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So sounds like same problem as we have in USA today - complex system that only works if people follow established conventions in addition to codified laws. Like

So sounds like same problem as we have in USA today - complex system that only works if people follow established conventions in addition to codified laws. Like us, Romans probably thought it was not necessary to call out the obvious and then centuries later their successors disregarded the norms and tore the empire apart.

deleted 3y ago
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golergka 3y ago
I paint Rome as if it was politically stable, but it was always very far from it. People have been killing each other throughout the republic, and the mere establishment of empire was exactly a blatant disregard for the norms — they essentially got the KING, the one thing that the republic was built to prevent, even if he was called something else. Even two centuries of "Pax romana" were filled with constant bloody struggle for power between nobles, only five good emperors giving some semblance of stability. And after that, crisis of the third century and switch from principate to dominate was even more severe change in these unwritten rules. US, on the other hand, now has 158 years without internal military conflict, so it's doing extremely, unfathomably well by roman standards.
- asdff 3y ago
  Now imagine if Ft. Sumter happened today. It would be over in a flash but the other way: positions firing onto the fort would be lit up in minutes by ordinance coming out of orbit.
- Kamq 3y ago
  My understanding is that political violence was really only an issue that crept up after the killing of Tiberius Gracchus, so you're really only looking at the last century or so of the roman republic.
  - thom 3y ago
    This isn't really true, given the Conflict of the Orders etc. Even in the Gracchi's case, they were essentially trying to pass land reforms, and Rome had a history of responding to that with violence since at least 486BC. Nobody in Rome's history had a particularly good solution to the central problem that they wanted a massive and expensive army, but didn't want it dominating politics.
    - Kamq 3y ago
      I assume you're referring to Vicellinus. There's a big difference here, that he was given a trial and executed within the bounds of the system, as corrupt as that system may have been. The extra-legal violence with Gracchus was quite new, and much more likely to spiral out of control.
      - thom 3y ago
        Scipio Nascia wasn’t punished for Tiberius’ murder. Spurius Maelius didn’t get a trial but people celebrate Cincinnatus as a hero. Seems to me that the same undercurrents were always there, they never got resolved, and sure, eventually things blew up. But they would have done so without the Gracchi. I don’t know what the right solution was - obviously agrarian reform led to increased tensions with the socii who were experiencing the same disenfranchisement. But what we ultimately got were the Marian reforms, and that’s what really caused violence to dominate politics for the rest of Rome’s history.
        Kamq 3y ago
        > But they would have done so without the Gracchi. I agree. I don't think the Gracchi brothers were essential to what happened. But they were in the middle of it when it did. Once it did, it basically guaranteed the later split into Optimates and Populares, and the rise of Sulla/Caesar
    - qwytw 3y ago
      We don't know much about the Conflict of the Orders and whether it even happened. e.g. we have records of people from plebeian families holding the consulship and other important offices before they were supposedly allowed to (of course it was no inconceivable that they might have been barred from it later as Patricians were trying to monopolize power which incited the conflict). Also the first historian to write about Rome and whose history because just a couple of decades after the last plebeian secession doesen't even mention it.
