What Killed Rome's Democracy
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I’ve been thinking about the Roman Empire again. I wanted to make a video about Augustus Caesar, first emperor of Rome. It's a good story, full of fun characters and political machinations that ends with the death of the Republic and the end of Rome’s experiment with democracy. And I realized there’s something interesting in how Augustus did it. He did it by turning his army into a gang. This was his personal private army that he used to steal from Roman citizens and intimidate the Senate. I guess that’s not too weird for an aspiring dictator. But what is weird is that the senators were also running gangs. The government was gangs, the churches were gangs, the firefighters were gangs, the sports teams were gangs! Rome is gangs all the way down!
More User Perspectives
Wow, oh wow !🤯🤯🤯🤯
@theophobosDemocracy? Is that what you call it? The patricians had the system by the throat. The only way plebians could affect reform was to back dictators like Caesar and Octavian.
@HolyknightVader999My god 😮this is America lmao
@flygirl4029To be fair they are all Italians
@ObviouslyextremisVeganThe fall of Rome was 1000 years after it ceased being a democracy. How are you relating them as if they were contemporary?
@AndrewJohnson-oy8ojTHEY ARE BLACK PEOPLE THEY PAINT THE ROMANS WHITE
@fredsmith1439BUT THESE WERE BLACK PEOPLE
@fredsmith1439starting to think a "Mafia: Ave Romana" pitching the old families (and their good friends all over the city, country and empire) against each other, might actually go somewhere.
@DostoronWhat a banger of an episode. Really explains why so many became legionnaires and mercenaries. Thanks, Jack. You keep killing it.
@burneremail53810:05 AI slop
@DibbzTheLonerDon't like the ai characterrs, the video is good thow
@marcolinosalgarone9442Technically it wasn’t Caesar that started the gangsterization of the Roman army but he definitely did solidify its status as one. It was non other than the great military reformer and first near permanent dictator of Rome Gaius Marius.
@lonefilmsipChina: "It's okay to have gangs, but don't do gang shit outside of the palace."
@hailexiao2770Seems like Rome could have solved this issue by reforming their economic system
@AlternativePracticeGreat video as always, minus the AI art.
@ronnieballs8145People really in here defending ICE. Bruh.
@Mary_Jane_theMommas12:19 Augustus shows up with a squad of shiesty wearing YNs called the Syndicatus Persona Verecunda. They specialise in trapping & tapping.
@aquilpengamingThe Roman Senates are literally the UN guys😂
@nerdysavantLike the thumbnail 👌 😎
@kuruma-9tbcrazy how nobody see the similarities with see today with MAGA gang and Trump.
@SamEisa-pt5up6:56 hmmm where have i heard that before
@ianporter2446The Romans understood logistics getting men boots swords and food to the same place.
@dickbron1"the government is a gang" "always has been"
@Aaron-AnsellThey had law enforcement in Rome...of sorts. They had lictors. The consuls had 12 each, the praetor had 6 but only 2 within the official city limits (pomerium), the aedile had 2. There were probably 2 praetors in Rome at most. So that means 30 lictors. Not much. Effectively sure, there was no law enforcement.
Normally the state was supposed to pay the legionnaires after the Marian reforms and they did but probably wasn't enough. They were supposed to also give them land upon reaching 20 years in the Roman army. Thing is the land for retired veterans was supposed to be approved by the Senate and they didn't most of the time. Probably they kept the land for themselves. They didn't think not giving the land to the veterans that had earned it will lead to the legions turning against them or being loyal to the generals.
12:50 If only he could sail the ocean and get all that silver before the Spanish.
@JonatasAdoMMy dudes Clodius and Milo were genuinely Mafia bosses and they don't even get mentioned.
@BaldricOutremerRome was Gangz and shet
@MegaToonzNetworkHmm, this is sounding like the situation that lead to the Grachi brothers outdoing their father's legacy, only to see the Republic's moors and norms break for they were not actual rules, let alone enforced rules.
"In come these two politicians, The Grachi Brothers." Ah. I HAVE seen this chapter before. And it's still so very ugly.
You're just kinda wrong about the Gracchi here tbh. Only Tiberius (the first one) had much to do with land reform. Which went through, after he died, but ulltimatedly did very little to improve the lot of the landless or smallholder Roman. His brother (Gaius) was more focussed (among a bunch of stuff) with citizenship expansion, not land reform. Gaius also kinda launched a coup when he lost an election in 121 BC (the failure of which ended in his death).
@efffvssFun fact , most governments started as gangs.
@dungeonsauceAh Italia, it's always gangs all the way up and down the street, every street to Rome.
@JohnSmith-dd3ziSeeing Rome like this... It's a wonder that their empire could lasts that long
@kaptenhiu5623I don't like AI creeping into good channels:(.
@Sparks_Poland2:18 anything is better than being an actor
@rwilson1197Great video on the whole, but drawing from historian Bret Devareaux, it probably takes the vision of economics presented by the Gracchi rather too seriously. They thought the wars were empowering the rich to eat everyone's land, and their evidence for thinking this was #1 There were suddenly a bunch of poor people in the city of Rome #2 Fewer people were self-reporting that they were wealthy enough to join the army. But from modern archeology, the reasons for this seem to be #1 Rome's wars, which were usually plenty profitable for the common soldiers participating them (see: loot), were turning unprofitable because they were doing a bunch of counterinsurgency in poor areas of Spain (rather than sacking a wealthy city-state in southern Italy or something) #2 Fewer people wanted to join the army because it was becoming less profitable #3 Death rates were going down #4 People who had decided the army didn't sound promising (or returned from the army alive, instead of dying on campaign) were now turning up Rome because the family farm can only support so many people.
@austinfournier5445He was a consul of Rome!
@wheelman1324Gangs all the way down is just another way of saying, Feudalism. Feudalism is the enemy.
@SolinoureWho would have thought Italians would form gangs?
@Flint_DribbleThe daily bread ration backfired eventually when the empire couldn’t afford it anymore
@bobholly3843Greed
@lethalexponent6Did the philosophers have gangs.
@keshavraman773913:05 To be fair, many of those whose land he took were the slave owning elite who had gobbled up the land in the first place. (At least those that hadn’t aligned themselves with him willingly already)
@slovakiaballif247:48 Sounds so… familiar…
@slovakiaballif24Crazy that Italy might have had an organized crime problem.
@FrithonaHrududu02127Rome has many alarming similarities to modern America
@Cathalan0201They say Romulus built this city.
But it’s the Imperial circle that rule the Mediterranean.
We deserve the respect we demand.
Look…no family’s perfect…but we got ways to motivate people.
We even found a use for the barbarians too. Turned ‘em in a whole new industry.
And now…business is booming.
Sure it’s bloody…but we’ve got people for that sort of thing.
And in the end…we ALL get a piece of the action.
Hey, everyone can make it to the top. With a little help from your family.
After all…we made this empire for us. So choose family…or choose consequences.
Family…means business.
Nothing. Because Rome never had a democracy had a a Monarchy, Republic and Empire. In fact I would argue that the purest form of democracy: oclocracy; in the later stages of the empire, is what killed Rome.
@fitz12ify