When in Rome….
Excellent post by Dr. Bernard Finel:
The Fall of the Roman Republic: Lessons for David Petraeus and America
The problems facing the Roman Republic in the 1st Century BC were obvious for several generations before they resulted in the final crisis that lead to imperial rule. There were a large number of proposed solutions, some more fanciful than others, but it was precisely the apparent inability of the state to address problems that everyone recognized existed that destroyed the existing institutions. At the core, the Roman Republic faced two problems.
First, the growth of Roman power and the acquisition of an empire stressed the existing structure for managing provinces. The lack of a well developed colonial bureaucracy combined with the practice of annually appointing new provincial governors from the ranks of recent senior magistrates created massive instability. Significant elements of provincial administration – notably tax collection – were outsourced to private companies, and provincial governors saw their postings as an opportunity for self-enrichment, which was both a cause and consequence of the increasing cost of running for political office. The result was endemic corruption in Rome, and frequent instability in provinces as a consequence of the rapacious practices of tax farmers and governors. Particularly in the more recently acquired provinces in and around Anatolia and the Levant, this instability led to revolts and opportunities for external actors to weaken Roman control.
Second, for a variety of reasons that economic historians continue to debate, there was increasing income inequality in Rome, and worse, the gradual impoverishment and ultimately virtual elimination of small-hold farmers that had traditionally formed the backbone of both the Roman citizenry and military. The result was the rise of an urban poor, increasingly dependent on the largess of the state, more prone to violence, and ultimately more loyal to patrons than to the state as a whole. Part of this was also a consequence of empire. Military victories brought slaves to Rome, which were increasingly used to farm the large estates of aristocrats, raising land prices and lowering food costs in a way that made small farming unsustainable.
These problems were recognized early. In 133 BC, Tiberius Gracchus sought to implement land reform from his position as Tribune in order to address the twin issues of the disappearing free rural peasantry and the resultant lack of citizens eligible for military service. His efforts threatened the position of the aristocratic elites, and in the end he was murdered. Ten year later his younger brother suffered the same fate under similar circumstances. At the time of the Cimbrian War (113-101 BC), the threat of foreign invasion by Germanic tribes forced Gaius Marius to replace the traditional Roman Army soldiered by land-owning citizens with one built around landless volunteers for whom military service was a career and who owed loyalty primarily to the general paying the bills rather than the state. Marius’ legions defeated the Germans, but a new instability had been introduced into the Roman state due to the tendency of these new volunteer forces to be loyal to personal patrons rather than state institutions. This instability manifested itself in the increasing role of popular generals in Roman politics, including several willing to implicitly or explicitly threaten civil war to get what they wanted. Marius himself marched on Rome, as did Lucius Cornelius Sulla twice, and Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) took over this father’s client army on his death and became a key power broker in his twenties and without having held elected office. By the time the of the First Triumvirate in 59BC, the Roman state had been grappling with these basic, interlocking economic, political, military challenges for 70 years without any systematic solution.
Finel sees 21st century AD America as having some analogous political and structural difficulties to 1st century BC Rome:
….The Roman system had, in short, even more veto points than the current American system, and they were even more arbitrary – though the U.S. Senate practice of anonymous holds comes close.
The point is not to suggest that Rome and the United States are in identical positions. Rather, that there are similar structural problems. In the United States today there are durable public policy problems that everyone agrees are indeed problems – deficits and debt, the entitlements crisis, lack of infrastructure investment, educational shortcomings, the erosion of U.S. manufacturing and the challenge of international competitiveness. But we can’t do anything about them because there is a rump of opposition to any structural reforms, not always from Republicans, and a large number of veto points.
Another structural similarity is that the one – or at least most – effective institution in the country is the military. In the 1st Century BC, the Romans fought at least five civil wars (as many as seven depending on how one chooses to count), and yet was able to expand their colonial empire. Their Army was occasionally bested in battles, but never in this period in a war. Over time, Roman politics came to be dominated by successful generals, and men without a martial record often sought to establish one even later in life.
