Felix Marcellus

I don't disagree with anyone that the Senate wasn't working. What I feel is the course of action should not have been for one man to empower himself to do what he wanted to do. JC didn't make it better. He made it different as I've said before. If emperors are so great, how is it Rome fell under the rule of one. How did having an emperor make life better for the average Roman? Because many in here are saying Caesar made it better. So did the average peasant finally have enough funds to go get an education and be a powerful political figure one day? Did their diet go from bread and water to all you can eat at Golden Corral? Was slavery abolished? Did more people have TV's? (Just a joke) What did JC make better and for who? I don't think he ended corruption. He transferred it all to himself.

Actually, the majority of the bad precedents were set by the Senate/Optimates. Murder of Tribunes, armies marching on Rome,etc... Imagine if the so called founding fathers thought like you. Maybe paying stamp and sugar tax IS better than paying Federal, State, and Local!!! What do you mean what if the founding fathers thought like me? I don't understand that whole part of your post. Are you saying if they thought like me we'd have things like a stamp and sugar tax? I don't know how you could come to that conclusion. As for the Senate proving itself incapable of ruling I don't know about that. Other than an emperor being in power after Caesar, the empire continued being the empire. More land was conquered under the senate than under the emperors. Rome's final fall occured under an emperor. You can post statistics and whatever else you want. Fact still remains corruption was no more or no less prevalent before or after the republic. The senate didn't go away and the people serving in it I'm sure didn't say, "Uh Oh, we have an emperor now. We need to quit being shady." The senate, though no longer in charge, still had some political influence and remained corrupt to some degree. Rome still would've been Rome with the Senate in charge. Perhaps a civil revolt against Senate corruption would've occured. Changes may have been made. Perhaps the Romans would've ended up with a President if the people had been allowed to make the change. JC didn't make it better. He made it different. Look at France during and after the so called French Revolution. We're a monarchy.... no, we're a republic.... no, monarchy... no, republic.... no monarchy... no, republic. Other than Napolean adding land to the French empire the average Frenchman was still crapping in a hole in the ground, eating stale bread and drinking wine all day. Napolean didn't change anything for them. He made himself more powerful. Came up with some pretty decent laws. Still didn't change the daily life of a French peasant. Most of you that support what JC did claim the people wanted it. That is entirely inaccurate. The people of Rome wanted him. Go back in history and ask a Gaul if he wants JC in charge. Ask a Greek. Ask a spaniard. Ask an Egyptian. They sure as hell didn't want him. Does their opinion as Roman subjects not count? I guess it doesn't in this forum. I guess Puerto Ricans shouldn't have a say in our government either. They're just a conquered people. Native Americans shouldn't have a say in our government either. They're just conquered people. The only way you can say JC was not a tyrant is if you are exclusively counting on what the people of the City of Rome and other cities in Latium wanted. I don't deny the Senate was a bureaucratic nightmare, but that doesn't change Webster's definition of what a tyrant is. But to say it all got better after emperors took over is stretching reality IMO. It just got different. Anyway, the people should've changed it if they didn't like it. Kind of like we did here in the US in 1776. The Senate before JC took over may have been incapable of ruling, but Rome fought and defeated its toughest opponents while under the republic. Rome never fought a tougher opponent than Hannibal. The senate should've been cleaned up, not relegated to the sidelines. Because at its best it was more efficient than any emperor. Bottom line, when one man has the power to turn on his government and take over, the people always lose. They may think they won. But what did they win? Everyday the Romans go out to check the mailbox for their JC prize... Nothing! Not even a bobblehead legionaire for their trouble. But OK, I'll be quiet now. I get the feeling it's like blasphemy to talk junk about JC in here for whatever reason.

I think the Republic could've managed the empire. The problem wasn't with the Senate not being able to govern. The problem was with individual men who didn't want to obey the law as it was. If all Romans were team players, Pompeii and JC in particular, all could've been fine. If they as the two most powerful Romans had just followed the law, setting the example for future political power figures, the Republic could very well have run effectively. You can't say corruption was too prevalent in the Senate. Corruption didn't go away with the ascendancy of an emperor. If anything it increased, hence the fact that the empire faced more civil wars than the republic did.

