This is (part of) how the Roman Republic fell

[KingOrfeo]

Political criminal prosecutions:

The title Rubicon refers to the river that Caesar in 49 BC decided to cross with the army he had commanded as governor of Gaul. (Today's Rubicon, by the way, can only speculatively be identified as the river of Caesar's day; certainly it does not follow the same course.) By crossing the Rubicon, Caesar left his province and entered Italy. That was an illegal act that started a civil war, indeed a world war. With some pauses, it would continue after his assassination in 44 BC until 31 BC, when Octavian won the Battle of Actium against Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, thereby becoming the last-man-standing at the pinnacle of Roman politics. This review is not the place to summarize the whole chronology of the period under consideration, but the mention of a few dates and personalities may help clarify why crossing that river was a matter of life or death for Caesar, and why his opponent on the other side was not really the Roman Republic, but a single man, Pompey the Great.

In effect, Caesar was in grave danger of being sued. The action would have been brought by some rival politician, but it would have been a criminal prosecution. (Roman law favored this procedure.) Such litigation had become the stuff of Roman politics since the dictatorship of Sulla around 80 BC; almost anyone leaving a governorship or major civil office was likely to be charged with tyranny and embezzlement, not always without a measure of justification. Sulla had broken immemorial tradition by deciding a factional fight against the “populist” party by bringing troops into Rome. He also slaughtered his enemies and expropriated their assets, but his populist predecessor Marius had done much the same during a brief reign of terror (Marius was Caesar's uncle). The civil war that Sulla won had envenomed Roman politics to an unprecedented degree. Until Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the political game was not played out with armies, but it did put the life-and-limb of its participants into danger either from the law or from organized electoral violence. As governor of Gaul, Caesar had enjoyed immunity from prosecution because of his position as proconsul, the legal basis of his governorship. He had been assured that, before his term ended, he would either be elected consul (one of the two chief executives) or receive another proconsular appointment. When neither happened, he realized that his enemies intended at least to humiliate him in a show trial, and perhaps to execute him.

<snip>

Caesar had once been Pompey's protégé, as Pompey had been Sulla's. Caesar and Pompey were allies in the famous First Triumvirate (with Crassus, the financier who made the mistake of trying to draw equal with his colleague's military eminence by invading Parthia). It was not fated that they should become enemies, much less that their conflict should bring down the Republic. Nonetheless, as the author points out, Rome's public life was driven by a paradox. The same word, “honestas,” meant both fame and honesty. A society that does not strongly differentiate celebrity from virtue is bound to be very competitive; the odd thing about the Republic was that ambition was simultaneously regarded with suspicion, as potentially subversive of the political order. To become a great man in the life of Rome was to raise up competitors to put the great man in his place, competitors who could congratulate themselves that they were doing a public service.

As the increasing wealth of the empire provided individual Romans with ever greater resources, the competition for public acclaim became more extreme and extravagant. Caesar had conquered much of western Europe and relieved its inhabitants of an amazing amount of money; Pompey made the kings of the East his dues-paying clients. Money could be used to win elections, but also to raise armies. Both men wanted to be first at Rome; both needed to be first for their personal safety. Something had to give.

Let's not start down any path that might lead to such a point. Whether you spent last fall chanting "Lock her up!" about Clinton or whether you're chanting something of the kind now about Trump, bear this in mind and proceed cautiously. For my part I'd like to see Trump removed from office by some constitutional mechanism, if possible, but not prosecuted (nor assassinated). I don't even mind all that much that Nixon wasn't. Nixon committed a political crime and he paid the ultimate political price, losing the highest office in the land forever; that is enough.

 

[Ms_Ann]

And here I always thought it was lead pipes.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Political criminal prosecutions:



Let's not start down any path that might lead to such a point. Whether you spent last fall chanting "Lock her up!" about Clinton or whether you're chanting something of the kind now about Trump, bear this in mind and proceed cautiously. For my part I'd like to see Trump removed from office by some constitutional mechanism, if possible, but not prosecuted (nor assassinated). I don't even mind all that much that Nixon wasn't. Nixon committed a political crime and he paid the ultimate political price, losing the highest office in the land forever; that is enough.

No, no. Nixon committed a very real and specific criminal violation -- obstruction of justice. Your "knowledge" of legal history once again fails you.

For my part, if anyone is removed from public office it will be only for an equally weighty transgression, although I acknowledge that a sufficient cause might fall short of an actual commission of a felony.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And here I always thought it was lead pipes.

Lead to sweeten the wine.


It did not help when Aurelius began inflating the currency by adding base metals to the centers of his coins...

KO is a fucking loon.

 

[Christobal]

I basically agree with you. I think you were saying "I don't agree with your politics but that doesn't mean you are inherently evil". Or am I even in the ballpark?

 

[ishtat]

In the late Roman Republic and early Empire the Colosseum was where you went for the lower classes blood sports. The upper classes favourite sport was suing their enemies. The great celebrities were the great orators like Cicero; Romans threatened each other with civil and criminal prosecutions for hundreds of years without endangering either Republic or Empire.

