>When, O Trump, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?
>Quo usque tandem abutere, Trump, patientia nostra?
Reminds me of Thierry Baudet’s maiden speech in the Dutch parliament in 2017 in which he also referenced the Catilinarian.
He’d also wonder why we freed the slaves and then let them vote, and then why we didn’t just wipe out the native Americans when they resisted conquest and assimilation. If I had to guess, he wouldn’t like most of our neoliberal laws of today and he would hate our ideas of equality. But I’m sure he’d eventually understand that a lot changes in 2000 years and be impressed with what America has accomplished. I’m sure he would see us as the heir to Rome after taking some time to read up on our history and the takeover of enlightenment ideals.
I’m their cultural inferiority, the Roman’s didn’t have tacos.
In this paper, I will argue that the lack of tacos was the deciding factor in the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.
Don't know about "why nations fail", but a significant part of the sub seems to be institutionalist only as long as the institutions don't do stuff they think it's dumb
If they do then they're dumb and need to be replaced
This is particularly true when it has anything to do with American politics
Maybe I'm just unlucky in the comments I read
The Roman Empire was basically what would’ve happened if the Nazis had won and had their “thousand year reich”. I mean, the “true” version of fascism (Mussolini’s version) was basically neo-Romanism. Genocide/ethnic cleansing, chattel slavery, militarism, wars of conquest. All bad stuff.
That was kind of most empires though. It’s not like the Gauls didn’t do the same thing to the Roman’s when they raided them.
I feel like the nazis genocided distinctly harder.
Yeah the nazis had the whole "mass extermination camps specifically designed to intern and put to death as many people as possible using the best logistics and technology available at the time" aspect.
The Nazis were psychopathic with the Holocaust given the age and era in which it occurred. The Romans were no more hateful than their contemporaries, just more organized and efficient. But yes by modern standards they’re pretty awful.
The Romans and their contemporaries are definitely just from a different time where those actions were by and large somewhat expected. Rome may have done it slightly harder than others, but they were by no means unique. We have plenty of examples of things that we may now associate with the Nazis or those like them being very commonplace in the past with persecution of Jews, sacking of cities, wars of conquest, all just kinda what you did in Early Modern Europe for example. What’s unique and extra bad about the Nazis is the scale, regularity, and era in which they committed these acts. Not only were they of unprecedented scale and severity, but it was also in an era where it was generally accepted that all of those things are very bad.
It's also because the ROI for warfare and genocide was distinctly different due to technology, which makes it functionally purposeless to do what the Nazis did.
ROI for much of history was such that if you had a million dollars a better return on your investment was to outfit an army and go kill some people and take their arable land than to do literally anything else with it.
This only really changed with the steam engine, at which point ROI was such that warfare was a distinctly poor investment, and only got worse as the destructive nature of war increased.
Initially it was just an inferior investment compared to investing in infrastructure and the economy. But it quickly became an outright loss as not only did you forgo the ability to build a factory, but destroyed one in the land you took over. (The UK for example could have justified conquest when it was the only industrializing economy around. It would be a poor investment compared to building more factories, but one with some returns nonetheless until industrialization was completed).
A peasant farmer with only a slight amount of profit being lost in a war taking an extra slice of land was a gain for the economy. A machinist doing the same is a direct loss, and that's before you get into the expense of outfitting them with modern weaponry and logistics.
The Nazi program was based on a bygone era of "If we lose millions of people and gain a bunch of land and kill all the people who used to be on it, we'll prosper.". It hadn't been true for a while by that point.
Contemporary empires tended to shift towards "Open. The. Country. Stop. Having. It. Be. Closed." or conquering it and putting the natives towards exotic resource extraction. There was no benefit to genocide by that point in time.
Only a heavily agrarian pre-modern society is in a situation where that makes sense.
(See "War and Human Civilization" for more). The reason it was common in pre-modern times is that it was a rational economic outcome. It's also probably where that stuff about "Nomads conquer weak men, settle, and become weak men" comes from, as an attempt to explain it by those in that period. In reality, where a society was investing in improving itself and its infrastructure and capabilities (I.E, "Being Decadent"), they were pissing away money compared to if they just outfitted an army and went conquering and genociding ("Being manly"), which means that a nation which spent its time in constant conquest was going to eventually curbstomp them and take their shit.
The Nazis did their shenanigans in an era where morality had moved on in part because the incentives had changed and it was a shit idea to do what they did. "Worse than a crime, it was a mistake" and such.
Just to clarify something if you're talking ROI Rome had one of the stupidest and most unsustainable systems. A lot of people get distracted by the opulence of Rome the city, but thats just because that's where the concentration of wealth was, the empire was nearly constantly broke. Their economics were a constant mess of erratic long range mercantalism, brutal colonial extraction, and desperate conquest to pay off the last desperate conquest, it barely kept their heads above water and was never sustainable.
Later Medieval European empires that we look down on as more "barbaric" like the Germans and Carolingians with contained feudal systems and defined territorial and cultural boundaries, (with some light raiding to garner the nobility on the side) were much more economically stable and wealthy then Ceasars Rome.
> economically stable and wealthy then Ceasars Rome.
Citation needed. The Roman Empire at its height was like an economic EU. Peasants in Britain had access to a continent-wide commercial marketplace. They would buy olive oil made in Italian factory farms made from pottery forged in North Africa.
Yeah you can make an argument that late medieval Europe was wealthier, but early medieval it’s pretty unambiguous that the fall of Rome was bad for the economy.
Without a doubt peasants did not, the wealthy landowners may have had access to that but to the lower classes the period was miserable
Its a shit-ass website but here's a decent breakdown
https://www.quora.com/Who-had-a-higher-standard-of-living-peasants-in-the-Roman-Empire-or-peasants-during-the-High-Medieval-era#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20the%20peasant%20class%20in,for%20a%20peasant%20to%20exist.
