Quote:
Originally Posted by Dowly
That is a very silly thing to say.
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No, its a historical fact, I just somewhat extrenmely summarised a long chapter right oin this, I do not translate a 600 pages book here.
At the time of the first republic stagnating itself to death, so to speak, the social circumstances of the Roman republic where such that the farms where mostly either abandoned or owned in huge numbers by only few - thus even rhicher - landlords and their armies of slaves. The former Italic than Roman farmers all either had to move to Rome itself, or had "died out" due to several costly wars in a row reducing the general population and even thinning out the Romans living in Rome itsels, also in the around 600 families whose leaders joined ranks of senators, and around 24000 "knights", both social ranks/classes were wealth-dependant (for knighthood you had to own at least 400 thousand and for a senator you had to own at least one million sesterzen). At the same time moral standards had declined - ironically due to the focussing on individual freedoms and rights that were made possible by the former wealth. This new focus led to an loosening of sexual relations, resulting in declining birth rates of the original Romans, which was compensated by more and more foreigners moving into the city: traders, craftsmen, and of course slaves. Since the growing "liberalism" led to slaves beign freed in higher and higher numbers, and by Roman law these former slaves immediately gained Roman citizenship with all citizen rights, you had a massive increase of what was foreign in Roman culturer and tradition, and an explosion of foreigners that were not originally ioman at all. The relation between original Roman people and originally non-Roman people rapidly tipped in favour of the latter. And you had a massive dysbalance between those who possessed wealth, and those who did not.
This necessarily led to a dissolving, a watering down of Roman identity and "old" values of Roman tradition. The state bogged down in reforms it could no longer bring through the more and more corrupt political system, opportunism and costly favours to the masses to bribe them for obedience and wanted election results did their share as well, and in the end the authoriuty of the state and the dominance of Roman identity within what was considered the realm of Rome, was so much under pressure that the old order broke down and the Caesars - the imperial order which effectively was a military dictatorship - rose. Of course, the principle of panem et circensis, bread and games, is to be mentioned here as well. The state could no longer maintain the support it had pledged to the masses, food supply was in danger (the free wheat allocations), security no longer guaranteed, and so the people of Rome followed Sulla and the men coming after him, Caesar, Augustus because these brought back law and order and stability, or so they promised. The price was costly, but without alternative, it seems. The old first republic was a thing of the past, and the imperial order arrived, under Augustus at the latest. The military reform under Sulla btw also was due to the breaking down of the old order: the legions feared that they could no longer recruit sufficient Romans, since there simply were not sufficient Romans anymore that could afford to serve in the legions, because before Sulla the warriors had to pay for their equipment themselves, like later in the european middle age it was once again for the feudal elite, and like it had been before in ancient Greece. With Sulla came the professional army, maintained and paid and equipped by the state.
Just a very brief, extremely "rude" summary, told by memory, but as I said, I have no intention to translate whole chapters from a 600 pages book here.
The parallels to the EU's situation today should even after this short summary be obvious. We have the same problems of social composition, eroding identity, mass migration, dissolving of own cultural origin, corrupt politics and narcissistic leaders, blocked reforms and the impossibility to see them through, and the raise of the strong "Führer" promising to heal the worries of the present by strengthening the values of the past again.
I cannot stress enough how very good that book, comparing the EU and the Roman first republics demise, is. Link and info somewhere above, in this and another thread.