If you could choose, would you rather live as patrician in ancient Rome or as an average upper-...

I'd take it. I'd philosophize and watch gladiatorial games. It sounds glorious, just to sit and watch the world go by, rich enough not to care, served by a cohort of loyal, happy enough slaves and able to tacitly assist Rome through modern knowledge. Spread the idea for modern medicine, warn the Romans about the Germans, the Huns and the Goths. But more than that, just to relax in the warmth of Campania, looking out over the vast, beautiful estates, waited on hand and foot, able to read ancient works lost to modernity. Perfection. Glorious, Impossible Perfection. I may die early, but the sheer glee of life would be worth it.

>owns shitloads of talents of silver and gold
>>has large mansion(s), with dozens (if not hundreds) of servants and slaves
>>large plot of land (plantation,garden, grazing ground for your prized horses,etc)
No, not all patricians were wealthy
>could enjoy all the debaucheries that you can only fantasize in this vietnamese rice farming imageboard (rape, bestiality, gangbang, you name it).
Not if you wanted success in the senate. While rome might seem liberated in some ways sexually, it was really a rather puritan deal for politicians, unless they had great power and couldn't really be toppled by scandals. Even things like topping another man was frowned upon, or generally being lustful

>Those pesky christians wont keep multiplying wont they?
>ancient rome
>instantly assumes it's the empire, even though patricians had more relevance during the republic
The republic is ten times as cool as the empire, why do people keep jerking off about this shitty empire.
The roman republic is historys orgasm, the empire is the comedown where you feel awful for having fapped to that shemale midget

Being a patrician woman kinda sucked, the man in the house had such supreme authority. I don't necessarily mind that if it's a top tier husbando though. So my answer is, generally no, but if I get to live with like, caesar, I'm cool with it. Being a really wealthy pleb would generally be better

You know what would help them more? Pitch the idea of putting bang bang powder in a tube to eject a rock. Specifics aren't that important, they'll figure it out bit by bit. You could say that the powder should be made by that thing you can find in the saharan dessert and those black rocks that burn real good

Sometimes, it would literally involve flinging shit at people you don't agree with politically

>in ancient Rome

are we talking 300 BC or 300 AD?
there's quite a huge difference in the life of a patrician depending, 'ancient rome' was not a singular time.

underrated post

I would invent gunpowder and windmills for rome
Also geographical knowledge

I'd take the life in ancient rome in a heartbeat. Our current time is shit, everything gets worse and worse. Infrastructure, inflation, shrinking job prospects. I've dreamed about going back to a different era many many times.

Now, if I'd be a roman pleb, I'd have a hard time to decide, but a patrician? Why would anyone not choose this?
I'd lvoe to live in the time of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. I'd give my right hand to see Caligula in person just one single time.
There are so many things I'd do.

>Ttravel to Egypt to meet Philo of Alexandria
>In Egypt, visit the Mausoleum of Alexander and the other Ptolemies
>Visit as many cities as possible and write down detailed descriptions and city plans, carved in stone tables and put these in my grave
>Gather as many works of literature and do the same with those
>Write down the history of as many people and do the same

this

>Julio-Claudian Dynasty.
>chose empire over republic
I want you to cur

*to die

This is too funny for some reason

How are those memes? Your argument is lacking.

Patrician =/= wealthy

Patrician is a hereditary title

Shameful bump

>wealthy pleb
Women, everybody.

What? You could be wealthy and not be a patrician, which is all pleb means in a roman context, a roman citizen that isn't patrician. Patrician women had much less freedom and option for independence than unmarried/widowed plebeian women. Marius was a pleb and way richer than almost all his contemporaries

No. If you became wealthy then you were given a new title. Sure, you had plebeian origins but you were given a new title like novus homo.

Today and it's not even close. How the actual fuck do you expect me to live without the internet?

Because most Patricians weren't betrayed or murdered, just the ones who busied themselves in trying to be the toppest dog., and even then, all the political murder didn't start until the death of the republic.

The only times when a Patrician was likely to get randomly murdered for being a patrician were the Sullan and Augustinian proscriptions.

That's two years out of more than a thousand.

If you were just a Patrician minding you're own business, you're fine for the greatest part of Roman History

Actually the definition of pleb is those who were not descended from the original Romans, so technically there could be wealthy plebs.

Primitive firearms wouldn't be very useful without an industralized economy to mass produce them for the military.

Personally, I think Bessemer Process and rail transport would give the Roman Empire an unbeatable edge economically and logistically that would make it far stronger than bang bang shooty sticks.

Dude you're completely wrong.
For starters, homo novus is just what men without senatorial ancestry that acceded public life were called, it was not a title.
Secondly, you cannot become a patrician unless one adopts you, plebs at no point ever became patricians just due to their money.
Thirdly, A rich plebeian could hope to be elected into the senate (and as such the senatorial class in imperial times), but it was an election and the pleb had to want it and invest into it, it certainly wasn't automatic. And many many plebs never wanted it because it came with slews of duties and prohibitions.
Fourthly, plenty of patricians were poor anyway.

