It's kind of counter-intuitive that a republican system with a citizen militia produces one of the most bloodthirsty states in history. Most of these guys saw the horrors of war first-hand yet they were still voting to attack someone every year, why?
>>18662493The people voting on and profiting from war are not the same people dying on the front lines.
>>18662509In this case they were though. The prerequisite for an entry-level magistracy in the Senate was having served in the military for 10 campaigning seasons.
>>18662493>one of the most bloodthirsty states in historyWhat are you in fucking high school? Read more history, kid.
>>18662513>having served in the militaryThis does not mean you have to be front line cannon fodder.
>>18662514They literally voted to invade Macedon less than 1 year after the end of the 2nd Punic War.
>>18662493>It's kind of counter-intuitive that a republican system with a citizen militia produces one of the most bloodthirsty states in history.only to your modern sensibilities that equate republican values with pacifism.>they were still voting to attack someone every year, why?to assert their dominance, to gain power, to display their bravery, to win, because they thought they could win.>>18662516True and they often weren't. But obviously if everyone saw you distinguish yourself in battle, if you lead people, if you were the first to breach enemy walls (they took special note of who did that), they were more likely to elect you to hold magistrate position over the other guy running for it.
>>18662525>True and they often weren't. But obviously if everyone saw you distinguish yourself in battle, if you lead people, if you were the first to breach enemy walls (they took special note of who did that), they were more likely to elect you to hold magistrate position over the other guy running for it.Are you suggesting that senators were lowborn soldiers who simply distinguished themselves in battle and not the sons of the already rich and powerful?
>>18662493>>18662509They literally were. Any soldier who joined a campaign could get rich with plunder and slaves, so a Senator being blocked from fighting against rich opponents could reliably expect his former soldiers to be on the case like a pack of hounds.As for the Senators, military service was mandatory and winning a Triumph came with money and fame, both of which could be translated into political power.
>>18662516>Marcus Claudius Marcellus (c. 270–208 BC)>Known as "The Sword of Rome," Marcellus won the spolia opima, the rarest and highest military honor in Rome, awarded only to a commander who killed an enemy king in single combat. He personally slew the Gallic king Viridomarus at the Battle of Clastidium. He later led the successful Siege of Syracuse against Archimedes' defensive engines.
>>18662527Im not, money was the most important thing, bribery was widespread. But, first of all magistrate = senator, and i said magistrate positions.Second, lets look at 2 greatest men of Roman Republic - Caesar and Scipio Africanus. Both of them became consuls immediately after leading armies to great victories in Spain.
>>18662537>magistrate = senator,i meant magistrate != senator, its not the same
>>18662493High test
>>18662536When it states it was the RAREST honor in Rome, do you interpret that as:>a) this happened all the time was in fact the norm>b) this was such an unusual occurrence that they have a special prize for it>>18662537Are the war declarations decided by the magistrate votes? Were Caesar and Scipio fighting from the first row in all these battles or were they relatively shielded from physical harm, serving as generals and not front line soldiers?
>>18662493Same reason why the US is constantly invading places. Economic interests.
>>18662543>Were Caesar and Scipio fighting from the first row in all these battles or were they relatively shielded from physical harm, serving as generals and not front line soldiers?Generally speaking, the latter. Do you have a point, or is your whole point that the most rich and powerful weren't cannon fodder? Cause yes, I agree, they weren't cannon fodder. I can't tell if you agree with OP or are you making a separate "rich people bad, make everyone else suffer" point
Roman elites were consistently serving in cavalry which allowed them to flee from losing battles.
