No idea how historically accurate John Williams' Augustus is, but it's a hell of a read and a meditation on how the changes from Republic to an Empire might play out in a single individual.
Augustus is famously opaque--I think that’s one of the reasons he could succeed in staying alive where Caesar could not--so that would be a real challenge to any fictional memoir. The selection of Octavian as his heir was one of Caesar’s greatest triumphs, and Caesar didn’t always pick wisely in his associates. I think a person as BIG as Caesar would tend to see people as they could become, not as who they were; or conversely see them very narrowly, just in terms of what he needed from them.
There’s also the problem of Livia. Graves’ monster reflects the fierce and absolutely unjust misogyny of Roman society; but a LOT of people did die for her genes to be grafted onto the Imperial line. And Roman society really didn’t give able, ambitious women any way to participate in the political realm other than manipulation (and poison). So I just don’t know what to think of Livia, who plays a HUGE part in Augustus personal life (and political legacy).
BTW, the answer I gave earlier today was more or less along the lines of, "Men think about the Roman Empire in precise correlation to the number of times they think about The Godfather and for the same reasons."
Well, I can tell you that whenever I watch those movies, it feels exactly like ancient Rome to me--a Mob family is organized on the patron/client structure used by the Roman clans. And now imagine an entire government that is motivated by the same things as a Mafia clan.
Nice one. I'm a weirdo leftist who has always liked Graves' works and an occasional dip into the Roman history pool; more to view their various underhanded machinations than from any ideological affinity. I do also love the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and have found his self-talk through his attempts to practice Stoicism in the midst of chaotic daily existence useful.
@Shaggy, I think "ideological affinity" is really tough to see in any past culture--the circumstances are usually so different that it's almost impossible to discern who's doing what and why. But for lots of reasons, the ancient Romans do seem to lend themselves to this kind of affinity--usually from the right. But in the story of the Gracchi, the reformers of the 50 years after that, and even perhaps in the story of Caesar, there is a liberal affinity that can be discerned in the Civil War period.
And it's important that we DO discern it, and then try to speak it, because the Right's ownership of Classical history is something that they endlessly come back to, and seems to give Rightist thought a kind of weight that it really shouldn't have. Wiilliam F. Buckley doesn't write a book on Latin just because--he writes it because he feels affinity with the Romans, and wants a cultural association with them. He wants to CLAIM them.
The Romans do not belong to the Left--the Gracchi were not proto-Socialists, even though there's evidence that "workers" in the 130s onward venerated them; and we know that workers in the 19th Century did the same. But neither do the Romans belong to the Right, and the Right, and especially Fascists, endlessly claims them. That's not accurate, and there are other readings, even unabashedly Liberal ones.
Strictly speaking , that’s “Salvete” … plural … Also the word was probably pronounced Saluay or Saluatay … Because the V was really a U , but stonemasons reproduced it as a V for convenience , which is also why we have a Double U , displayed as W… Smart ? Ita Vero !
The fascist fascination begins in Rome for sure. But I wonder how many lictors Musk has and how Ukraine has anything to do with it.
The whole populares and optimates thing is a modern invention. They didn't see it that way. Reading someone like Appian, you can see there were no good guys and certainly no enlightened ones. Shoddy history to consider it otherwise.
But it's good to focus on the republic, with the elections they held for centuries until the "populares" ended public elections for good. It was a relief to the Senate to no longer have to run for office, according to Tacitus. It saved them money.
Shit is complicated and barely rhymes, other than the catastrophists and historicists.
Oh I think it’s pretty clear that the Gracchi were “enlightened” in precisely the way I describe--they saw the rise of the great farms and estates as a direct attack on the small farmers that had provided the soldiery. They knew that blocking the distribution of public land to the public and not extending citizenship to the allies exacerbated this problem. And they knew that the flow of people having been driven from their land--often by fire and force--was creating a permanent underclass in the cities which couldn’t be good.
These conclusions are ancient, not some imposition of modern bias. The ravening greed of the Senatorial class; their obstinacy in blocking reform; the politically convenient deaths of the Gracchi, Saturninus, and others; the use of violence to acquire small farms, often from families where the men had been impressed into military service; and how all this increased the pressure on Roman society, preparing the ground for strongmen and yes “demagogues”--none of this is really debatable. Unless you want to dismiss it ALL as unrelated bits of information, which seems to me to deny what history is (a story) and what it is for (to explain the past to us in ways that are useful to us now).