- cat_plus_plus 3y ago
  Ah interesting, I assumed that Roman empire had to have been stable in some ways to last so long. I certainly wouldn't bet on US remaining a single country for even another century, although there are also less scary aftermaths scenarios like states increasingly ignoring federal government and running their own internal affairs, but still retaining common defense and free or easy travel and trade. Something close to Poland vs Netherlands in European Union.
asdff 3y ago
I feel as though nuclear weapons have purchased an everlasting hedgemony. If the US really started to crumble and I mean actually crumble, we'd just go back to the form of government we had developed during WWII: a centrally planned militarized state where non-useful sections of the economy are rationed or outlawed, useful sections of the economy are simply told to follow the directive of military command, labor is either conscripted or otherwise has no choice but to work in a job environment dominated by government openings, communications are monitored, press and media are tightly controlled, and any political opposition within government structures is systematically rooted out and silenced. I believe we'd sooner revert to this and bomb the world into submission "for the good of the nation" than relinquish this hegemony.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Plato's Republic [1] really shifted my view on this. It was written 2400 years ago, and with but a handful of real exceptions - like his casually referencing slavery, it reads like it was written by an edgelord writing with hindsight of contemporary times and events. And in that regard you'd normally just dismiss it, but given that it was written 2400 years ago, in a world nothing like today, yet 'predicts' the events of today down a tee is a somewhat absurd degree of proof that the notion that 'history repeats itself' is not just in the abstract, as I always thought. In his book he sees a system of 5 political systems, what he calls regimes. And he argues that they tend to each transition between each other, not out of some revolutionary cause - but because of an abundance of the virtue of each system. In democracy that virtue is freedom, and its transition is into tyranny. He argues that excesses of freedom gradually leads to the decay of social values, norms, and ultimately the rule of law itself. And in the process of this leaders would emerge overtly appealing to the base desires and emotions of masses as arguments for election; ethos and values of times past not even feigned at. But these leaders themselves are of course also only driven by their own endless pursuit of self indulgence and power. And transitioning from democracy to authoritarianism is but a matter of one man, supported by the masses, turning against the normal system. With the catch, yet to be seen, that this man also eventually turns against the people that supported him - becoming tyrannical and obsessed by the pursuit of his own ideals and virtues, which need not inherently run contrary to the interests of society. Napoleon is the 'classical' example - which came thousands of years after The Republic was written. The point I make here is that it often feels like we're entering into some wild unknown, in many things. Yet when you look back at things like the classical philosophers and other writings, a lot of what they're saying suddenly seems more apt than ever. And so I think the issue is not that we're entering into some strange and unprecedented era in human civilization, but rather we're just leaving one. The relative era of peace, rationality, and stability that we all grew up in was the bubble, and it seems to have to burst. [1] - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#BookVIII https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#Bo... (This link is already to the exact 'book' (chapter) which is about what I am referencing. To get to the exact meat of it, search for "And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution?")

