History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic
The history of the Constitution of the Roman Republic is a study of the ancient Roman Republic that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC until the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The constitutional history of the Roman Republic can be divided into five phases. The first phase began with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Kingdom in 509 BC, and the final phase ended with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Republic, and thus created the Roman Empire, in 27 BC. Throughout the history of the republic, the constitutional evolution was driven by the struggle between the aristocracy and the ordinary citizens.
Treaties between Rome and Carthage
The first treaty between the two city-states was signed the year the Roman Republic was founded, in 509 BC as dated by the Varronian method. The calculations of Polybius, a Greek historian whose calculations are based on the years of the Persian expedition against the Greek free cities, produced a slightly different date; he wrote that the events of the treaty took place "twenty-eight years before the passage of Xerxes into Greece". Xerxes, the king of Persia, crossed the Hellespont with his armies in June, 480 BC.