I enjoy Roman memes and in a lot of the history communities, I learn lots from others … but the greatest thing I’ve ever learned from Roman history is that their legacy is a lesson to all of us of what NOT TO DO to run a civilization because if you did, it only leads to inequality, instability, that it is unsustainable and that it all eventually collapses. They were a great people but they were great because their excess was built on the subjugation of nations and enslaving entire people in order to get what they wanted. They could only succeed if they kept abusing everyone else and eventually themselves.
Their system grew and expanded when it benefited many people … but it collapsed and failed when all that power concentrated itself into ever smaller groups of people.
Roman history is a warning … it’s not something we should try to repeat like we are now.
What was the ruin of Sparta and Athens, but this, that mighty as they were in war, they spurned from them as aliens those whom they had conquered? Our founder Romulus, on the other hand, was so wise that he fought as enemies and then hailed as fellow-citizens several nations on the very same day. Strangers have reigned over us. That freedmen’s sons should be intrusted with public offices is not, as many wrongly think, a sudden innovation, but was a common practice in the old commonwealth. But, it will be said, we have fought with the Senones. I suppose then that the Volsci and Aequi never stood in array against us. Our city was taken by the Gauls. Well, we also gave hostages to the Etruscans, and passed under the yoke of the Samnites. On the whole, if you review all our wars, never has one been finished in a shorter time than that with the Gauls. Thenceforth they have preserved an unbroken and loyal peace. United as they now are with us by manners, education, and intermarriage, let them bring us their gold and their wealth rather than enjoy it in isolation. Everything, Senators, which we now hold to be of the highest antiquity, was once new. Plebeian magistrates came after patrician; Latin magistrates after plebeian; magistrates of other Italian peoples after Latin. This practice too will establish itself, and what we are this day justifying by precedents, will be itself a precedent.
The Roman Emperor Claudius, who was also a scholar of history (his writings are sadly lost)
I enjoy Roman memes and in a lot of the history communities, I learn lots from others … but the greatest thing I’ve ever learned from Roman history is that their legacy is a lesson to all of us of what NOT TO DO to run a civilization because if you did, it only leads to inequality, instability, that it is unsustainable and that it all eventually collapses. They were a great people but they were great because their excess was built on the subjugation of nations and enslaving entire people in order to get what they wanted. They could only succeed if they kept abusing everyone else and eventually themselves.
Their system grew and expanded when it benefited many people … but it collapsed and failed when all that power concentrated itself into ever smaller groups of people.
Roman history is a warning … it’s not something we should try to repeat like we are now.
“Waow let’s give more power to fewer people, nothing could possibly go wrong” - Rome nearly every time just before things go horribly wrong
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The Roman Emperor Claudius, who was also a scholar of history (his writings are sadly lost)