It was in this context of persistent structural problems, a dysfunctional political system riddled with veto points, and a highly effective and respected military that the Roman Republic collapsed. But before it collapsed, it was given one last opportunity to save itself. This occurred with the formation of the First Triumvirate in 59 BC.
I suggest that you read Dr. Finel’s post in full.
A few comments on my part….
A commendable summarizing of the Late Republic’s dysfunction on Dr. Finel’s part. For those readers interested in the subject, I’d recommend Tom Holland’s Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
A minor quibble is that Finel left out Sulla’s brutal attempt to “re-set” the political system, decrease public corruption and “restore” many older political customs by scraping away more recent innovations involving tribunican office by the fiat of breaking Roman tradition and launching a murderous purge to kill off and thoroughly terrorize those members of the senatorial elite who would object to his version of political reform. Sulla’s bloody precedent made future recourse to violence more likely after Sulla passed from the political scene. Caesar consciously used Sulla’s memory as a foil, making great political show of his generous treatment of beaten opponents, ultimately to his cost.
I would add that the rapaciousness of the tax-farming in the provinces was due in part to Roman patricians delegating that perk to Rome’s Italian Allies, making the Italians the junior partners in Roman imperialism much the same way lower and middle colonial officials and military officers of colonial armies in the British Empire in the in 17th-19th century were frequently drawn from the Scottish, Welsh and Anglo-Irish gentry and “respectable” English freeholding yeomanry. It gave these ambitious folk a stake in the system and kept the door ajar to their possible entry into the ruling class ( the Romans eventually had to yield citizenship to the Italians, though the pedigree of one’s citizenship remained an important part of a politician’s auctoritas).
I agree with Finel that Cato the Younger was a fanatical ass who more than any other figure precipitated the destruction of the Republic with his uncompromising determination to destroy Julius Caesar personally – even if he had to violate the unwritten rules of Roman politics to do so. Ironically, despite the extremism of his ulta-Optimate stance, Cato was popular with the plebians, maybe “highly respected” is a better description, because his fanaticism about adhering to Roman traditions was authentic. Moreover, unlike most politicians of the time Cato wasn’t looting everything in the provinces that wasn’t nailed down and lived an anarchronistically ascetic lifestyle for a nobleman.
Finel’s analogy of Popularii and Optimates with Republicans and Democrats works well as a narrative device for the point he is making, but it is important to keep certain differences in mind. The Optimates and Popularii were not parties in any modern sense and can’t really be equated with 21st century liberal or conservative ideology either. Roman politics was heavily personalist and based on politicians building and leveraging clientelas, rather than ideological affinities. Socially, many in the Republican base today – the rural state, conservative Christians and LMC suburbanite small businessmen – would also fit better with the Popularii and plebians.
By contrast, many (certainly not all) in the Democratic base are sociologically more like the Optimates – at least the UMC, urban-suburban technocratic professionals, academics and lawyers from “good schools” who run the Democratic Party and fill the ranks of the Obama administration. Economically, both the GOP and the Dems are, in my view, increasingly in favor of a rentier oligarchy as an American political economy, with game-rigging for corporations, tax-farming schemes to hold down and fleece the middle-class, sweetheart revolving door between government service and private contracting – all of this self-dealing behavior would be comfortably Optimate.
Could we get a “man on horseback” or a “triumvirate”? Americans have repeatedly elected generals as President, including some of Civil War vintage who were, unlike U.S. Grant, of no great distinction and Teddy Roosevelt, a mere colonel of the volunteers, was a Rough Rider all the way into the Vice-Presidency. (Incidentally, I don’t see General Petraeus or any other prominent Flag officer today being cut from the mold of Caesar, Antony or Pompey. It’s not in the American culture or military system, as a rule. The few historical exceptions to this, MacArthur, Patton and McClellan, broadcast their egomania loudly enough to prevent any Napoleonic moments from crystallizing). Never have we had an ambitious general in the Oval Office in a moment of existential crisis though – we fortunately had Lincoln and FDR then – only after the crisis has passed and they were elected them based on the reputation of successful service. It is unlikely that we would, but frustrations are high and our political class is inept and unwilling to contemplate reforming structural economic problems that might impinge upon elite interests. Instead, they use the problems as an excuse to increase their powers and reward their backers.
