M. Porcius Cato

Maybe we can revive this discussion under the Gallic Wars thread. I'd be interested in whether you thought Caesar's actions in Gaul were legal or illegal.

Partly I agree with Germanicus' claim that the discussion goes round and round due to the "what if" component. I'd add another part comes from the evaluation of the agents' supposed motives, which are also difficult to infer. Were the optimates merely envious of Caesar and driven by personal jealousy?--not in my opinion, but we really can't know that with any more certainty than we can know what would happen if Caesar had faced his accusers in the Forum instead of Pharsalus. However, probably the most important part of the non-resolvability of this debate concerns a competition between two sets of values--the values of liberty versus equality. Those who are more horrified by the evils of dictatorship than by the suffering of the needy will condemn Caesar for the effects he had on the 50 generations of men who had to suffer under an absolutist state. Those who are more horrified by the inequality of wealth that existed in Rome than by the loss of rights that were held by all citizens (but truly enjoyed by few) will praise Caesar for finally giving the rich a taste of the poor's suffering. (This, by the way, is why I think George Washington loved Cato, while Napoleon loved Caesar.) This conflict of values might be resolvable through a debate of facts (maybe not), but it's hard to see how the set of facts that are relevant are ones that Romanophiles should find interesting. Where then to go from here? Here are some things that we can address without going around in circles: *Were Caesar's actions in Gaul (and in Spain) legal and smart foreign policy--or was Caesar guilty of breaking the law and stirring up trouble with Rome's peaceful neighbors? (See the thread on the Gallic Wars.) * Were the criminal courts in the age of Cicero and Caesar designed to maximize the likelihood of justice--or were they merely politics by other means? (No thread on this exists.) * Who particpated in the government of the republic at various times--how was the vote delivered and who did this shut out? (Again, no thread on the voting system exists.) * What factions benefitted from the manipulation of the state religion and how? (As far as I know, the political and legal aspects of the state religion is also threadless.) * What laws undercut the promise of the republic and what laws were needed to fulfill it? (Again, as far as I know, there is not yet a thread devoted to examining a single law or even set of laws. For those who claim that the republic was "broken", there is a real opportunity here to show exactly how this was the case.) * Was the form of government that Caesar initiated--a lifetime dictatorship--a form of government that benefitted Rome--did it bring her greater prosperity, liberty, justice, and security? (See the thread on the Principate.) So, rather than just "agreeing to disagree", I suggest we move on to discuss the myriad subissues that are at stake. If we do, we might just learn something new about the republic. To me, that's the real fun, and I hope you agree.

From my perspective the distance between the Enlightenment and our own time is measured less accurately in years than in the evaluation of Cicero. During the Enlightenment, his works were studied in great depth and breadth by even schoolboys (a requirement then for entering Harvard was the ability to provide an ex tempore oration in the Ciceronian style of Latin), so I seriously doubt that the difference in opinion comes from any ignorance on their part. The remainder of the difference, therefore, lies in the standards by which he is judged. Perhaps some critic of his on this forum would like to start a thread on the topic--as I'm eager to learn the standards which condemn Cicero yet praise Caesar. Cato's character and principles I admire. If you think I have a natural resemblance to him, my thanks to you. Nothing in my posts is feigned. Rhetorically exaggerated at times, but never feigned.

Sometimes the Roman attitude simply amounted to "Never trust anyone wearing pants." I know I live by that

Tiberius the hero? Hmmm... secret police, proscriptions, illegal usurpation of power...I'm not seeing it. How do you explain Tacitus' account of Tiberius given Tiberius' hypothetically judicious rule?

I truly wonder what events *wouldn't* fall under a category that is as inclusive as "civil wars, civil unrest, and continued broken faith and trust in the senate and people's assembly". The "80 years" is completely superfluous, and you could just as well make it 8, 80, 800, or 8000 years given how nebulous your category is. Why not? And why do you offer claims without even an attempt at support?