Actually plebs were literally just non patricians.
The claudians for example were patricians in spite of having arrived to Rome only in repubblican times, and got made patricians for political reasons (something about bringing their whole tribe to Rome with them).
The tatians were literally all foreigners too, since they originally wanted to rek Rome.
Also a shitload of etruscan families joined the patriciate during the monarchy.

No. Novus homo is not a formal title, and not exclusive. All nobiles were by definition plebs, and it took more than being wealthy

Cannnons are always useful

Okay, but what about the diseases? Obviously it's not like everyone was dying on the streets from the common cold, but things like organ transplants or even anesthesia were obviously out of the question.

>but things like organ transplants
implying 95% of today's world population could afford organ transplants

>anesthesia

Some used alcohol, opium and other herbs.

The upper middle class could afford it, though.

>food on par or above with what is served in the finest restaurants these days
Remember user, no New World crops!

It's just my personal obsession with Caligula and Augustus.

It was a far larger issue than what the history books recorded.

Most of the cause for our recent explosion in population growth has been because people no longer die in droves from something as simple as an infection.

>As a patrician I wouldnt be riddled with feelings of doom due to my societies decline
But you know for a fact that Roman society does in fact decline, which you can't necessarily say about modern society.

> food on par or above with what is served in the finest restaurants these days
Haha no. Your number of choices was far, far more limited than what is available to today. No corn, potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, vanilla, tobacco, beans, pumpkin, cassava root, avocado, peanuts, pecans, cashews pineapples, blueberries, sunflowers, rice, cacao (chocolate), gourds, or squash.

The Roman idea of a delicacy was ostrich tongues or some other exotic animal that they hunted to extinction in Europe and North Africa.

>all kinds of ancient amusements
tawdry circuses, hoity-toity theater, and blood-sport were your only real options.

>besides the freedom to speculate endlessy about the great unknown of the world
Ancient Rome was a deeply superstitious place. Saying the wrong thing would have gotten you lynched by an angry mob. At the very least they would have shame you for having unRoman ideas.

>will show you a wide array of cultures.
Or endless miles of suburban blight with almost no culture to speak of. They made it a wasteland and called it peace.

Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

this greatly depends on the period, there were many times in which the empire suffered a few crises because people weren't getting married since it was economically less convenient due to taxes and social obligations.

if you lived during like, Augustus time, your dad probably would keep you unmarried and you would be free to fuck around all day, join gladiator games as gladiatrix and easily kill people with their arms tied behind their back while a bunch of horny idiots throw money at you and your social circles become scandalized, essentially being the world's first gurl gamer.

I like this.
Also maybe just a message in modern English saying "The Holocaust will be a lie"

>quoting Satan on good life decisions

>your dad probably would keep you unmarried and you would be free to fuck around all day,
Dad would still be pater familias and dictate everything.
Also living after the republic is not my thing, ideally I'd try to drop info in a way to stop the empire from happening

I'd prefer being the fugboi of a patrician desu

>>that image
Combined with this post I would say that you're a dumbass christard.

Romans rather liked their weed.

If I was a patrician I would be the next fucking Archimedes. I would advance philosophy by ripping off everyone from Descartes and Voltaire to Nietzche and Jung. I would be devoting effort to gliders, trade missions to china, and most importantly opening trade relations with Mesoamerican societies. Bring back corn and peppers (both of which grow quite nicely in Mediterranean regions) and feed the empire. I'd show them the steam engine, and how bloody simple the idea is. I'd catalogue world religions and explain their origins as indo-European genesis. I'd breed super potent strains of weed. I'd show them how to construct new plows out of the steel I showed them how to make via the Bessemer process. I'd draw them a pretty fucking accurate world map from memory. I'd show them the magic of boomsticks. I'd show them the trebuchet. I'd introduce them to scientific atomic theory. I'd standardize the scientific method.

With my vast wealth from my trade monopoly with Mesoamerica I would uplift so many members of society. I'd construct a university where I teach the people I've put on salary to eventually work out the finer details of engineering, mathematics, biology and medicine, philosophy and statecraft.

By the end of my natural life i will have crafted a society much more adept at advancing for themselves, and generally more well-read, at least. The most important thing I can possibly give them is how to make paper, and The movable-type printing press. My ideas will be everywhere, inescapable, as I will have a monopoly on paper.

Worst case scenario I can write stories and make money from that, Star Wars doesn't take much to be changed into a Homeric epic. I could play modern music on (specially tuned) instruments, and failing that, even, show them the glory of baseball, divegrass, lacrosse, and polo. I'd tour the world and see all the things we've lost.

Just a friendly reminder that there's a reason people abandoned the Roman model