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Comment by safgasCVS | Hacker News Reader

I really enjoyed Dan Carlin’s ‘Celtic holocaust’ that went at length into the character and motivations of Julius Caesar. What I mostly appreciate in listening to Carlin is his ability to sympathize with the people living through the moment but being respectful not to bias his reading of history so it doesnt reflect modern wishes and thinking. It’s in this vein I criticize the book as it sounds like it’s applying modern realities (income inequality, discontent, lack of democracy etc) to the past as a way to justify making predictions you want to see today (popular revolt / trump is evil and will be toppled etc what you will)

But I haven’t read the book so I could be talking out of my ass

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Dan Carlin's "Death Throes of the Republic" series goes way into the fall of the Roman Republic. It's $10 if you buy directly from his site and absolutely worth it.

Along the same lines, fans of Mike Duncan's "History of Rome" podcast should consider purchasing his book "The Storm Before the Storm." It covers this period with nuance and depth.

Currently reading "The Storm Before the Storm" and, though (or perhaps because) it is quite detailed with great depth, it's an enjoyable and engaging read.

I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the recommendations - I just bought both!

That reading of the fall of the Republic long pre-dates Trump.

The final years of the Republic were characterized by fights over citizenship for the Italians, consolidation of land in the hands of a small number of slave-owning oligarchs, meaning that more and more people were unemployed and ineligible for political advancement, and politicians breaking the political rules to push their agenda (kick out the guy vetoing my popular bill) or halt someone else's (kill the guy who passed that popular bill).

The exciting part of the fall of the republic that all the plays and history books are written about, with the civil wars and the dictators for life and the "friends, Romans, countrymen", that was all enabled by the earlier boring but highly consequential political fighting and norm-breaking.

Oh, and this was totally recognized at the time. Sulla tried to address these problems directly with his constitutional reforms, but it was too little to late. Later politicians like Cato and Cicero tried to re-normalize democratic behavior, but failed because their opposition had learned how much profit there was in abusing the system.

>The final years of the Republic were characterized by fights over citizenship for the Italians, consolidation of land in the hands of a small number of slave-owning oligarchs, meaning that more and more people were unemployed and ineligible for political advancement, and politicians breaking the political rules to push their agenda (kick out the guy vetoing my popular bill) or halt someone else's (kill the guy who passed that popular bill).

well, that sounds very much like today!

The more you look the more parallels you see. Unpopular military quagmires in far-off places for no purpose but the enrichment of the leaders, dislocation of traditional ways of life, increasing political polarization, the privatization of the military, rampant corruption, endemic racism and xenophobia, battles over access to citizenship and voting rights, and a set of elites so obsessed with their own privileges that they refused to reform the system in time to save it. All taking place a few decades after a decisive victory in a long cold war, leaving Rome hegemon of the world.

I recommend checking out The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan. It illustrates the process from "hey, the rules don't technically say bills have to start in the upper house..." to all-out civil war, step by step.

Ah thank you for the correction!

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