Imperial or Republican

the Roman empire is the original "tyranny is a mixed bag" theme of every great empire. If there was some way of making sure that only good men right for the job became emperor(your constantines, trajans, hadrians, and aurelius's) other than "might makes right," but instead the very founding of the empire being so embedded in violence means that it was doomed to be torn apart by civil war until it's demise, and if you look at the west they were still fighting each other just as much as their enemies until the very end. Sometimes you get good rulers, but sometimes the ruler either can't raise good heir, the heir dies, or some charismatic general pushes himself to the top, and you think "well might makes right" but then you realize how untenable that is. What's the right balance between stability and blood lines vs merit? when is it justified for merit to overcome blood and vice versa? Most of the greatest emperors were not true sons of the previous emperor, and most had to fight a civil war to maintain power, so is the civil war worth it to figure out which leader is the most worthy? Or perhaps the safer route through blood is preferable for its stability even if the leaders lack the drive and vision of a self made man, who knows. The point is, it's the 21st century and we still can't figure out how to make an autocratic government maintain the prowess of its founders whilst ensuring a stable succession scheme. that's why we pretty much collectively dropped the notion and went back to republicanism, because in tyrannical government, everything is good when the leader is good, but it all goes to shit when the leader isn't right for the job. Sometimes he is right for the job but there just happens to be someone else who thinks they're better for it and violence ensues.

To summarize, the empire was doomed to fail because tyrannies arent stable forms of government. You might get a lucky string of good rulers but ultimately it's luck and it won't always be good.

Memes

Caesar did nothing wrong

Oh, and both were killed not because of the reform, but because they tried to undermine the constitution by being elected two times in a row and having armed bands of followers with them.

This

Let's put it like this: both parties were completely indifferent to law and tradition, so there's no moral high ground to be had there.
Both parties relied on force to achieve their goals, so the right is with the winner (which would be Octavian).
Both parties held onto some ideal view of how the republic ought to be governed, so the right is with the one you agree with, which is kinda subjective depending on what you value more.

That's exactly what the aristocracy did, by proxy. They force the landowner off to war, watch their undermanned and unattended farms decline in value and then buy them for pennies.

>To summarize, the empire was doomed to fail because tyrannies arent stable forms of government. You might get a lucky string of good rulers but ultimately it's luck and it won't always be good.

>im-fucking-plying the republic was a stable form of government

To me the fall of the republic was an inevitable consequence of the Marian reforms. It was the soldiery that ruled through their dictators and later emperors instead of the nobility through the senate.

>im-fucking-plying the republic was a stable form of government

It was until the Punic Wars.

in my opinion it could have worked if the Senate actually responded to the needs of the people and undercut the fuel of the populist movement, but instead they did a good job of painting themselves as the villains the populists wanted them to be. Ultimately it's all about how you play your cards, you've got guys like Pompey breaking laws in power grabs and then suddenly he's the "defender of the republic."

As far as republics vs empires, the republic is bloody at first but then it has avenues and "speed bumps" for dissent to be channeled into and mitigated, whereas dissent in a tyranny leads straight to violent revolt. Furthermore republics cannot put all the blame on one man, so it's much harder to create a united opposition against so many competing agendas.

No government is perfect, but it's better to have ways of replacing bad leaders and channeling dissent than it is to just throw all your bets into one hat and hope for the best. Humanity is flawed and republicanism is designed with these flaws in mind whereas tyrannies hold these unobtainable maxims and ideals to heart that don't translate into reality, such as "bloodline purity" which we know now leads to genetic disasters via incest, or they enforce some sort of public morality that alienates certain populations. Rome might have had a flawed and doomed republic but that doesn't mean republics can't work, or that tyrannies are preferrable. Maybe in those specific circumstances it was, but then it's not like the empire was destined for eternal greatness either. Those circumstances changed and suddenly the flaws of tyranny shined brighter than the merits. Republics have a good way of dimming either extreme's light, which is the most safe and stable regime type(even if you can point to examples of civil war within republics it's not like you can say this is unique to republics, it's not "the republic" that is at fault for civil wars, that's more of a human nature factor that you can't stop)

>It was until the Punic Wars.

And that is the crux of the issue. Rome's territorial gains and slave-driven economy required a strong military to keep. The military had a destabilizing effect on internal politics. Generals could use their sway over the soldiery to trample laws and seize power by force. It was the same under senate rule and under emperors. It was simply Rome's size and diversity that caused the instability, not one particular form of government.