That resolution was defeated because Pompey had no damn intention of giving up his powers. What are you talking about? The resolution passed--but it was vetoed. Moreover, you failed to address the larger point of the vote count. Nearly 95% of the senate was in favor of doing anything to avoid a civil war--what does this imply about Caesar's prospects upon returning to Rome with his (officially, but not practically) unarmed veterans? Some modicum of power??? Are you joking? Who controlled the tribunes? Who controlled the tribal assembly? Who had the support of nearly 95% of the senate? Whose laws were passed? Who won every office for which he ran? Who had millions in gold and slaves? It was that darling of Venus, Caius Iulius Caesar! No power? Please. You could say the same of Verres, no? Or probably Crassus had he not had his *!@#$ handed to him by Parthia. Why should the law apply to everyone but Caesar? Why don't you make a list of everything that the Republic needed to survive and to grow. Then create a list of all the Optimates and their achievements, and a list of all of Caesar's achievements, and match the two lists. If you have a good history book beside when you do it, you'll realize that your claim is so far-fetched as to be absurd.

Ursus, do I detect a strain of Nietzschean sympathy in your posts, or is it my imagination? BTW, glad you like my sig It's sort my Latinist response to the pacifist ideal of turning the other cheek and the relativist ideal of "judging not lest ye be judged".

The Social War was one of the most important events in the history of the old Republic. Calling it the 'Social War', or even 'War of the Allies,' isn't quite exact--it was a war in which only some of the Italian allies revolted against Roman rule (the Etruscans were loyal to Rome throughout). The wars are sometimes therefore known as the Marsic Wars, after the Italian allies who led the revolt. As Ursus pointed out, the allies weren't revolting against Romanization. What they wanted were their civil rights--the right to appeal the decisions of corrupt Roman magistrates, the right to vote on who these magistrates might be, and the right to participate in all areas of the Roman government. These were the questions that started the war, and these were the issues that ended the war. (I think it's just cynical to say the allies only wanted a piece of the spoils--a lack of spoils didn't start the war and a truckload of spoils did not end the war.) Why wouldn't the expansionist Romans take Yes for answer? To reconcile two previous posts', it was tried more than once. The first time it was attempted by the land-commisioner Fulvius Flaccus in 125: he proposed that any allies of Rome who wanted citizenship could have it, or if they preferred, could remain independent states but Rome would recognize their right to appeal against magistrates. This bill was not popular with the urban plebs or with the senators, so Flaccus was sent on a mission to Gaul as a delaying tactic. The Latin colony of Fragellae revolted at the news, but they were crushed mercilessly. The second time, in 123, Gaius Gracchus jumped on the Latin civil rights bandwagon, and his name helped him win the consulship in spite of his support for Italian rights. Unfortunately, when he re-introduced Flaccus' bill, the people and the populares (notably Drusus the Elder) deserted him, and he was left twisting in the wind without a third tribuneship. Without the protection of that office or that of the fickle urban mob, he formed a bodyguard that was accused of killing one of the servants of the consul Opimius, who then killed Gracchus; some 3000 of his supporters were also executed without trial. This, obviously, did not bode well for Italian civil rights. The third time, in 91, the cause of Italian civil rights was picked up again by Drusus the Younger (a true hero of the Republic). A better man than that father of his who had betrayed Gaius Gracchus, Drusus was also no fool. As an aristocrat, he was wealthy, severe, and well-connected, counting even the Princeps Senatus as among his friends. Further, before pursuing the extension of Italian civil rights, he also built up support among the urban mob through the usual route of the corn dole (some things never change). With his Italian friends restless, Drusus was suspected of disloyalty to the state, which he utterly disproved by unveiling a Marsic plot to kill the anti-Italian consul Phillipus, despite Phillipus leading the charge against Drusus. Instead of rewarding Drusus for his patriotism, his knowledge of the plot was taken as evidence of his complicity, and he was deserted by everyone including both the Italians and Phillipus, who repaid him by repealing all his laws. Finally, Drusus was killed by an unknown assassin, and a kangaroo court was set up to execute all his remaining supporters. Now the Italians were hopeless. The Marsic Wars made the unlikeliest allies. In the North, Marius and the consul of 89, L. Porcius Cato (father of my namesake); in the South, Sulla and L. Julius Caesar (father of you-know-who). In the North, the Italians were defeated, but L Porcius Cato died in the fighting. In the South, Sulla was victorious, and L Julius Caesar survived to win the consulship in 90, when he took the heroic step of conceding the very issue over which all the fighting started--Roman citizenship. (Ironically, by setting himself up as dictator for life, Caesar's son Caesar undid this.) The lex Iulia was a progressive piece of legislation, and it should have taught the Romans two critical lessons: 1--in the competition for honors, neither the champions of the fickle urban mob nor the senate alone could advance the interests of Rome, and 2--the Republic must treat the provinces with justice and allow them an opportunity to compete with all the others who were a part of res publica. The facts were clear: those provinces treated justly (like the remains of the Etruscan civilization) would stand with Rome against anything, and so the security of Rome amidst her possessions required the extension of this policy from the Danube to the pillars of Heracles.

