M. Porcius Cato

I wasn't being dismissive--I really did read that they sacrificed puppies! http://thewebfairy.com/israelbaal/

If this were true, North Korea would not exist.

Secondly there is plenty of evidence that in cases of important legislation the rural tribes turned up in force as they did for the Gracchi. The Senate was not always successful in getting rid of them. Also the voting tribes may have been made up of rural citizens but quite often enfranchisement meant that they moved to Rome and so would have been able to represent their ribes quite effectively. If the rural Italians could show up so effectively, why was there so seldom even a quorum present for the votes? The problem wasn't that the rural Italians could never get to Rome, but that there was a necessary lapse in time between when the tribune could propose a vote, when elections were held, and when votes for legislation were held. The inter-legislative period was specifically designed to exclude non-Roman Italians, and it succeeded so far that they were often not present in numbers sufficient for a quorum, leading to the use of even freedmen and slaves to sit in their place. For details, I refer you to Lily Ross Taylor's book on Roman voting districts.

Or killing puppies. I'll let you know.

If the subject of the second season is the rise of Octavian, it should be a smashing success. The man who wore a sphinx ring was nothing if not captivating (literally).

Thanks Ursus for a fabulous review that I hadn't read until just now. Contemporary attitudes toward sexuality still bear the marks of the traditionalist, tribal view of sex as a commodity owned by one's parents to be auctioned off to the richest suitor. The alternative, individualist perspective on sex continues to be controversial and bitterly opposed by the immoral "moral authorities." As evidence, look to today's New York Times piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/internat...ndia.html?8hpib BTW, thank Juno you guys booted that dweeb Spartacus. Who the heck wants to spend the effort on a thoughtful review just to have it giggled at by some infantile hooligan?

The Romans already had experience with a monarchy, and they rejected it, and the record of this rejection led later Romans to reject also the very label Rex and to avoid even being accused of aiming at regnum. More broadly, the very notion of "human maturity" is awfully dubious. Taken literally, it's absurd: there is no collective brain and so no collective learning. Metaphorically, it's also mistaken as it implies a unidirectional historical force toward progress. That kind of teleological take on history makes no sense whatever. Over time, regression is almost as likely as progress--and whether a population makes progress or not depends in very large part on government policy (e.g., whether ther is a rule of law, the right to private property, deliberative mechanisms of government finance, civilian control of the military, etc). Less of a pool for the senate to corrupt a la Livius (I think he was called). The tribune (senate stooly)who vetoed the land bill of T.Gracchus prompting him to propose the vote on Livius' tribunship since he was clearly not a partisan of the people. Edit. The guy's name was Marcus Octavius But doesn't your example suggest that even 2 was 1 too many? Why not just one tribune? Seems to me that the fewer tribunes there are, the cheaper it is to corrupt them and the less likely that the office will represent the will of the citizens. I think the number was OK, but I'd have liked tribunes to be elected by tribe and not necessarily in Rome. No one has mentioned it yet, but the voting system effectively excluded non-Roman Italians from their voice in the tribal assembly and that led to terrible imbalances in representation.

Aye... and it look like you grabbed the only inexpensive copy of it too! Yup Capitalism is the best!

Why would 2 have been better than 10?

It looks perfect! Thanks--I've already sent in my order to Amazon.

How about making the senate answerable to other than themselves? Corruption eminates top down and clearly the festering sore of senate self regulation contributed more to extremism than anything other single thing. While I don't agree that corruption always emanates top down (do you??), some check on senatorial power was needed to prevent the accumulation of errors by that body. The office of the tribune was an important one, which is why his person was rightfully sacrosanct. Is your position, Clodius, that the tribuneship was needed and also perfect as it was, or do you think the office also needed to be reformed?

Can anyone recommend a very good book on Carthage? Not just Carthage as an enemy of Rome, but Carthage in the round.

Cool--where do you get history lectures in MP3 format?

You start over again as a slave!

Favorite movie--High Noon with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Favorite novel--The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Both of High Noon and The Fountainhead are about one man standing against everyone for what he believes is right. It's this intransigent independence that also makes me love Cato.

I'm not so sure that the emergency dictatorships were such a good idea even if temporary. Cincinnatus and Sulla promptly renounced theirs, but the latter did so only after spilling much innocent blood.

Neither large standing armies nor an effective bureaucracy required one-man rule. Modern republics have both large standing armies and a reasonably-competent civil service (at least compared to the civil service of totalitarian regimes). Nothing in your post supports your claim that the republic could not have been saved--you only point to reforms that were made later that could have been made earlier. I do agree, however, that reforms were needed in both areas. First, provincial administration, in particular, was very poor during the republic, but this was widely known. Higher standards and new methods of provincial administrations were being applied (e.g., by Cicero in Cilicia and by Cato in Cyprus), and very bad provincial governors (e.g., Varro certainly, maybe Caesar) were being brought to task in the courts. Many of Augustus' later reforms (e.g., census taking, direct taxation) were also applied sporadically during the republic and merely needed to be standardized. Second, the requirement for large standing armies was obviously well-known during the republic. The problem was that there was no mechanism to prevent a single man from gaining control of the majority of the military power for himself. Nevertheless, there is no reason that this mechanism could not have existed during the republic. Defeatism is simply a poverty of the imagination.

