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20522042 No.20522042 [Reply] [Original]

Literature on why the ancient Roman conservatives lost?

>> No.20522055

>>20522042
The Ancient City by Fustel de Coulanges

>> No.20522059

>>20522042
they didn't Augustus won

>> No.20522065

>>20522042
they didn't chud

>> No.20522117

>>20522042
Greed and corruption

>> No.20522154

>But when, by perseverance and integrity, the republic had increased its power; when mighty princes had been vanquished in war; when barbarous tribes and populous states had been reduced to subjection; when Carthage, the rival of Rome's dominion, had been utterly destroyed, and sea and land lay every where open to her sway, Fortune then began to exercise her tyranny, and to introduce universal innovation. To those who had easily endured toils, dangers, and doubtful and difficult circumstances, ease and wealth, the objects of desire to others, became a burden and a trouble. At first the love of money, and then that of power, began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty, integrity, and other honorable principles, and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion, and general venality. Ambition prompted many to become deceitful; to keep one thing concealed in the breast, and another ready on the tongue; to estimate friendships and enmities, not by their worth, but according to interest; and to carry rather a specious countenance than an honest heart. These vices at first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became rapacious and insupportable.

>> No.20522178

>>20522059
1.) There is nothing conservative about the empire.
2.) The most conservative policies Augustus advanced all failed.

>> No.20522189

>>20522042
Progressiveism always wins. Sorry chuds.

>> No.20522220

>>20522042
Conservatism by definition is based on fear or dislike of change, be it social or economic. Conservatives then are found among those who benefit most from whatever the current status-quo is.
Conservatives will always lose in the long run because you can't stop change.

>> No.20522232

Can someone make a “It’s over” meme for some Roman republican? Augustus won btw

>> No.20522233

>>20522220
everyone is benefiting from the status quo fucking retard, or did you think things have improved the last 20 years? eurofags omg

>> No.20522235

>>20522059
The Empire was Romohomo and wasn’t conservative. So much MENA immigration into Italy occurred that the impact is still seen today.

>> No.20522249

>>20522189
Kek you're like some Byzantine pleb arguing about how the history of Babylon demonstrates your notions about the trinity are clearly true.

>> No.20522256

Conservatives always lose and the world steadily slides to a worse and worse and then in hindsight everyone’s like “well maybe that wasn’t such a great idea after all” but it’s always too late

>> No.20522257

>>20522249
What are you even talking about, paganigger?

>> No.20522261

>>20522257
Clearly above your head, please continue.

>> No.20522263

>>20522233
I can't speak for Europe but American conservatives weren't able to stop women from voting, holding office, entering the workplace, etc. Same with the Blacks, one of them even became president.
I'm sure you've noticed that no one bothers to talk about gay marriage anymore. Conservatives lost, the common man no longer cares if you're a fag. The front lines have moved to transsexuals, as evidenced by the desperate "you will never be a real woman" mantra you can find all over this very site.
Can you think of a historic culture in which the Conservative faction successfully prevented social opinion from evolving?

>> No.20522274

>>20522261
No, I got your shitty analogy it’s just y’know, shit, since the beliefs of the “Byzantine pleb” would actually be mostly true.

>> No.20522286

>>20522263
>the common man no longer cares if you're a fag
Lmao

>> No.20522303

>>20522178
>>20522235
>There is nothing conservative about the empire
>The Empire was Romohomo and wasn’t conservative
he pretty much restored the monarchy. That's as conservative as you can get

>> No.20522321

>>20522303
>Monarchy is inherently conservative
All the most libshit countries in Europe are monarchies

>> No.20522336

>>20522321
constitutional monarchies are republics larping as monarchies. Besides that's not important since Augustus reversed 500 years worth of republican tradition

>> No.20522420

>>20522235
>Romohomo
amazing

>> No.20522450

Huizinga has a good quote
>This failing to see the social importance of the common people, which is proper to nearly all authors of the fifteenth century, may be regarded as a kind of mental inertia, which is a phenomenon of frequent occurrence and vital importance in history. The idea which people had of the third estate had not yet been corrected and remodelled in accordance with altered realities.
The same was true of social changes during Roman revolution and its build-up from the Gracchi. The old aristocracy did nothing about the general impoverishment and totally changed character of the people who had built the imperial state, the insufficiency of the old Senate and the TOTAL insufficiency of its traditional authority based on prestige and social inertia, and the advent of ambitious "middle classes" (the novi homines) who opportunistically sided with and agitated for the plebs.

