Download Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic

Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic
Outline
• Plato’s philosophy (Conclusion)
– 1) Crito
– 2) Argument for immortality, and
– 3) the Near Death Experience of the Soldier Er
• Rome
– Cosmopolitan versus Greek Polis law
– Similarities and Differences between Greek and
Roman origins
Argument of the Crito
• 1) Crito’s appeal to Socrates: save yourself
(family, friends, etc.)
• 2) S: We must not do anything wrong. Right?
• 3) C: What could be wrong with fleeing an
unjust sentence?
• 4) S: Imagine putting this question to the
Laws, and having them reply.
The Laws are your true parents
• “Are we not, first, your parents? Through us your
father took your mother and bagat you. Tell us, have
you any fault with those of us that are the laws of
marriage? “I have none,” I should reply. “Or have you
any fault to find with those of us that regulate the
nurture and education of the child, which you, like
others, received? Did we not do well in bidding your
father educate you in music and gymnastics?”
(Plato’s Crito)
Nature of Law
• The laws give us birth, education.
• We can change states, choose other laws.
– But then Socrates would have been a foreigner,
not a citizen, of the new city-state
• He actively participates in law-making.
• => Voluntary agreement with the Laws (like a
contract in trade, business)
Was Socrates Unjustly Condemned?
• The procedure of the law has not been
violated.
• Even if the jury makes a mistake in judgment,
it does so according to the Laws and so must
be obeyed.
• What if everyone could escape a court
decision if they disagreed with it?
• -> The laws would be destroyed.
Plato’s argument for the immortality of the
soul
• 1) Eternity of Beauty, of certain truths of
geometry (the theorem of Pythagoras), etc.
• 2) We can recognize (recollect, remember)
these truths
– Plato’s Meno: Socrates elicits mathematical truths
from an ignorant slave
• 3) So we have in us something immortal which
enables us to know immortal Reality
• 4) I.e, the God-like element is within us, the
soul.
Real nature of knowledge
• 5) To know something is to commune with
that thing – to identify with it, be one with it.
– I.e., real knowledge is more like love: a
transcendence of separate ego identity
– E.g., experience of transcendence (“losing
yourself”) in creative knowledge or love.
NDE of the Soldier Er
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Er’s voyage to the Elysian Fields
Next life lottery
Odysseus’ choice
Recall teleology: what is the purpose of my
existence? Why was I born to my parents?
Rise and Fall of the Roman
Republic
• Edward Gibbon: History of The Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-89)
– Spodek lists Gibbon’s reasons for fall of the Empire
(197-8)
• Empire presupposes the fall of the Roman
Republic
• Why did the Republic fall? How did it arise?
Roman Timeline
• 1) 494-440: “struggle of the orders” > republic:
“Twelve Tablets” of the Law, 451
• 2) 405-264 Internal, Italian wars
• 3) 264-146 Struggle with dominant external power of
Carthage (3 Punic Wars)
• 4) 134 -71 BCE --Renewed class warfare: 3 Slave
wars:
• 5) 27 BCE Fall of Republic
– Emperor Augustus Caesar, 27 BCE - 14 CE
• 6) 476 CE Fall of Empire
New order of events
• Greece:
– 1st defend itself against aggressive land-power of
Persia
– Then fight among themselves for power
• Rome:
– 1st fights with Italian neighbors for power
– Then takes on the dominant sea-power of
Carthage
• Why this striking difference?
Greek and Roman Empires
• Greek empire under Alexander
– Short duration of unity: 331 – 323 (BCE)
– Division soon after death of Alexander
• Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt to 31 BCE: Octavian, who
becomes Augustus Caesar, defeats Anthony and
Cleopatra at Battle of Actium
• Seleucid empire (Persia) lasts to 200 BCE
• Greeks returned to internal warfare between city-states
• Roman empire: long duration
– Empire from 27 BCE to 476 CE
• Why this striking difference?
Similarities of origin
• Iron-age agriculture on rain-watered lands
– away from the power of Bronze Age empires
• Freedom of independent peasants
• Internal inequalities > debt enslavement
• Early “struggle of the orders”
– Roman phalanx
– Plebeians refuse to fight for patricians > veto
• > Republican institutions
Reason for success of Plebs
• Military power based on iron
• Power of the phalanx
• Dependence of Roman aristocracy on free,
prosperous peasant army
• No already existing state
• = Similar to Greece
Role of Trade
• Most peasants elsewhere: subsistence producers
• Greece and Rome: produce for international
market
– Dry summer climate of Mediterranean good for
olives, winter wheat
– => Wealth from peasants elsewhere
– Importance of the rational thought of the
merchants > philosophy
• > Greater freedom possible for local peasants
Difference: Geographic Challenge for
Romans
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Athens, Sparta: divided by mountains
> Greek: narrow polis law for locals only
Rome is open to Italian territories along Tiber R.
> Rome: law for others too
Roman stick and carrot creates all Italian army
– Stick: war
– Carrot: Roman citizenship
Reason for differences
• Romans must deal with neighbors from the
start
– “Rape of the Sabine Women”
• Hence Roman law is “cosmopolitan”
• Hence: Rome first unites with others in Italy
creating a powerful army of many nationalities
• Hence: Rome builds a long-lasting empire
• The lasting influence of Greece is cultural, not
political: “the Hellenistic Ecumene” (157)
Polis law and Cosmopolitan Law
• Alexander: Pharaoh in Egypt, King in Persia
• No Greek system of law: = Polis law
– only Athenian, Corinthian, etc.
– Legacy of Greek empire is cultural (philosophy, art
…), not political
• Roman empire is based on Cosmopolitan law
• > Ability to unite different nations by a single
system of law
Republican Institutions
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> Plebian Assembly, Tribune with Veto power
Aristocracy: Senate
Two consuls (Presidents) elected annually
Other assemblies
– Military: Centuriate Assembly
– Assembly of the People: moderates conflict
Limitation of Roman freedom
• Law forbids enslavement of Romans
• Patricians continue to expand wealth using
foreign slaves conquered in Roman wars
• > Pressure to expand, conquer
• Roman peasant dies in battle
• Lands of poor bought up by wealthy
• > Impoverishment > urban proletariat
Irony of History
• Only some are free (Hegel)
• Greece:
– Accept principle of enslaving others
– Romans enslave them
• Rome
– Cheap slave-produced grain ruins small farmer
– = Destruction of free Roman army, eventual fall of
Roman empire