>>18662550>During the Second Punic War, Praetor Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus commanded two legions in Apulia against Hannibal. Taken by surprise at Herdonia, the Roman lines collapsed. Rather than rallying his men, Flaccus fled the field on horseback alongside 200 cavalrymen, leaving thousands of his infantry to be slaughtered. >Upon returning to Rome, Flaccus faced widespread public outrage. Tribune Gaius Sempronius Blasus formally charged him with treason and cowardice. During his trial, Flaccus attempted to blame his own troops, claiming they panicked first and left him no choice but to retreat, but eyewitness accounts from surviving soldiers proved that Flaccus had been the very first to break and run. >Facing an inevitable capital conviction by the assembly, he fled into exile to Tarquinia to escape his execution, becoming an outcast and bringing immense shame upon the prominent Fulvia family.
>>18662550Roman Republic would never rule the world if their elites truly had that kind of mindset.
>>18662493You're talking about fairy tales hallucinated by bored monks millenia later.
>>18662549I don't agree with OP. My point is that there's nothing strange about Senators being eager to wage war when they stand to profit greatly from it, while also largely being shielded from the consequences of it. OP seems to be under the idea that senators would be war vets with PTSD and should therefore be averse to war, and while being a general isn't always a comfortable or safe office they are far, far better off than the soldiers actually fighting at the front line.
In their religion when they die they chill in Elysium or try again and be reborn.Modern atheist materialism sees death as the end
>>18662493Warfare was different back then, you weren't subject to impossibly loud explosions near continually for years and various chemicals and drugs. Further most senators who had been through the cursus honorum served as military tribunes who were basically interns among the general staff.>>18662517They found a letter where Macedon agrees to assist Carthage.
>>18662560>Modern atheist materialism sees death as the endSo did most Romans. Elysium was a Stoic meme. People like Caesar and Pliny believed in no afterlife.
>>18662564So Chapter VI of the Aeneid portrays just a stoic meme religion and not the mainstream view? I'm actually curious.
>>18662569Take a guess.>Epigraphers have cataloged tens of thousands of Roman tombstones, and a vast number reflect absolute skepticism or indifference toward an afterlife. Millions across the Empire were familiar with the Latin phrase "Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo" ("I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care."). This was so widely used that stonemasons abbreviated it on gravestones simply as N.F.N.S.N.C.>Other widespread epitaphs include:>"Eat, drink, play, come hither: there is no light after death.">"Once I was not; now I am not; I know nothing about it; it does not concern me.">"There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon... all of us who have died down here are just bones and ashes."
OP what do these high birth rate societies do with all the extra sons with no land to inherit? The successful ones sic them at their neighbors and the survivors now have a farm to afford a family with. That's roman colonization (founding of cities for discharged soldiers such as Pompeii for Pompey's veterans) in a nutshell. Centuries before, Athens too was exceptionaly bellicose. And so were early American settlers relentless incursions against native lands. Giving common people more power than your typical oligarchy or monarchy leads to militarism, at least until modern economic and technological growth enabled majority urban populations with machines replacing workers toiling at the fields.
>>18662576Damn, this is interesting.
>>18662550They would more likely kill themselves before fleeing
>>18662608With philosophical flourish I assume.
>>18662493Yes I'd rather plough the field day and night to then be thrown into the Tiber on the day of 60 years old than to go to war, visit faraway places, bring loot, rape and have fun killing people.
>>18662527Pretty sure that was actually common. Like you see family names who get awarded to 'first to breach the wall' appear in the senate one or two generations later.
>>18662608HE WAS A CONSUL OF ROME! Not a coward.
>horrors of warPeople didn't get PTSD from war pre modern warfare. It was 2 factions facing each other in one big grand quick battle. They weren't afraid and constantly on the edge of getting shot/bombed/shelled/droned from miles away dying at an instant without ever seen it coming every second of the day for years. It wasn't until WW1 that PTSD became a real widespread phenomenon.
>>18662493CulturePeople don't recognize how much culture influences how you think and act Cult is in the name And Rome was a Cult of Mars aka War ConquestAn animals highest right within the Hierarchy of Nature keep in mind they didnt have a self sacrificing jew on a pole or an anorexic nihilist leading their culture they had WAR
>>18662712Source?