Of course we do not know much about the Gracchi, given that they were killed so young, but given the profound pro-aristocrat tilt of the sources we do have, it is amazing that we know about them at all, and given the Roman mindset it is amazing that they EXISTED at all. How bad must things have been for a couple of guys at the very pinnacle of Roman society--people looking at lives of absolute security and comfort and respect, if they’d just keep their mouths shut--to move in ways that they knew would likely get them killed? Diminishing that choice, which literally robbed them of their lives, is the shoddiest of history; and a certain type of Roman historian wants us to back away from that obvious conclusion, to dismiss them as demagogues, and we must ask “Why are you asking us to do this?”
Disregard the Optimate/Populares schema if you like; but as you do, ask yourself why you’re doing it, and what’s a better way to make sense of what we do know happened. There was an economic crisis; some people wanted to ameliorate it; others did not; the ones who did not often resorted to violence; since the crisis could not be resolved peacefully, it continued to worsen; and finally the whole society was riven and remade. I think that’s all patently obvious from the sources, modern and ancient, and further I think we’re going through something similar in the US today. YMMV.
I discard the modern interpretation of ancient politics because it is inaccurate, to answer that question. I don't explore the past to find axes to grind in the present. There's enough trash currently.
I can grant Tiberius Gracchus was shrewd, but he wasn't enlightened at all beyond seeing the citizens as a means to power. Aristocrats, man. Nobility. Oligarchs. Their opponents weren't any better.
Marius, on the other hand, might have been something.
"I discard the modern interpretation of ancient politics because it is inaccurate, to answer that question."
This is a bold statement, and a blurry one. There is no single "modern interpretation of ancient politics" for you to discard. There is instead an unending conversation that morphs both from the modern side (our biases change based on our conditions), and the ancient one (more data is gathered, hypotheses change).
For example: when I was learning this stuff, the Victorian/Edwardian concept of proletarian Romans as having poor diets was seen as obviously true--they all lived on porridge, right? But in the last decades Roman privies have been dug up, and have found evidence of a pretty varied and healthy diet for many normal citizens.
The earlier theory resulted from historians looking around at their world--seeing cities like London with vast malnourished underclasses--and assuming Rome had to be like that. And OF COURSE they'd do that. Similarly I read the Civil War sources and see our current political situation. It's not about "exploring the past to find axes to grind"--it's about engaging with the past for what it can teach us, knowing full well that how we see it is *not how it really was*. It cannot be.
I just don't think one can avoid seeing one's own time in the past, especially with Rome--and as it is endlessly referenced in our society in one way (the superhero dream of the gladiator, or the "constant battle" or the zenith of white Europe, or whathaveyou), I posted what I did to show that there are other readings, and valid ones too, which speak to our current politics 180 degrees differently than the usual.
"I can grant Tiberius Gracchus was shrewd, but he wasn't enlightened at all beyond seeing the citizens as a means to power."
This is completely illogical. Son of a 2x consul, grandson of Scipio Africanus, Tiberius Gracchus did not need to use the citizens as a means to power. He and his brother could've followed the usual path like good little aristos, and gotten power, and wealth, and fame, and anything else Rome could grant. They were already part of a heavy political dynasty; the system worked for them; they didn't need to step out of line. And yet they did, *extraordinarily so*, *one after the other*, and any accurate analysis for them has to explain why. Especially Gaius -- after his brother had been murdered, what benefit would outweigh the near-certainty of his own murder? History is fundamentally modeling the thoughts and ideals of a long-dead figure from the traces of their behavior as recorded in the historical record; when behavior doesn't make sense, the hypothesis needs to change.
"Aristocrats, man. Nobility. Oligarchs. Their opponents weren't any better."
Enlightened aristocrats are the bete noire of both the modern left and modern right. When confronted with people like the Gracchi, the Right insists that they are 1) corrupt or 2) crazy. They MUST be corrupt because everybody is out for themselves, that's the only motivation. or they must be crazy, because who would actually lessen their own power? And following a leader like that means either you're a stooge, or crazy yourself. This isn't sound thinking; it's retconning to relieve aristocrats of their human obligation to decency, and destroy even the idea of change within the system.
The modern Left on the other hand only recognizes leaderless change; the presence of an enlightened aristocrat threatens them, too. They, too, share the Right's "corrupt and crazy" critique.