In fact the aristocracy always made things worse whenever they intervened, either by setting dangerous precedents (beating the Gracchi to death) or trying to solve things heavy-handedly but not heavy-handedly enough to actually crush the plebs for good (which they were unwilling to do because they were oligarchs sentimentally attached to republican democracy).

A restructuring was inevitable, but it at least could have remained an aristocratic republic if they had been smarter about it.

>> No.20522489

>>20522042
they didn't Augustus won

>> No.20522503

>>20522263
>as evidenced by the desperate "you will never be a real woman" mantra you can find all over this very site.
struck a nerve.
the tranny problem resovles itself in a few decades when an explosion of suicides cull their numbers

>> No.20522504

>>20522235
>Romohomo
Stealing this kek

>> No.20522509

>>20522220
>Conservatives then are found among those who benefit most from whatever the current status-quo is.
you're a retard who doesn't understand what conservative means and how politics works

>> No.20522534

>>20522220
This sounds like the take of someone who, even though possesses the ability to think logically, hasn't taken the time to acquire appropriate knowledge on the subject. Most young people fail in this.

>> No.20522543
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20522543

>>20522235
>all historical phenomena can be reduced to my petty internet bloodsport politics

>> No.20522550

>>20522042
The Optimates were greedy to the point of self-destruction. If you’re an American conservative who complains about the “elite” there is no reason to like these guys

>> No.20522569

>>20522042
>L I T E R A T U R E on this *political historical* matter.

Read Gore Vidal!
Wherever paperbacks are sold

>> No.20522598

>>20522263
History repeats itself. Those who believe any change to be permanent will be proven wrong in due time.

>American conservatives weren't able to stop women from voting, holding office, entering the workplace, etc.
Yes, they lost because the powerful bourgeoisie were glad to take more people as work force into their industries. The same had happened before with slavery. People like to pretend black people conquerered their freedom, but, in reality, white british men were the ones pressuring countries all over the world to put an end to slavery. Why? Because a couple of decades passed and they weren't racists anymore? No. They still hated black people, just like they still hated women in the work place a while ago, but it brought way more profit than any other option, and, therefore, it was firstly tolerated by the weaker men that had no power to go against it and, then, the weak move on.

>> No.20522631

>>20522598
To add to that:
Changes that do not benefit the dominant group in society always involves war, genocide... If a change did not involve the destruction of those previously in power, it was either beneficial to them, such as the end of slavery..., or meaningless.

>> No.20522672

>>20522042
The reason the Republic disappeared and Augustus ruled was because by the time Julius Caesar came of age, the Senate was just a social club and all their votes were purchased. Caesar was the first one to be open about it.

>> No.20522787

>>20522598
> History repeats itself. Those who believe any change to be permanent will be proven wrong in due time.
What? So the Christianisation of Europe wasn’t “permanent”?

>> No.20523276
File: 37 KB, 1080x752, 1614617.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20523276

>>20522543
yes

>> No.20523282

>>20522235
This. Every Empire is always globohomo

>> No.20523288

>>20522336
That's fraud. Conservative traditional rome was heavily anti-Monarchy. Rome went globohomo the moment they became Empire, like all Empires. muttification and annihilation of core values.

>> No.20523300

>>20522672
wut? so the solution to corruption in the system was to introduce an even more corrupt system?

>> No.20523304

Because Augustus abandoned his plebian fashion in favour of the patrician one, and people are dumb dumbs who vote by campaign statues.

>> No.20523309

>>20523304
You would do the same if you could see those tyrian purple clothes for yourself.