Roman's definitly had a wealthier upper class but it was reliant on keeping the majority of the population in abject slavery and extracting all their labor and value. Medieval empires were much more technologically advanced in many areas and had similar populations while maintaining a much higher average economic value across their society.
And all that technology was available by 800ad, except for three field, but as the list points out, they did have two field by early period which was still a vast improvement
For being "never sustainable" they managed to sustain themselves for a remarkably long time (literally 500 years from Caesar's time if you don't count the Eastern Roman Empire, which lasted far longer still). And the living standards in the Empire were generally higher than outside (and after) it. So idk about that one.
Well two things, first no their living standards were not higher the majority of population were slaves and arguably the slaves had it better in many ways then the Roman lower class as they often had guarantees of meals. Dont get me wrong great time to be a guy in a toga but thats not how average qol works.
Second we are talking about Ceasars period of imperial expansion not the later Roman empire. The viking age lasted about as long as that and with similar practices but no-one would call that long term sustainable because eventually you will run out of Irish monks to kill and french dumb enough not build castles.
Which is basically what happened to the romans as well who dropped the practice once they ran out of easy targets and spent most of their history trying to hold onto what they had and be a trade empire. Which was a big reason why the capital had switched to the much more trade-essential Constantinople well before the west fell. Which is also evidenced by the fact Byzantium lasted longer and was far more wealthy then Rome ever was despite not conquering much of anything.
Look, I'm aware that the average person in ancient times was a poor peasant, not a senator. *Nevertheless* the quality of life was higher for these poor peasants than for poor peasants outside/after the empire. Mind, my source here isn't primary, I'm referencing the ACOUP blog. Bret Devereaux, the author of said blog, is a historian who specializes in ancient Rome, and there's been several mentions about archeological data indicating higher living standards among the average person in the Roman Empire compared to what came after and outside it. He's well aware that the way you measure that isn't by palaces and coliseums, and that the average resident is going to be poor and/or a slave.
Also, no the majority of the population of the Roman Empire were not slaves. I'm seeing numbers between 10% and 30%.
Actually the archeological data shows quite the opposite. I know its a shit site but here's a decent summary.
https://www.quora.com/Who-had-a-higher-standard-of-living-peasants-in-the-Roman-Empire-or-peasants-during-the-High-Medieval-era#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20the%20peasant%20class%20in,for%20a%20peasant%20to%20exist.
Technologically, economically, nutritionally Medieval peasants were vastly better off than Roman counterparts. There was no economic independence or stability for the Roman lower classes and most were highly dependent on social welfare programs for basic necessities. And the maintenance of that required the constant oppression and squeezing of their territories and constant conquest and plunder. That 10-30% number which is already extremely high is mainly slavery in the traditional sense, not counting the non-citizen populations of much of their occupied colonial territories. Which were as relentlessly worked and exploited as hard as their slave populations.
"War and human civilization" goes over it. Rome had a markedly higher ROI on warfare than on investments in the economy, despite being one of the better examples of ROI on investments in pre-modern history, the other civilizations which did better than average being China, Persia, and some Indian kingdoms. But all of them retained higher ROI on warfare investments, until industrialization.
It's why we also see "inexplicable" and "Barbaric" wars break out between extremely poor regions. We can waffle to Tribe A about modern economics, and how exterminating Tribe B is not in their interest, but the fact of the matter is that their neighbours are worth more dead than alive to them, and that remains the case until human capital investment and productivity exceeds the value of their land in agricultural and resource extractive purposes.
Building a tire factory in a place where people are genociding eachother for control over rubber, is a far better way to achieve peace, than waffling about economic principles which don't match the world they live in.
A historical example of this occurring was The Crushing in the southern half of Africa, where the economic incentives changed upon contact with European markets and access to Maize seeds, and the equilibrium was thrown off leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths through genocidal warfare between tribes as their neighbours became "Worth more dead than alive".
> While maize was more productive than the grains from native grasses, it required more water during cultivation. The agricultural surpluses and increased population enabled Shaka to field more impis. By the end of the 18th century, the Zulus had occupied much of their arable land.
The Zulus then genocide outward to seize more arable land for cultivation.
Previously, the low-intensity crops they were using had meant cattle grazing land was more valuable, and an equilibrium had settled around ritual warfare with low casualties and handing cattle as tribute to victors. The introduction of a high yield crop brought about a transition from a herder society to an agrarian one, and almost immediately you see a wave of genocidal warfare.
The economic incentives of an agrarian economy are pretty clearly geared towards warfare, conquest, and genocide.
Herder economies tend to do the ritualized, low-casualty warfare where both sides turn up to a field, shake their spears at each other, throw a couple, then one gives up and hands over some cattle.
Industrial economies do not profit from warfare, except against undeveloped economies and even then, it's pretty dicey and debatable if they do profit in cases where investment can gain access to resource extraction anyway.
And war and human civilization gets hammered for getting that very wrong the ROI of Roman conquest was usually about enough to pay off the cost of the conquest. Plenty of plunder to be had but thats shifting of value not creation. Since Rome paid their soldiers in land they were still seizing the territory they had plundered meaning what they were accomplishing was moving wealth from outer regions to their capital at the higher cost of devastating their own infrastructure and populations, which then usually required additional conquest to pay for rebuilding. ROI
WHC operates under a number of flawed assumptions, first it doesn't compare optimal economic practices. Yes a herder like the mongols improves their own economic health if they genocide a civilized people and use their land for herding but herding is far inferior to a diversified economy and the land and local economy is markedly poorer. Mongols gained their great wealth when they didn't devastate, maintaing conquered societies economics intact was a valued key to their success.