But history is bigger than our theories. Outliers do exist, and as I say, after what had happened to Tiberius, Gaius' fate was sealed -- if he chose to follow his brother's path. He could've repudiated his brother, snuggled up to Scipio Aemilianus, and lived a life full of every comfort. But he did not, just as his brother had not, and if you're striving for baseline accuracy, your reading has to account for that, whether or not you like "aristocrats."
I don't reject all modern interpretation, just those which are quite obviously inaccurate and more influenced by the writer's time than the subject's.
You're correct about bias, of course. But I wasn't taught any of this stuff. I just read on my own. I don't buy Gibbon's view either, or any of them. Especially not Cicero's. Good gods no one loved Cicero like Cicero loved Cicero.
The Gracchi were dirt poor and fatherless. All they had was pedigree, which was never enough on it's own in Rome. Caesar was poor and fatherless too, so he did the same thing they did. Tactics are the important take away, not identity.
So far as whether one should pick and choose enlightened oligarchs in the modern day like some sort of collectivist game of Mortal Kombat, that sounds like a personal choice. I don't like any of them and I wager this idolizing monsters is how we destroy everything, just like the Roman's did. Tactics.
It's uphill. But I'm told Sisyphus is happy. I am too. Because all the Romans are dead and the United States is nothing like any of it.
"I don't reject all modern interpretation, just those which are quite obviously inaccurate and more influenced by the writer's time than the subject's."
Interestingly, when I responded to you about Marius, I discovered that "the Marian reforms" -- essentially the transformation of Rome's armies from a citizen-soldiery which provided its own kit to a professional outfit drawn from the urban poor -- are now considered an artifact of 18th and 19th century historians. So things are always shifting.
"The Gracchi were dirt poor and fatherless...Caesar was poor and fatherless too"
I'm just re-reading Plutarch's Life of Tiberius Gracchus and see no mention of Gracchan poverty--I think you're in error here? In fact, the Wikipedia entry for the Gracchi's mother Cornelia says, "After her husband's death, she chose to remain a widow while still enjoying a princess-like status and set herself to educating her children. She even refused the marriage proposal of King Ptolemy VIII Physcon because she is made to be a virtuous and dutiful wife after the death of her only husband. However, her refusal could simply be justified by the fact that she had a desire for more independence and freedom in the manner in which her children were to be raised."
You don't refuse the proposal of a King if you're skint. The Gracchi weren't broke.
As to Caesar, his family lived in the Suburra, a poor neighborhood, but there's similarly no evidence that he was poor in any modern sense of that word.
"All they had was pedigree, which was never enough on it's own in Rome."
I would say you're really off-base here. The patron/client system is a network of favors, access, and obligation passed from generation to generation. When a man's father died, all Dad's clients didn't disappear--they're passed down; think of Vito to Michael in The Godfather. The Mob's family system is somewhat like the Roman system. And they extended widely; even overseas. And they come with opportunities to make money.
The Gracchi were firmly embedded in the highest reaches of Roman aristocracy from every direction--their grandfather Africanus; father the 2x consul; mother from the Cornelii; sister the wife of Scipio Aemilianus. This is the tippiest top of Roman society, and the nature of patron/client means that those young men could (and did) get priesthoods, plum military appointments, and so forth.
Caesar's connections weren't quite at the Gracchi's level, but by the time his father died in 84, young Caesar was married to the daughter of a consul (the powerful Cinna), and nephew to Marius. While Caesar had to borrow money from Crassus and surely others to fund his political career, this was necessary for many politicians. And to be frank, if you're hard up for money, you do what RICH people want you to do, not become a champion of the poor.
"So far as whether one should pick and choose enlightened oligarchs in the modern day like some sort of collectivist game of Mortal Kombat, that sounds like a personal choice."
I think, as in ancient Rome, our politics are being run by oligarchs; that is not my personal choice, but there is no other alternative available to us at present. So, given that, I think we would be well served to 1) accept the possibility that enlightened oligarchs do occasionally exist, and 2) if we see one, support them, rather than hope for some bottom-up seizure of power which would be horrifically dangerous in this era of nukes.
I forgot to mention I don't buy Plutarch, either. But they love the Gracchi mama because she labored in poverty to be a traditional Roman matron, etc. Even the snobs loved her memory.