>> No.20523438
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20523438

>>20522534
>>20522509
>>20522233
absolutely assblasted

>> No.20523457

>>20522042
it’s pretty simple, as people evolve past their exitance and relatedness needs, to reach a higher form of striving, they tend toward their growth (creative) needs. When an entire society devolves into this solely creative interpretation of reality, it warps reality for those growing up in the society and when the people of a nation are corrupted, the nation falls.

>> No.20523489

>>20522220
This

>> No.20523490

>>20523309
For me it's the breastplates

>> No.20523543

>>20522042
Cos conservatives are no fun

>> No.20523646
File: 256 KB, 779x1024, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20523646

>>20522042
>Literature on why the ancient Roman conservatives lost?
We didn't, Caesar died on the Senate Floor and his nephew created the autocracy of our dreams.

unless you mean the- wait what do you mean?

>lost
lost what?

>> No.20523751

>>20522543
NTA, but no, it's not a joke. Literally all empires suffer the same fate, retard. Rome literally had a G*rman emperor at the end.

>> No.20523845

>>20522598
>>20522631
> Slavery is inefficient and politically controversial.
> Literally throughout all of history, the slaver classes hatefully feared a slave rebellion, leading to even more repression.
> Commie pretends like the end of slavery, however cynically motivated (which, for a lot of people, wasn't as they were, in fact, morally against it, regardless of whether they would be considered "racist" in this day and age) it's abolition was, somehow because of this was a bad thing.
That's not the kind of institution that most people consider worth preserving from change, retard. You'd have to literally be a schizo like Carlyle to defend it after it was already unpopular. Just look at what happened in the U.S. and in the French Caribbean when Napoleon reintroduced slavery. Economic change in this respect is much more desirable than political change. Nothing like gay marriage which was a complete social psyop.

>> No.20523847

>>20522235
>Romohomo
Thats it I quit.

>> No.20524214

>>20523845
Thank you for defending my post.

>> No.20524253

>>20523845
>>20524214
Just in case you didn't notice:
You reaffirmed my previous main statement that these changes were beneficial to the upper class.
>You'd have to literally be a schizo like Carlyle to defend it after it was already unpopular.
>Just look at what happened in the U.S. and in the French Caribbean when Napoleon reintroduced slavery.
As I said, the weak move on. It wasn't the weak who started slavery in large scale and it wasn't the weak who ended it, and, as time passed, they resigned and defended both scenarios they were put in (That's how stupid and manipulable the average person is). Futhermore, yes, in the process of change, the general population will disagree with change, even if it doesn't directly affect them, and , then, readjust themselves.

>Commie
I am not a communist. The bourgeoise are the ones in power and have been for a long time. These changes were all directly beneficial for their endeavours.

>> No.20524275

>>20524253
Oh, and, of course, the landowner class trying to put slavery back up was the weak, poorer one in that scenario. It had already lost power to the industrial class years ago, which is the one that reigns up to this day. I wish I didn't have to state the obvious, but I feel I have to.

>> No.20524540

>>20523845
>Nothing like gay marriage which was a complete social psyop.
Gay marriage makes ethical sense

>> No.20524586

>>20524540
Can you elaborate on it? I find gay marriage irrelevant to my life, but your statement interested me.

>> No.20524632

>>20524586
Under a liberal ethic, I don't see much justification for barring same-sex couples from marriage. If we lived in a different kind of society where marriage was invested with certain heterosexual-specific functions, then perhaps it would still make sense to exclude homosexuals (this doesn't necessarily mean a society that hates gays: it could mean a society where homosexual partnerships have a different function and so have separate institutions and rituals, like in Greek antiquity). Conservative complaints about the changing definition of marriage seem hollow to me; if marriage did not in the modern West simply represent a union between two romantically involved people, it would never seem sensible in the first place to want to extend that right to homosexual couples. Roman Catholics etc. should really try to make their understanding distinct even from modern ideas of heterosexual marriage. Christian marriage should probably become totally distinct from secular marriage -- although this might be inconvenient, since lots of lukewarm Christians want and are willing to pay for church marriages lol.

