Do you think Roman Republic could be saved?

[gookbbong]

How could Roman republic could be saved without becoming emperor?
Could American style government could save the Republic?

[wayne oldfield]

No, I think it might be a bit too late. Could it have been saved? I doubt it because of the size of the expanding empire and the unweildinss of the republican style. I have serious doubts also that a US style government could work anywhere else than in the US. The government of a country must come from that countries culture.

[Bryan]

I don't think the Roman Republic was ever really stable in its history, it always walked a fine line between class warfare and social inequality. But it never erupted until the later half of the 2nd century BC when violence or that of violence became used to get laws enacted. Once that happened, with the Gracchi, it started a precedent that was impossible to stop until the people exhausted and the state near bankrupt from civil wars.

According to Polybius, and one of the reasons he was a fan of the Roman govt, was because it combined aspects from monarchy (imperium magistrates), oligarchy (the Senate), and democracy (Plebian Assembly), each performing a check and balance over the other. The fall came when the Senate also controlled the magistries and their opponents controlled the People's Assembly, with neither side wall ng to compromise politically to the other.

Now throw in a relatively warlike people and you have a recepy for a rather violent civil war.

[Timianus]

No. There was too much money/too much power at stake and the Senate did not have a means of controlling it. The 2-year consul system was inefficient for making executive decisions. Also, you had the cultural system of patronage ingrained into the political system, which meant a few rich, powerful individuals were the only "players" and were in constant competition with one another. Add to that, the founding mythology of Roma was based on obtaining political power through violence and murder. Once people accepted murder as a legitimate means of solving internal political problems (murder of Gracchi & Cicero's handling of the Cataline conspiracy), the system was bound to disintegrate.

It is surprising the "republic" lasted as long as it did.

Read Rubicon, which does a good job of detailing all of the various cultural forces at play.

And, as a matter of political history, republics are not generally long-lasting and tend to fall apart quickly once there are major wars and/or the polity winds up controlling an empire.

[Hasdrubal]

Man has a knack for violence and murder. America (The country I served in the military and overseas in, and live today) was founded by violence and well not particular murder, but more-so self defense.

A lot of America's founding principles revert back to the founders of the Roman Republic. Heck, even Publius Velirius Publicola was mentioned in the founding fathers documents.

In the end. In just about every culture, man will always strive for power over man. It's in man's nature. Total power corrupts even the kindest of people.

I chuckle when I see the foundings of both republics of America, and Rome. Except for the Slavery part, both had noble beginnings, and believed in honor. As they both grew it became a "What can you do for me?" society.

In the end what Tim said is almost correct, though I believe it was war that kept Rome together. After Rome was done with the conquering they had no one to conquer but themselves.

[Robert Vermaat]

I chuckle when I see the foundings of both republics of America, and Rome. Except for the Slavery part, both had noble beginnings, and believed in honor. As they both grew it became a "What can you do for me?" society.

Sorry to tread on any toes but there's hardly any nobility in the founding of most states. Rome wasn't a 'founded state' at all but a few villages in the same neighbourhood, and millennia away from what we call a 'state'. Any similarity between Rome and (say) the USA is based on people looking back. Rome had no 'founding fathers' anywhere during it's history who, looking back and ahead, decided to write a constitution.
Any modern citizen of a state which once cited Rome's noble concepts should realise that these concepts were a (much!) later attribution. Rome's writers and historians could boast such noble concepts, but these were only sung when that same Rome had long since been fighting and enslaving it's neighbours.
Rome's republic was based on weath generated by war. the rot set in when expansion was no longer possible.
But even when the praises of the Republic were sung that concept was already under severe attack and soon to be a dream of the past. And it's that dream which was often cited by fledgling nations of the 18th and 19th century, without taking into account that it was an anachronism to begin with.

[Hasdrubal]

Publius velarius "publicola" was very honorable. Of coarse its culture is different in nature, but they still share similarities between each other.

Even the founding fathers wrote about publicola in the founding documents because of his honor towards the people rather than be a king in which he wrote said laws, about anyone who places themselves king. Of coarse the senate later used as an excuse to take out Julius Caesar.

Then again you are correct in your assessment towards romans being not for their neighbors or plebs. I cringe when I hear people compare George Washington to Cincinnatus. Cincinnatus was definately not a friend of the plebs.

[Justin I]

The Roman Republic worked when Rome was just a small city-state, but the empire was built on a system that required some degree of political and legal inequality. The late Republic (1st and 2nd century B.C.) got its wealth and power by conquering and exploiting foreign kingdoms, then doling out political and civil rights in those conquered territories on a limited and exclusive basis. This was inherently contradictory to the ideals of the republic. You can't just conquer Gaul or Egypt and then give everyone there the same rights as those who did the conquering.
The Roman rank-and-file were enticed to go along with such conquests by the promise of loot, booty, slaves etc., and conquering some foreign kingdom was one of the surest paths to power for a young Roman aristocrat of the late republic. Once you did that (think Sulla, Caesar), you a fiercely loyal, battle-hardened army -- i.e., the means to sieze absolute power.
There were centrifugal forces beyond Rome's control that incentivized and encouraged the decline of the republic. They were forces unique to Iron Age Europe, so it's hard to compare with modern U.S. politics.

I chuckle when I see the foundings of both republics of America, and Rome. Except for the Slavery part, both had noble beginnings, and believed in honor. As they both grew it became a "What can you do for me?" society.

Sorry to tread on any toes but there's hardly any nobility in the founding of most states. Rome wasn't a 'founded state' at all but a few villages in the same neighbourhood, and millennia away from what we call a 'state'. Any similarity between Rome and (say) the USA is based on people looking back. Rome had no 'founding fathers' anywhere during it's history who, looking back and ahead, decided to write a constitution.

This is a good point. In most cases, revolutions eventually work out for the better, because that's just the inevitable nature of human progress. But if you look closely at revolutions throughout history, you'll find a lot of ethically dubious characters. For every Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, there's a Hitler or a Pol Pot, and in between there are lots of opportunists ambiguous records like Constantine and Simon Bolivar.
For the record, obviously the greatest revolutionary of all time is the great George Washington, that holiest and most saintly of men

[Bryan]

Gaul was conquered at the very tale end of the Late Republic, Egypt even later, neither received Roman citizenship till well into the Empire period.

Conquering territories and making them allies (which is what was done throughout the Roman Republic) was not contradictory to the Republic at all, it was how Rome was able to grow from one city state to a union of city states and different Latin peoples, with hundreds of other tribes, city states and kingdoms being Friends and Allies of Rome. This alliance system was what made Rome great and powerful.