Thanks Ursus for another good contribution to the best thread ever. Our views are so very close yet diverge in the end on our evalutation of the rule of law in governing the relation between the individual and the state. I tend to see history as a clash of wills. On a macro level we have cultures and states exerting their influence on one another. On a micro level we have individual actors vying for supremacy. What interests me is when an individual can gain the weight of a culture, or at least a large part of it, behind him and drive history with the weight of a locomotive. In both our accounts, historical agents (individuals, factions, ideologies, cultures, etc) differ in their goals, and so just as ambition is necessary for the accomplishment of any of these goals, so too it leads to competition, or "a clash of wills". I think we also both admire ambition in historical agents as a potentially constructive force in the growth of a society, and I think this idea about ambition ("the vice nearest virtue") was a very Roman one. A very dramatic illustration of our idea was provided by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. The relevant passage (which happens to be especially interesting thanks to HBO) concerns Pulfio and Varenus: Two things stand out as being relevant here--first, though Varenus and Pulfio were in competition for auctoritas, any destructive effects of this competition were checked by their collegia, their mutual enmity for their shared enemies, and their overarching loyalty to res publica. Further, had the competition between them flared up into violent conflict, there was an even greater power (the military itself) that had an even greater interest in settling that conflict lest it spread to cripple the larger unit of which Varenus and Pulfio were members. We also agree that this checked competition was the key to the longevity of the Republic itself: Now the historical question is--what destabilized this arrangement? Here again we are in agreement for the most part: I mostly agree, but two points need to be added, and I think their addition is where our accounts begin to diverge. The first point is that the acquisitions of the Republic were not inherently destabilizing. Over many years, the Republic was able to add many territories to its list of provinces and many citizens to its list of voters without destroying the mechanisms that made competition constructive. My opinion (admittedly a controversial one) is that this could have gone on indefinitely, until Roman control stretched from the Danube to the pillars of Heracles, without requiring a monarchy. The key, however, was that Rome had to apply to all its new provinces the same policies it practiced toward its most loyal Italian allies (e.g., the Etruscan territories). Instead, the administration of some newly acquired territories were not reviewed properly by the Senate, which too often failed to intervene while the territories were exploited by people like Verres, Crassus, and (later) Caesar. This laxness toward provincial administration--a betrayal of proper Roman severitas--was a destabilizing force because it rewarded lawlessness with vast wealth, enormous political power, and nearly unstoppable military power. This failure to check provinicial exploitation, in my view, was THE critical destabilizing force--once the rule of law ceased to operate and once the power of individual men exceeded that of the whole republic, the opportunity for monarchy was present for anyone who wanted it. I want to emphasize this very strongly--the survival of the republic demanded the prosecution of anyone who used the provinces as his own personal territory. The second point is that bringing in new blood increased variation and competition, but it too was not inherently destabilizing. It's certainly true that some 20 families controlled almost all of the magistracies of the old Republic (we owe this insight to Sir Ronald Syme), and I agree that this arrangement was indeed a stabilizing force: the competition among these families was checked by their collegium and interest in the preservation of res publica. However--and this is what I think was destabilizing, insofar as patrician interests were united by the love of the republic and the desire to attain high office, they had to amass a political war-chest, yet since they were forbidden by law from attaining this wealth via sea trade (the lex Claudia), virtually all their wealth had to be obtained through their latifundia, thereby incentivizing encroachement on the ager publica, with all the ills attendant thereto (vastly-increased demand for slave labor, displacement of small farmers, growth in the ranks of the landless poor, reduction in the ranks of the landed classes ready for military service, incentivization of the Marian military reforms, creation of privately-controlled client armies, and ultimately civil war). All of the attempts to limit encroachements on the ager publica were necessary to avoid these ills, but as long as the lex Claudia remained on the books, these reforms could only serve to weaken the entire senatorial class, which ultimately united en masse to oppose them. To untie the office of the senator from the interests of the plantation economy, the republic required that senators have a diverse basket of potential revenue sources and preferably not ones that required the exploitation of the provinces. As far as I can tell, the lex Claudia was the root of tremendous destablization and the rise of the new blood (such as Cicero) was not. To sum up (and steal a phrase from our own Virgil), once Italy became a "feeding trough for the optimates" and once the provinces and military became a feeding trough for the populares, civil war was immanent. Further, as long as the rule of law and the sanctity of private property could be abridged, it wouldn't even matter who won that civil war. Whether it was Pompey or Caesar, the victor would have the power of a king and the republic would have been destroyed. Well, I agree with you that Caesar and Augustus did not set out to smash the constitution, but I do think their megalomania made their opposition to the republic inevitable. But, please, let's just table this discussion so we can consolidate all discussion of Caesar's role in history to one thread.

