"The Fall of the Roman Republic" Zoom Talk Dr James Rietveld October 14, 8p

Join us on Wednesday, October 14, 8 p.m. for the Dr. James Rietveld Zoom talk on "The Fall of the Roman Republic - Economic, Religious, Psychological and Political Mechanisms and Aspects" for Ipso Facto.

Pay What You Wish: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2002752188709

The Founding Fathers based their government not upon the Greek democratic ideal, but the Roman Republic, a pragmatic form of democracy with its executive and legislative branches and a series of check and balances.
Yet, eventually, the Roman Republic did fall, become an Empire under an authoritarian regime.
How did this happen? What were the causes for the fall of the Roman Republic?
And are there any parallels to the American democracy today?
Can we learn any useful lessons concerning the fall of the Roman Republic that can be applied today?
The Roman Republic in general has great relevance for the United States in that our democracy is based upon this political system and not the Athenian form of democracy.
The Roman Republic, founded in 509 BCE, was actually highly successful, only beginning to decline during the end of the second century and the first part of the first century, many years longer than our ‘Republic’ has been in existence.
The Roman Republic presented the idea of a separation of powers, with an Executie branch (two consuls with one year term limits and no consecutive terms) and a legislative,with a Senate, at first dominated by the Patricians, which was more prestigious and less representative, and an assembly, generally a Plebeian body, which was more representative of the people in general and overseen by Tribunes.
As for their ‘judicial branch,’ a series of judges who were not elected by the Executive looked after the laws which advocated Civil Law, which insures that the law was to protect people and their property from the government, and Natural law, advocating that humanity was naturally good and so we must assume legally that one was innocent until proven guilty. Roman law was extremely harsh, with this two-strike rule and that was basically it,with slavery or death to follow, but very honest. At the cornerstone of the Roman Republic was the ideal of the BALANCE OF POWERS and the importance of constant checks and balances,with the Executive consulship, being like a limited monarchy, the Senate being like an Aristocracy, and the Assembly being like a Democracy.
The fear was over the possibility that the Monarch-like Consuls would become tyrants, the Aristocratic-like Senate would form an oligarchy, and the Democratic-Assembly would fall into mob rule—as Polybius notes. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison made it very clear that this Roman Republican system as described by Polybius was exactly what they wanted for the United States. As for what led to the fall of this Republic, there were numerous reasons, but it was what Polybius feared and our Founding Fathers feared could happen to the United States after him.
The Senate became a rich man’s club, an oligarchy, and only voted to protect their private financial interests, supporting these plantation-like ‘Latifundia’ that were able to outsell the neighboring small farmers until these commoners lost their property and were forced to become part of the urban poor. Soldiers, fighting for Rome, and hoping to return to their farms now feared going home to find themselves instead living in a squalid ghetto.
Fearing the fact that the Senate did not support them, they looked to their military commanders to offer them security and the promise that they would be able to retain their homes and so the military became empowered to overthrow the government if the interest of their soldiers were at stake.
People like Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus wanted to make reforms over the assembly to end the dominance of the latifundia and the power of the Senate, but, unfortunately, as Tribunes, they did not follow the deeply established legal precedents allocated to that office to achieve their objective and manipulated the assembly to do so.
Even though they were both murdered by the Senate, they still created a precedent of ‘breaking the rules’ in order to do a good thing, which, unfortunately meant that someone later on could arrive at that office or another one, like the Consulship, and so ‘break the rules’ to do a bad thing loaded with self-interest objectives and zeal for power.
Also, using violence now became acceptable to achieve such a goal beginning with the Gracchi. And so rose up Marius, a military commander, and Sulla, another one after him, the latter becoming a dictator.
Sulla was by nature arrogant and susceptible to corruption, especially bribery, and was eventually elected to the Executive Consulship, as a result of playing upon the fears of the general Roman Populous.
Sulla was extremely xenophobic, with his men even plundering the Acropolis in Athens.
In 81 BCE, he promised the people to "sweep away the clutter" of Rome (an actual quote) and did so by strengthening the office of consul, giving the office special executive privileges and diminishing the power of the tribunes as well as limiting their veto power.
He made the Executive position unaccountable to both the Senate and the Assembly.
The rest of the fall of the Republic simply followed the precedent created by Sulla, who made himself dictator with absolutely no checks and balances to stop him. All the while, he tried to convince the people, even Cicero, that by the people temporarily losing their power and freedoms he was able to accomplish many crucial reforms and that Rome, as a result, would prosper. The First Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus followed the precedent created by Sulla earlier—with one or two of them holding the Consulship during each consecutive year-long term, and, basically, the Roman Republic was finished. Sulla realized and the First and Second Triumv irate after him the latter being Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus that the people’ were more easily convinced by their rhetorical games than the more educated senators and those of the assembly and so decided to appeal right to them, even saying they were the ‘embodiment of the will of the people,' but, in reality, they were manipulating them to believe whatever they wished, for they had the power and resources to do so. The Republic then fell and the Empire took its place.

This lecture will be posted on the Dr. James Rietveld Salon Lecture You Tube channel, where you can also watch previous lectures: dr.jamesrietveldsalonlectu2903

Dr. James Rietveld is a professor at CSU, Fullerton and Cal Poly Pomona, CA of History, Anthropology, Religion with a PHD from Claremont School of Religion, is the author of two books, and can be seen on History channel's "Crazy Rich Ancients."