Honesty Of Patricii Leaders during Early Republic

[Adelais Valerius]

I was listening to a Roman History podcast earlier today, and they were talking about in the early Republic, approx. 470-460 BC, and that Rome's biggest threat at the were the hill tribes surrounding Rome such as the Aquae and Vulshens(spelling obviously off, I apologize). The podcast went on to say that the actual threat level of these raiders were possibly fabricated by the Patricii for the Plebs, the question of honesty raised due to the record Rome had against the tribes, which was strikingly positive. My question would be, if this is true, would the reasoning behind this be plain and simple to keep the Plebs busy at war, or were there ulterior motives that the podcast didn't address

[caldrail]

Nothing changes does it? Modern politicians sometimes use the perceived external threat as a way of pushing potentially unpopular policies on us, like the time they had the army guarding heathrow very publicly - you have to wonder if it wasn't just some stunt and the real threat is taken care of behind the scenes the way it usually is - you only hear about it when the arrests and court cases take place. Don't get me wrong - the threat to the early republic was real - but overstated at times by those politicians keen to exploit public fear for their own ends.

[Adelais Valerius]

Nothing changes does it? Modern politicians sometimes use the perceived external threat as a way of pushing potentially unpopular policies on us, like the time they had the army guarding heathrow very publicly - you have to wonder if it wasn't just some stunt and the real threat is taken care of behind the scenes the way it usually is - you only hear about it when the arrests and court cases take place. Don't get me wrong - the threat to the early republic was real - but overstated at times by those politicians keen to exploit public fear for their own ends.

 

Its sad that politicians have come to think that it should come to that, manipulation.

 

I didn't think that those dinky Hill tribes would pose such a threat during that stage of Rome's expansion.