How Greed Destroyed the Roman Republic
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- Опубліковано 3 лип 2024
- Does competition really bring out the best in us? The collapse of the Roman Republic illustrates the dark side of ambition and individual glory.
This video dives deep into the shocking truth behind Rome's downfall: individual ambition. ️ Explore the fascinating stories of power-hungry figures like Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Sulla, and witness their ruthless scheming that tore the Republic apart.
00:00 Republican Hubris
02:16 Wealth and inequality erode the Mos Maiorum
05:31 The Death Spiral of the Roman Republic
08:16 The importance of Provincial Governorships
10:30 The decline of norms and the end of shared class interests
12:55 The true Gravediggers of the Republic
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Unravel the hidden forces:
Corruption and bribery that fueled political instability.
Social inequality that ignited the flames of rebellion.
Military ambitions that clashed in devastating civil wars.
This video is for you if:
You're curious about the rise and fall of empires.
You want to understand the dark side of ambition.
You're fascinated by ancient history and its lessons for today.
Keywords: Roman Republic, Julius Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, ambition, corruption, civil war, history, documentary, empire, fall, lessons, intrigue, power struggle.
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power struggle
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What do you believe was the chief cause of Republican Rome’s collapse into Empire?
Are you sure this video was just about rome? Sounding pretty familiar 😅
It's the universal story of the oligarchy. Every ancient greek polis played out a version of it before the Romans took it to another level.
First as tragedy, then as farce
Me too, but I can't quite put my finger on it...
I just hoped Trump crossed the Rubicon and restore American liberties in 2020.
I guess that Roman culture and traditions continue to the present day. Will we face the challenges to the republic better than they did?
"A city for sale and doomed to speedy destruction if it finds a purchaser". Sallust's Jugurthian quote fits nicely. Great video as always!
Thank you!
Sallust may be a bit of a moralizer but it’s quotes like that which make him one of my favorite ancient historical sources
Great quote! Amazing that he (and presumably others) were able to diagnose the problem but were powerless to stop it
GREAT PRESENTATION
Thank you! Appreciate the positive feedback, we’re Glad you enjoyed it!
Cicero seems the closest to a true believer in the Republic in this late period...which might be why he accomplished basically nothing :I
Yeah but painting over the rotting building was the goal. i'd argue that his main concern was an esthetical one, no longer was rethoric a paramount vertue in politics.
I think you're right to an extent. Cicero was a staunch Republican but ultimately was much more of a realist than ideologues like Cato. He even has a great line about Cato's refusal to deal with politics as it actually existed:
“For he (Cato) gives his opinion as if he were in Plato's Republic, not in Romulus' cesspool.”
Ultimately I agree and it is frustrating that he and Caesar were never able to see eye-to-eye as I think their combined genius may have been able to arrive at a long term solution
@@tribunateSPQRI don't think so - Caesar and Cicero were both caught up in the Roman obsession with military expansion and plunder that led to the dramatic increase in wealth inequality in Rome.
@@Lazyguy22 I agree with your assessment, they (like all Roman aristocrats) were fully aligned on these matters.
However, despite a shared ideological commitment to imperialism abroad they weren't in agreement on how "domestic" power would be shared. This was the central crux of conflict in the late Republic as a belief in Rome's right to plunder was universal
Fantastic video! Eloquent scriptwriting and fine voiceover is a recipe for a great channel, hope you folks take off!
Much appreciated, thank you!
The Senate when discussing giving Pompey sole consulship
"Well you can't let something like elections get in the way of democracy"
"I agree Senator, elections are too important to be left to voters!"
Freedom is mandatory
The funniest Thing is from all people Leading the conseratives its freaking pompey Magnus aka Mister "Special command" comparing pompey to Caesar , Julius Looks way more Traditional than pompoes riding an elephant Chariot whole wearing the Alexander the third aka the great cloak During a Triumph
Fantastic video presenting an argument that I haven't seen before - this perspective feels very fresh in a market oversaturated with ancient history content. Thank you for the work that went into making it!
Thank you! We work hard to provide a fresh perspective on the ancient past as there is so much content out there already, we're very glad that you appreciate the extra effort that goes into our work
Interestingly enough, Pompey during his consulship without a colleague in 52 BC passed a law designed to address the issues you mentioned in this video. Pompey's law made it so a consul or praetor had to wait five years after his magistracy ended before he could go to his province. The idea being that creditors wouldn't be willing to loan out huge sums to finance election campaigns if they had no way of getting paid back for at least 5 years, and thus candidates wouldn't be able to rack up huge debts financing their campaigns and without those debts provincial governors would have much less incentive to fleece their provinces. (And as an added bonus since magistrates would no longer get to immediately go from their elected office to governing province they would not be able to take advantage of the loophole in Roman law that provincial governors were immune to prosecution to avoid being prosecuted for any crimes they committed in office.)
There's no way of knowing if the law would have worked or not (the outbreak of Caesar's Civil War kept it from really getting tested), but it was at least an imaginative attempt to address several of the biggest problems of the late Republic.
