As the People's champion against a corrupt and murderous oligarchy, he began transformation of the Roman republic into a quasi-monarchy and a military and fiscal system that for four centuries provided western Europe, north Africa and the Middle East with security, prosperity and relative peace.
Because an understanding of Arthur and all the different things he has meant to scores of generations up to the present is fundamental to our understanding of our own past, our understanding of ourselves and the ways in which we can benefit from history.