Collapse of Roman Republic Sources - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Rome, Greece, Egypt & other ancient history (c 4000 BCE - 476 CE) and pre-history.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14820371
Cookie Monster wrote:How much this resonates with what is happening in the United States, Russia, and perhaps in the EU at some point in the future.


Not much if you ask me. Malthusian growth is a real PITA.

Those grain handouts sound trivial from today's perspective, but when famines are reducing the population on a regular basis, food security is a huge deal. Of course the late Republic could only afford this because it "plundered" its territory. There's far less incentive for empire-building in a traditional sense nowadays.
#14820381
You guys aren't the only one's to see connections- or to confuse the Republic with the Empire.



There is something very interesting to be said about American cultural appropriation from the Ancient world. I'm thinking most specifically- besides the obvious Roman fasces in the congress- of the obsession with ancient Sparta that is in evidence amongst members of the US military.

Here is just a single example:
Image


A lot of this is promoted by the neoconservatives, notably people like Bill Kristol, quoted above, and historian Victor Davis Hansen amongst others. For some reason they've got it up in their heads that America is exactly like the Roman empire...

I always found this appropriation very strange for a number of reasons. Most obviously because it seems to be taken without consideration for anything beyond aesthetics- much as with the case of the fasces actaully. Americans seem to love the look of imperialism but not the political or cultural implications of it (ie, Sparta was a tribal military kingdom, about as far from American libertarian democracy as you can get). Furthermore, especially in the military, I find it really ridiculous since America has its own military tradition there really is no reason to appropriate someone elses.
#14820398
JohnRawls wrote:This is merely an example and how i think about the situation. The consul of the plebs held power on paper. In reality it did pass some legislation that the Senate did not aproove but how it is done it is important. That is why i said historical context is important.

Okay, as an example we can take Ceasar, who used this loophole to pass his legislation.

First of all, you need to understand that Roman senate has always been a split institution. To summarise it a bit at his time, it was split between the "Reformist" Faction who ceasar was part off, Conservative faction whos leader was undetermined but usually considered to be Cato and other Neutral Factions who were usually lead by a powerful senator ( Crasus, Pompey, Cissero etc )

Ceasar created a powerful aliance with Pompey and Crasus which is known as the triumvirate. The problem is that was not enough to pass his legislation through regarding the land reform. The conservative faction, namely Cato, simply filibustered the bill non-stop and demanded to veto this legislation through their own Tribunes of the plebs.

What happened is that Ceasar simply went to the people and declared it as if Senate voted yes for it. He declared that the Tribune of the plebs has their 21 days to get aquinted with the bill and then vote on it. When the day of the vote came in the Tribune of the plebs, Conservatives did show up to veto it but they got linched by Ceasars Tribunes and plebs (Clodius and his ilk) so they couldn't veto it. This wasn't technically illegal but it was not how the Roman legislature worked. So as you see, Tribune of the plebs is merely an extention of the senate. The Tribune had power in a sense that it could be used like this but Tribune in itself never proposed legislature, laws nor did it usually veto laws by itself and instead the laws were vetoed by faction within the senate using their Tribunes of the plebs.


It is true that the tribunes could veto each other (respectively the Plebeian Assembly), but each of the tribunes could also veto the Senate. In that sense it was reciprocal. There are examples of vetoing tribunes being removed from the assembly (Marcus Octavius) and from the Senate (Marcus Antonius), both "unconstitutional". In any case, de jure it was a powerful position. De facto is always another question. Do you a link to that particular example or in general a good online source?
Russia-Ukraine War 2022

Are people on this thread actually trying to argu[…]

Isn't oil and electricity bought and sold like ev[…]

@Potemkin I heard this song in the Plaza Grande […]

I (still) have a dream

Even with those millions though. I will not be ab[…]