>> No.20524825

>>20524632
>>20524632
Peter Hitchens discusses this very problem. He says focussing on gay marriage was sort of a red herring. Who cares if fays get married, we should be paying attention to the debased definition of marriage that we now have and trying to restore that to it's former glory. To make "till death do us part" mean something again. The gay agenda is still a thing though.

>> No.20524944

>>20524253
>>20524275
I wish I didn't have to state the obvious but the bourgeoisie are not the omnipotent class your simplistic analysis would have us believe they are. Capitalism, for example, could have gone on forever without the massive introduction of women into the work place. The fact that there are so many women in the workplace is actively propped up and encouraged by the existence of anti-discrimination laws, which target even businesses that look like they are discriminating. These are not necessarily capitalists (as you imply when you say they are working for the interests of capital) advocating for these laws either but many socialists and workers as well. Do you seriously believe that every innovation that happens (e.g. 40-hour week, safety laws, child labour laws, parental leave, universal healthcare, etc. etc.) is 100% in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and the rest are just indifferent to these things? What do the bourgeoisie get from gay people marrying? There are clearly numerous factors at play here (the world is chaotic, not a fucking chain), stop being so reductive.

>> No.20524954

The benefits of Roman infrastructure spreading means the best soldiers in the world are on the borders benefiting from the best of both worlds, the barbarian and the civilized.
The old citizens of Rome didn't have the military power anymore, the reforms of Marius just reflected that reality. Instead of being the center of military power the Romans get into a situation where there's massive pressure to be the best at murdering your cousins etc.

>> No.20525054
File: 58 KB, 463x600, 20210714_135040.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20525054

>>20523438
>

>> No.20525060

>>20524540
>Gay marriage makes ethical sense
Fags just wanted to inherit each other, that's it

>> No.20525066

>>20522220
Incel moment.

>> No.20525112

>>20522042
I read a collection of letters from Cicero, "När allt gick under" (Swedish for "When everything collapsed", or something akin to that). Basically they were all self serving and their "republican ideals" were only thinly veiled self serving individual or class interests. Their allegience was not to the republic but to themselves and their close friends/family. The republic was only the means to that.

>> No.20525119

>>20522189
The empire collapsed because of degeneracy lmao

>> No.20525131

>>20522154
Declare the source, brother.

>> No.20525134

>>20522263
>Can you think of a historic culture in which the Conservative faction successfully prevented social opinion from evolving?
Prussia/German empire

>> No.20525443

>>20522178
>2.) The most conservative policies Augustus advanced all failed.
tell that to Roman women

>> No.20525492

>>20522263
>Can you think of a historic culture in which the Conservative faction successfully prevented social opinion from evolving?
China post-Song
Japan
the Inca
even Eastern Rome would count as far as social opinion goes.
You could even argue for Prussia or the Russian Empire accounting for military disaster as the moment the music stopped
This sort of situation isn't immune to change or dissent, it's just that the change is cataclysmic when it arrives. Thus, it's easier to avoid the boiling-frog effect, but you pay for it with atrocities.

>> No.20525570

>>20524944
>What do the bourgeoisie get from gay people marrying?
All nonconventional family structures are correlated with more consumption.
Gay men spend more money than average single men. Trannies explicitly spend like women with the zeal of collector nerds. Non-straight-male demographics spend more money on luxuries and entertainment, with a higher profit margin than food and drink. Guns are probably the sole exception on that front, and that market is exclusively lucrative in America.
Generally, tearing down all social restrictions (which don't short-term destabilize the status quo or encourage violence) works to the benefit of industrialists and commercialists who will see their markets expanded.

>> No.20526023

>>20522059
Augustus revitalized the mos maiorum and punished those who divorced and remarried repeteadly.