Caesar lost everything in Sulla's proscription. Almost his own life, too. But the understanding he was poor isn't controversial. At least not until he sold half of Gaul into slavery to pay off his individual debts.
I am also poor and I don't do anything rich people tell me to do, personally. I do agree oligarchs are mostly in charge in the US, but there is nowhere in history that isn't mostly the case. Picking one to lead a charge or something doesn't break it. It's just picking one.
We likely see different oligarchs. You, perhaps, see Musk as one. I see Majority and Minority leaders in Congress as such. They decide what most talk and vote about. Musk doesn't bother me. Except killing substack links on Twitter like a fucking turd. I did mention I was poor.
Here. Comment lurve needs to happen in addition to restack blathering:
This piece spoke to me so hard! 😻 I’ve been joking—more like snarking about the Divided Oligarchy of America for some decades now, and it’s always the Late Republic that has too many echoes for my comfort.
I was the History Major who developed a morbid obsession with Ancient Rome in 2nd grade and yes, whenever I’m sick, the marathon binge of choice is I CLAV-DIVS. (Gotta mispronounce it just…cuz. And yeah, okay, okay, fine. ROME and Spartacus, too, although I’m more about the Antony Moment than the Atia Moment.) 😜
Being even more of an artist than I am a historian, I was so disturbed by this societal rhyme that I built a whole fantastical fiction world with an undercarriage of—not Medieval Europe like most in that day were—but Ancient Rome to deal with my angsty head and heart. Thank you for spelling it out so clearly!
No idea how historically accurate John Williams' Augustus is, but it's a hell of a read and a meditation on how the changes from Republic to an Empire might play out in a single individual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_(Williams_novel)
Oooh that sounds interesting.
Augustus is famously opaque--I think that’s one of the reasons he could succeed in staying alive where Caesar could not--so that would be a real challenge to any fictional memoir. The selection of Octavian as his heir was one of Caesar’s greatest triumphs, and Caesar didn’t always pick wisely in his associates. I think a person as BIG as Caesar would tend to see people as they could become, not as who they were; or conversely see them very narrowly, just in terms of what he needed from them.
There’s also the problem of Livia. Graves’ monster reflects the fierce and absolutely unjust misogyny of Roman society; but a LOT of people did die for her genes to be grafted onto the Imperial line. And Roman society really didn’t give able, ambitious women any way to participate in the political realm other than manipulation (and poison). So I just don’t know what to think of Livia, who plays a HUGE part in Augustus personal life (and political legacy).
I restacked this for you. This is brilliant.
BTW, the answer I gave earlier today was more or less along the lines of, "Men think about the Roman Empire in precise correlation to the number of times they think about The Godfather and for the same reasons."
Well, I can tell you that whenever I watch those movies, it feels exactly like ancient Rome to me--a Mob family is organized on the patron/client structure used by the Roman clans. And now imagine an entire government that is motivated by the same things as a Mafia clan.
Sadly I do not have to imagine it, nor does anyone who's lived through the past years of American history...
I came, I saw, I concurred.
If they awarded triumphs for puns, you’d get one.
Caesar sic in omnibus , Brutus sic in tram … pax vobiscum 🎓
"...in tram"? Oday ouyay eakspay adbay?
“History does not repeat, but it does rhyme...” Beautiful.
Oh, I swiped that. I don’t know from whom. :-)
Looks like it's often attributed to Mark Twain, but most likely falsely: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/
Missouri boys can steal each other’s quotes, it’s a state law
Oh, you betcha - swipe away, my dude.
And then there are those who are obsessed with "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."
All very in keeping with the Republic (see also "Up Pompeii"). All of it inspired by Plautus!
Home run x 1000. Incisive analysis, succinct summation. (Adjacent - https://youtu.be/-uOVwSmXu8s)
Nice one. I'm a weirdo leftist who has always liked Graves' works and an occasional dip into the Roman history pool; more to view their various underhanded machinations than from any ideological affinity. I do also love the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and have found his self-talk through his attempts to practice Stoicism in the midst of chaotic daily existence useful.
@Shaggy, I think "ideological affinity" is really tough to see in any past culture--the circumstances are usually so different that it's almost impossible to discern who's doing what and why. But for lots of reasons, the ancient Romans do seem to lend themselves to this kind of affinity--usually from the right. But in the story of the Gracchi, the reformers of the 50 years after that, and even perhaps in the story of Caesar, there is a liberal affinity that can be discerned in the Civil War period.