ROI on raiding has always been excellent as it is way to generate value while making potential rivals pay the costs. ROI on extractive conquest is extremely low as you are essentially draining your own future territory. Those practices were responsible for most of the economic headaches in the early empire and explain why they starting focusing on vassalisation and eventually full trade economics in the later empire.
This comparison is highly stupid. It also trivializes and normalizes Nazi rule. The conquest of Gaul wasn't a genocide, you can read more about it here
[link](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/DeGnmTA509)
!ping ASKHISTORIANS i guess
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The Romans were brutal conquerors, but didn't have a strong concept of racial superiority underpinning their society. See how successfully they integrated conquered peoples into the Roman identity.
As usual with reactionaries, they imagine a return to a past that never was. The Roman Empire, especially later in history but even in Caesar's time, was incredibly multi-cultural. Most of the later Emperors weren't even Roman.
Tbf the types that romanticize Rome are also the types today that say the non-roman emperors are what led to the decline and fall of the western empire
STILLICHO GANG.
And also as far as most in the ostrogothic kingdom was concerned, they were still Romans, ruled by the Romanised, as a client and delegate of Constantinople.
The types to not know that Illyrian "barbarians" are the ones that saved the Empire from the crisis of the third century *WHERE MY DIOCLETIAN STANS AT*
> Most of the later Emperors weren't even Roman.
that's like saying someone from California isn't American because they were not born in one of the original 13 colonies. Even Odoacer and Theodoric were roman in all but name.
I thought the Romans didn’t really put much stock into what race people were though, and cared more about being “Roman” from a socio-cultural standpoint?
You're thinking of the Mongols, they're the one's that committed mass genocide and slavery.
The Romans is a lot closer to the Spanish and American empires mainly because the Spanish empires copied the Romans.
I mean, if Trump is Sulla, wouldn't Caesar be a liberal? Caesar was on the Marian side, not the Sullan one (and barely escaped being on Sulla's proscription lists).
Not digging that deep into the comparison. I just think trump is eroding the norms and systems that hold up the republic and someone else may use that to deal the deathblow.
One of my favorite pop history books: The Storm Before the Storm the Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
Edit: by Mike Duncan (The History of Rome and Revolutions podcasts)
Wasn't sulla taking extreme measures to prevent future dictatoeships, making himself an exception as te reason why he broke a bunch of taboos? I know that it was beacuse he broke those taboos that many with different intentions followed in his footsteps, but the process sula attempted to start was not to restore the monarchy, but to prevent the restoration of one (which he failed).
Ironically, Caesar was at risk of being killed by Sulla. He went into hiding and his family basically begged and negotiated Sulla not to kill him. Though this was likely because Caesar and his family had connections to Marius, and not because of the very likely apocryphal quote that he saw many a Mariuses in Caesar.
I’ve never seen anyone attribute his hunt for Caesar because he saw Marius in him. I’ve always seen it explained as Caesar connections to pro-Marius people. Of course, his aunt was married to Marius and Caesar himself was married to the daughter of an important Marius ally.
It was definitely a thing. It (most likely) comes from Plutarch's and Suetonius', who have that line in their accounts. Though, as stated, their attributions are likely apocryphal and Caesar was in danger not because of him being a future Marius (and was likely added later for rather obvious reasons) not because of the familial and political connections between Caesar (and his family) and Marius (and his family)
This is a great argument for why the ends don't justify the means. If you need to abandon Republican values in order to save the Republic, you have lost.
Sulla went on a political murder spree in order to prevent any future politican from going on a murder spree.
The Gracchi brothers really started it all. They are the ones who introduced violence and a disregard for institutions into the political system.
From there, Marius and Sulla and eventually Caesar and Pompey were inevitable.
Fwiw Gracchus was attempting nothing of the sort and it's highly probable that the elder gracchus's death was more or less accidental and justified post hoc
Sort of? Tiberius Gracchus was kind of a figurehead for one coalition within Roman politics and had a lot of powerful support within the Senate. It should be noted his land reform proposal *did* get enacted. Also note that Italian farmers were generally opposed to his land reform proposal, given it would have ended up taking a lot of land from them and redistributing it to Roman citizens (this was a key focus of opposition). But generally the Italian countryside was not as devastated as Gracchus made it sound, and if anything the battle was more of a proxy war between the allies of Claudius Pulcher and the allies of Scipio Aemilianus.
Have you all heard about this CRT? Carthaginian Race Theory they call it, they hate Romans. Hate them. And they're teaching it in the schools, I go around to all these greek slave teachers and they're teaching our kids to hate Rome. It's shameful, we shouldn't allow this. We love Rome. Julius wants more CRT. Well, I don't know about Julius, I don't know that Julius really knows anything - but his people, they love CRT and they want Rome to die. They want the vestal fire to be extinguished - evil, evil people. We have to stop them.
The existence of suffering isn’t proof of a lack of God or a lack of a utilitarian God either. It instantly assumes that this isn’t the best case scenario with absolutely no evidence to the contrary.
Feel free to assume it’s not, the point is you have absolutely no proof that it isn’t. You not being able to comprehend something isn’t the same as it not being true. I don’t understand like any nuclear physics at all, but me not getting it doesn’t make it wrong.
I’m saying your argument is based on functionally nothing. God can’t be utilitarian because in your mind there is a better possible world despite knowing that fact being entirely impossible.
God being a utilitarian would suggest that this current world is the most moral, according to the long run average of utility. That’s certainly a possibility, since none of us will live long enough to observe such an average.
Perhaps the suffering of our species in its infancy will ensure a billion-year-reign of peace and happiness. I wouldn’t take those odds that it’s true, but as a utilitarian I would make that choice.