Prosaic things like the price of corn and taxation brought the Romans down eventually.

 

[KingOrfeo]

No, no. Nixon committed a very real and specific criminal violation -- obstruction of justice.

I never said he didn't. By "political crime" I meant that and the whole chain of events leading up to it (in which Nixon almost certainly not complicit at all stages), the successful efforts of CREEP to guarantee Nixon second term by ratfucking and sabotaging the presidential nomination campaign of every Democratic candidate save McGovern (judged the easiest to beat in '72), followed, after it all began to come out, by other crimes, such as obstruction of justice, done to keep Nixon in office. Nixon probably knew nothing of this before the Watergate story broke, but it was all done on his behalf, and only done because he was more obsessed with a second term than any first-term POTUS in previous history and clearly communicated that obsession to his staff. Such obsession is kind of sick, and ties in with other ways in which Nixon was sick (his persecution mania, vindictiveness, social inferiority complex, complete indifference to honesty), but such sickness is not a crime deserving punishment.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I basically agree with you. I think you were saying "I don't agree with your politics but that doesn't mean you are inherently evil". Or am I even in the ballpark?

Partly that, but mainly, let us and let our pols never play the political game for such high stakes that it is dangerous to lose (or to win).

 

[Hard_Rom]

In the late Roman Republic and early Empire the Colosseum was where you went for the lower classes blood sports. The upper classes favourite sport was suing their enemies. The great celebrities were the great orators like Cicero; Romans threatened each other with civil and criminal prosecutions for hundreds of years without endangering either Republic or Empire.

Prosaic things like the price of corn and taxation brought the Romans down eventually.

I'm more of the opinion income inequality and populous leaders.

 

[Rightguide]

KingO needs to read Gibbon in order to understand the fall of Rome.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

So, if Gaius Julius had gotten a second term, then none of this would have happened?

 

[KingOrfeo]

KingO needs to read Gibbon in order to understand the fall of Rome.

Read it. Gibbon begins his story with Marcus Aurelius. I'm talking about the fall of the Republic, not the Empire.

 

[KingOrfeo]

So, if Gaius Julius had gotten a second term, then none of this would have happened?

Well, the point is not that that particular event led to the civil war which destroyed the Republic, but that something of the kind was inevitable sooner or later in Rome's poisoned and turbulent and hypercomptetitive political environment.

From the same review:

And what shall we say of Caesar, that typical product of the late-Republican hot-house of dandies and ironists? No one thinks of him as one of history's great villains. He blew up a 500-year-old political system and depopulated Gaul by an eighth to raise political-campaign money, but he is remembered chiefly for his clemency. His very willingness to pardon his political opponents may itself have been a sign that the Republic was already fading from the mind of his generation. Marius and Sulla took great satisfaction in the defeat and destruction of their enemies; that was the reward for those who played the game. Caesar, one suspects, was part of a growing class of people who found the game merely tedious. They would play for renown and to save their lives, but it could no longer hold their complete attention.

When the dust settled after Caesar's assassination and Octavian came to power, his legal position was a model of traditional propriety, like Pompey's had been; this was in sharp contrast to the frivolous riot of constitutional improvisations that Uncle Julius had spun off at odd moments. Octavian was neither frivolous nor clement. He killed all his enemies, not for the satisfaction but because he had to; and when they were all dead, he stopped. That is why he is not remembered as a villain, either.

The great circulation of strong personalities eager for fame stopped, too, in Rome if not in local government. The advent of Augustus affected Roman politics in a way that was like what some climatologists say would happen if the ice at the North Pole melted. Fresh water would cause the Gulf Stream to stop circulating, thereby causing an ice age. Similarly, Augustus's eminence stopped the great game of Roman politics. Only the emperor could have the sort of fame for which the great of Rome had so long competed, and at least under the Principate, the imperial office was not available as a prize. Consequently, a political ice age then began. We call it the Roman Empire.

(Actually, the theory is that Europe, the only region warmed by the Gulf Stream, would get cooler if global warming disrupted the stream, which it might; but global temperatures would still rise.)

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I never said he didn't. By "political crime" I meant that and the whole chain of events leading up to it (in which Nixon almost certainly not complicit at all stages), the successful efforts of CREEP to guarantee Nixon second term by ratfucking and sabotaging the presidential nomination campaign of every Democratic candidate save McGovern (judged the easiest to beat in '72), followed, after it all began to come out, by other crimes, such as obstruction of justice, done to keep Nixon in office. Nixon probably knew nothing of this before the Watergate story broke, but it was all done on his behalf, and only done because he was more obsessed with a second term than any first-term POTUS in previous history and clearly communicated that obsession to his staff. Such obsession is kind of sick, and ties in with other ways in which Nixon was sick (his persecution mania, vindictiveness, social inferiority complex, complete indifference to honesty), but such sickness is not a crime deserving punishment.