And it's important that we DO discern it, and then try to speak it, because the Right's ownership of Classical history is something that they endlessly come back to, and seems to give Rightist thought a kind of weight that it really shouldn't have. Wiilliam F. Buckley doesn't write a book on Latin just because--he writes it because he feels affinity with the Romans, and wants a cultural association with them. He wants to CLAIM them.
The Romans do not belong to the Left--the Gracchi were not proto-Socialists, even though there's evidence that "workers" in the 130s onward venerated them; and we know that workers in the 19th Century did the same. But neither do the Romans belong to the Right, and the Right, and especially Fascists, endlessly claims them. That's not accurate, and there are other readings, even unabashedly Liberal ones.
Strictly speaking , that’s “Salvete” … plural … Also the word was probably pronounced Saluay or Saluatay … Because the V was really a U , but stonemasons reproduced it as a V for convenience , which is also why we have a Double U , displayed as W… Smart ? Ita Vero !
Thanks for nerding out, Tony. Semper ubi sub ubi.
The fascist fascination begins in Rome for sure. But I wonder how many lictors Musk has and how Ukraine has anything to do with it.
The whole populares and optimates thing is a modern invention. They didn't see it that way. Reading someone like Appian, you can see there were no good guys and certainly no enlightened ones. Shoddy history to consider it otherwise.
But it's good to focus on the republic, with the elections they held for centuries until the "populares" ended public elections for good. It was a relief to the Senate to no longer have to run for office, according to Tacitus. It saved them money.
Shit is complicated and barely rhymes, other than the catastrophists and historicists.
Oh I think it’s pretty clear that the Gracchi were “enlightened” in precisely the way I describe--they saw the rise of the great farms and estates as a direct attack on the small farmers that had provided the soldiery. They knew that blocking the distribution of public land to the public and not extending citizenship to the allies exacerbated this problem. And they knew that the flow of people having been driven from their land--often by fire and force--was creating a permanent underclass in the cities which couldn’t be good.
These conclusions are ancient, not some imposition of modern bias. The ravening greed of the Senatorial class; their obstinacy in blocking reform; the politically convenient deaths of the Gracchi, Saturninus, and others; the use of violence to acquire small farms, often from families where the men had been impressed into military service; and how all this increased the pressure on Roman society, preparing the ground for strongmen and yes “demagogues”--none of this is really debatable. Unless you want to dismiss it ALL as unrelated bits of information, which seems to me to deny what history is (a story) and what it is for (to explain the past to us in ways that are useful to us now).
Of course we do not know much about the Gracchi, given that they were killed so young, but given the profound pro-aristocrat tilt of the sources we do have, it is amazing that we know about them at all, and given the Roman mindset it is amazing that they EXISTED at all. How bad must things have been for a couple of guys at the very pinnacle of Roman society--people looking at lives of absolute security and comfort and respect, if they’d just keep their mouths shut--to move in ways that they knew would likely get them killed? Diminishing that choice, which literally robbed them of their lives, is the shoddiest of history; and a certain type of Roman historian wants us to back away from that obvious conclusion, to dismiss them as demagogues, and we must ask “Why are you asking us to do this?”
Disregard the Optimate/Populares schema if you like; but as you do, ask yourself why you’re doing it, and what’s a better way to make sense of what we do know happened. There was an economic crisis; some people wanted to ameliorate it; others did not; the ones who did not often resorted to violence; since the crisis could not be resolved peacefully, it continued to worsen; and finally the whole society was riven and remade. I think that’s all patently obvious from the sources, modern and ancient, and further I think we’re going through something similar in the US today. YMMV.
I discard the modern interpretation of ancient politics because it is inaccurate, to answer that question. I don't explore the past to find axes to grind in the present. There's enough trash currently.
I can grant Tiberius Gracchus was shrewd, but he wasn't enlightened at all beyond seeing the citizens as a means to power. Aristocrats, man. Nobility. Oligarchs. Their opponents weren't any better.
Marius, on the other hand, might have been something.
"I discard the modern interpretation of ancient politics because it is inaccurate, to answer that question."
This is a bold statement, and a blurry one. There is no single "modern interpretation of ancient politics" for you to discard. There is instead an unending conversation that morphs both from the modern side (our biases change based on our conditions), and the ancient one (more data is gathered, hypotheses change).