Would you mix that with Devil's Dung to prevent indigestion?

Welcome Phil! You raise an interesting point. Given that the city of Alexandria was designed by Alexander's architect Dinocrates on the grounds of an old and tiny village, it seems reasonable to suspect that the city would have looked like something out of the Greek world. The lighthouse, for example, was made of white marble (according to Pliny) and had a statue of Poseidon on top. The column (not obelisk) of Pompey still stands today amid the ruins of the temple to Serapis. Serapis, interestingly, was neither a native Egyptian deity nor Greek, but a new god created to serve as patron to Alexandria. Indeed, the statues to him in Alexandria portrayed him as a generic-looking Greek god. Significantly, the temple to Serapis was also the location where a mob of Christians murdered Hypatia, a mathematician, philosopher, and a heroine to modern admirers of pagan society. So, at least one district of the city looked Greek. As for the rest, I don't know.

Interesting. Quick (off-topic) question--for how long were the inhabitants of the fallen Etruscan civilization referred to as "Etruscans"? I mean, if you were to call a modern-day resident of Perugia an "Etruscan", would she be offended, bemused, or simply non-plussed?

I agree wholeheartedly that it is critical to know the limitations of our human sources. Unlike coint-counts or mean-height-of-cattle or what-not, our human sources of information about the Roman world (Sallust, Caesar, Cicero, and so on) have beliefs and desires of their own--some of these overlap with our own beliefs and desires, so our human sources can easily bias our representation of their world. I guess if readers of history aren't alert to this fact, and it takes someone like Parenti to remind them, good for Parenti. It's sort of hard for me to imagine that any adult reader of history should need Parenti's reminder, but (to get back on topic) I suppose some people could forget that Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, for example, were written for an audience that held Caesar's political fortunes in their hands.

