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> The Republic had a culture that very much treated war as a glorious thing, and mobilized the public for total war, over and over again. This is contrary to
by acchow 4y ago
> The Republic had a culture that very much treated war as a glorious thing, and mobilized the public for total war, over and over again.
This is contrary to the modern world where democratic countries are much less willing to go to war
- starwind 4y agoAnd also rely on a lot less infantry so casualties are lower. Even with as brutal as Russia-Ukraine is, the total number of military men killed is comparable to a single decent-sized WWII battle
- engineer_22 4y agoMy experience has been to the contrary.
- concordDance 4y agoIt certainly feels like the US has been in more wars in the last 100 years than any 100 years of Roman history.
- elmomle 4y agoIt's actually surprisingly close. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_wars_and_battles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_wars_and_battles, there were 21 Roman wars in the 2nd Century BC. US count (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#20th-century_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...) for the 20th century AD is 31, but you also have to factor in the fact that the whole world is much more connected, and that the Roman war-and-intervention count was almost certainly limited by communication and transportation abilities of the time. In the context of the ancient world, 21 wars by one state in one century seems like an enormous number. The Achaemenid Persian empire, which existed a few centuries prior and was very expansionist for its time, averaged perhaps 6-8 wars per century, depending on how you quantify wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Iran).
- baud147258 4y agoI don't think one can reasonably compare modern democracies with universal suffrage, with the Roman Republic which had a much more limited voting population. Also the Roman Republic was, for much of its history, at war with his neighbors, so it had the civil structures and incentives (at all levels of the society) that went with near-constant war, so choosing to continue to go to war was an easy decision.