In the aftermath of decades of political dysfunction and violence, riots and bloody brawls, revenge killings, and periodic outbursts of civil war had turned Rome into a burnt out shell of its former self, as a rolling parade of demagogues, each posing as a uniquely gifted savior of a Rome that was once great, urged ‘real’ and ‘good’ Romans to hate and, when necessary, kill the ‘fake’ and ‘bad’ ones. And they did that, hating and killing their fellow Romans, in great numbers.