Process Paper Ryan Cao, Yang Liu, Rudin Kraja We chose this topic because not only are

we extremely intrigued by the mysteries of Rome and its wonders, but also because we are already taking Latin I, and therefore have a solid foundation in Roman culture, the language they spoke, and how things worked in general in ancient Rome. Our research was very broad at first and involved many topics and wonderful yet strange stories. Going in chronological order, from the raw power of Sulla to the unstoppable Caesar and then to the great Augustus with everything in-between, our comprehensive coverage of this fateful transition from Republic to Empire was learned, understood, and used accordingly through various books about Rome, comprehensive websites narrating all the way from the beginning of the city of Rome itself all the way to the fall of the great empire at the hands of the Vandals, lead by King Genseric, surviving for a period of over 1200 years! Besides these fabulous sources, of course, we had Caesars war documentaries on his conquest of Gaul-written by Caesar himself, each chapter unravels more and more about his personality, his war strategies, and the way Rome operated back then. On Sulla, we had a whole chapter on his rise to political power, his pseudo-Caesar alliance with 2 of the 3 future First Triumvirate members, Crassus and Pompey, and how he took over Rome by force. However, by far the most interesting was Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. He was 18 when Caesar died, yet when he found out he was heir to the throne he took on the perfect attitude. Reading stories about Mark Antony was also a major part of our research, because, being Caesars right-hand man and part of the Second Triumvirate, Antony couldve easily risen to power if not for Cleopatra. Augustus literally surpassed his own inexperience as a young teenager in the dark world of Roman politics, and thoroughly reading his stories was just fascinating. We chose to do a website because it seemed like the most modernized option out of all of them, and besides the fact that none of us are tech savvy-so we can learn a lot from this experience-but making your own website that anyone can go and see is like leaving your footprint in this world: anything that gets on the Internet stays on the Internet, and by making our mark as high-schoolers weve accomplished something few could dream of achieving. How does our topic relate to the NHD theme? Simple. Obviously, Sulla, Caesar, Augustus, and everyone else in-between were natural leaders from the start. Their responsibility was to move Rome forward-to make the life of ordinary plebs easier, to conquer great lands, and pass beneficial legislation, but most of all, to keep peace and stability in Rome. Their right to transition Rome into an empire was the right of inevitability; it was going to happen eventually, and nobody couldve done it better than they did.