I just finished reading Lustrum by Robert harris and I strongly recommend that book -- it's incredibly true to history and is un-put-downable as well!
I knew most of the dry facts, but the way in which the author made the people come alive is fascinating
you are right that the preceding politicians had already killed the republic starting with the Gracchi brothers who started the practise of giving out free bread -- which led to the people getting lazy and demanding more from the state than what they gave
And then you have the line Marius-Sulla-Pompey-Caesar all moving towards the end of the republic
Harris' book really brings Caesar alive as a man of boundless ambition. I always wondered how a guy like Caesar could have outmaneuvered a successful general like Pompey. the politics described in the book are fascinating and give you a psychological portrait of Caesar.
The Roman Republic was doomed from the moment it starting distributing free food -- the people started asking for more and more and the Generals started competing among themselves over who could give them more.
The Principate was a good was to cover this up, but after the crisis of the 3rd century, I think Domitian had no other alternative but to really revert to Kingship.
There’s an older (eh, can’t find the ‘fo, probably 1970 at the latest) bio of Pompey which was fascinating. There was a third major player I’d never even heard of, who controlled his own gangs of thugs throughout Rome, just as Pompey and Caesar did. Ultimately, Caesar whipped Pompey on the battlefield, time after time, because he was a better general. Pompey even had the advantage of being funded by the Senate, a body which had stabbed him in the back more than once. Throughout its existence, the Republic was just an oligarchy; the addition of a permanent executive was a natural, needed step in an evolved political system which existed to serve the interests of the 30 or so families who literally owned most of Italy. There’s been a kinda odd idea that Caesar represented the end to the Republic, when the fact is, there really was no republic in the first place, and the addition of a permanent executive was a necessity to run an empire that antedated the rise of the imperator.
Now I’ve gotta go back and see how this all came up in this thread. :’)
I did not see this comment last year, but have an interesting little tidbit to add regarding the decline of Rome and also our current situation.
The triumvirate of Caesar, Pompey, Sulla had an another interesting thread. Sulla was in his early fifties and feeling the start of decline. He was in charge of the eastern part of the empire, so he thought it would really be a feather in his cap to conquer further to the east like Alexander. He decided to go up against the Parthians, which I think was in the area of Iran and perhaps part of Afghanistan. He, his son, and his army were totally destroyed, but his young lieutenant Cassius managed to withdraw with about 10,000 troops back to Syria, which saved Syria from rising up against Rome.
Remember Cassius, “Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look, he thinks too much, such men are dangerous.” Will Shakespeare. At any rate, years later Cassius was a leader in the plot which killed Caesar, for “too much ambition.” Guess what Caesar’s too much ambition actually was. He wanted to go conquer the Parthians to avenge Rome’s good name. My take: beware all politicians who think that trying to conquer the Parthians, or their descendents, is a good idea. At any rate, check out Sulla and his campaign, a fascinating story of pride and failure.
While this was certainly several nails in the coffin of the Roman Republic, the doom of the Republic actually started before then. The fate of Rome was actually sealed when they became the undisputed masters of the Med. This brought an ever increasing wealth into the society, and as could be easily predicted, ambitious men vied for control of that wealth, in the process stripping all safeguards which had been put into place to counter the machinations of ambitious men.
Net result? Read any history book...
the infowarrior