As a soldier in the US Army right now, this is how I look at it. I serve the United States of America. The President is my Commander in Chief. I serve him, but not to the detriment of the Constitution. I believe every soldier should serve their country first and their leaders next. I don't know if Rome had a Constitution as it were during Caesar's day, but they had law. He did what he wanted to do without regard to that law. At the least he was a criminal. Maybe a criminal with good intentions, I don't know. Doesn't matter. Eric Rudolph believed he had good intentions when he bombed that abortion clinic. The law is the law. If General Schoomaker ordered me right now to march with him on Washington and take over the city, killing my fellow Americans whom I am serving, I would not do it. The world was a different place back then, but that doesn't make what he did not illegal. He knew the law. Every other power wielding Roman managed to live within this law and so could have he and his buddy Pompeii. Now, If you're only considering how he ruled Rome, I'd say he was not a tyrant. If you're considering how he ran his army, I would say he's not a tyrant. If you're considering how he ruled the empire he absolutely was a tyrant. Some of his acts were no less genocidal than anything Hitler did. He was not good for the Roman empire. He was an ailment. One that Rome never was able to cure of itself. The corrupt, self-serving emperors that followed him are the reason Rome eventually could not survive. Had the Senate remained in power I do not doubt Rome would've fallen, but probably would've occured at a later date. I believe this because it's possible that the senate would not have alienated the germanic tribes immigrating into its borders. In fact, they might have been given seats in the Senate therefore making them feel more as if they were apart of Rome. Making them less likely to take up arms. Corruption would've remained, but at least there would've been some checks and balances to it. There would have been a great deal more thought put into the everyday runnings of the government concerning economics, development, education and military. Thought that would've possibly enabled Rome to survive longer than it did. Who knows. All I know is Rome was fine before Julius Caesar and it would've still been fine had he never been born.

I would have to say that Rome's downfall resulted more from corruption than any other single reason. The emperors were self serving. Setting the example for the officials under them to be the same. I don't know if this is true or not, but aren't there cases of local officials making their own little mini-treaties/pacts/agreements with foreign nations. I can't think of an actual incident of this, but I think I read about it somewhere.

You must mean someone else, Polybius lived 100 years before Caesar showed up and Livy's books from this era have not survived. You are right. I apologize. I'm just here to learn. I read all three books about Alexander, Hannibal and JC one after the other. He mentions many of his sources multiple times and in all three books. And apparently I'm easily confused. Forgive me. Either way. Theodore Ayrault Dodge's books on these great Captains are very good. Long and drawn out in places, but still well worth the read. Check him out. YOu won't find any great details of the battles you seek in his books. What you will see is consistency in casualty reporting in the battles of antiquity. I probably wouldn't include specific casualty figures. I would probably say something general like... "The Romans losses were insignificant while the Carthaginian casualties reduced their numbers by a third." Getting wrapped around numbers like this is an exercise in futility. You can ask 100 historians how many people died in a given battle and get 100 different answers.

True, but in regards to being Rome's biggest military disaster I would say no only because the Romans learned so much from this defeat and the other defeats inflicted on them by Hannibal. And after the Second Punic War they were clearly the masters of the Med.

A Brevet Lieutenant Colonel named Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote books about Caesar, Hannibal and Alexander. In his book on Caesar he draws much from Polybius and Livy. He tends to go with Polybius because as the above poster mentioned, Livy drew a lot from Polybius. Livy tended also to be biased towards the Roman side. The numbers for the enemy above may be fairly accurate. But the numbers for the Romans are low. He more than likely was not counting auxiliaries and other light troops in the numbers. The numbers for the casualties may be accurate. It was typical in the battles of antiquity for the winner to lose very few soldiers while inflicting incredible losses on the loser. This happens because it is very tough to kill people in a tight, cohesive formation. Once a formation breaks and runs, they're easily ran down and destroyed. I highly recommend reading Theodore Ayrault Dodge's works. They were written in the 1890's but are better than anything I've read since his time. He visited the sites of the battles and uses his own experience as a soldier who had to march formations over all manner of terrain to draw the conclusions in his books. He also explains in detail what source he got information from and why he choses one source over another. YOu might want to read Quintus Curtius as well. Though Polybius is still better than he as an historian. Dodge uses Curtius in his books as well.

It seems to me that when Adrianople occured the Roman Empire was already on the down swing. A major defeat of the Romans was inevitable at this time. The result of the battle wasn't a surprise given the condition of the empire at the time. The west was falling already. With or without Adrianople it still would've fallen. Just my humble opinion. In other words, Adrianople was the straw that broke the camels back. My vote goes to Teutoberg. 3 Legions gone and expansion into Germania halted. The news when it got back to Rome must have had a similar effect as the news of Napolean's defeat at Borodino had with the French. It had to have been a significant psychological blow to all of Rome. It showed Romes weakness and encouraged future invaders to go after Rome. Had Rome taken all of Germania maybe it would have fallen much later in history. The terrain in Germania would have been much more conducive to defense than the terrain in Gaul. Also, with the heavily wooded terrain, would the barbarians that eventually would destroy Rome have been able to use their cavalry to as great an advantage as they did in their engagements with the Romans. Who knows how far Rome could've gone if they hadn't met with this disaster?