For example: when I was learning this stuff, the Victorian/Edwardian concept of proletarian Romans as having poor diets was seen as obviously true--they all lived on porridge, right? But in the last decades Roman privies have been dug up, and have found evidence of a pretty varied and healthy diet for many normal citizens.
The earlier theory resulted from historians looking around at their world--seeing cities like London with vast malnourished underclasses--and assuming Rome had to be like that. And OF COURSE they'd do that. Similarly I read the Civil War sources and see our current political situation. It's not about "exploring the past to find axes to grind"--it's about engaging with the past for what it can teach us, knowing full well that how we see it is *not how it really was*. It cannot be.
I just don't think one can avoid seeing one's own time in the past, especially with Rome--and as it is endlessly referenced in our society in one way (the superhero dream of the gladiator, or the "constant battle" or the zenith of white Europe, or whathaveyou), I posted what I did to show that there are other readings, and valid ones too, which speak to our current politics 180 degrees differently than the usual.
"I can grant Tiberius Gracchus was shrewd, but he wasn't enlightened at all beyond seeing the citizens as a means to power."
This is completely illogical. Son of a 2x consul, grandson of Scipio Africanus, Tiberius Gracchus did not need to use the citizens as a means to power. He and his brother could've followed the usual path like good little aristos, and gotten power, and wealth, and fame, and anything else Rome could grant. They were already part of a heavy political dynasty; the system worked for them; they didn't need to step out of line. And yet they did, *extraordinarily so*, *one after the other*, and any accurate analysis for them has to explain why. Especially Gaius -- after his brother had been murdered, what benefit would outweigh the near-certainty of his own murder? History is fundamentally modeling the thoughts and ideals of a long-dead figure from the traces of their behavior as recorded in the historical record; when behavior doesn't make sense, the hypothesis needs to change.
"Aristocrats, man. Nobility. Oligarchs. Their opponents weren't any better."
Enlightened aristocrats are the bete noire of both the modern left and modern right. When confronted with people like the Gracchi, the Right insists that they are 1) corrupt or 2) crazy. They MUST be corrupt because everybody is out for themselves, that's the only motivation. or they must be crazy, because who would actually lessen their own power? And following a leader like that means either you're a stooge, or crazy yourself. This isn't sound thinking; it's retconning to relieve aristocrats of their human obligation to decency, and destroy even the idea of change within the system.
The modern Left on the other hand only recognizes leaderless change; the presence of an enlightened aristocrat threatens them, too. They, too, share the Right's "corrupt and crazy" critique.
But history is bigger than our theories. Outliers do exist, and as I say, after what had happened to Tiberius, Gaius' fate was sealed -- if he chose to follow his brother's path. He could've repudiated his brother, snuggled up to Scipio Aemilianus, and lived a life full of every comfort. But he did not, just as his brother had not, and if you're striving for baseline accuracy, your reading has to account for that, whether or not you like "aristocrats."
Been a pleasure, thanks for reading. :-)
Oh, PS about Marius --I don't have much of an opinion on him, but I will say that his bloody proscriptions with Cinna make me not very sympathetic.
I don't reject all modern interpretation, just those which are quite obviously inaccurate and more influenced by the writer's time than the subject's.
You're correct about bias, of course. But I wasn't taught any of this stuff. I just read on my own. I don't buy Gibbon's view either, or any of them. Especially not Cicero's. Good gods no one loved Cicero like Cicero loved Cicero.
The Gracchi were dirt poor and fatherless. All they had was pedigree, which was never enough on it's own in Rome. Caesar was poor and fatherless too, so he did the same thing they did. Tactics are the important take away, not identity.
So far as whether one should pick and choose enlightened oligarchs in the modern day like some sort of collectivist game of Mortal Kombat, that sounds like a personal choice. I don't like any of them and I wager this idolizing monsters is how we destroy everything, just like the Roman's did. Tactics.
It's uphill. But I'm told Sisyphus is happy. I am too. Because all the Romans are dead and the United States is nothing like any of it.
R.B.,
"I don't reject all modern interpretation, just those which are quite obviously inaccurate and more influenced by the writer's time than the subject's."
Interestingly, when I responded to you about Marius, I discovered that "the Marian reforms" -- essentially the transformation of Rome's armies from a citizen-soldiery which provided its own kit to a professional outfit drawn from the urban poor -- are now considered an artifact of 18th and 19th century historians. So things are always shifting.