Being hit by another global crisis though, might predispose the public to accept drastic but quietly implemented political changes beneath the surface that leave our formal institutional conventions intact, which is how republics are lost.
July 16th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Zen,fantanstic post you need some music to.
"I Am America"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0heL2Czeraw&feature=popular
July 17th, 2010 at 1:28 am
My biggest issue with his post is the concern with the gridlock in our system. He seems to view this as a problem or maybe even unintended. I think it is clear that our system of government was purposely designed to be slow and difficult. It has amazed me to see the frustration expressed among the intellectual crowd over the past two years with the difficulties of getting reform bills signed into law. Those same peoples’ heads would have exploded if making sweeping reforms had been easy from 2000 to 2004.
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You wrote, "Roman politics was heavily personalist and based on politicians building and leveraging clientelas, rather than ideological affinities." This, imo, isn’t too far from what we have today. While things are ideological today, our elections are personality driven. How else could Obama have been elected or Palin nominated for VP? Neither one was qualified in any reasonable sense. Why was Bush such an odds-on favorite in 2000? Opinions about Afghanistan hinge upon the reputation of Petraeus, rather than whether what we’re doing makes any sense. The mental shortcuts that our populace relies upon make our country very vulnerable to easy manipulation by the media. If the media puts someone’s face on TV a lot, suddenly that person is, in the minds of the public, part of some pool of potential governing elite or a group of individuals whose opinions we are supposed to listen to. Whatever gets reported as fact is accepted as fact, even if it is demonstrably untrue. Whomever we are told to follow becomes a leader.
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I don’t see Petraeus running, nor do I think he would win if he did. Democracy is about the people getting what they deserve. We got it in 2008 and we’re going to get it again in 2012. Pity.
July 17th, 2010 at 2:17 am
The big difference between late Republican Rome and today’s USA is that Republican Rome was dynamic and expansionist; while today’s USA is ossified and on the retreat. ( Unlike today’s militarists, Julius Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon, really was able to brandish a "Mission Accomplished" banner.)
Today’s USA is more like 17th century Spain, an exhausted empire that no longer really remembers what it is there for.
July 17th, 2010 at 5:24 am
I also have to wonder what "reforms" he thinks are needed, that our systemic gridlock is preventing. He mentions that he likes Obama and his health care legislation, which makes me wonder. It seems to me that it is precisely Obama and his crowd who are trying to reduce the independent entrepreneurial middle class to client status in our times. Our only point of agreement is that we would prefer Petraeus to some other options in 2012, although I would prefer him to adhere to the constitution rather than circumvent it. As a result of the research I did on NORAD last year, and reading some of the new information on his administration made available by declassification of his administration’s documents, I have become a great fan of Eisenhower. We could do much worse than to get a new Eisenhower in Petraeus.
July 17th, 2010 at 11:41 am
It’s not about gridlock, it’s about Justice. One class of people can bet anything and any amount they want. If they bet right they keep the money,if they loose they still keep the money and we pay the bill. The people who caused the crisis are the same people who are in charge of fixing it. That is like putting Charles Manson in charge of the Department Of Justice.
July 17th, 2010 at 11:41 am
It’s not about gridlock, it’s about Justice. One class of people can bet anything and any amount they want. If they bet right they keep the money,if they loose they still keep the money and we pay the bill. The people who caused the crisis are the same people who are in charge of fixing it. That is like putting Charles Manson in charge of the Department Of Justice. That is the real problem IMO.
July 17th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
"My biggest issue with his post is the concern with the gridlock in our system. He seems to view this as a problem or maybe even unintended. I think it is clear that our system of government was purposely designed to be slow and difficult."
Who cares why or how it was designed like this? The point is, we have some really serious problems facing the nation, and we just can’t seem to deal with them. But we’re going to have to, whether we like it or not. So, at some point, gridlock will have to dissolve. The question is under what conditions it happens.