I mean he's a political hack--i.e., a modern political partisan who fails to acknowledge the arguments from the other perspective. That's what a hack is. I don't mind that the guy has a forceful point of view--that's to be admired. Ronald Syme also had a forceful point of view (one that I happen to disagree with too) that he expressed in The Roman Revolution, one of the modern classics of Roman history and tremendously influential. The difference though between Syme's argument and Parenti's is that Syme also uncovered new facts which were brought to bear in support of his case. Thus, his book--unlike Parenti's--had a value above and beyond his political sympathies. (Purely as an aside, I should also mention that in television interviews with Parenti, he made errors that would be laughed off by this audience--e.g., referring to Pompey as Pompeii.) I have no interest in turning Rome into a proxy for modern political arguments. My only interest is to understand Roman history for what it was rather than to accept uncritically the version of history offered by the victors in that political battle. Perhaps not 'all' opponents to Caesar, most of them certainly. The opponents to the optimates (which I think is what you meant, not populares) weren't always strictly 'for the poor', but they tapped that deep-seated frustration with the optimates that characterized the history of the Republic since the struggle for the orders through the Gracchi and on down to this era. You can't tap frustration if it ain't there. But you can create an impression of injustice when there is none. What do you think a demagogue is?? I wrote an equally favorable review and he is aware. It's called baiting. "Baiting" is too tendentious! I simply wanted to go on record with my disagreement, and I mean no disrespect to Germanicus or to you Virgil. As you are undoubtedly aware - I wrote the favourable review. I am however also aware, and made the point in the review that Parenti writes from one, biased perspective. Most of his other books give a Michael Mooreish treatment to their subjects too, and are not concerned with Ancient Rome. I have no doubt that there are other, more in depth studies of the period and events that I have yet to read, that provide different points of view. As to your hatchet job, I look forward to reading it - it is what you're best at after all. (This is not a negative thing either - your posts always make me think, which is why I like this forum). I actually forgot who wrote the review when I was writing my post. Also, my comment that Parenti is a hack was based on the Michael Mooreish treatment that you mention. I'm glad that my posts make you think (that's their purpose, not to argue for any Rome/US linkage as Virgil has alleged)--your posts have the same effect on me, which is why I love this forum too! I hope you didn't take offense at my strongly worded statement of disagreement with your appraisal of the book. I hope to convince you to change your mind, but I certainly don't want to imply an insult to you. I'm glad I piqued your interest in other books on this period. My personal favorite is "Party Politics in the Age of Caesar" by Lily Ross Taylor, which helped to interest me in this whole topic. [EDIT: fixed broken quote box]

They sure did seem to tolerate a lot of crazy emperors though, no? Seems to me that if the emperor hasn't gone about making mortal enemies by killing people willy-nilly, the lictors and such should have been sufficient protection. Otherwise, who will protect the emperor from his protectors?

This is a profound, abstract, and deeply insightful analysis. In some ways, it is complementary to my thesis in that the ideal of piety creates internal conflict. For example, one's duty to one's family may conflict with one's duty to uphold the law. Generally, upholding the law was considered a higher piety--hence the legend of Marcus Junius Brutus having his sons executed for their betrayal of the fledgling republic or the case of Manlius Torquatus having his son executed for an overeager but disobedient charge (Livy's line, "lictor deliga ad palum--lictor, tie him to a post", still sends chills down my spine). Would the auctoritas of Brutus and Torquatus have suffered had they failed in their duties as fathers--you bet! So, I'd add that resolving conflicting pieties with severitas was the route to higher authority. I see how this analysis stems logically from your premises, Ursus, and it makes sense to me. What then do you think is the importance of ambition as an historical force? My analysis of the historical trends is again complementary to yours, but let me expand on it slightly now that you've raised the bar. During the Republic, ambition plus variation led to competition, and selection among competing varieties occurred through the mechanisms of law and/or precedent. As the rule of law broke down and precedents lost their authority, selection among competing varieties was still necessary and so alternative mechanisms evolved, such as the dictatorship and eventually the principate. These selective mechanisms, however, were limited to the lives of the dictator or princeps in question, leading to complete anarchy and civil war when neither a princeps nor the laws could select among competing interests. Thus, lacking the essential ingredients of growth (variation, competition, and selection) the material conditions of the society declined during periods of anarchy and civil war until another mechanism of selection emerged, viz. the dominate. (After this point, my analysis has to end simply because my historical knowledge is too incomplete.) Again, this is a great thread. Linking the Roman character to the sweep of Roman history really does manage to integrate the 'eternal questions'.