>tyrannies hold these unobtainable maxims and ideals to heart that don't translate into reality, such as "bloodline purity" which we know now leads to genetic disasters via incest, or they enforce some sort of public morality that alienates certain populations

sounds a lot like the roman republic desu

Kingdom.

none of the incest babies in a republic have complete control, so nobody is corrupted absolutely. Sometimes the difference between a manageable psychopath and a completely batshit one is circumstance. Hitler's just another crazy dude until you give him power, then suddenly tyranny doesn't seem so appealing. It's one thing to have an incest retard being a retard and ruining one specific family, it's another when that incest retard has the entire empire as his "family" and proceeds to shoulder the entire system based on his specific insanity. Republics are practically designed to make sure that whatever works in whatever specific area should be allowed to work, that locals know their territory better than an autocrat thousands of miles away. It's certainly more stable than some Nero or Caligula being given power to really fuck shit up when in a republic their influence would be naturally tamed.

>You can't steal people's land.
you're retarded. It wasn't the aristocrat's land to begin with. The aristocrats had been illegally possessing public land conquered in southern italy for their own estates and the Gracchi were simply trying to disentangle the nature of these landholdings and fairly distributing it to those most in need of it, i.e. those veterans who had served the republic and had become dispossessed of their farms due to decades of campaigning abroad.

>Hitler
Was the result of a republican system.

>illegally
Mostly legally actually. The illegality wasn't in the possession, it was in the multiplicity of tax evasion scams (token sanctuaries to make it religious untaxable land) and rent scams (the censor who set the rent rates is a relative or was bribed to make it just a token rather than a good business deal.

>who wanted to achieve political power by appeasing the Roman crowd,
As far as i know, the mob was not a factor in politics until Marius started recruiting soldiers from the urban slums who had no resources whatsoever. In the Gracchus' time there were still property qualifications for serving in the military, and so these soldiers were qualified to work the land.

i enjoyed this post ty senpai

Roman mob rule had nothing to do with the army tho. It was about using the people's assembly to bypass the senate and approve laws, and about using armed gangs to disperse assemblies at need (thus stopping votes if necessary) and intimidate opposing tribunes to stop them from vetoing shit.
You could very legitimately say the Gracchi started it, and Saturninus continued it. Mind you, Saturninus is right about contemporary with Marius' reforms, but the army had fuck nothing to do with his politics. In fact, even when he got taken down himself (by Marius of all people), it was in a pitched battle between his people (mostly freed slaves) and the senators themselves (like, literally the senators and their kinsmen led by Marius proceeding in formation through the roman forum taking on the mob). No active soldiers involved.
From there, mob rule happened under Clodius, Pompey, Milo, Anthony. They all used freemen, slaves and gladiators, not soldiers to force their will in the assemblies.

so was Caesar or any other "republic turned empire" story. That doesn'teat it was a republic when they were done with it.

>Mostly legally actually
more details? wasn't it a matter of cronyism that made the seizure of these lands legal? as you say yourself the land was able to be occupied because nepotism made it very cheap

i'm sorry for insulting you or that user, btw, it was banter.

I think he's saying though that if the republic were, in fact, able to keep autocracy or just plain megalomaniacs from power, the Roman Republic and Weimar Republics show us that it isn't the case

they might come to power legally but everything a tyrant does from that point on is dismantle the republic, so the fall of the republic does not happen "legally" but through an enforced and eventually accepted reality.

I see. My brain always seems to erase the nuances of Roman history that I need refreshing from time to time. But what did the mob have to gain from the Gracchi if these policies didn't benefit them. They were supposed to get farms for themselves, right? Or was it better prices for grain, or something like that?

>f the Senate actually responded to the needs of the people and undercut the fuel of the populist movement, but instead they did a good job of painting themselves as the villains the populists wanted them to be.
hey. sounds like today all over again. I wonder when our ceasar shows up.

but what then led to these autocracies in the first place? are you arguing that the factors that led hitler or caesar to power are independent of the political system that existed during the time which they lived? after all, a dictator taking control of an empire will also use force to trump the legal order of things just as much as one coming to power in a republic.

Trump is basically a marius or sulla so within a few decades desu

So it's a question of rule-of-law versus rule-of-force, not a question of republicanism vs autocracy.

