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Not OP, but I see the situation more as 100 years before Caesar. You had competing interests but inability (unwillingness?) to compromise. Various people tried

Not OP, but I see the situation more as 100 years before Caesar. You had competing interests but inability (unwillingness?) to compromise. Various people tried increasingly heavy-handed solutions, including the populist Gracchi brothers, and then Sulla entering Rome with his legions (forbidden) three years of military dictatorship--after which he resigned and went home. We seem to be at the potential start of that process. The morals/ethics of the coastal elites from the rural population have diverged to the point where, with Social Justice (differing from social justice) they may not be compatible, but both sides are trying to enforce their morality on the other. (Although I think the push for change is essentially from the coasts and the rural morality is on an offensive-defense.) So you get the rise of populist Trump and the far right to oppose the push from the far left. Trump isn't equivalent to anyone in Rome, but the situation has a similar flavor. (Also, the situation described by Plato in the Republic, where he says democracy results in chaos, causing people to want a dictator to restore order, although we have not got there yet.)

DubiousPusher 4y ago
> inability (unwillingness?) to compromise. I think the basic story of the late Republic is one of a political-economy which needed to change but which could not. Romes successes had rewritten the fundamental realities of its means and relations of production but the political system gave an effective veto power to people who refused to see this and instead wished to blame cultural changes and a decline in traditional virtue for the troubles. This delusion was a borderline mental illness. These people loved Rome's martial history and wanted to keep armies in the field as much as anyone, yet opposed opening the cavalry to non-yeomen despite the deleterious impacts it had on the rural upper class and the decreasing ability of the Romans to field these kind of patriotic cavalry. These people benefited in multitude ways from the influx of slave labor. But they resisted any effort to enfranchise now underemployed Romans, settling instead to doll them grain. Even as this destroyed the These people leveraged their neighbor Italians to win profitable war after profitable war and resisted giving them the privileges of citizenship until forced at the point of a spear. And all the while, any type of reform which had the aesthetic of appearing against traditional Roman virtue was resisted entirely by the traditional aristocrats. Until of course Marius, many of whose reforms were so practical that not even a nostalgia trip like Sulla could bring himself to turn them all back. I think the moral of the fall of Rome is not about a lack of compromise but about what happens when your political system ceases to be able to address the fundamental issues that are undermining it. The end of the Poland-Lithuania is another such example.
- thom 4y ago
  The Marian reforms were very practical, but they also set the scene for later generations of armies that felt bound more to their general than to Rome itself. There's a reason Augustus nearly bankrupted the state professionalizing the army. But I broadly agree with your point - the tensions that brought the Republic down had been festering for hundreds of years.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    > But I broadly agree with your point - the tensions that brought the Republic down had been festering for hundreds of years. That's true but not my specific point. My specific point is that the above comment is extolling a milk-toast "both sides" view of the breakdown of the Roman Republic that simply isn't supported by fact. The problems facing Rome were plainly due to changes in geo-poltical and economic circumstances. Many of these changes in circumstances were themselves created by action of the basic structures of Roman society and the successes they had achieved. All resistance to addressing those changes in any manner, big or small, can be laid at the feet of an out of touch group of traditional aristocrats who would not abide Rome in any form besides the mythological form they believe it had in the early Republic. These people essentially held a veto to any "legitimate" challenge and used violence in successive circumstances where they feared an "illegitimate" challenge.
    - thom 4y ago
      Totally agree that there wasn't much for the plebs to compromise on and I hope I'm not both-sidesing here, just pointing out that the tradition of violence around any proposed land reforms goes back hundreds of years, indeed all the way to the very first proposed agrarian laws of 486BC. The patrician class was conservative and backward-looking by its very nature, and the Roman form of government was almost _explicitly_ created to reach stalemate rather than solve problems in one side's favour (tribunes had the veto too, except as you point out for a few years under Sulla). Obviously in practice that meant the oligarchy had the better part of the deal. But that wasn't necessarily a _new_ tension. So what changed that these old grievances ended up shattering the Republic?
thom 4y ago
For what it's worth, one Roman figure who had an insanely engorged ego, relied on huge loans for his business dealings, and assigned Rome's decay to a shadowy cabal of deep-state paedophiles, was Cicero.
- prewett 4y ago
  Ha! Now that would be a lovely parallel to his complaint about children disobeying parents. I think it would be refreshing to know that conspiracy theories are a expression within humanity, not a unique expression of modern (moral) failure. Do you have any sources / summaries for his Roman conspiracy theories? And how does this square with my perception that Cicero has been perceived as respectable? Is it just that he's respectable but also very traditional and has less than verified causal ideas? Or maybe he's not as respectable (at least in modern terms) as I had assumed?
  - thom 4y ago
    If you want the most passionate and entertaining takedown (not just of the man but the tradition that has accepted his output uncritically), it would be Michael Parenti’s in The Assassination of Julius Caesar. But you can read about Cicero’s two Catiline conspiracies, the first completely fabricated, the second embellished beyond all reason, see his second oration against Catiline, chapter 4, sections 7-8 for the juiciest accusations re: corrupting the nation’s youth. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext%3DCatil.%3Aspeech%3D2%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D7 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext... Early in his career he credited himself with bravely speaking out against allies of Sulla, but that was probably an embellishment: https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/11875418/THE_PUBLICATION_OF_CICERO_S_PRO_ROSCIO_AMERINO.pdf https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/11875418/THE_PUBLICATION_... He’s a very entertaining figure, and you can’t help but read his letters and identify a little with him (even as he swings from proclaiming himself the greatest human ever to live, to being wildly neurotic). He was a Demosthenes forever in search of a Philip but was ultimately too spineless and indecisive to affect events when it counted. In some ways I find him pitiable in the same way as Pompey - desperate to be accepted by the aristocracy and always insecure about it. But while his literary output was sparkling, his politics and egotism were contemptible.

