Imperatores victi: military defeat and aristocratic competition in the middle and late republic

The government that led Rome's rise to world power in the middle and late Republic was founded on aristocratic competition. What drew men to the struggle was the prospect of personal honor and political authority. Entry into the highest stratum of Roman society came with victory at the polls: for most of the history of the Republic those who won a curule magistracy could expect enrollment in the senate at the next census, but even before that date they enjoyed a senator's prerogatives. They perhaps also earned a place among the nobilitas and passed this distinction on to their sons.Furthermore, winning public office was inseparably bound up with the moral imperatives of aristocratic status.