From a column drawing
contrasts and parallels between ancient and modern thought:
was thinking of the class strife in Sallust’s Conspiracy of Cataline the other day as well; I used to teach it and the Jugurthine War in third-year Latin. In my thirties I never quite understood the standard hackneyed redistributionist call of the late Roman republic for “cancellation of debts and redistribution of property!” But recently I reread Sallust with a new awareness — in the context of all the talk of mortgage forgiveness, credit card forgiveness, student loan forgiveness, wealth taxes, and new estates taxes.
Perhaps there are some useful lessons to be found there, for those favoring such tactics today. Certainly there are for those opposing them.
I used to not understand the political violence in the later Roman Republic that culminated in the Civil Wars of Caesar, Pompey, Anthony and so on...
ReplyDeleteBut during Obama's campaign for the Presidency it began to make sense to me.
However, we're just not as bloody minded as the old Romans were.
Not yet.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting paralells with our situation today.
ReplyDeleteIn fact it's frightningly very similar.
Although the chinese will have a say when it comes to whether we sink or swim, if we don't wise up.
Did you ever read the translation of that PLA publication on unresticted warfare and the total defeat of the USA by China ?
I've got a short post on it, and it's availiable online in PDF format, although you are probably familiar with it, whats your opinion on it ?
One of the subjects in this publication is economic warfare.
It was written by two senior colonels in the PLA after the crisis in the Taiwan Straits in 1998.