3 years ago
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Lessons in the Decline of Democracy From the Ruined Roman Republic
The U.S. Constitution owes a huge debt to ancient Rome. The Founding Fathers were well-versed in Greek and Roman History. Leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison read the historian Polybius, who laid out one of the clearest descriptions of the Roman Republic’s constitution, where representatives of various factions and social classes checked the power of the elites and the power of the mob. It’s not surprising that in the United States’ nascent years, comparisons to ancient Rome were common.
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lolwut
how can wealth inequality grow past chattel slavery?
did the slaves have to start paying for the privilege of being enslaved?
it’s cute how Americans think Rome wasn’t a corrupt colonial superpower run on an economy of enslavement from its origin, through Holy Roman Empire to present day western hegemony but rather some kind of democratic utopia that existed in the past and then disappeared after some kind of a decline in its values