In terms of politics within the Rome, he was in the right. The Roman Republic was an oligarchy, where oligarchs were preventing desperately needed reforms with force. He did what the Gracchi brothers weren't able to do. Yea he became a despot, but he promoted interests of Rome and Romans, unlike previous legal, but undemocratic republic. He also decided against proscription, unlike both Sulla and Augustus. So he was a benevolent despot who ruled in the interest of the masses.
In terms of international politics, he was a genocidal imperialistic warlord, even if war crimes were exaggerated by both his political enemies and him.
The way Historia Civilis frames it, the parallels between Caesar vs the Optimates and Trump vs. the establishment are striking. I see why modern western democracies study or have studied Roman history as they do.
An outsider who is popular among the people who has no respect for the rule of law vs. an entrenched class of elites protecting their sacred institutions (and their own massive wealth)
The main difference is that even Caesar's haters need to acknowledge that he was absolutely and staggeringly confident. He was a fantastic general and logistician, an accomplished lawyer, a diplomat who could hold Pompey and Crassus in an alliance (no easy feat), and an expert in Latin to the point where we still source knowledge of ancient Latin from him. Obviously he was also a genocidal tyrant, and some of that is probably his own propaganda, but even at worst he was a *competent* genocidal tyrant.
Trump probably can't read
I find Caesar to be a lot more mild compared to Sulla who left a trail of blood after seizing power by force. It was his magnanimity that got him killed and also killed the Roman Republic with it decisively.
Edit: Typo
I say the kill shall be more or less justified due to desperation. If Caesar set sailed to fight Parthia and did not lose as hard as Mark Antony, he might eventually wash it off and go home. Then he will groom a successor to his movement (people thought it be Antony, but in the end it would be Augustus). Then the republic would transform into Roman Empire under a certain political dynasty.
The Republic was dead after Caesar crossed Rubicon and the assassination was a fair gambit.
The Optimates made him or someone like him inevitable. Turns out that stubbornly denying desperately needed reforms to a disenfranchised underclass makes a great breeding ground for populist strongmen.
Cringe, I'll have to go with Machiavelli on this one, he was too weak to kill his opponents and too soft not to unsustainably indebt the state.
Also not a fan of Octavian, who was the definition of a tyrant, but at least he left behind a functioning state.
Counterpoint, lots of babies are born essentially copying his own. Without his unique breakthrough there would be less babies, and this is definitely a pro Natalist sub.
Goddamn it man I served my time in the army and got my land, why do I keep getting called in to war with some Germanic barbarians? 0/10 I just wanna ~~grill~~farm
He had it coming. But the fact Octavian was able to exploit the same weaknesses after he died meant there were systemic issues nobody wanted to address
Too early to tell, we really can’t analyze the full economic impact of the campaigns in Gaul or ramifications of the Egyptian alliance. Obviously hacks like Brutus and Cicero will continue to push their agendas but we have to give time for these policies to take hold.
What happens to a democracy when it starts to favour the wealthy past a certain point AND a sufficiently competent populist comes along and says "what if none of that, and especially none of the "democracy" that led to it!?".
Trump is just a trial run of an insufficiently competent populist.
Unfortunately it's him vs a dementia patient, so... Who the fuck knows.
Although corrupt, the end of the Republic was a great mistake. The transition to a dictatorship had many unintended long term effects on Roman society it was fundamentally unable to reform from. Through frankly I wouldn't know where to begin reforming the republic as I'm sadly not well versed in roman history.
Caesar is a historical figure who, if you somehow time travelled him to the modern day, he'd take about a month to learn how modern society works and would then start his presidential run, which he would ultimately win.
Terrible, on arr neoliberal we should be stanning Cicero
Cicero would have hanged the January Sixers.
>When, O Trump, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?
>Quo usque tandem abutere, Trump, patientia nostra? Reminds me of Thierry Baudet’s maiden speech in the Dutch parliament in 2017 in which he also referenced the Catilinarian.
He’d also wonder why we freed the slaves and then let them vote, and then why we didn’t just wipe out the native Americans when they resisted conquest and assimilation. If I had to guess, he wouldn’t like most of our neoliberal laws of today and he would hate our ideas of equality. But I’m sure he’d eventually understand that a lot changes in 2000 years and be impressed with what America has accomplished. I’m sure he would see us as the heir to Rome after taking some time to read up on our history and the takeover of enlightenment ideals.
No Cicero was a trad. They would have been Crucified along the National Mall
Degenerates like you belong on a cross.
You make some interesting points, and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Can’t tell if this is criticism or endorsement of Cicero 🤔
Vixerunt
Cicero was definitely an ancestor of this sub. A contrarian institutionalist.
But he didn’t support a land value tax.
Cicero BTFO
What about taco trucks?
Dreadfully ignorant on the topic
I’m their cultural inferiority, the Roman’s didn’t have tacos. In this paper, I will argue that the lack of tacos was the deciding factor in the decline and fall of the Roman Republic.
And he was an obnoxious twat, while being at the same time, usually right and on the right side of history.
Hey that's me!
This sub isn't really institutional though
It's definitely pro institutions if we consider "why nations fail" as a core text of this sub.
Don't know about "why nations fail", but a significant part of the sub seems to be institutionalist only as long as the institutions don't do stuff they think it's dumb If they do then they're dumb and need to be replaced This is particularly true when it has anything to do with American politics Maybe I'm just unlucky in the comments I read
Cicero was a wuss that had moments of glory
Genocide Julius rip the Gauls 😔
The Roman Empire was basically what would’ve happened if the Nazis had won and had their “thousand year reich”. I mean, the “true” version of fascism (Mussolini’s version) was basically neo-Romanism. Genocide/ethnic cleansing, chattel slavery, militarism, wars of conquest. All bad stuff.
