ROMANS and OMENS


Disintegration of the Roman republic was brought about by the same conditions which now prevail in our own, 2000 years later. Our sophistication and progress, however, count for little in this lengthy time, for we are at heart the same small people.

A Roman named Sallust, no worse nor better than his countrymen or ours, recognized his culture's lack of ethics but contributed in kind. Like a new congressman brimming with naive ideals to change a rotten system, Sallust was no match for its firm entrenchment. In the plebian analogy of "Beat 'em or join 'em," he was forced to abandon principle and join. As he tells it from about 50 B.C.:

"My earliest inclinations led me, like many other young men, to throw myself wholeheartedly into politics. There I found many things against me. Self-restraint, integrity, and virtue were disregarded; unscrupulous conduct, bribery, and profit-seeking were rife. And although being a stranger to the vices I saw practiced on every hand and looked on them with scorn, I was led astray by ambition and, with a young man's weakness, could not tear myself away. However much I tried to dissociate myself from the prevailing corruption, my craving for advancement exposed me to the same odium and slander as all my rivals ....

2


"Growing love of money, and the lust for power which followed it, engendered every kind of evil. Avarice destroyed honour, integrity, and every other virtue, and instead taught men to be proud and cruel, to neglect religion, and to hold nothing too sacred to sell. Ambition tempted many to be false -- to have one thought hidden in their hearts, another ready on their tongues -- to become a man's friend or enemy not because they judged him worthy or unworthy but because they thought it would pay them, and to put on the semblance of virtues (thereto) that they had not. At first these vices grew slowly and sometimes met with (just) punishment; later on, when the disease had spread like a plague, Rome changed: her government, once so just and admirable, became harsh and unendurable ....

"As soon as wealth came to be a mark of distinction and an easy way to renown, military commands, and political power, virtue began to decline. Poverty was now looked upon as a disgrace, and a blameless life as a sign of ill nature. Riches made the younger generation a prey to luxury, avarice, and pride. Squandering with one hand what they had grabbed with the other, they set small value on their own property while they coveted that of others. Honour and modesty, all laws divine and human, were alike disregarded in a spirit of recklessness and intemperance ....

3

"Such men, it seems to me, have treated their wealth as a mere plaything: instead of making honourable use of it, they have shamefully misused it on the first wasteful project that occurred to them. Equally strong was their passion for fornication, guzzling, and other forms of sensuality. Men prostituted themselves like women, and women sold their chastity to every corner. To please their palates they ransacked land and sea. They went to bed before they needed sleep, and instead of waiting until they felt hungry, thirsty, cold, or tired, they forestalled their bodies' needs by self-indulgence. ... Because their vicious natures found it hard to forgo sensual pleasures, they resorted more and more recklessly to every means of getting and spending."

These words are 2,000 years old, but seem written only yesterday. If we are to survive as a republic, we must first recognize the patterns of past destruction, and succeed in their discontinuance. Otherwise ... we are Rome.

Quotation from WESTERN CIVILIZATION, Volume 1; Images and Interpretations/Third edition, edited by Dennis Sherman; McGraw-Hill, 1991, pps. 98-100.