Oh I get it. You hate the republic - long live the empire. Figured as a Lincoln Cultist you’d think like that.
Nothing against the Republic, as such, simply its degradation of the last century or so. Even in its heyday, it wasn’t really a republic in the sense we think of it. It installed Romans as the masters over the rest of the world, rather than aristos or kings as the masters over Rome. It was also intensely aristocratic at all times, with the proviso that over a generation or two New Men could become Romans and aristos.
But the Republic of the last century or so was a disaster. It was dead in any meaningful sense long before Caesar and Augustus put it out of its misery.
Here’s what that last century mostly consisted of: Roman political/military leaders used the legions of the Republic to invade neighbors, conquer and loot them, then use the money and power thus generated to fight each other over who would control the corpse of the Republic. Those with slightly lesser ambitions used their governorships (after being praetor or consul) to loot their provinces, using the most appalling methods (torture, death by starvation, selling entire populations into slavery, etc.). They had to, since they’d financed their political careers by borrowing, and their governorships were their only opportunity to pay back their debts and build a nest egg to support them the rest of their lives.
Was a (generally) benign Empire preferable? You betcha, for 99% of the populace. Most of the crimes of the “bad” emperors affected almost entirely the Roman aristos, leaving the vast majority of the people mostly alone, with the empire’s governors much less oppressive, on the whole, than those of the later republic.
Roman history is fascinating. It’s like a fun-house image of our own society. Largely because we’re descended from a hybrid of Rome and Christianity. Roman society is what we’d be without the ideals of Christianity.