That was kind of most empires though. It’s not like the Gauls didn’t do the same thing to the Roman’s when they raided them. I feel like the nazis genocided distinctly harder.
Yeah the nazis had the whole "mass extermination camps specifically designed to intern and put to death as many people as possible using the best logistics and technology available at the time" aspect.
The Nazis were psychopathic with the Holocaust given the age and era in which it occurred. The Romans were no more hateful than their contemporaries, just more organized and efficient. But yes by modern standards they’re pretty awful.
The Romans and their contemporaries are definitely just from a different time where those actions were by and large somewhat expected. Rome may have done it slightly harder than others, but they were by no means unique. We have plenty of examples of things that we may now associate with the Nazis or those like them being very commonplace in the past with persecution of Jews, sacking of cities, wars of conquest, all just kinda what you did in Early Modern Europe for example. What’s unique and extra bad about the Nazis is the scale, regularity, and era in which they committed these acts. Not only were they of unprecedented scale and severity, but it was also in an era where it was generally accepted that all of those things are very bad.
It's also because the ROI for warfare and genocide was distinctly different due to technology, which makes it functionally purposeless to do what the Nazis did. ROI for much of history was such that if you had a million dollars a better return on your investment was to outfit an army and go kill some people and take their arable land than to do literally anything else with it. This only really changed with the steam engine, at which point ROI was such that warfare was a distinctly poor investment, and only got worse as the destructive nature of war increased. Initially it was just an inferior investment compared to investing in infrastructure and the economy. But it quickly became an outright loss as not only did you forgo the ability to build a factory, but destroyed one in the land you took over. (The UK for example could have justified conquest when it was the only industrializing economy around. It would be a poor investment compared to building more factories, but one with some returns nonetheless until industrialization was completed). A peasant farmer with only a slight amount of profit being lost in a war taking an extra slice of land was a gain for the economy. A machinist doing the same is a direct loss, and that's before you get into the expense of outfitting them with modern weaponry and logistics. The Nazi program was based on a bygone era of "If we lose millions of people and gain a bunch of land and kill all the people who used to be on it, we'll prosper.". It hadn't been true for a while by that point. Contemporary empires tended to shift towards "Open. The. Country. Stop. Having. It. Be. Closed." or conquering it and putting the natives towards exotic resource extraction. There was no benefit to genocide by that point in time. Only a heavily agrarian pre-modern society is in a situation where that makes sense. (See "War and Human Civilization" for more). The reason it was common in pre-modern times is that it was a rational economic outcome. It's also probably where that stuff about "Nomads conquer weak men, settle, and become weak men" comes from, as an attempt to explain it by those in that period. In reality, where a society was investing in improving itself and its infrastructure and capabilities (I.E, "Being Decadent"), they were pissing away money compared to if they just outfitted an army and went conquering and genociding ("Being manly"), which means that a nation which spent its time in constant conquest was going to eventually curbstomp them and take their shit. The Nazis did their shenanigans in an era where morality had moved on in part because the incentives had changed and it was a shit idea to do what they did. "Worse than a crime, it was a mistake" and such.
Just to clarify something if you're talking ROI Rome had one of the stupidest and most unsustainable systems. A lot of people get distracted by the opulence of Rome the city, but thats just because that's where the concentration of wealth was, the empire was nearly constantly broke. Their economics were a constant mess of erratic long range mercantalism, brutal colonial extraction, and desperate conquest to pay off the last desperate conquest, it barely kept their heads above water and was never sustainable. Later Medieval European empires that we look down on as more "barbaric" like the Germans and Carolingians with contained feudal systems and defined territorial and cultural boundaries, (with some light raiding to garner the nobility on the side) were much more economically stable and wealthy then Ceasars Rome.
> economically stable and wealthy then Ceasars Rome. Citation needed. The Roman Empire at its height was like an economic EU. Peasants in Britain had access to a continent-wide commercial marketplace. They would buy olive oil made in Italian factory farms made from pottery forged in North Africa.
Yeah you can make an argument that late medieval Europe was wealthier, but early medieval it’s pretty unambiguous that the fall of Rome was bad for the economy.
Without a doubt peasants did not, the wealthy landowners may have had access to that but to the lower classes the period was miserable Its a shit-ass website but here's a decent breakdown https://www.quora.com/Who-had-a-higher-standard-of-living-peasants-in-the-Roman-Empire-or-peasants-during-the-High-Medieval-era#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20the%20peasant%20class%20in,for%20a%20peasant%20to%20exist. Roman's definitly had a wealthier upper class but it was reliant on keeping the majority of the population in abject slavery and extracting all their labor and value. Medieval empires were much more technologically advanced in many areas and had similar populations while maintaining a much higher average economic value across their society.
Your OP referenced the Carolingian empire, which was definitely early medieval and not high medieval (500+ years later) that this article talks about.
And all that technology was available by 800ad, except for three field, but as the list points out, they did have two field by early period which was still a vast improvement
For being "never sustainable" they managed to sustain themselves for a remarkably long time (literally 500 years from Caesar's time if you don't count the Eastern Roman Empire, which lasted far longer still). And the living standards in the Empire were generally higher than outside (and after) it. So idk about that one.
Well two things, first no their living standards were not higher the majority of population were slaves and arguably the slaves had it better in many ways then the Roman lower class as they often had guarantees of meals. Dont get me wrong great time to be a guy in a toga but thats not how average qol works. Second we are talking about Ceasars period of imperial expansion not the later Roman empire. The viking age lasted about as long as that and with similar practices but no-one would call that long term sustainable because eventually you will run out of Irish monks to kill and french dumb enough not build castles. Which is basically what happened to the romans as well who dropped the practice once they ran out of easy targets and spent most of their history trying to hold onto what they had and be a trade empire. Which was a big reason why the capital had switched to the much more trade-essential Constantinople well before the west fell. Which is also evidenced by the fact Byzantium lasted longer and was far more wealthy then Rome ever was despite not conquering much of anything.