Also, the current system is NOT what the founders intended in any way. Not only is the scope of government 100x greater, but they never intended for there to be a supermajority requirement in the Senate, not did they think that each individual Senator should have the power to stop business through "holds." Those are simply tradition — and not even as old as people think.
As for Jim: My views on the reforms we need would probably surprise you. I do think everyone should have access to affordable health insurance, but I also think such coverage should be quite barebones. I think social security should be means tested and be nothing more than a safety net. I think even with significant cuts in entitlements we probably still need to increase taxes and adjust where the burden falls, but these are complex issues. The point, though, is that we can’t have a structural deficit of 5% of GDP forever, and we can’t continue to ignore infrastructure investment.
We’re on the path to becoming Greece — and not the interesting ancient version, but rather the basketcase modern version. I want better for my country.
July 17th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
"So, at some point, gridlock will have to dissolve."
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Dr. Finel, "gridlock will have to dissolve," is all about process, and not results or substance in my reading, although perhaps I am reading you incorrectly?
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The "process" attitude reminds me of the typical cable-television and DC cultural bleating about "bipartisanship." (I’m not saying your comment is bleating, just going off on a particular hobby-horse of mine.)
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Perhaps gridlock is better than a program or bill that makes a problem structurally worse? I bet you and I would disagree mightily on whether the ObamaCare bill – as it is written – makes our problems better or worse. That is at the heart of the so-called gridlock – competing philosophies as applied to specific problems! Your comment reads like a technocrat’s lament. It’s a bit COINdinista, if I may be so bold: " Here is a problem, and here is the technocratic solution to all of our ills."
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It’s just not that simple.
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– Madhu
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PS: Actually, I agree with much of your last paragraph. I guess I’m just a cynic.
July 17th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
<i> It seems to me that it is precisely Obama and his crowd who are trying to reduce the independent entrepreneurial middle class to client status in our times. </i>
True but incomplete. Mitch McConnell and his crowd likewise are trying to reduce them. Both crowds advance this mutual objective while diverting attention by pointing their fingers at the other. It is a cat and mouse game.
This demonstrates another difference between contemporary USA and late Republican Rome, for the Patricians and Plebeians were divided by genuine – not cosmetic – policy differences.
July 17th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
"Who cares why or how it was designed like this?"
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Apparently not you?
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"The point is, we have some really serious problems facing the nation, and we just can’t seem to deal with them. But we’re going to have to, whether we like it or not. So, at some point, gridlock will have to dissolve."
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Here’s the rub. We can agree that there are serious problems. But I suspect that if you drew up a list of those problems and I drew up a list, there would be very little overlap. And that is why we have a purposely slow-moving, difficult system. It forces those of us with divergent views to find something more moderate. The system, by design, should slow down even more when you have a more polarized Congress. That is exactly what we have today. We have populated our Congress with highly ideological partisans. This is the most polarized Congress in over 100 years (I mean, literally, empirically speaking, according to a recent study). The system is slowing down, as it should.
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Step one of building a well-functioning organization is to man it with quality people. We are an epic FAIL in that first step. You can’t take an organization of low-quality people and complain that it doesn’t function because of procedural restraints. The organization is dysfunctional because of the people who run it.
July 17th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
"We have populated our Congress with highly ideological partisans. This is the most polarized Congress in over 100 years (I mean, literally, empirically speaking, according to a recent study). The system is slowing down, as it should" by Schmedlap
So you think the founding fathers designed a system that will cause collapse on purpose?
July 17th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
" But I suspect that if you drew up a list of those problems and I drew up a list, there would be very little overlap."
Really? I’d say our problems are the structural deficit due largely unfunded entitlement programs, insufficient infrastructure investment, a screwed-up tax code and regulatory apparatus that weakens American competitiveness. But the biggie is the fiscal imbalance. What do you see as our problems?
Madhu: You are half-right, but only in the sense that I could live with multiple solutions. We could cut entitlements, we could raise taxes, we could do a mixture of both. Any of those would be fine with me. What isn’t fine with me is doing none of them. Ultimately, the is inaction itself that is the problem, so yeah, I am agnostic on the precise mix of policy choices.
July 17th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Bernard,
That’s a good list of the items that need to be fixed. But the underlying problems with them are what I think we would disagree on.