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

golergka 3y ago

I paint Rome as if it was politically stable, but it was always very far from it. People have been killing each other throughout the republic, and the mere establishment of empire was exactly a blatant disregard for the norms — they essentially got the KING, the one thing that the republic was built to prevent, even if he was called something else. Even two centuries of "Pax romana" were filled with constant bloody struggle for power between nobles, only five good emperors giving some semblance of stability. And after that, crisis of the third century and switch from principate to dominate was even more severe change in these unwritten rules. US, on the other hand, now has 158 years without internal military conflict, so it's doing extremely, unfathomably well by roman standards.

asdff 3y ago
Now imagine if Ft. Sumter happened today. It would be over in a flash but the other way: positions firing onto the fort would be lit up in minutes by ordinance coming out of orbit.
Kamq 3y ago
My understanding is that political violence was really only an issue that crept up after the killing of Tiberius Gracchus, so you're really only looking at the last century or so of the roman republic.
- thom 3y ago
  This isn't really true, given the Conflict of the Orders etc. Even in the Gracchi's case, they were essentially trying to pass land reforms, and Rome had a history of responding to that with violence since at least 486BC. Nobody in Rome's history had a particularly good solution to the central problem that they wanted a massive and expensive army, but didn't want it dominating politics.
  - Kamq 3y ago
    I assume you're referring to Vicellinus. There's a big difference here, that he was given a trial and executed within the bounds of the system, as corrupt as that system may have been. The extra-legal violence with Gracchus was quite new, and much more likely to spiral out of control.
    - thom 3y ago
      Scipio Nascia wasn’t punished for Tiberius’ murder. Spurius Maelius didn’t get a trial but people celebrate Cincinnatus as a hero. Seems to me that the same undercurrents were always there, they never got resolved, and sure, eventually things blew up. But they would have done so without the Gracchi. I don’t know what the right solution was - obviously agrarian reform led to increased tensions with the socii who were experiencing the same disenfranchisement. But what we ultimately got were the Marian reforms, and that’s what really caused violence to dominate politics for the rest of Rome’s history.
      - Kamq 3y ago
        > But they would have done so without the Gracchi. I agree. I don't think the Gracchi brothers were essential to what happened. But they were in the middle of it when it did. Once it did, it basically guaranteed the later split into Optimates and Populares, and the rise of Sulla/Caesar
  - qwytw 3y ago
    We don't know much about the Conflict of the Orders and whether it even happened. e.g. we have records of people from plebeian families holding the consulship and other important offices before they were supposedly allowed to (of course it was no inconceivable that they might have been barred from it later as Patricians were trying to monopolize power which incited the conflict). Also the first historian to write about Rome and whose history because just a couple of decades after the last plebeian secession doesen't even mention it.
cat_plus_plus 3y ago
Ah interesting, I assumed that Roman empire had to have been stable in some ways to last so long. I certainly wouldn't bet on US remaining a single country for even another century, although there are also less scary aftermaths scenarios like states increasingly ignoring federal government and running their own internal affairs, but still retaining common defense and free or easy travel and trade. Something close to Poland vs Netherlands in European Union.

asdff 3y ago

I feel as though nuclear weapons have purchased an everlasting hedgemony. If the US really started to crumble and I mean actually crumble, we'd just go back to the form of government we had developed during WWII: a centrally planned militarized state where non-useful sections of the economy are rationed or outlawed, useful sections of the economy are simply told to follow the directive of military command, labor is either conscripted or otherwise has no choice but to work in a job environment dominated by government openings, communications are monitored, press and media are tightly controlled, and any political opposition within government structures is systematically rooted out and silenced. I believe we'd sooner revert to this and bomb the world into submission "for the good of the nation" than relinquish this hegemony.

somenameforme 3y ago
Plato's Republic [1] really shifted my view on this. It was written 2400 years ago, and with but a handful of real exceptions - like his casually referencing slavery, it reads like it was written by an edgelord writing with hindsight of contemporary times and events. And in that regard you'd normally just dismiss it, but given that it was written 2400 years ago, in a world nothing like today, yet 'predicts' the events of today down a tee is a somewhat absurd degree of proof that the notion that 'history repeats itself' is not just in the abstract, as I always thought. In his book he sees a system of 5 political systems, what he calls regimes. And he argues that they tend to each transition between each other, not out of some revolutionary cause - but because of an abundance of the virtue of each system. In democracy that virtue is freedom, and its transition is into tyranny. He argues that excesses of freedom gradually leads to the decay of social values, norms, and ultimately the rule of law itself. And in the process of this leaders would emerge overtly appealing to the base desires and emotions of masses as arguments for election; ethos and values of times past not even feigned at. But these leaders themselves are of course also only driven by their own endless pursuit of self indulgence and power. And transitioning from democracy to authoritarianism is but a matter of one man, supported by the masses, turning against the normal system. With the catch, yet to be seen, that this man also eventually turns against the people that supported him - becoming tyrannical and obsessed by the pursuit of his own ideals and virtues, which need not inherently run contrary to the interests of society. Napoleon is the 'classical' example - which came thousands of years after The Republic was written. The point I make here is that it often feels like we're entering into some wild unknown, in many things. Yet when you look back at things like the classical philosophers and other writings, a lot of what they're saying suddenly seems more apt than ever. And so I think the issue is not that we're entering into some strange and unprecedented era in human civilization, but rather we're just leaving one. The relative era of peace, rationality, and stability that we all grew up in was the bubble, and it seems to have to burst. [1] - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#BookVIII https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#Bo... (This link is already to the exact 'book' (chapter) which is about what I am referencing. To get to the exact meat of it, search for "And democracy has her own good, of which the insatiable desire brings her to dissolution?")