A foal shall learn a valuable lessons before she grows up and meet other foals.

As a mare think, she is, Twilight.

@ho manouil
 
To make some additions to this comment: by many accounts Roman Civilization began a decline after Ceasar with the end of Republican tradition. It continued long after but it was a walking corpse and the politics within the empire became more lethal towards itself than not.
 
As a friend of mine likes to say on the subject, the Republic encouraged participation; even if in the higher classes. Roman law and Republican advancement made it so any citizen who provided and was involved advanced, most clearly the campaigns of Roman commanders who expanded the Republic on campaigns of glory seeking, the soldiers themselves being rewarded with land for their own participation.
 
However it might be said that for all of it’s greatness, the army itself was the downfall of the Republic. It was far too modern for the Republic to maintain and in the way it was treated could only grow in influence while no other fields of Roman society were given expanded influence (the Gracchi brother’s reforms would have expanded political suffrage to a larger section of the plain Roman population for instance, the Romans not living in Rome or Italy, either or).
 
The fact we have so much self documentation from Rome on Rome and others post Petrarch made it the most influential model for the liberal Enlightenment figures centuries later. The American Revolutionaries styled themselves after Rome and Cicero, the French too (men of the old National Assembly did more or less wear togas over their common suits as I recall reading).
 
Cicero isn’t any old hack. He’s the reason for the institutions we have today.

@Background Pony #4B5A  

 
Dear Background Pony,  
please get your history straight. Cicero wasn’t informed about the plot against Caesar, and was surprised by it. Nonetheless he expressed his satisfaction in that letter to the conspirator Trebonius.
 
Anyway Cicero was right about Caesar’s intentions: Caesar actually changed the constitution of the Roman Republic, in order to centralize all the power in the Roman Senate (many Senators were appointed by him, during the civil war against Pompey), and in his own person. After his victory against Pompey, he was appointed dictator again and again, and eventually “dictator for life”, establishing a de facto dictatorial regime, which will be later institutionsalized by Octavian as “principate”. The Roman Republic, with all his problems and social instability, but also with his democratic assemblies and pluralism, ends shortly after Caesar’s death.
 
@Background Pony #4B5A  

 
Sorry but which universe are you from? Cicero is a key figure of Roman literature and philosophy, and his influence on the history of European literature is huge: the whole Renaissance started basically with the rediscovery of Cicero’s letters by Petrarch.
 
I’ll also just briefly remind that in life he was also a respected lawyer (he fought against conspiracies against the Republic such as Catiline’s one, and against corrupted politicians such as Verres, governor of Sicily), and successful politician (he succeeded in being elected consul at a rather young age, 43).  
He was assassinated by a soldier of Mark Antony, for having spoke against him and for having defended his republican ideals.

@Background Pony #4B5A  
>implying the Republic wasn’t the golden age of Rome  

@Background Pony #4B5A
 
Friends don’t let friends destroy Republican government.
 
So unto all tyrants.

“Cicero” I am scared legitimately. Some remember Cicero as being a Philosopher but where he really gets his renown and infamy was when he conspired against Caesar to murder him. After Ceasar’s death he literally wrote to Brutus regretting that he wasn’t there to stab at Caesar himself and not further included in the actual plot. Seriously, what would that man know of “friendship”?

“…must oil Mother soon… …get all the hard to reach places…” ~Cicero, Skyrim

I can definitely picture Twilight reading this.