DubiousPusher 4y ago

> inability (unwillingness?) to compromise. I think the basic story of the late Republic is one of a political-economy which needed to change but which could not. Romes successes had rewritten the fundamental realities of its means and relations of production but the political system gave an effective veto power to people who refused to see this and instead wished to blame cultural changes and a decline in traditional virtue for the troubles. This delusion was a borderline mental illness. These people loved Rome's martial history and wanted to keep armies in the field as much as anyone, yet opposed opening the cavalry to non-yeomen despite the deleterious impacts it had on the rural upper class and the decreasing ability of the Romans to field these kind of patriotic cavalry. These people benefited in multitude ways from the influx of slave labor. But they resisted any effort to enfranchise now underemployed Romans, settling instead to doll them grain. Even as this destroyed the These people leveraged their neighbor Italians to win profitable war after profitable war and resisted giving them the privileges of citizenship until forced at the point of a spear. And all the while, any type of reform which had the aesthetic of appearing against traditional Roman virtue was resisted entirely by the traditional aristocrats. Until of course Marius, many of whose reforms were so practical that not even a nostalgia trip like Sulla could bring himself to turn them all back. I think the moral of the fall of Rome is not about a lack of compromise but about what happens when your political system ceases to be able to address the fundamental issues that are undermining it. The end of the Poland-Lithuania is another such example.

thom 4y ago
The Marian reforms were very practical, but they also set the scene for later generations of armies that felt bound more to their general than to Rome itself. There's a reason Augustus nearly bankrupted the state professionalizing the army. But I broadly agree with your point - the tensions that brought the Republic down had been festering for hundreds of years.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  > But I broadly agree with your point - the tensions that brought the Republic down had been festering for hundreds of years. That's true but not my specific point. My specific point is that the above comment is extolling a milk-toast "both sides" view of the breakdown of the Roman Republic that simply isn't supported by fact. The problems facing Rome were plainly due to changes in geo-poltical and economic circumstances. Many of these changes in circumstances were themselves created by action of the basic structures of Roman society and the successes they had achieved. All resistance to addressing those changes in any manner, big or small, can be laid at the feet of an out of touch group of traditional aristocrats who would not abide Rome in any form besides the mythological form they believe it had in the early Republic. These people essentially held a veto to any "legitimate" challenge and used violence in successive circumstances where they feared an "illegitimate" challenge.
  - thom 4y ago
    Totally agree that there wasn't much for the plebs to compromise on and I hope I'm not both-sidesing here, just pointing out that the tradition of violence around any proposed land reforms goes back hundreds of years, indeed all the way to the very first proposed agrarian laws of 486BC. The patrician class was conservative and backward-looking by its very nature, and the Roman form of government was almost _explicitly_ created to reach stalemate rather than solve problems in one side's favour (tribunes had the veto too, except as you point out for a few years under Sulla). Obviously in practice that meant the oligarchy had the better part of the deal. But that wasn't necessarily a _new_ tension. So what changed that these old grievances ended up shattering the Republic?

thom 4y ago

For what it's worth, one Roman figure who had an insanely engorged ego, relied on huge loans for his business dealings, and assigned Rome's decay to a shadowy cabal of deep-state paedophiles, was Cicero.

prewett 4y ago
Ha! Now that would be a lovely parallel to his complaint about children disobeying parents. I think it would be refreshing to know that conspiracy theories are a expression within humanity, not a unique expression of modern (moral) failure. Do you have any sources / summaries for his Roman conspiracy theories? And how does this square with my perception that Cicero has been perceived as respectable? Is it just that he's respectable but also very traditional and has less than verified causal ideas? Or maybe he's not as respectable (at least in modern terms) as I had assumed?
- thom 4y ago
  If you want the most passionate and entertaining takedown (not just of the man but the tradition that has accepted his output uncritically), it would be Michael Parenti’s in The Assassination of Julius Caesar. But you can read about Cicero’s two Catiline conspiracies, the first completely fabricated, the second embellished beyond all reason, see his second oration against Catiline, chapter 4, sections 7-8 for the juiciest accusations re: corrupting the nation’s youth. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext%3DCatil.%3Aspeech%3D2%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D7 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext... Early in his career he credited himself with bravely speaking out against allies of Sulla, but that was probably an embellishment: https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/11875418/THE_PUBLICATION_OF_CICERO_S_PRO_ROSCIO_AMERINO.pdf https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/11875418/THE_PUBLICATION_... He’s a very entertaining figure, and you can’t help but read his letters and identify a little with him (even as he swings from proclaiming himself the greatest human ever to live, to being wildly neurotic). He was a Demosthenes forever in search of a Philip but was ultimately too spineless and indecisive to affect events when it counted. In some ways I find him pitiable in the same way as Pompey - desperate to be accepted by the aristocracy and always insecure about it. But while his literary output was sparkling, his politics and egotism were contemptible.