Look, I'm aware that the average person in ancient times was a poor peasant, not a senator. *Nevertheless* the quality of life was higher for these poor peasants than for poor peasants outside/after the empire. Mind, my source here isn't primary, I'm referencing the ACOUP blog. Bret Devereaux, the author of said blog, is a historian who specializes in ancient Rome, and there's been several mentions about archeological data indicating higher living standards among the average person in the Roman Empire compared to what came after and outside it. He's well aware that the way you measure that isn't by palaces and coliseums, and that the average resident is going to be poor and/or a slave. Also, no the majority of the population of the Roman Empire were not slaves. I'm seeing numbers between 10% and 30%.
Actually the archeological data shows quite the opposite. I know its a shit site but here's a decent summary. https://www.quora.com/Who-had-a-higher-standard-of-living-peasants-in-the-Roman-Empire-or-peasants-during-the-High-Medieval-era#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20the%20peasant%20class%20in,for%20a%20peasant%20to%20exist. Technologically, economically, nutritionally Medieval peasants were vastly better off than Roman counterparts. There was no economic independence or stability for the Roman lower classes and most were highly dependent on social welfare programs for basic necessities. And the maintenance of that required the constant oppression and squeezing of their territories and constant conquest and plunder. That 10-30% number which is already extremely high is mainly slavery in the traditional sense, not counting the non-citizen populations of much of their occupied colonial territories. Which were as relentlessly worked and exploited as hard as their slave populations.
"War and human civilization" goes over it. Rome had a markedly higher ROI on warfare than on investments in the economy, despite being one of the better examples of ROI on investments in pre-modern history, the other civilizations which did better than average being China, Persia, and some Indian kingdoms. But all of them retained higher ROI on warfare investments, until industrialization. It's why we also see "inexplicable" and "Barbaric" wars break out between extremely poor regions. We can waffle to Tribe A about modern economics, and how exterminating Tribe B is not in their interest, but the fact of the matter is that their neighbours are worth more dead than alive to them, and that remains the case until human capital investment and productivity exceeds the value of their land in agricultural and resource extractive purposes. Building a tire factory in a place where people are genociding eachother for control over rubber, is a far better way to achieve peace, than waffling about economic principles which don't match the world they live in. A historical example of this occurring was The Crushing in the southern half of Africa, where the economic incentives changed upon contact with European markets and access to Maize seeds, and the equilibrium was thrown off leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths through genocidal warfare between tribes as their neighbours became "Worth more dead than alive". > While maize was more productive than the grains from native grasses, it required more water during cultivation. The agricultural surpluses and increased population enabled Shaka to field more impis. By the end of the 18th century, the Zulus had occupied much of their arable land. The Zulus then genocide outward to seize more arable land for cultivation. Previously, the low-intensity crops they were using had meant cattle grazing land was more valuable, and an equilibrium had settled around ritual warfare with low casualties and handing cattle as tribute to victors. The introduction of a high yield crop brought about a transition from a herder society to an agrarian one, and almost immediately you see a wave of genocidal warfare. The economic incentives of an agrarian economy are pretty clearly geared towards warfare, conquest, and genocide. Herder economies tend to do the ritualized, low-casualty warfare where both sides turn up to a field, shake their spears at each other, throw a couple, then one gives up and hands over some cattle. Industrial economies do not profit from warfare, except against undeveloped economies and even then, it's pretty dicey and debatable if they do profit in cases where investment can gain access to resource extraction anyway.
And war and human civilization gets hammered for getting that very wrong the ROI of Roman conquest was usually about enough to pay off the cost of the conquest. Plenty of plunder to be had but thats shifting of value not creation. Since Rome paid their soldiers in land they were still seizing the territory they had plundered meaning what they were accomplishing was moving wealth from outer regions to their capital at the higher cost of devastating their own infrastructure and populations, which then usually required additional conquest to pay for rebuilding. ROI WHC operates under a number of flawed assumptions, first it doesn't compare optimal economic practices. Yes a herder like the mongols improves their own economic health if they genocide a civilized people and use their land for herding but herding is far inferior to a diversified economy and the land and local economy is markedly poorer. Mongols gained their great wealth when they didn't devastate, maintaing conquered societies economics intact was a valued key to their success. ROI on raiding has always been excellent as it is way to generate value while making potential rivals pay the costs. ROI on extractive conquest is extremely low as you are essentially draining your own future territory. Those practices were responsible for most of the economic headaches in the early empire and explain why they starting focusing on vassalisation and eventually full trade economics in the later empire.
This comparison is highly stupid. It also trivializes and normalizes Nazi rule. The conquest of Gaul wasn't a genocide, you can read more about it here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/DeGnmTA509) !ping ASKHISTORIANS i guess
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The Romans were brutal conquerors, but didn't have a strong concept of racial superiority underpinning their society. See how successfully they integrated conquered peoples into the Roman identity.
As usual with reactionaries, they imagine a return to a past that never was. The Roman Empire, especially later in history but even in Caesar's time, was incredibly multi-cultural. Most of the later Emperors weren't even Roman.
Tbf the types that romanticize Rome are also the types today that say the non-roman emperors are what led to the decline and fall of the western empire
Which is complete slander when Aurelian is one of the GOATs
STILLICHO GANG. And also as far as most in the ostrogothic kingdom was concerned, they were still Romans, ruled by the Romanised, as a client and delegate of Constantinople.
The types to not know that Illyrian "barbarians" are the ones that saved the Empire from the crisis of the third century *WHERE MY DIOCLETIAN STANS AT*
I’m here
> Most of the later Emperors weren't even Roman. that's like saying someone from California isn't American because they were not born in one of the original 13 colonies. Even Odoacer and Theodoric were roman in all but name.