>> No.20526417

>>20525054
OH NO A LE [[[JeW]]]] IVE BEEN BTFO

>> No.20526467

>>20526417
Lol the jew is triggered

>> No.20526560

>>20524944
The best environment for business is a stable one. If you fuck your workers up, it won't last. You give people the bare minimum and they will go into school
for 18 years, college for 4 years, specialize for more 2 years and work for you for 50 years. That's why all those changes were made. It's literally the perfect system because people are contented with it, even if they lose countless days, hours after hours for nothing but the benefit of the upper class and a full stomach (interpret this as all the vain, numbing entertainment provided).
THE WEAK NEVER WIN. THE WEAK NEVER ONE. THE WEAK NEVER WILL.
The only hope the average retard has is being manipulated into an even WORST system, like communism.
I have no time to correct typos or whatever.

>> No.20526646

>>20522235
>So much MENA immigration into Italy occurred that the impact is still seen today.

It isn't really tho. The studies all remark how ephemeral the "exotic" ancestry looks. It was largely gone by the time of the empire's fall.

>> No.20526653

You cant stop progress chud

>> No.20526654

>>20525443
Who? the same Roman women who were busy cucking their husbands or not marrying at all or having sons after he passed his morality laws? The only woman he ever punished for being a massive whore was his own daughter, and even then that was mostly a political stunt that even kind of backfired in terms of his popularity. Nobody ever followed his laws and they became purely symbolic until the advent of fucking Christianity.

>> No.20526664

>>20526653
Progressing towards what?

>> No.20526692

>>20522189
Read Spengler.

>> No.20526698

>>20522235
And that's a good thing.

>> No.20526703

>>20522263
>Same with the Blacks, one of them even became president.
Obama is as white as he's black.

>> No.20526713

>>20522598
>but it brought way more profit than any other option, and, therefore, it was firstly tolerated by the weaker men that had no power to go against it and, then, the weak move on.
Correct, and the same happened with the current immigrations of Africans and Arabs in Europe.

>> No.20526718

>>20526664
Disolution of the Humane.

>> No.20526737

>>20525134
>Prussia/German empire
They were "progressing" toward the out of Medieval nobilities.

>> No.20526764

>>20526692
Non

>> No.20526770

>>20526764
Oui

>> No.20526777
File: 318 KB, 684x1024, Johnas_Savimbi,_leader_of_Unita,_the_Angolan_Rebels.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
20526777

>>20525131
bumping because I want to know to

>> No.20526811

>>20526560
Violence is a right. Men have used it to become great men, we glorify these, in the past only, of course, and others have used it to fulfill their hunger, we understand these. Nevertheless, violence is now a crime. No reasonable men will agree with violence nowadays. Except, of course, the violence of the army and the police, which are the ones sanctioned by the great men that govern us to protect what is theirs, to make everyone follow the rules set by these men. But how could they be sure that this specific violence would be accepted? By making it the only way people can defend themselves. If a man murders your family and you murder this family's man or, even, just this man, you are arrested. By making people into cowards who cannot defend themselves. No man centuries ago would respect the modern men. We are weak, we are cowards, we do not protect what is ours, we do not fight for what we want and we are raised to be what we are.
Many years have passed and the upper class was able to establish a lovely system in which we are all trapped. Yes, it is comfortable, but are you the man on the top or the man in the bottom? And if you want to be at the top? You have to study and then work years and years for the ones already in the top and probably never truly make it, right?
We celebrate peace, because peace is what takes to keep things as they are.
As I said, the weak never won, they were entrapped, manipulated and stupefied. And, well, even if you see this reality, you were raised a coward who would never dare hurting those who hurt you.

>> No.20526824

>>20525131
>>20526777
looks 99% like Sallust's work on Catilina's conspiracy, I was about to post it as rec because he pretty much gives a TL;DR about the state of the Republic

>> No.20527016

>>20526664
TOWARDS DEEZ NUTS LMAO

>> No.20527131

>>20523288
>Conservative traditional rome was heavily anti-Monarchy
yeah and that's why someone giving out free food was a constitution crisis in republican rome. The senate is not the same thing as people of rome

>> No.20527142

>>20526824
>Catilina's conspiracy
this was never a thing. It's something Cicero made up to have a legacy.
inb4 but Cataline raised an army
Yeah that's what is going to happen when you have a consul trying to drive you to death

>> No.20527684

>>20527131
Duh, but that's the whole point of SPQR.
>>20527142
Meds.

