Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny
At its inception, “the republic provided a legal and political structure that channeled the individual energies of Romans in ways that benefited the entire Roman commonwealth.” But over the following centuries, that foundation slowly weakened, and then rapidly collapsed.
Watts describes how the Roman Republic, which our nation’s Founding Fathers considered the height of human achievement, became the Roman Empire—despotic, corrupt, and anti-republican. He argues that three main factors weakened the Roman Republic’s civilization of virtue: 1) a rapid influx of money in the second century BC, 2) the growth of the Roman army as a result of Rome’s predominance in the Mediterranean following the Second Punic War, and 3) the rise of a professional class of politicians who realized the power of the mob (the populares).
Mortal Republic provides excellent insights into how the Republic became the Empire, and more broadly it speaks to the ever-present threat of centralized power.
Review: This is an easy and fascinating read and a timely reminder of how one of history’s most famous and long-lived republics became a monarchy. The failure of the Roman Republic is the story of how greed and self-interest undermined the world’s most successful democratic superpower and pushed the Roman people to vote in a dictatorship.
There are obvious parallels to our present system and reality.
Dr. Watts prefaces his book by noting the value in consulting ancient history to understand more recent events which might defy explanation at first glance. In particular, Watts’ highlights the parallels between Rome’s Republic, and the modern republics modeled after its example. Nonetheless, Watts leaves it to the reader to draw their own learnings from the Roman experience to what is occurring in our society and indeed, in our world today.
Curtis Schaeffer