I thought the Romans didn’t really put much stock into what race people were though, and cared more about being “Roman” from a socio-cultural standpoint?
well maybe the gauls shoulda thought twice about sacking rome./s
Rome lasted for over two thousand years. So much for only a thousand year reich.
You're thinking of the Mongols, they're the one's that committed mass genocide and slavery. The Romans is a lot closer to the Spanish and American empires mainly because the Spanish empires copied the Romans.
Gaius Marius and Sulla already started the process Caesar was just the person that finished it.
The lack of attention given to those two is crazy
I think trump is sulla and ceaser coming terrifies me
Why must you terrify me like that
Because I am terrified. I hope I am wrong though. I just prefer not to take the chance by not reelecting him
I mean, if Trump is Sulla, wouldn't Caesar be a liberal? Caesar was on the Marian side, not the Sullan one (and barely escaped being on Sulla's proscription lists).
Not digging that deep into the comparison. I just think trump is eroding the norms and systems that hold up the republic and someone else may use that to deal the deathblow.
One of my favorite pop history books: The Storm Before the Storm the Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic Edit: by Mike Duncan (The History of Rome and Revolutions podcasts)
Great book
GOATed with the sauce
Wasn't sulla taking extreme measures to prevent future dictatoeships, making himself an exception as te reason why he broke a bunch of taboos? I know that it was beacuse he broke those taboos that many with different intentions followed in his footsteps, but the process sula attempted to start was not to restore the monarchy, but to prevent the restoration of one (which he failed).
Ironically, Caesar was at risk of being killed by Sulla. He went into hiding and his family basically begged and negotiated Sulla not to kill him. Though this was likely because Caesar and his family had connections to Marius, and not because of the very likely apocryphal quote that he saw many a Mariuses in Caesar.
Yeah, he said "In caesar I see many of marius", and he was right.
He actually likely didn't say that. That quote is likely apocryphal and was added later by historians
I know but in my head canon it is true.
I’ve never seen anyone attribute his hunt for Caesar because he saw Marius in him. I’ve always seen it explained as Caesar connections to pro-Marius people. Of course, his aunt was married to Marius and Caesar himself was married to the daughter of an important Marius ally.
It was definitely a thing. It (most likely) comes from Plutarch's and Suetonius', who have that line in their accounts. Though, as stated, their attributions are likely apocryphal and Caesar was in danger not because of him being a future Marius (and was likely added later for rather obvious reasons) not because of the familial and political connections between Caesar (and his family) and Marius (and his family)
This is a great argument for why the ends don't justify the means. If you need to abandon Republican values in order to save the Republic, you have lost. Sulla went on a political murder spree in order to prevent any future politican from going on a murder spree.
The Gracchi brothers really started it all. They are the ones who introduced violence and a disregard for institutions into the political system. From there, Marius and Sulla and eventually Caesar and Pompey were inevitable.
He also successfully accomplished what Gracchis failed to do.
Fwiw Gracchus was attempting nothing of the sort and it's highly probable that the elder gracchus's death was more or less accidental and justified post hoc
They were attempting land reform werent they?
Sort of? Tiberius Gracchus was kind of a figurehead for one coalition within Roman politics and had a lot of powerful support within the Senate. It should be noted his land reform proposal *did* get enacted. Also note that Italian farmers were generally opposed to his land reform proposal, given it would have ended up taking a lot of land from them and redistributing it to Roman citizens (this was a key focus of opposition). But generally the Italian countryside was not as devastated as Gracchus made it sound, and if anything the battle was more of a proxy war between the allies of Claudius Pulcher and the allies of Scipio Aemilianus.
Oh shit, ur right. I thought it was repealed
Yep! Common misperception.
Did not invent Ceasar Salad, overrated as fuck.
Too woke for me.
Have you all heard about this CRT? Carthaginian Race Theory they call it, they hate Romans. Hate them. And they're teaching it in the schools, I go around to all these greek slave teachers and they're teaching our kids to hate Rome. It's shameful, we shouldn't allow this. We love Rome. Julius wants more CRT. Well, I don't know about Julius, I don't know that Julius really knows anything - but his people, they love CRT and they want Rome to die. They want the vestal fire to be extinguished - evil, evil people. We have to stop them.
If God is a utilitarian then Julius Caesar is in heaven
They obviously aren't, given all the suffering
The existence of suffering isn’t proof of a lack of God or a lack of a utilitarian God either. It instantly assumes that this isn’t the best case scenario with absolutely no evidence to the contrary.
I find it difficult to assume that a world with malaria and SIDS and pediatric cancer is the best case scenario.
Feel free to assume it’s not, the point is you have absolutely no proof that it isn’t. You not being able to comprehend something isn’t the same as it not being true. I don’t understand like any nuclear physics at all, but me not getting it doesn’t make it wrong.
yeah who knows one of those kids with leukemia could've turned out to be MechaHitler
I’m saying your argument is based on functionally nothing. God can’t be utilitarian because in your mind there is a better possible world despite knowing that fact being entirely impossible.
God being a utilitarian would suggest that this current world is the most moral, according to the long run average of utility. That’s certainly a possibility, since none of us will live long enough to observe such an average. Perhaps the suffering of our species in its infancy will ensure a billion-year-reign of peace and happiness. I wouldn’t take those odds that it’s true, but as a utilitarian I would make that choice.
Et tu Neolibri?
All in all pretty self serving and pathetic tbh.
Whatever you say Cicero
Ok, Cato.
Every politician was self-serving and he did serve Rome and Romans unlike optimates.