I agree that the tribunate required reform. One problem was that it wasn't part of the cursus honorum (i.e., it wasn't a proper magistracy) so it failed to attract the same quality of men as the aedileship and the praetorship. Compared to other office-holders, tribunes were much less likely to hold consular power afterwards, despite being larger in number than the aedileship and praetorship. Further, of the 113 known tribunes that served in the late republic, only about 1/3 were noble plebeians, meaning that 2/3 of these tribunes lacked the auctortitas that was needed to garner support for their agendas. The tribunate has suffered the unjust reputation of being home to wide-eyed rabble-rousers or mere puppets of the higher orders. I think is an unjust stereotype, but it does have an element of truth. Notorious criminals such as C Corelius and C Manilius (67/66) may have been the exception rather than the rule, but it's difficult to find any other Italian office with so many criminals. Had the tribunate been added to the cursus honorum, the office probably would have attracted better men, and they would have slowly transformed the senatorial body to one that was familiar and sympathetic to the interests of the tribal assemblies while still maintaining the critical autonomy of the senate. OK--how exactly would you suggest restoring the power of the senate? Give the first man of the senate his own legion? Abolish the tribunate? What? Yes, I agree that that was the problem--so what was the cure? Abolish triumphs? Rotate legions among generals? Provide for all possible veteran's benefits prior to deployment (e.g., by providing future land settlements via lottery)? What exactly is your proposal for reform?

Funny, I voted for Cannae too. It taught Rome a valuable lesson--tactically, strategically, and poltically. It was an expensive lesson, but how many Lake Trasimenes would have been required otherwise before Rome woke up?

I also voted for the republic. The republic had its faults, but investing all power in a single individual is too risky. Absolute power is what turns a mere fool like Varro or Bibulus into a fanatical murderer like Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Elegabalus, etc. The republic had its faults, but a more stable mechanism for transferring power was provided by the ballot box than by the battlefield or by the bedchamber. Once the senate and people of Rome lost their power to a dynastic rule of political generals, civil war became the rule rather than the exception for the period of the interregnum. The republic had its faults, but a more deliberative and accountable mechanism for government finance was provided by the quaestors than by the freedmen overseeing the privy purse. The latter was a means of personal corruption, nepotism, bribery, and waste. With nearly unlimited power over the provincial tax-revenues and the money supply, the emperor could (and often did) engage in massively inflationary monetary policies that wiped out the savings of the modest and rich alike. The republic had its faults, but the republican law courts--bastions of free speech--provided a mechanism for placing all men under the rule of law. During the principate, in contrast, members of the imperial household could (and did) commit incest, rape, and murder with impugnity. The republic had its faults, but for 450 years, it largely succeeded in channeling the enormously competitive ambitions of the oligarchy into improving the state. During the republic, wastrels like Verres could be tried in open court and exiled (though many were not); during the principate, men like Sejanus were rewarded for their rapine, and countless others for nothing more than their servility. Simply put, no emperor could endure competition from the likes of a Caesar, a Pompey, a Lucullus, a Cicero, or a Cato; the republic had a dozen such men sitting in the same room, all adding to the glory of Rome.

Shortly after the destruction of Carthage and the inheritance of Pergamon, the constitution of the Roman republic faced a series of tests, starting with the agrarian laws of the Gracchi, through the years of Marian and Sullan domination, until finally civil war both rended Rome and rendered a Princeps. What could have been done to preserve the Republic but was not? Which reforms were beneficial but should have been expanded? What laws needed to be enacted? Was the Republic doomed, or could that form of government (albeit reformed) have survived another 500 years?

"In the beginning, Rome was ruled by kings. Freedom and the consulship were established by Lucius Brutus. Dictatorships were held for a temporary crisis. The power of the decemvirs did not last beyond two years, nor was the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes of long duration. The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief; the rule of Pompey and Crassus soon yielded before Caesar; the arms of Lepidus and Antony before Augustus; who, when the world was wearied by civil strife, subjected it to empire under the title 'Prince'." (Tac., 1). OK--so which was the best form of government?

This is an important point that deserves further discussion. I'll start a new thread on "Reforming the Republic".

and monasticism--come to think of it: what difference would it have made if Rome had gone Buddhist?

Or weeping for salvation from innate sin, or the injunction to love one's enemies, or the injuction against moral judgment as a moral principle (difficult to wrap one's mind around I know)...