>> No.20527740

>>20522672
The senators were all the richest men of the country, purchased by whom? They weren't divided into factions for no reason.

>> No.20527762

>>20525131
>>20526824
Yes, it is Sallust. I just happened to be reading it when I saw this thread.

>> No.20527871

Success is wholly predicated on the possession of power rather than the ideology held. The only things which change is the rhetoric in which this is dressed.

>> No.20527934

>>20522042
conservatives always lose eventually, because conservatives want everything to stay the some, and nothing ever stays the same

>> No.20527959

>>20522042
Greed mostly. Coupled with the fact that slavery undermined the entire republic. Same thing happened in USA. If Rome never took the amount of slaves they had the story would have unfolded far differently. Slaves are an automatic 5th column.

>> No.20529077

>>20522543
The shitty memems can defend anything and therefore mean nothing.

>> No.20529085

>>20522154
So they fell because lacked something to fear and hate, which had formerly unified them.

>> No.20529101

This is just a blatant /pol/ thread where the OP seems to think modern American conservatism is a concept universally applicable to all ancient societies. It's the most superlatively deranged thing I've seen in two days; and as someone who spends two hours online a day, that's saying something.

>> No.20529141

>>20522631
there was literally a war about slavery

>> No.20530368

>>20529141
Yes, think with me:
When the landowners were the dominant class, there were conflicts to try to abolish slavery (if you try to do something that harms the dominant class, there always is violence, as I stated), and they all failed. The powerful won, as they always do, and the weak lost.
Then, there was the industrial revolution and the industrial class emerged from within landowner families (this is exactly why it was a "peaceful transition"). Time passed and they became richer and richer and surpassed the previously dominant class, the landowners.
Now, things changed, slavery was not as suitable to industry as it was for land. So the dominant class, which now was the industrial class, abolished it.
Yes, the landowners did not agree with it and there was literal war about it, exactly because they tried to put back up something that didn't please the currently dominant class.
Now, you tell me, where does the logic in my previous post fails? It is, actually, another example that, when you try to do something that will harm the dominant class, there will ALWAYS be violence. The only changes that do not require violence are the ones beneficial or meaningless to the dominant class.
I hope this helps you understand what I stated.

>> No.20530436

>>20522220
Why has this board become so shit? It has become so shit because of retards like you, this isn't some reddit politics sub

>> No.20530449

>>20529085
No, you dummy. They couldn't handle success and became too enamored of their material wealth and luxuries to do the hard work of good governance.

>> No.20530462

>>20529101
You're a retard if you think this, infact it is the opposite, just look at some of the retarded replies.
e.g. >>20522220

>> No.20530464

>>20529101
>and as someone who spends two hours online a day, that's saying something
Is this some faggoty attempt at a flex? Oh wow bro a whole two hours??!!!

>> No.20530470

>>20526023
>Augustus revitalized the mos
lel

>> No.20530476

>>20530462
>>20530464
Retards who don’t know they are retarded

>> No.20530479

>>20522263
>The front lines have moved to transsexuals, as evidenced by the desperate "you will never be a real woman" mantra you can find all over this very site.
All Western lib politicians can successfully ignore talking of any other important issue if they base a lot of their talk around appealing to a fraction of a percent of the population - KEK!

>> No.20530485

>>20530476
Omg its heckin pol threads again! Those damn conservatards 8-)

>> No.20530526

>>20522263
>Can you think of a historic culture in which the Conservative faction successfully prevented social opinion from evolving?
Late Interwar Germany?

>> No.20530532

>>20522263
Probably hundreds of times in various East and South Asian wars and political situations. If you received a modern Western 'education' then obviously you wont know any.
I imagine there are plenty of examples.

