Res Publica: A Quest of Ancient Rome
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
- Original Historic
- Location
- Europe
Brutus did everything wrong, from stabbing Caesar to the way he handled the post assassination politics.
- Location
- Austria
Stabbing Caesar absolves him of any other political sins though.
- Location
- Europe
Nah, because botching everything around it (like for example not killing Antonius) just shows what a dumbass he was.
That's why he took the Roman way out, falling on his sword.
- Location
- Austria
Well, yes, killing all others would be cool too, but killing Caesar is still better than not killing him, no?
- Location
- Europe
As an unabashed Caesar fanboy I'm too biased to answer that, but no, killing him made everything just worse.
Edit: Unless you are talking about a game where he is the antagonist, in that case stab the man.
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
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Atellus is the ideal of a Populares, a man for the people. Wonder how that'll work with Sulla. On the one hand, he's no Optimates. On the other, Atellus' Populares is not Marius' Populares.
- Location
- Austria
- Location
- Europe
Those two deserved everything that was coming to them for their attempts to lessen the plight of the lower classes.Gracchi fanboy here, so
Well that and introducing the concept of demagogy to Rome, not to mention that they helped weaken the traditions of the republic.
Caesar is expected end result of Gracchi's politics, though - a tyrant that rules by popular acclaim against the established aristocracy/oligarchy.Gracchi fanboy here, so
- Location
- Austria
Intent mattered.
From what I can tell, Gracchi were exploiting power to help lower classes, while Caesar was exploiting popularity among lower classes to get power. It's rather that I hate Caesar for taking a good idea - burning to the ground rules which were created by patricians for patricians - and using it for his own ends.
Now, it may have been unavoidable and someone would do it, but it does not absolve of personal responsibility for being said person.
edit: also, "expected" only with the benefit of 2000 years of historiography-based hindsight. Don't think either of those two foresaw Caesar, from what we know they were idealists to the core. Overly idealistic, really, seeing as murder of one did not make second one go "actually patricians are brutal murderers and plebeians will not protect me so fuck it all let's just lay back and be decadent", but rather made him try again.
Those two deserved everything that was coming to them for their attempts to lessen the plight of the lower classes.
Well that and introducing the concept of demagogy to Rome, not to mention that they helped weaken the traditions of the republic.
I'd say Optimates who murdered them did far more to weaken said traditions. Despite ostensibly being protectors of said traditions.
Which, when we next look at Sulla, starts looking like a trend.
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- Location
- Europe
To be fair, Sulla at least attempted to repair the damage he had done in order to, from his perspective probably, save the republic.
It just wasn't enough.
- Location
- Austria
I mean, Gracchi would be hard-pressed to "repair" anything from beyond their graves.
And their murderers knew they fixed all the issues of the Republic by killing people trying to help lower classes. After all, bringing violence into politics for the first time in centuries could hardly bring any consequences, right?
We can't read minds of people living two thousand years in the past, and even their actions are not all that recorded - it was entirely possible that Gracchi, like Marius and Caesar, would use the popularity gained by reforms to catapult themselves into tyranny. It certainly was what most of the patricians believed, and, biased as they were, not without reason. But above that, it doesn't really make sense to say that Brutus did nothing wrong when he did a wrong thing for wrong reasons and managed to fucked it up regardless.
- Location
- Austria
X did nothing wrong is a meme
I mean.
I would say that actions of younger brother, given that he saw what happened to Tiberius and still tried to do something, are rather informative of their mindset not being all that egoistical.
But I am a fanboy so yeah.
- Location
- Europe
The only thing Caesar did wrong was dying, but even for that he had a well planned contingency.X did nothing wrong is a meme
All according to keikaku.
Bullmoose
A True Aristocrat
- Location
- Philadelphia
Those two deserved everything that was coming to them for their attempts to lessen the plight of the lower classes.
Well that and introducing the concept of demagogy to Rome, not to mention that they helped weaken the traditions of the republic.
Well the thing is, the fact that the populace at large became so desperate as to be vulnerable to demagoguery is an mark against the Optimates and the political structure of the republic. They created and preserved the environment that led to the rise of populares. Obstinate resistance over decades to any meaningful reform holds a big share of the blame for the Rome's downward spiral in this period.
After all, If the Republic really was so perfect and wonderful, thus making any change or reform to it Anathema (as the more extreme optimates like the Cato the younger seemed to think) there wouldn't be a angry lowerclass for Caesar or Marius or Cinna to "exploit."
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- Location
- Europe
Hey, you are preaching to the crowd here. I'm all for tearing it down, but the blatant disregard for the traditions of the republic exposed weaknesses in the system that more men were happy to exploit.
I'll note that Cato the Younger is pretty singular in how up his own ass about the holiness of the republic he was. Most people who were against the reforms were against them for a much more base reasons of preserving their power - and, when a more popular champion of the people arises, fear for their lives.
Bullmoose
A True Aristocrat
- Location
- Philadelphia
But that's kinda my point.
When vital reform is blocked via the traditionally approved routes, over and over and over again, those traditions are gonna start looking a lot more like tools manipulated by the powerful rather than something worth preserving.
Hence the optimates, who always hemmed and hawed the most about the value and sanctity of Rome's long standing political traditions, have no one to blame but themselves for those traditions being eroded over time.
Plus, plenty of optimates were just as willing to break traditions and laws if it benefited them.
The traditions were simply tools used by the powerful as a means to maintain their power within the system. Appeals to traditions as a means to shoot down reforms were just transparent attempts to maintain an unequal system of power, benefiting the few.
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- Location
- Europe
Disregarding that the Gracchi brothers willingly broke or attempted to break the constitution to get their way and where fully willing to freeze the entire political system until they get what they want, even if it was for noble intentions, is just denying one half of the story and absolving them from guilt.
Maybe they did it for good intentions they fervently believed in instead of using it as a platform to gain power, but what needs to be done are can be different things in the eyes of different men.
And right now we have generals leading armies to Rome (Sulla first) for what has to be done and even in the latest updates you have a general stripping a consul of imperium on grounds of his popularity and men.
Even if they weren't the cause for the civil strife, they aren't just mere symptoms, but also actors who hacked away at the foundation of the state and showed everyone where the tools were.
This is not to say that we shouldn't and won't have to do the same in our bid to untuck the republic, but let's not pretend the Gracchi brothers are completely blameless and fault lies only with the senatorial ranks.
(I also dislike this homogeneous description of "the rich" always and everywhere fucking over people. The world has more nuances than that, Tiberius Gracchus even had a measure of senatorial support which he lost when he alienated the senate with his behaviour)
- Location
- United Kingdom
@Telamon Quick question about our cohort ranks.
This is the original explanation we got about cohort ranks.
This is the original explanation we got about cohort ranks.
This is the experience level our cohorts had at the end of the Samnite War.
Here we have the results of the Training that was just completed.
And here is the new skill level of our cohorts.
So, did one of our Average Cohorts manage to jump two levels, straight from Average to Skilled? Or is the order of ranks actually Average - Skilled - Veteran - Elite?
- Location
- Texas
That's the way it is in my notes, so my original explanation must have been incorrect. My bad. I'll go ahead and edit that.