Having allies is easier than having subjects. “By contrast, the socii recruit themselves, equip themselves and organize themselves. And they fight hard, because they’re fighting for their home communities, to show their bravery to their own neighbors and family (who… Read More »Collections: How to Roman Republic 101, Addenda: The Socii
Laws mean nothing if people do not take them seriously. “The lion’s share of Sulla’s reforms consisted, after all, in writing into law limits that had once been customary and codifying expectations which before had been unspoken and it did… Read More »Collections: How to Roman Republic 101, Part IIIc: Ten Tribunes, Two Censors and Twenty-Six Guys
Many reasons.
This is some stupid mafia level shit people just get along with.
Dictatorship was a different thing in old and new Rome. “This point is often missed in teaching Roman history because Roman history is very long and so gets very compressed in a classroom environment. Even in a college course focused… Read More »Collections: The Roman Dictatorship: How Did It Work? Did It Work?
Crash course on WWIII.
I was tought history of communists so plebeian were always depicted as oppressed. Well. “So, repeat after me: the patrician/plebeian distinction is not particularly meaningful in the Middle Republic. There are rich plebeian families in the Middle Republic who are… Read More »Collections: How to Roman Republic 101, Part I: SPQR
Sometimes charging less means you make more. “There’s probably some rich guy out there who would be willing to pay $10,000 to see a Xavier basketball game, especially if Jay Wright came out of retirement for the Muskies to play… Read More »College Sports is Now Just a Monopoly with First-Degree Price Discrimination and a Labor Market with Lopsided Bargaining Power
2 and 3 work great if you are wrong. “there are three ways to approach a problem: Move the world towards the desired state Change your perception of the current state Change your desired state” https://andreasfragner.com/writing/three-ways-to-solve-problems
In 21st century we are back to roman camps. “I don’t know that US Army planners aimed to reconstruct a modernized version of the Roman playing-card fort, but the concerns of force protection for an army on the move (and… Read More »Collections: Fortification, Part V: The Age of Industrial Firepower