July 17th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
I’m generally not a fan of pundits, but this recent speech by George Will seems to be on point (fast forward through the first 5 minutes of his introduction). http://bit.ly/8cwRbT
July 17th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Just realized that link is 4 years old. The 2010 keynote by Will is on point. But it’s a 500 MB podcast.
July 18th, 2010 at 1:51 am
@ Dr. Finel: It seems I did misunderstand you a bit. Apologies.
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I am not as agnostic on proposed solutions as you are, but otherwise I completely understand. The current path is unsustainable.
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– Madhu
July 18th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
I always find attempts to analogize the collapse of the Roman Republic to contemporary America to be singularly unimpressive. There really are no meaningful similarities. The so-called Roman "Republic" was not a deliberately constructed attempt to organize a democratic government, such as the Framers of the US constitution attempted to do in 1789. The Roman Republic was actually a structure originally set up to allocate military authority. In its early days, Rome was little more than an armed camp, an army masquerading as a city, and the system of offices we have come to know as the "Republic" was designed to assign military responsibilities. The system of voting in this "Republic" was not remotely democratic, as persons who had the greatest amount of wealth were guaranteed control over the electoral assembly. This made sense, again recognizing that the purpose of the system was not to develop a form of representative government, but rather to assign responsibility for the military. Thus, persons who could afford to pay for the largest numbers of horses and troops understandably had the controlling say in selecting military officers. The system intially proved to be relatively effective, as the Romans came to dominate most of Italy and ultimately most of the Mediterranean with the defeat of Carthage. However, with success, there came a need to be able to finance armies on a much larger scale than had been contemplated under the original Republic, a need for a class of professional military officers, and in addition, there was a need for a workable system of political administration, something that the "Republic" had never really been intended for at all. The rivalries between the "Optimates" and the "Populares" have really been distorted in order to fit into our modern framework of viewing partisan politics. Essentially, there was a dispute about the direction of future governance. In the late "Republic", political power rested almost entirely in the Senate, which was an unelected and in many ways unofficial body made up of persons who had previously held the ranks of Consul and Praetor. The "Optimates" supported the continued unchallenged domination of the Senate. The "Populares" were led by military figures, like Caesar, who sought to establish a power base tied directly to the army, not answerable to the Senate. The Populares won out, probably correctly so from the perspective of the needs of the expanding Roman Empire. The whole thing had about as much to do with the realities of modern representative democracies such as the US as an episode of "The Sopranos."
July 19th, 2010 at 10:38 am
I’d say America today bears more similarities to Ancient regime France than Rome.France before the revolution had lost a series of was expensive wars, its middle class was being squeezed, social mobility was declining and the ruling classes were losing crediblity… At the same time philosophers were developing new ideas of how the state should be organised, uniquely progressive ideas… It was losing its technological and economic lead to Britain, it’s system of European control, known as the French system was breaking down as military guarantees began to be questioned after the 7 years war. The protections that the system gave a number of European states would be wiped away leaving British aggrandizement to grow unchecked. There are parallels here with the break down of the post war settlement, the rapid growth of China, the loss of legitimacy in the US political system ect ect. I’m sure its more palatable to compare yourself to mighty Rome, but you don’t have to go that far back, pick any hegemonic empire over the span of human history and you will find Parallels, lost wars, growing inequality at home, loss of legitimacy, and a new kid on the block. Every time its the Roman republic though, you know the Brits liked to fancy themselves as the new Romans, the same with the Ottomans, so did the short lived Italian empire of the 20’s/30’s, and innumeral others I’m sure. Romes problems are so far removed from modern America, that there are no useful lessons to be drawn, other than the most general reflections of human nature/politics/war. Sure its an interesting read, but it has no real relevance to a modern states problems. Americas problems are the problems of modern informal empire, in this your on your own, only the USSR and the British empires experience will possibly have any real concrete relevance, and then only in part.
July 19th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Just read Democratic Cores post, what he said!
July 20th, 2010 at 4:16 am
[…] For another perspective on this, see this article by Zenpundit. […]