Excellent video and analysis - and I appreciate that you don't club us over the head with the analogies that may be drawn
Thanks - it's always tough to strike a balance between subtlety and the urgency of the message
Really interesting video, love the channel. It’s always a highlight to see an upload
Thank you! Very glad to have your support, it means so much to us to see positive feedback like this
Wonderfully done!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Oddly enough the caesars would continue to prop up the mouldering corpse of the republic long after Augustus’ reign.
Even after the end of the Principate era and the fall of the western half of the empire, the Roman state in Constantinople would continue to mint coins referring to their empire as a “republic”; not the antithesis of monarchy or a popular government, but simply the state itself.
It was likely just a formality, for example they also kept pagan gods on coins in the east long after the conversion of the empire. I wonder if any understood what the term "republic" actually harkened back to.
I've always been fascinated by how the eastern Romans emphasized continuity despite their extreme cultural, linguistic and religious differences to the west. Much like the continued use of "Republic" they also utilized pagan iconography on coins even though the empire had been thoroughly Christianized by then - just shows that some terms and concepts were so closely aligned with the state itself that they took on new meanings.
Really wish I knew more about this era, would make for a good future video
Currently reading Livy. He was probably projecting these issues back into the long past. But if the conflict of the orders existed even half as much as he presents it as existing in the long past, then I would not have been sad to see the senatorial elite finally collapse.... though I am sad that isn't what happened and it was more just a shift in power within the elites, which used appeals to the plebs on occasion to get that shift going =/
My opinion the Patrician Elite and the plebian masses we're way more unified than WE believe because looking at the early Republic IT was a constant death Match Patricians constantly sacrificing themselves, plebians almost never refuses to Fight romes enemy. I think the real noticeable massive Shift came after the punics wars because then finally IT wasnt rome fighting for its very survival but being the top Dog in the mediterranen and with the insane riches from carthage , a fallen Empire. This insane wealth followed by greece looting really Made the patrician Elite really way above the plebians and they lost that unity that Made them win in the First place
This sounds very familiar...
I won't go so far as to say that history repeats itself, but trends certainly do. Especially when the driving forces that animate those in leadership have changed so little.
This is my new favorite channel
thank you, welcome aboard!
Great stuff as always!
Super interesting video!
Thank you so much and thanks for taking the time to comment
Thanks for sharing, loved this one
thanks
well done as always
Wow, great video!
Why so few views I don't understand - does youtube think ancient Rome is inappropriate now?
Thank you so much!
We always want to expand our audience, but for a small team that doesn't do any advertising we're still pleased with the overall pickup we've had in the year or so since we started. The algorithm is a fickle thing and we still don't entirely understand it. We depend entirely on word of mouth so comments like this do actually boost our ability to reach new viewers. Thanks for the support!
@@tribunateSPQR I really appreciate your analysis from political sociology standpoint - haven't seen it on yt actually. Wish you all the success and waiting for the next one!
@@Ridcally much appreciated! It’s feedback like this that encourages us and keeps us going
Given human nature, could it have gone another way?
Great vid BTW, love the solid Roman political stuff!
Thank you!
Yes, I believe that you're right about the ultimate bent of human nature - the desire for accumulation ultimately wins out for most people in the end
Interesting that only 2 people a year being able to be consul led to such strict competition within the eliet, but only 1 person every 4-8 years being able to be POTUS doesn't (similar stories for most other countries around the world today)
obviously there's a LOT of differences between ancient and modern countries that can explain that, but i wonder which differences exactly are responsible....maybe it's something we can never know
Because in Roman society, the economic, religious, military, and political elite were all the exact same people, and there was only one path to gaining real status (achieving high political office). In the USA, there is no military elite, the economic elites just pay the political elites instead of being them, and you can gain national importance without ever touching political office.
Nice vid, pleb. ❤
Thank you, and we agree that Pleb is a term of honor
@@tribunateSPQR It's a neutral term, in my opinion.
Money and politics don't mix well
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. History has proven this over and over again. In Republics and Monarchies.
Greed ruins everything every time.
Good thing we all learned our lessons so this could never happen again
hmmm make me wonder what people could read about the romans in the 1700s
It would have been mostly limited to primary sources, some of which would have been difficult to track down without the huge personal resources someone like Gibbon had. He does reference work by Montesquieu and Voltaire though.
Pushed it back a little further and we see that Shakespeare relied overwhelmingly on Plutarch for his Roman plays to the point that I don’t think he even read any other ancient texts
I'm not so sure there was no devotion to the Populari cause left in Antony by the time he was fight the civil war with Octavian. The truth is it's hard to tell since he wasn't in a position to implement domestic policies in the Capital.
What I have decided I absolutely do not doubt is that Fulvia was still carrying the torch the Political Agenda of Clodius right up to her death in 40 BC.
I disagree that the Principate was an empire. It operated more like an oligarchy. Which was a natural succession to the Senate/magistrate state control previously. The Res Publica had been dead since at least the Second Punic War…
fun fact the roman empire itself was once put up for sale
Ugh...another MAGA ancient history youtuber. unfollow
This makes then Biden/Trump/Hunter/Clinton stuff make a lot more sense.
Sounds like Bidens' government!