I suspect they've been around a very long time.. In Colleen McCullough's "October Horse" #6 in a series about the masters of Rome, this one focusing mostly on Julius, she names his enemy as the boni, or "good men" Maybe this will sound familiar... "What should have been a pleasant exercise equipping Long-haired Gaul with the trappings of a Roman province had instead been dogged by the growing certainty that Caesar, who had done so much for Rome, was not going to be allowed to don his laurels in peace. What Pompey the Great had gotten away with all his life was not to be accorded to Caesar, thanks to a maleficent little group of senators who called themselves the boni—the good men—and had vowed to accord nothing to Caesar: to tear Caesar down and ruin him, strike all his laws from the tablets and send him into permanent exile. Led by Bibulus, with that yapping cur Cato working constantly behind the scenes to stiffen their resolve when it wavered, the boni had made Caesar’s life a perpetual struggle for survival."

Edit: I don't think Rome fell as westerners are taught to believe.. In the U.S. fasces can be easily found decorating federal buildings and meeting spaces.

I suspect they've been around a very long time.. In Colleen McCullough's "October Horse" #6 in a series about the masters of Rome, this one focusing mostly on Julius, she names his enemy as the boni, or "good men"

Maybe this will sound familiar...

"What should have been a pleasant exercise equipping Long-haired Gaul with the trappings of a Roman province had instead been dogged by the growing certainty that Caesar, who had done so much for Rome, was not going to be allowed to don his laurels in peace. What Pompey the Great had gotten away with all his life was not to be accorded to Caesar, thanks to a maleficent little group of senators who called themselves the boni—the good men—and had vowed to accord nothing to Caesar: to tear Caesar down and ruin him, strike all his laws from the tablets and send him into permanent exile. Led by Bibulus, with that yapping cur Cato working constantly behind the scenes to stiffen their resolve when it wavered, the boni had made Caesar’s life a perpetual struggle for survival."