Maty's take on the Republic's fall

[Gaius Octavius]

"The self-interest and internecine struggles of the Roman elite alienated the Roman people whose lives and lands they blighted. The cynical contempt of Rome's aristocracy for their own political system proved all too contagious and, even as they accepted the bribes, the electorate came to despise the bribers. ... in short, by the first century BC Rome was ripe for a military coup led by an aristocrat."

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Source:

http://www.unrv.com/book-review/sons-of-caesar.php

[Ursus]

This post originated in the Augustus thread on the imperial folder. I'd prefer that thread remain about Augustus rather than the Fall of the Republic, so I have moved that post here where anyone so inclined can participate.

[Gaius Octavius]

I hope that all the members will please accept my most humble apologies. As a novitiate, I was unaware of a non-connection between Augustus and the Fall of the Republic. I erroneously replied to an earlier response (#22). As you may see, the source had nothing to do with Augustus. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

[M. Porcius Cato]

"The self-interest and internecine struggles of the Roman elite alienated the Roman people whose lives and lands they blighted. The cynical contempt of Rome's aristocracy for their own political system proved all too contagious and, even as they accepted the bribes, the electorate came to despise the bribers. ... in short, by the first century BC Rome was ripe for a military coup led by an aristocrat."

 

I agree that by the first century BC, Rome was ripe for change--whether that change came from positive reformers like Livius Drusus and Cato the Younger or from opportunistic thugs like Cinna, Sulla and Caesar. What I object to is not the notion that the republic faced new challenges that required adaptation. What I object to is the notion that the victory of the thugs was pre-destined, that the republic was "doomed," and that the conditions that created the opportunity for the thugs also absolves these thugs of their moral culpability in the demise of representative government.

 

In fact, there was a flurry of reforming legislation from 133 onward, with most of that legislation approved by the senate itself. Thus, though the republican system was conservative, it was also responsive to new needs. In this way, it was able to do what the principate could not: adapt to the growing pains of expansion while providing stability as imperium passed from magistrate to magistrate. In contrast, the demise of the republican constitution brought expansion to a grinding halt and simultaneously exposed Rome to the risk of civil war with the death of every princeps.

[Gaius Octavius]

MPC, I am no more a patron of monarchy than you are. The object of my colloquies with you has been to try to demonstrate that the Republic, by the time of Caesar and Augustus, was no more a democracy than the principate. It was no more representative of the People Supreme than the principate. To take another quote from Ursus' review, (Which quote most certainly need not be understood as the definitive answer to our colloquy.):

 

"Chapter one is a short introduction entitled "From Republic to Empire." In it the author dismisses a commonly held view that the Republic fell because its government was ill suited to imperial pressures: "...autocracies are not, ipso facto, better at running large states than democracies." Matyszak points out the empire was largely a loose federation of urban centers requiring minimal oversight from the center, whatever form of government it manifested. He also states that the political machinery of the Republic was not dismantled but adapted for the Empire, with the one major change being the imperial family rather than the Senate at its head. Instead he points to the vicious competition between the Republic's leading families and the resulting corruption as the death knell of the Republican order:...."

 

Bold face mine.

 

Did the Senate not rely on the war-lords when it was in their interests to do so?

 

Do I make any inroads into your most erudite thoughts?

Edited February 1, 2008 by Gaius Octavius

[M. Porcius Cato]

"Chapter one is a short introduction entitled "From Republic to Empire." In it the author dismisses a commonly held view that the Republic fell because its government was ill suited to imperial pressures: "...autocracies are not, ipso facto, better at running large states than democracies." Matyszak points out the empire was largely a loose federation of urban centers requiring minimal oversight from the center, whatever form of government it manifested. He also states that the political machinery of the Republic was not dismantled but adapted for the Empire, with the one major change being the imperial family rather than the Senate at its head. Instead he points to the vicious competition between the Republic's leading families and the resulting corruption as the death knell of the Republican order:...."

 

I haven't read Maty's book yet, so I don't want to address the above as though it belongs to Maty's thesis. However, I don't think the most important constitutional changes involved substituting the imperial family for the senate.

 

The two most important changes in the constitution were stripping the people of (1) the right to bestow tribunician power, and (2) the right to elect magistrates. The first move was Augustus'; the second was Tiberius'. Limited, representative government came to a final end when the people lost these two rights--the right to have someone to run to when a rotten magistrate wanted to abuse you and the right to choose your own officials. Without fear of the tribunes, Augustus and Tiberius could (and did) exile, torture, and murder political enemies under the cover of law; without elections, Augustus and Tiberius could (and did) elevate even children and teens to the highest levels of government. What a sham!

 

It's certainly true that during the republic, the people had a self-destructive tendency to elect rich men of well-known families (some things never change). Cato the Elder, a new man, upbraided the people for this tendency, telling them that if they kept voting for candidates with familiar names, they should expect to have the senate filled with Metelli, Cornelii, etc. All of this smacks of elitism, but it was an elitism that rested entirely within the control of the people to change--which they did, often enough, by electing New Men (after Sulla--the majority of the senate) and by electing plebeians like themselves (also the majority of the senate).

 

The republic wasn't a utopia, but no place is a utopia (literally!). In spite of its imperfections, however, the people had real rights and protections under the republic that were stripped of them by that most-holy Venereal Family.

[Ursus]

What I object to is the notion that the victory of the thugs was pre-destined, that the republic was "doomed," and that the conditions that created the opportunity for the thugs also absolves these thugs of their moral culpability in the demise of representative government.

 

 

For what it may be worth to you, Maty stated in his interview that while he sees the late Republic as highly dysfunctional, he does excoriate the Caesars for opting for dictatorship over reform.