The Cycle of Political Dysfunction

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In a cycle that repeats every 25 years, say, it's perfectly reasonable to think when you're in the middle of that cycle, if your republic is 400 years old, yeah, okay, it's back to normal. It's stable. You don't realize that this is unfolding on a timeline of like 100 years. Which is impossible for human beings to really care about. But your sense of history is what you can remember in effect. And so if something happened 10 years ago, that seems like a long time ago. That's still true today. I just hit 50. So I get it too."

When many of us think “Ancient Rome,” we think of the Empire and the Caesars. But the Empire was preceded by the Roman Republic, which flourished for a full five centuries. Why, after such a long and prosperous run, would an essentially democratic form of government change — with a good deal of approval from its citizens — into an autocracy? That’s the question I discuss with today’s guest, historian Edward Watts. It’s a fascinating story with many contemporary resonances, especially how reformers choose to balance working within the system to overthrowing it entirely. Lessons for modern politics are left largely for listeners to draw for themselves. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal. Edward Watts received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University. He is presently the Vassiliadis Professor of Byzantine Greek History at UC San Diego, where he was formerly Co-Director of the Center for Hellenistic Studies. He is the author of several books on ancient history, the most recent of which is Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny. UC San Diego Web Page Center for Hellenistic Studies Page Mortal Republic on Amazon Academia.edu page See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.