Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Friday, October 16. 2009

QQQ: Do not blame Caesar...

Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. … Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the "new, wonderful good society" which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean "more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.”


Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) h/t, reader.

Posted by Bird Dog in Quotidian Quotable Quote (QQQ) at 10:31 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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I blame the people. I also blame Cicero and his fellow professional politicians. Their constant quest for power pushed the bounds of the Roman Constitution until it burst. Caesar happened to be the winner, it could have been Pompey or Crassus or a dozen others.

The mob was Cicero's tool also, and Crassus' and Pompey's.

Cicero was a typical politician. Self-righteous and self serving. He could be rightly indignant when it suited him – like his prosecution of Verres. But, he supported the un-Constitutional Lex Gabinia – one of the events that put the downfall of the Republic in motion – just to gain Pompey’s support for his run as Consul.
#1 NJSoldier on 2009-10-16 10:56 (Reply)
Interesting topic, Bird Dog and NJ Soldier. Just this morning I read a piece written by Harry Golden in 1959 concerning Caeser and Cicero. Golden was a Jewish newspaperman from NYC's Lower East Side. He moved down to North Carolina and started a paper called the Carolina Israelite. His book, Only In America, sold millions of copies in '58-'59. He held Caeser in high regard and his opinion of Cicero is similar to NJSoldier's analysis: "Cicero is another one who has fooled us for centuries...He was a combination of William Borah and Colonel Robert McCormick... Cicero was a rheoterician. Julius Caeser was a writer..." Golden praises Caeser's establishment of a senate record, his support of a liberal farm bill, and commitment to representative governance. According to Golden, Cicero ran the senate like a crime syndicate. Caeser threatened their racket, so they whacked him. Golden has unkind words for Brutus as well...
#2 joe on 2009-10-17 06:36 (Reply)

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