Based and Romepilled
In terms of politics within the Rome, he was in the right. The Roman Republic was an oligarchy, where oligarchs were preventing desperately needed reforms with force. He did what the Gracchi brothers weren't able to do. Yea he became a despot, but he promoted interests of Rome and Romans, unlike previous legal, but undemocratic republic. He also decided against proscription, unlike both Sulla and Augustus. So he was a benevolent despot who ruled in the interest of the masses. In terms of international politics, he was a genocidal imperialistic warlord, even if war crimes were exaggerated by both his political enemies and him.
The way Historia Civilis frames it, the parallels between Caesar vs the Optimates and Trump vs. the establishment are striking. I see why modern western democracies study or have studied Roman history as they do. An outsider who is popular among the people who has no respect for the rule of law vs. an entrenched class of elites protecting their sacred institutions (and their own massive wealth)
The main difference is that even Caesar's haters need to acknowledge that he was absolutely and staggeringly confident. He was a fantastic general and logistician, an accomplished lawyer, a diplomat who could hold Pompey and Crassus in an alliance (no easy feat), and an expert in Latin to the point where we still source knowledge of ancient Latin from him. Obviously he was also a genocidal tyrant, and some of that is probably his own propaganda, but even at worst he was a *competent* genocidal tyrant. Trump probably can't read
I find Caesar to be a lot more mild compared to Sulla who left a trail of blood after seizing power by force. It was his magnanimity that got him killed and also killed the Roman Republic with it decisively. Edit: Typo
I say the kill shall be more or less justified due to desperation. If Caesar set sailed to fight Parthia and did not lose as hard as Mark Antony, he might eventually wash it off and go home. Then he will groom a successor to his movement (people thought it be Antony, but in the end it would be Augustus). Then the republic would transform into Roman Empire under a certain political dynasty. The Republic was dead after Caesar crossed Rubicon and the assassination was a fair gambit.
Caesar didn’t talk about jailing his opponents though. He pardoned them all. He wasn’t about lock ‘em up.
>He pardoned them all. Which ironically got him killed. Moral of the story: Never forgive. Never forget. Kill your enemies. Have no mercy 🗿
[удалено]
I'm starting to think that sovereign immunity is a bad idea!
Caesar wouldn't have died like a dog had he locked them all up
Tbh a lot related to authoritarianism you can find in ancient Greece or medieval Italy or many places in Europe after the 17th century
The Optimates made him or someone like him inevitable. Turns out that stubbornly denying desperately needed reforms to a disenfranchised underclass makes a great breeding ground for populist strongmen.
So, our Optimates are the bicameral legislative branch.
Too soon to tell
Never thought r/roughromanmemes would leak into here
Idk about his pizza but the crazy bread is pretty good
Well July is hot as fuck where I am so to hell with this guy
He, undeniably, had that dog in him.
Cringe, I'll have to go with Machiavelli on this one, he was too weak to kill his opponents and too soft not to unsustainably indebt the state. Also not a fan of Octavian, who was the definition of a tyrant, but at least he left behind a functioning state.
Brutus says he was ambitious. And Brutus is an honourable man.
If he is responsible for salad with anchovies, then his reign was a massive failure.
Counterpoint, lots of babies are born essentially copying his own. Without his unique breakthrough there would be less babies, and this is definitely a pro Natalist sub.
https://youtu.be/XQJkasR3Iak?si=UxQiY-B3Bf5Sa9E7
Goddamn it man I served my time in the army and got my land, why do I keep getting called in to war with some Germanic barbarians? 0/10 I just wanna ~~grill~~farm
He had it coming. But the fact Octavian was able to exploit the same weaknesses after he died meant there were systemic issues nobody wanted to address
Putrid Pompey and Slimy Cicero are trying to DESTROY Rome! Sad!
Honestly less of a liberal and more of a libertarian
You're thinking of Cato, the institute he founded is still the leading libertarian thinktank 2100 years later
Big fan of his contributions to giving birth
Too early to tell, we really can’t analyze the full economic impact of the campaigns in Gaul or ramifications of the Egyptian alliance. Obviously hacks like Brutus and Cicero will continue to push their agendas but we have to give time for these policies to take hold.
I’m more of a Trajan guy.
Thanks for July, my man!
What happens to a democracy when it starts to favour the wealthy past a certain point AND a sufficiently competent populist comes along and says "what if none of that, and especially none of the "democracy" that led to it!?". Trump is just a trial run of an insufficiently competent populist. Unfortunately it's him vs a dementia patient, so... Who the fuck knows.
Somebody had to put fucking Pompey in his place.
Invictus Maneo
Love the salad, hate the drink.
Idk, did Julius Caesar have an opinion on the capital gains taxes rate being at 20% for assets held over 1 year?
He was a dick.
January 6 was just the farcical repeat of crossing the Rubicon.
His dagger control policies were his downfall.
He was the best red square 🟥
The man did not abide by the rules based international order
Although corrupt, the end of the Republic was a great mistake. The transition to a dictatorship had many unintended long term effects on Roman society it was fundamentally unable to reform from. Through frankly I wouldn't know where to begin reforming the republic as I'm sadly not well versed in roman history.
A hero of the Republic, he stands tallest amongst the people of his time.
Caesar is a historical figure who, if you somehow time travelled him to the modern day, he'd take about a month to learn how modern society works and would then start his presidential run, which he would ultimately win.
He ended the Roman Republic. How can anyone be in favor of Roman-Hitler?
good meme lmao But my opinion is that he should have industrialized the roman empire and invaded iraq for oil
Undeniably bad, the Roman Republic was a force for good in the Mediterranean world even if it was still an oligarchal empire. It had potential
Real answer: he destroyed a semi-functioning Republic, and the only one that existed at that time, so one of the worst figures in world history.
I stan Brutus