From the Free Press newsletter for Sept 26, 2024 arrives a concluding statement following a short expose about rule breaking in governance by peeking at the Roman Empire in the days of Tiberius Gracchus. Yeah, never heard of him either. Anyway, supposedly about his time was the dawn of the demise of the Roman Empire.
Getting to the statement being offered . . .
"You probably know about last year’s trend of American men confessing on TikTok how often they think about the Roman Empire. I’m a bit different. I’m obsessed with what preceded the empire, Rome’s republic. Empires are a dime a dozen in human history. They rise and fall, from Babylon to the Soviet Union. But republics—a form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the people—these are orchids: rare, precious, and fleeting. If you take the long view of human history, tyranny is the norm. A system that checks the power of its leaders and legislators and makes them accountable to citizens? That’s special. ..."
Thoughts, criticisms, accolades, and/or commentary?
Rome was a Republic when the citizens of Rome were its warriors, its soldiers, its officers, its leadership.
Roman citizens started out being the warrior class, not a separation, not an elite class and wage/slave class that hired additional men-of-arms as needed.
True there was a tier-ship to it, the major landowners would be the Officers, the Generals, the common free-men the soldiers. But ALL had skin the game... ALL had something to lose.
After Hannibal decimated the Roman Legions and wiped out their armies, occupying Rome and terrorizing it for over a decade, things changed.
There were no longer enough Romans to fill the ranks, or maintain what had been built. So they adapted, more and more Rome used foreign armies to fight for them, hired professional troops made up of forced servitude or kidnapped foreigners or those who committed crimes and were sentenced to it... oversimplifying of course.
I don't know if it correlates to many of the issues, social and authoritarian we see being enacted or suggested today.
Except in one way.
Consider the Roman Empire to be the equivalent of the World Today.
And the fractures and fissures of what eventually became the fallen Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire are occurring now.
The West... America... is playing the role of the Roman Empire and its decline will occur much the way the Roman Empire fell last time... overrun, over-exhausted, transformed into something anew and then forgotten.
BRICS... The East... will play the role of the Byzantine Empire whose better days are still ahead of it and its dominance is on the rise.
Anyway...
A similar comparison in both the American Citizen and the Roman Citizen would also be that in America's initial century the citizens were also predominantly the warriors as well.
And as time went on, the definition of who a citizen was, or more importantly who was allowed representation and the ability to vote expanded as well.
Then they both had their slavery and expansion periods, dominated by military conquest and exploitation of foreign resources.
They also had their periods where they had brilliant leaders... and completely utterly incompetent ones that often brought on immense turmoil and decline.
Bread and Circuses... they had those as well.
Extraction: From the Free Press newsletter for Sept 26, 2024 :
"But republics
—a form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives of the people—
these are orchids: rare, precious, and fleeting.
If you take the long view of human history, tyranny is the norm.
A system that checks the power of its leaders and legislators and makes them accountable to citizens?
That’s special."
I think it is the same case with every country's history. The initial citizens were always the warriors and the soldiers. They used to guard their land and fight with the trespassers. But everything changed as time went on. People now think of their personal matters and rarely fight for common goals. It is a kind of indifference to other issues. The old way of living in herds and tribal groups was better than in this present worldly atmosphere. It is my personal perception.
We in the west have had a very cushy life, since the end of the forties. I have enjoyed the golden ages of the 60s and 70s, as so many of us have. The hard part will be that it ends for us boomers. We complained and whined about so much while we were basically living it up. And most of us are still enjoying life, but it may be close to the party being OVER.
We are not going to know how to handle such times as what could lie ahead.
Now, if Trump gets into office, God will be still smiling down on us.
Man, we have had it good. Time to be thankful and pray for humility so we deserve getting "back on track."
We need to be be more thankful and as I said: humble.
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