Neither Julius Ceaser nor his fellow Romans could have grasped the full implications for the republic of his decision to cross the Rubicon. Roman citizens could not have conceived of the republic’s collapse and all that was associated with it — the ancient liberties of free speech and private property, a thousand years of self-government and the rule of law itself. If the restoration of the republic proved equally elusive, the explanations for its demise have found a measure of agreement. Gibbon has famously written, “The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.”