3 ms·
As another "fan" of Caesar, I agree with this take. There's much to be appreciated about Caesar when looking at his strategies, tactics, politicking, etc. He wa
by ysavir 3y ago
As another "fan" of Caesar, I agree with this take. There's much to be appreciated about Caesar when looking at his strategies, tactics, politicking, etc. He was absolutely brilliant. But that was all born on the backs of using and abusing people (sometimes Roman, sometimes the people Romans conquered). This isn't unique to him and is just emblematic of Rome at the time, and its attitude towards itself, towards conquering, and towards non-Romans. To appreciate Caesar requires a certain amount of separating the artist from the art, and knowing that the good he did was more a means to and end rather than an end in-and-of itself.
- meowface 3y agoWere there any famous or powerful Romans we might consider more liberal/progressive by modern standards? People who didn't believe in wantonly enslaving and plundering and conquering, or exploiting populist rhetoric, or otherwise abusing people. People who made reforms without ulterior motives (or at least with benevolence and empathy as some of the genuine motives). (One can argue there aren't many powerful people like that even in modern times, but I can at least think of a few. Just wondering about Roman history, though.)
- ysavir 3y agoI thought the Gracchi brothers[0] might be an example of what you're looking for, but a quick skim of the wikipedia page (it's been almost two decades since I read their history properly) suggests that even they weren't examples of this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracchi_brothers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracchi_brothers