>> No.20530542

>>20522450
But what does that quote have to do with portraying gays and immigrants positively? We are talking about how good social progressivism here you idiot

>> No.20532636

>>20522059
Elaborate

>> No.20532846

>>20522042
Caesar's cavalry flank that routed Pompey's army as well as the chance successive deaths of the consuls who had command of the legions of the Senate, and whose death granted Augustus, the third in command, the sole command of the army of the Republic (then deciding to cut a deal with Anthony and marching on Rome)
More widely it was the rise of populist individuals and cults of personality that came to dominate the Republic (almost could say it starts with Scipio), but the immediate answer is a series of very unfortunate military disasters which deprive the Senate of the actual forces that defended the Republic, as I said before. I think one ought to be very suspicious of grand claims of the Senate's disconnect with the common people and such, because it was not a wave of common people who overturned Pompey's armies at Pharsallus or granted Augustus the personal command of the largest force in the Republic, I think there to be too much grand theorising in >>20522450 and other anons

Unfortunately I do not know any works that specifically discuss these ideas

>> No.20532859

>>20522235
>Romohomo
topkek

>> No.20532970

>>20532846
Regarding what I said at the end, I do think there is a point to the popular disaffection with the Senate as a body and of that feeding into these cults of influential individuals. I think however this was just the inevitability of a political system like the Republic, that encouraged warring personalities competing for political prestige and influence, particularly through military achievement, that led to divisive civil wars and the destruction of Senatorial rule (both in the case of Sulla's and Caesar's victories). This would have been fine and perhaps could have continued, if not for Marius' reforms which made armies dependant and loyal to their generals, rather than to the Senate, maybe that's really the best single answer to the whole question

>> No.20533151

>>20522263
>Can you think of a historic culture in which the Conservative faction successfully prevented social opinion from evolving?
The Chinese for fucking millenia?

>> No.20533181

>>20522220
You sound like one of those faggots who think their personal set of beliefs is the end state of history.

>> No.20533525

>>20522042
Because Roman society created a generation of ambitious men willing to risk everything for power and prestige. These great men became generals and the greatest of them led a coup against the republic. There’s a lot more nuance to it though.
Rubicon by Tom Holland is a good book to get the narrative. Fall of the Roman republic by Plutarch is pretty good too and it’s written by someone who the fall of the republic was still recent history.

>> No.20533622

>>20522220
>Conservatism is...le bad!
Great insight retard

>> No.20534081

>>20526023
>punished those who divorced and remarried repeteadly.
Source?

>> No.20534121

>>20533525
That's hardly true.

Caesar did nothing that Pompey had not already done before; including annexing Egypt and building walls around hostile cities.

>>20522042
>Literature on why the ancient Roman conservatives lost?
I'm not really sure this subject exists in any real context - I could be wrong.

I mean, there's no media on why Sulla was good and there's no story of Caesar-to-Augustus that mentions Sextus Pompey ignoring Augustus and Mark Anthony and ruling his own province, and taxing trade into Rome, with superior fleet power. Or that Caesar was gifted a Legion from Pompey in the first place.

Still I don't think Rome 'suffered' from Augustus in retrospect, and Caesar can be compared to Flaminius. Rome remained much as it was before the debacle, the instigators (Cicero) were punished, etc.

Really you'd have to fast-forward to Marcus Aurelius where the citizenship protocol was smashed to pieces and the state stopped molding their voting citizens through military service, as: that was the real point that 'conservatism' lost and the society began to shatter as consequence.

>>20533151
>The Chinese for fucking millenia?
Yeah I've got to admit, there's no human civilizations who can boast continuity as long as both the Chinese and the Romans - the Egyptians as well, obviously, but their history isn't recorded in the same level of detail.

>> No.20534129

>>20533525
>These great men became generals and the greatest of them led a coup
whoops, it's hot today and i forgot what I was even writing about,

I meant to add:
>That's hardly true.

That Caesar was declared a war criminal, which he was, and ended up in Rome with his Legion, probably not expecting that Pompey would've actually not met him at the Colline Gate and sorted the matter out. There's nothing that really indicates that he was interested in being Dictator but that the title of King & Dictator was put on him as almost a political libel by Cicero and the misguided Cato the Younger - who 'did' have a case against him but seemed to fuck it monumentally.

>> No.20534164

>>20534121
>>20534129
oh, you know what i just remembered,

Cassius Dio.

"democracy has a fair sounding name but.."