path: root/_drafts/fall-of-roman-Republic.rst

title: Listening to “Death Throes of the Republic”
categories:
  - politics
  - faith
  - sociology
date: ""
tags:
---

I am sick in the bed, so I have spent a day or so listening to the Dan Carlin’s excellent `podcast series`_ “Death Throes of the Republic”. It is an excellent story.

.. _podcast series:
    http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive/Show-34---Death-Throes-of-the-Republic-I/%20podcast-Rome-Republican

Excessive thirst for power
==========================

Dan persuasively describes overwhelming need for success built in every Roman
man all the way from his childhood by following his ancestors as the examples
of success. He described how every good noble Roman family had special rooms
filled with the busts and pictures of their famous ancestors, how the similar
memorabilia filled their homes. He claims that this made political success and
political power the most important measure of success and personal value.
I don’t want to argue whether this theory is right or not (which of course,
I have no chance of doing anyway). I was surprised however by two immediate
notions: the first was very personal and the second on the other hand very
non-personal and theoretical. I will leave the personal thought to some other
post, but let me write a bit about the latter one.

If we consider this thirst for the political power the main drive of elite (at
least) in the Ancient (and to some extent Medieval) times, it seems to me that
one of the greatest inventions of the Enlightenment was replacing power with
wealth as the main motivator.

switch from power to wealth. But what if the thirst for wealth corrupts our
republic in the same manner as the thirst for power corrupted Rome republic?
Hasn’t it already? What if our republic is falling apart will follow?

But that is not the question
============================

The question is not what was the fuel, but was the spark? Why what was
supporting Roman growth for so long suddenly changed into something which
destructed it?

Structural problems? Why Senate have not managed to deal with the issue
`Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus`_ tried to deal with for all those years (more
than century)?

.. _Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_Gracchus