More great examples of competing varieties of the Roman mind, Princeps! And not just their tastes either, but their ability to create advanced works. For my part, I've always greatly admired the veristic portraits from the Republic. These portraits didn't idealize their subjects the way the Greek ones did (compare the portrait of Perikles to Cicero for example; or better, Alexander to Pompey)--the focus instead is on representing the individual for who he was. In these portraits, there is very high technical skill, certainly as great as anything from classical Greece, and the Romans' unassuming and practical dedication to reality created a new aesthetic. (BTW, the "Prima Porta" portrait of Augustus is almost the antithesis of this style, as Augustus had himself portrayed as a virile 19-year-old throughout his whole life, which is just weird if you ask me.) It always bugs me that almost every sculpture found in the Roman world is identified as "Roman marble sculpture copied from Greek bronze original"--even when we don't know that there ever was a Greek bronze original! It's as if the Romans never created any scultures on their own! Anyway, that's just a pet peeve of mine. That--and the principate

Magnificent post Sullafelix! I'll give your arguments some thought and do some more reading before I respond. Before doing so, I'd be interesting in your opinion--which do you think was the larger factor in the decline of luxury goods: the rise of the church or the invasion by barbarians? Also, what is your opinion of the theses put forward by Ward Perkins and Heather?

Yes--that's an accurate summary of my opinion. I think it's important to get an accurate picture of the political faction that opposed the populares. Some of them were old plebean supporters of Sulla, who had acquired their wealth through his proscriptions. For them, the status quo was to be defended, because they benefitted personally from exploiting provincials. These were the old guys. The new optimates were led by Cato (who was quite a bit younger than Caesar and Cicero, though you wouldn't know it from the HBO series), who was constantly haranguing the old folks for their rotten corruption. His chief political program wasn't the reform of domestic policy, but making sure that Romans weren't out making new enemies for Rome and fattening themselves through unlawful activities in the provinces. Being a senator, this makes sense because he hadn't much control over the bills for domestic reform that were brought to the people. In contrast, the populares did not seem to have a comprehensive program for provinicial administration, for them it was merely a stepping stone for gaining power in Rome itself. Some of their proposals were progressive and would have stabilized the Republic (the reforms of L Caesar much earlier for example), but some of them were simply opportunistic power-grabs (those of Catiline and Clodius for example). Again, deriving their power from their complete control of the tribal assemblies, their concern to preserve the supremacy of the urban mob was in their immediate political self-interest, so most of their proposals concerned policies dealing with their political base. The moderates--who shifted from faction to faction--were the ones that tipped the balance between the party of Cato and the party of Caesar. They were generally not members of the city aristocracy or the urban mob, but prominent citizens from Italy. Being weaker politically due to the election laws, they made alliances opportunistically (hence Cicero could fawn over Caesar at one moment yet oppose him the next), but they were keenly interested in the foreign policy of Cato and making sure that the urban mob didn't sacrifice the farms of Italy to its gluttony. Their chief power came from their influence in the selection of consuls, who had tremendous power in influencing the fate of competing ideas. Thus, I don't think there was a monolithic opposition to reform, but competing agendas for reform. Given more time, more reforms would have been forthcoming as the moderates tipped the balance one way then the next. But even in the time they had, the magistrates of the Republic faced terrible foes and created a magnificent foundation that would later serve as the model for our modern-day republics. So, doomed--I don't think so. (BTW, I think it's really important to purge oneself of the tendency to think of all opponents to Caesar as "for the rich" and of the populares as "for the poor"--it completely distorts clear-thinking about this period, and it contributes to cynicism about the prospects of the republic. There is a hack who wrote a terrible book called "The Assassination of Julius Caesar," and his simple-minded reading of this period has been favorably reviewed here, but after reviewing more substantial works on this period written by actual classicists, I intend on subjecting that book to a hatchet job.)