Agreed, but he was as fully criminally liable as anyone during the post-Watergate coverup. Hell, he practically lead the damn thing.

 

[Rightguide]

Read it. Gibbon begins his story with Marcus Aurelius. I'm talking about the fall of the Republic, not the Empire.

You read it. Yes it starts with the death of the Antonines but looks back in the early chapters to the unconditional surrender, completely and forever, of the Republic in 31 BC to the military dictator Caesar Augustus. He explains the fall of not only an empire but of a Republic, a civilization, a way of life, a Republican form of government that wouldn't see the the light of day until 1776 AD.

 

[Rightguide]

Nixon probably knew nothing of this before the Watergate story broke,...

Kinda like Susan Rice exclaiming she didn't know anything about the surveillance of Trump or the unmasking of his associates...until she was exposed as complicit.

 

[KingOrfeo]

You read it. Yes it starts with the death of the Antonines but looks back in the early chapters to the unconditional surrender, completely and forever, of the Republic in 31 BC to the military dictator Caesar Augustus. He explains the fall of not only an empire but of a Republic, a civilization, a way of life, a Republican form of government that wouldn't see the the light of day until 1776 AD.

There were and had been republics in Europe after Rome and before American independence -- the Dutch Republic, the Venetian Republic, the Swiss Confederation, and several Italian city-states and German free cities. All were on a small scale, however. I recall a college polysci prof pointing out that what made the U.S. different, and a radically new experiment, was that it was the first big republic in human history. (Or at least the first since Rome; debatable point, as to the end the Roman Republic had essentially the constitution of a city-state, and technically was one (for religious purposes and some legal and constitutional purposes, Rome only existed at the heart of the city bound by the pomerium or official city line; everything outside was simply Roman territory), and only citizens living in or near Rome could in practice attend elections or public assemblies regularly, or politically participate at all, there being no provision for anything like the modern representative systems inspired by the British Parliament. Perhaps another reason for the Republic's fall is that its government was simply not designed to encompass large territories and diverse peoples, and no statesman had the imagination to propose the constitutional changes necessary to adapt to that situation.)

Publius argued, and he appears to have been mostly right, that America's size and scale would make republican government work even better here -- the bane of republics had always been factions gaining control of the state and ruling in their own particular interest, but in a country this vast with so many potential factions, no faction could hope to dominate the others. (He did not foresee that the 1% would become a national faction, and dominate the government through economic power buying political power.)

 

[Rightguide]

There were and had been republics in Europe after Rome and before American independence

Not with a Constitution like ours. No comparison.

 

[Rightguide]

There were and had been republics in Europe after Rome and before American independence -- the Dutch Republic, the Venetian Republic, the Swiss Confederation, and several Italian city-states and German free cities. All were on a small scale, however. I recall a college polysci prof pointing out that what made the U.S. different, and a radically new experiment, was that it was the first big republic in human history. (Or at least the first since Rome; debatable point, as to the end the Roman Republic had essentially the constitution of a city-state, and technically was one (for religious purposes and some legal and constitutional purposes, Rome only existed at the heart of the city bound by the pomerium or official city line; everything outside was simply Roman territory), and only citizens living in or near Rome could in practice attend elections or public assemblies regularly, or politically participate at all, there being no provision for anything like the modern representative systems inspired by the British Parliament. Perhaps another reason for the Republic's fall is that its government was simply not designed to encompass large territories and diverse peoples, and no statesman had the imagination to propose the constitutional changes necessary to adapt to that situation.)

Publius argued, and he appears to have been mostly right, that America's size and scale would make republican government work even better here -- the bane of republics had always been factions gaining control of the state and ruling in their own particular interest, but in a country this vast with so many potential factions, no faction could hope to dominate the others. (He did not foresee that the 1% would become a national faction, and dominate the government through economic power buying political power.)

First, the Consitution had to be corrupted and the states dominated by a strong centralized federal government. It took a couple of hundred years to complete but they started early.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Not with a Constitution like ours. No comparison.

botjan yIchu'

Population not the same
Don't have our problems
Different history
Different ethnic makeup

Your deflector screens must be glowing by now.

 

[ishtat]

I'm more of the opinion income inequality and populous leaders.

Caesar Trumpitus perhaps?

 

[OldJourno]

I see we're all tiptoeing around one key to this discussion, that Caesar Augustus fomented much unrest by taking a dump in the public baths. That fact it occurred on Bingo Night only exacerbated the issue.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Caesar Trumpitus perhaps?

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

still the death throes of a dying great republic

those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them

 

[KingOrfeo]

Not with a Constitution like ours. No comparison.

Not much like Rome's, either. Nor was Rome's much like ours, but you drew the comparison.

He explains the fall of not only an empire but of a Republic, a civilization, a way of life, a Republican form of government that wouldn't see the the light of day until 1776 AD.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Not much like Rome's, either. Nor was Rome's much like ours, but you drew the comparison.

How dare you use his words against him!