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View submission: Trumpism, here to stay?
The Roman civil war that ended the Republic can be fairly described as a bitter rivalry between two former allies, namely Pompey and Julius.
Julius very much capitalized on his fame built on the success of the war with the Gauls to maintain his legions after the war. Julius's ally Scribonius, the plebian tribune, proposed that both Pompey and Julius disband their armies. The Senate agreed with this plan 370 to 22. Pompey rejected the proposal and his ally Claudius Marcellus used rumors of an invasion by Julius to charge Pompey with defending the city of Rome.
No, I am not making a 1-to-1 comparison between Trump and Caesar. The politics of the time were wildly different. For instance Pompey was Julius's son-in-law. However, the Plebian Assembly supporting Julia's political maneuvering was a critical part of the chain of events.
Comment by Xerox748 at 27/01/2025 at 17:37 UTC
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Historians generally place the end of the Republic at or after Caesar’s assassination, and beginning of the Empire at the end of the civil war between Caesar’s adopted son/nephew Octavian/Augustus, and Marc Anthony.
There’s really nothing you can point to Caesar doing that hadn’t been done a generation before by Sulla, who in many ways eroded the Republican institutions far more than Caesar.
Caesar was by no means a saint, but laying the fall of the republic at his feet is misguided.
The senate became increasingly hostile and belligerent towards Caesar’s more reasonable position. Caesar’s civil war was in many ways a fight for his life, instigated by the rich oligarchs of the senate who were incensed by land redistribution, of land they didn’t even own. They repeatedly contradicted themselves, and made up the rules as they went to try and legitimize their indefensible position.
Regardless, the fall of the republic began with the end of the Punic wars, and it wasn’t Caesar who ended it. He played a big role, as it was his assassination that led to the civil war that established the empire, but no one can or should lay the fall of the republic at his feet. Especially when considering the previous generation of the republic and the erosion of Republican institutions, and the generals before who had marched on Rome, and the reign of terror they, mainly Sulla, brought.
The most unique thing Caesar did was forgive and pardon his enemies, which, you can only really say caused the end of the Republic since it was those same enemies who stabbed him to death and had no succession plan in place to prevent a power vacuum.
So if you’re saying Caesar brought down the republic because he didn’t brutally slaughter his enemies, then sure, I guess in a roundabout way.