Many legends of patriotism and self-sacrifice: Lucretia, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, etc. For Romans “the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the one.” (Utilitarianism like John Stuart Mill). Rome constantly at war from ~675 – 235 BC; grandsons of Mars (god of war) Religion: highly organized, but full of superstition and ritual. Law: originally ritual trumped justice so a mispronounced or forgotten prayer could lose a case on a technicality. In 235 BC, the plebeian Pont.
There was massive instability in the Empire when the Octavian forces defeated Mark Antony. However wars seemed to be happened all over the continent at this time. As instability occurred there was a fight for power. The Republic would eventually collapse and enter a coalition government run by Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. They would lead until Caesar had enough military experience out of France to come in and defeat both their armies to become dictator.
“Fascism also recruited admirers from the ranks of the political theorists who sought an alternative to the representative model of liberal democracy and a radical prescription against the alleged decline of western civilization” 36. “In central and eastern Europe, fascism was markedly racist and anti-Semitic. In Hitler's Germany the genocidal "Final Solution" was the consequence” 37. “The fundamental structure of fascism is sometimes taken to be an authoritarian, centralized state apparatus sustained” 38. “A revival of Latin American fascism is possible, perhaps in response to the swallowing up of national economies in globalization; violence will undoubtedly remain endemic” 39.
Once the dictatorships or emperors started taking control and ruling Rome, many things started changing drastically. Before, when the Republic was the main form of government, it was a government created to allow the citizens of Rome to have a say in how things should be ruled and believed that decisions should be made by a group of educated people who knew what would be best for the people of Rome. In the book The Fall of Rome, the author, R.A. Laffety discussed how once Rome became an Empire, it was only a matter of time until Rome itself would only be history. He acknowledged that once Rome became an Empire, the emperor changed all the rules. The emperor now had “right to declare war, ratify treaties, negotiate with foreign leaders, and chose their own successor” (Laffery, The Fall of Rome).
The colonies however, felt that they fought the war side by side with the British, causing the two groups to have different political ideas. British politics felt that it would be just to impose taxes on the Americans in order to pay off their war debt that had accumulated. Taxes were imposed on nearly everything in the colonies in order for Britain to payoff debt; these taxes simply outraged the colonists which is the start of the conflict between America and Britain. Taxes such as the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on any printed document that was purchased, and the Tea Act, which placed an insane tax on tea in the colonies, and basically cutoff colonists from finding a cheaper price for tea, pushed the colonists overboard, leading them to rebellions. One of these rebellions was the Boston Tea Party, where colonists dressed up as Indians and threw the entire stock of British tea into the Boston Harbor, which was one of America’s first major acts of independence towards Britain.
Basso’s Response Paper Place making in history is crucial for people in general not only historians, because we connect to the history by comparing it to the place of event that partaken. For instance when you hear “I came, I saw, I conquered”, you think of Julius Caesar. And you picture a roman man wearing an outfit with a red robe who changed the course of Italian history. But what do you really think of Julius Caesar? I believe you would think of the superficial and obvious imagery of him being a roman emperor with a vast impressive empire before the time of Christ, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Rome & America Can studying ancient Rome help us better understand our own culture, political system, and society? I believe that it can, as history and anthropology in general can. But what specifically about ancient Rome makes it a common analogy to America? In Are We Rome?, author Cullen Murphy argues that indeed America is a lot like ancient Rome, and the similarities are surprising. While Murphy covers a variety of subjects for comparison in his book, I have chosen to look specifically at the military similarities, which Murphy does in chapter two his book, aptly titled The Legions.
Because the constitution was unwritten it was ever expanding to fit the needs of the Republic and its people. It is because of this “elastic” constitution, the republic lasted so long in Roman history. The early republic was controlled by an aristocracy. The patricians, who could trace their ancestry, back to the early history of the kingdom had the most sway over the government and the laws were made to keep them in power. (“The Roman Republic”) Over time, the laws that allowed these individuals to dominate the government were replaced and the result was a new aristocracy.
Some of the lessons were the tragedy that comes from fascism. Fascism is similar to a dictatorship. It is when the executive branch power grows very powerful, and is able to control the country. However, the difference between dictatorships and the fascism is the need for an enemy to take over. Fascism looks for a problem with a different race or religion to destroy which is exactly what Hitler did.
After that, Congress held the power to influence the American macrocosm of its society but internal shifting of power created made Congress into a veritable seesaw. The Congress' Reconstruction efforts failed because of the political shifts in power that caused the issues of remerging to jump one way or another, hate crimes and groups that were allowed to fester, and the social willingness to accept and encourage segregation. In the heated Congressional meets of the Reconstruction, southern Democrats and northern Republicans were at a battle with one another, with each gaining ground and then falling back. The Radical Republicans, as they came to be known, were the majority party rule before the Amnesty Acts of 1872 and were pro-war, pro-abolitionist and pro-freedmen’s rights. Such things passed under them were the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 both of which were ultimately vetoed by President Johnson, a pro-slavery racist and the new member of the Republican hit list.