"The Gracchi were dirt poor and fatherless...Caesar was poor and fatherless too"
I'm just re-reading Plutarch's Life of Tiberius Gracchus and see no mention of Gracchan poverty--I think you're in error here? In fact, the Wikipedia entry for the Gracchi's mother Cornelia says, "After her husband's death, she chose to remain a widow while still enjoying a princess-like status and set herself to educating her children. She even refused the marriage proposal of King Ptolemy VIII Physcon because she is made to be a virtuous and dutiful wife after the death of her only husband. However, her refusal could simply be justified by the fact that she had a desire for more independence and freedom in the manner in which her children were to be raised."
You don't refuse the proposal of a King if you're skint. The Gracchi weren't broke.
As to Caesar, his family lived in the Suburra, a poor neighborhood, but there's similarly no evidence that he was poor in any modern sense of that word.
"All they had was pedigree, which was never enough on it's own in Rome."
I would say you're really off-base here. The patron/client system is a network of favors, access, and obligation passed from generation to generation. When a man's father died, all Dad's clients didn't disappear--they're passed down; think of Vito to Michael in The Godfather. The Mob's family system is somewhat like the Roman system. And they extended widely; even overseas. And they come with opportunities to make money.
The Gracchi were firmly embedded in the highest reaches of Roman aristocracy from every direction--their grandfather Africanus; father the 2x consul; mother from the Cornelii; sister the wife of Scipio Aemilianus. This is the tippiest top of Roman society, and the nature of patron/client means that those young men could (and did) get priesthoods, plum military appointments, and so forth.
Caesar's connections weren't quite at the Gracchi's level, but by the time his father died in 84, young Caesar was married to the daughter of a consul (the powerful Cinna), and nephew to Marius. While Caesar had to borrow money from Crassus and surely others to fund his political career, this was necessary for many politicians. And to be frank, if you're hard up for money, you do what RICH people want you to do, not become a champion of the poor.
"So far as whether one should pick and choose enlightened oligarchs in the modern day like some sort of collectivist game of Mortal Kombat, that sounds like a personal choice."
I think, as in ancient Rome, our politics are being run by oligarchs; that is not my personal choice, but there is no other alternative available to us at present. So, given that, I think we would be well served to 1) accept the possibility that enlightened oligarchs do occasionally exist, and 2) if we see one, support them, rather than hope for some bottom-up seizure of power which would be horrifically dangerous in this era of nukes.
I forgot to mention I don't buy Plutarch, either. But they love the Gracchi mama because she labored in poverty to be a traditional Roman matron, etc. Even the snobs loved her memory.
Caesar lost everything in Sulla's proscription. Almost his own life, too. But the understanding he was poor isn't controversial. At least not until he sold half of Gaul into slavery to pay off his individual debts.
I am also poor and I don't do anything rich people tell me to do, personally. I do agree oligarchs are mostly in charge in the US, but there is nowhere in history that isn't mostly the case. Picking one to lead a charge or something doesn't break it. It's just picking one.
We likely see different oligarchs. You, perhaps, see Musk as one. I see Majority and Minority leaders in Congress as such. They decide what most talk and vote about. Musk doesn't bother me. Except killing substack links on Twitter like a fucking turd. I did mention I was poor.
Fascinated at 7 by "I, Claudius" on PBS, were you?
But BBC's better, "I, Clavdivs".
Salve te ipsum!
Strong stuff, Mike.
Here. Comment lurve needs to happen in addition to restack blathering:
This piece spoke to me so hard! 😻 I’ve been joking—more like snarking about the Divided Oligarchy of America for some decades now, and it’s always the Late Republic that has too many echoes for my comfort.
I was the History Major who developed a morbid obsession with Ancient Rome in 2nd grade and yes, whenever I’m sick, the marathon binge of choice is I CLAV-DIVS. (Gotta mispronounce it just…cuz. And yeah, okay, okay, fine. ROME and Spartacus, too, although I’m more about the Antony Moment than the Atia Moment.) 😜
Being even more of an artist than I am a historian, I was so disturbed by this societal rhyme that I built a whole fantastical fiction world with an undercarriage of—not Medieval Europe like most in that day were—but Ancient Rome to deal with my angsty head and heart. Thank you for spelling it out so clearly!