>>18662493Central Italian peoples were extremely militaristic, in fact they were the most mobilised urban population in human history until modern conscription, being equal to nomadic societies. Republicanism doesn't really have anything to do with being pacifist, most states in Central Italy had a similar political culture and yet all of them engaged in the same mobilisation and warfare as the others. Every man, be they Etruscan, Samnite or Latin was expected to serve for over a decade in the army, regardless of rank, and they were mass conscripted to make it possible.These people fundamentally believed that their society needed war to function, they were well aware of the reasons to go to war, glory, wealth and political advancement for elites, and (mandatory) service for everybody else. They had everything to gain from going to war, or they didn't have a choice in the matter. They recognised that their society only functioned as it did because of the intense military affairs they embroiled themselves in. This mass conscription and elite culture would continue until Augustus, and until the middle of the 1st century the oversized mobilisation of Central Italians still continued despite the reasons for elites to engage in it ending.
>>18662730>>18662737Hell Plato even thought you should take children to war to raise their psyche for their future trait.
>>18662777730737777Schitzo numbers confirm god is a war god
>>18662527No but the son of the rich and powerful who distinguished himself in battle had an advantage over the one who didn't.
>>18662516There were no canons though
>>18662493I'd wager that it had a lot to do with war looting and the sacking of cities being a legitimate method of economic expansion at the time. And what do we say today? "It's the economy, stupid!"??
>>18662808it is obvious, both logically and if we look at historic reality, that the approach Romans took is beneficial for the state.The only reason why threads like this exist is because with our modern worldview and slave morality we are so cucked that we struggle to even fathom someone thinking like that>so... you will go to war and attempt to gain power, glory, territories, loot, slaves, wealth... without anyone forcing you or some cultural/religious dispute? But... why?It says more about us than about Romans frankly
>>18662808Yeah, the empire went to shit once it ran out of land to conquer for loot.
>>18662823empire went to shit once its soldiers stopped being Romans, but people from the border provinces
>>18662829And that happened because there wasn't any glory and loot to be had, just boring garrison duty at the border.
>>18662808>>18662823I bet you also think the Romans never had an industrial revolution because they had slaves.
>>18662737>"Marius, himself now worn out with labor and sinking under the burden of anxieties, could not sustain his spirits, which shook within him with the apprehension of a new war and fresh encounters and dangers, the formidable character of which he knew by his own experience.">"He fell under severe stress at the end of his life, as well as prey to nightly terrors and harassing dreams, in which he constantly thought he heard a voice saying: 'Dreadful is the lion's lair, even when the lion is gone.'">"Then, as if in a frenzy, he would shout out and posture as though he were leading troops in battle...">"Fearing above all things the sleepless nights, he gave himself up to drinking and night-long bouts unsuitable for his years..."From Plutarch's chronicles detailing the life of Marius.
>>18662834Meant for >>18662730
>>18662834In his last years of life, almost 70 and fat, Marius tried to steal the Mithradates campaign from Sulla (who was better qualified for the job without question, and was given that leadership by the Senate), so he'd be the one leading the troops to fight in Greece and Asia Minor. And then he got into a civil war with him after Sulla stole it back. That clashes with his "apprehension of a new war and fresh encounters and dangers"
>>18662820>it is obvious, both logically and if we look at historic reality, that the approach Romans took is beneficial for the state.Well if you're a retarded Iron Age noble and double entry bookkeeping is a mystery of the gods I too would understand that, "let's just steal their shit", is the height of economic theory. >>18662833Whether they did or didn't has nothing to do with what we're talking about. Can you actually explain what is wrong with what is stated within the topic of this thread or ar you just trying to jack off to how smart you are and post memes?
>>18662754I heard it in a Sandrhoman video. He usually has a list of sources in the description.
>>18662493It's not that they liked it, they had to be extra martial to survive in that environment, squeezed between Greeks, Etruscans, Sabines, Samnites, Volsci, Umbrians, Celts, Illyrians all warlike peoples who did not like competition too much, especially from upstart cowboys
