew in numbers as the wars of conquest and consolidation multiplied war captives; between the civilian bureaucrats and the members of the military hierarchy.