>But what did the mob have to gain from the Gracchi if these policies didn't benefit them. They were supposed to get farms for themselves, right?
Yes. The impoverished farmers flocked to the city and made up a big part of the proles. The agrarian reforms would givew them back some land to famr.

>wasn't it a matter of cronyism that made the seizure of these lands legal
Yes. The problem is that said cronyism wasn't actually illegal for most of republican history. Sulla was one of the few who tried to put a stop to endemic corruption, but his attempts, like every other one made before his, was undone after he died. In fact, almost all of his reforms were done away with within 10 years of his death, which is why the situation Caesar had to deal with was every little bit as bad as Sulla's, and he went about his way in a far more long term way than his uncle. But then Sulla was already aware of his terminal illness while he was still in Asia Minor. Who's to say he wouldn't have done the same as his nephew without whatever wasting affliction he was affected with tormenting him?

This. The Gracchus brothers were the Republic's last chance to save itself, but if the Republic would not serve the people, then let it perish and make way for something that will

They did that shit to get their reforms through when the Senate wouldn't even accept the mildest reform in the first place you moron

>it's a question of rule-of-law
But not really. Basically the entirety of roman history from the third century BC onward was a continue rule of force. Force by oligarchs rather than autocrats, but still force. Just look at Pompey: in his youth he literally flaunted how he humiliated the senate by forcing it to award him imperium through special commission while he wasn't even a senator. And before him Sulla, marching on Rome after Marius legally took away his imperium. And before that Marius, murdering his once ally Saturninus after he decided he didn't actually need a general to help him, a tribunate was more than enough to commnad the legislative assembly with. Etcetera. Yesterday's tyrants become today's defenders of the republic. It's just a question of whose power is being challenged. The very concept of Princeps was around since at least Scipio's time, it wasn't Augustus' child. He just took it to extremes by actually taking over multiple powers rather than just rule through proxies and cronyism.

It's what I said. Post Punic Wars Rome was all rule-of-force with laws existing only to be trampled by military leaders. It would have been an unstable mess regardless of the system it adopted, Autocracy or Oligarchy doesn't matter.

>Post Punic Wars
Oh I thought you were referring to the Cesaricides as the 'rule of law' faction. Nevermind then.

The senate had already rendered the constitution null and void by their bold violation of it

At that point the Roman Senate was an efficient city council trying to run the largest empire on earth. It was unsustainable and the numerous civil wars, assassinations, and scandals that plagued the late Republic attest to that.

Centralized monarchic rule was the best way to solve this, the only problem was the lack of an established process of succession.

Yeah, people (especially left-marxist historians) like to view the Gracchus brothers as ancient class warriors selflessly trying to undermine the aristocracy. People often forget that they were a little bit closer to fascism: populist rabble-rousers who wanted to gain the favor of the mob by redistributing the Ager Publicus from non-Latin Socii and tried to use their organization of private enforcers to intimidate the senate and fight their opponents in the streets.

Is it really a Republic is 1/100000 of the population has any say in the management of the country? Anyone not born in Latium (later all Italy) was not a citizen and had no say at all.

Even if the 'franchise' was extended, how is this republic supposed to function across the vast distances involved in an era before rapid transport and communication? My point is that until the advent of those kinds of things, autocratic or monarchic rule is generally equal or superior to a republican system in governing a large country/empire.

If a government is too weak to prevent the diametrically opposite form of government arising from within to supplant it, then it deserved to collapse.

Trump is more Marius than Sulla, desu

>roman republic
>everyone has a piece of power
>they usually fight against each other but it's not anything dangerous for the country
>anyone can work hard enough to get a set and another slice of the power cake
>they usually stick together because either lose if the republic is going bad
>depotism
>one guy has the whole cake
>everyone get buttfucked besides the few cocksuckers
>the ones who desire power are either sucking his balls or plotting (or both)
>the country being raped is a huge opportunity to them get power (better to be king of hell than a slave in paradise)

I would stick with the republic, the emprie just sucked all the golden times that the republic amassed.

>anyone can work hard enough to get a set and another slice of the power cake

wtf lol no

After the Battle of the Orders, the plebeian assembly was just as powerful as the assembly of the people, and any plebeian could become senator.

>Even if the 'franchise' was extended, how is this republic supposed to function across the vast distances involved in an era before rapid transport and communication?
By switching to a representative model.

...

>Surely, some part of the land was appropriated by large landowners,
Some is underestimating the stranglehold they have over the lands and the Republic in general