OK--that's a good clarification. On to your main idea, the Romans' love of wine, women, and water were certainly 'epicurean' in an ordinary sense. But many were also true Epicureans, in the philosophical sense--Lucretius being the best Roman example. Don't you think the philosophic influence of Epicurus was keenly felt by true Romans? Also, which do you think provided a better bulwark against the oriental savior religions--Stoicism or Epicureanism?

First, I clearly meant the Roman world declined culturally, but if you're a fan of monarchy and serfdom, I can see why you might think the ascension of Diocletian was a good step for Rome. But really--*never* declined? Not even when the barbarians invaded? You must think that quite a few professional Roman historians are naive then. Perhaps, from your enlightened anti-decline view, you can explain the sudden collapse in the production of luxury goods? Or the sudden halt in the production of tile roofs? Or the drop in imports? Or the collapse of metallurgy? If the Roman world simply transitioned gracefully into the medieval world, as you suggest, where did all this wealth go????

A little harsh I feel! Also wide of he mark.What Diocletian did was not medieval, although we are standing at the threshold of the medieval age. His reorganisation of the empire was simply to split it along lines of cuiltural difference anyway, lets not get too romantic about the unity of the old roman empire there had always been the greek speaking east and the latin west. My objection to Diocletian's changes were not related to his reorganization of the empire, although I can see how my metaphor led to that interpretation. What made the dominate of Diocletian more medieval than the classical Principate (in my view) was his establishment of serfdom, his turning the senate into a of House of (penniless) Lords, and his adoption of all the trappings of eastern kings. When I look at that god-awful porphyry statute above--it doesn't even *look* Roman. It looks like something out of the medieval period. That's my point--not the whole unity/disunity canard.

Pertinax, as a point of clarification, there is a trans-Atlantic difference in what is meant by "liberalism" (e.g., as a political term, American "liberals" typically admire European social democrats and labour parties over European "liberals"). What did you mean by the term? Did you mean that the ideals of democratic socialism hopelessly fail to deal with issues such as race and religious variation? Or did you mean that the ideal of minimal state intervention hoplessely fails to deal with those issues? Or did you have some other meaning in mind?

By itself, of course not--but if the major compensation for these legionaries came from what they could expect from passage of a lex agraria, you've got yourself a client army that is more loyal to the political fortunes of a general than to the fortunes of the state. Nothing here spells the 'doom' of the republic--only the need for solid, practical reforms. It certainly wasn't the case that there were no reforms in response to (and even in anticipation of) crises. At the same time, however, some reforms were a disaster. For example, the need for autonomy that you cite Germanicus strongly suggests that provincial commands should be given to those with substantial 'executive' experience, which is why the governance of important provinces were only given to those who had served as consul and their tenure was subject to review by the senate, whose members had magisterial experience and were thus not so easily hoodwinked. This wise precedent was broken by Marius, who bamboozled the popular assembly into overruling the senate's extension of Metellus' provinicial command in Africa and into giving it to Marius himself. (Yet another rotten Marian innovation, btw). Furthermore, the whole idea that Rome was too big to govern as a republic dissolves upon examination. While it is certainly true that holding all referenda in Rome would place the possession of a large territory in conflict with voting rights (see my earlier post), there were already systems in place that didn't present this conflict. For example, the representative voting system in Macedonia didn't have this problem, and the import of this system would have allowed the republic to grow arbritrarily large. The resistance to this, however, came from the champions of the urban plebs, who wanted all the power for themselves and none for the rest of Italy. This xenophobic attitude of "Rome for Romans" was already in the decline (hence provincials like Cicero could be consul) during the Republic, suggesting that far from being doomed, there was much hope for changing attitudes to lead to much needed reforms.