06-18-2009, 07:50 AM
Quote:is it conceivable that freemasons of the past were so taken by the constitutional apparatus of the Roman Republic that they consciously sought to emulate it?Why not? It's an eighteenth-century institution, and if you look at the western revolutions of that age (USA 1776, Netherlands 1785, France 1789), you will often see parallels with the Roman Republic. The US constitution was deliberately modelled on ancient Rome, with a Senate seated on a Capitol, with fasces as symbol, and a president who is also supreme commander of the army - Jefferson initially wanted two consuls serving for one year.
