{"id":1489,"date":"2016-11-08T19:40:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T01:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=1489"},"modified":"2018-01-30T21:25:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T03:25:08","slug":"exchanging-tyrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2016\/11\/08\/exchanging-tyrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Exchanging Tyrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

“This is clear at once to the dullest-witted man in Rome that, so far from having escaped from tyranny, they had only exchanged one tyrant for another<\/strong>. \u00a0As for the elder Marius, he had always had a savage character, and power had intensified, not altered his natural disposition. \u00a0Sulla, on the other hand, had used his good fortune moderately at first and had behaved like a normal person, he had acquired the reputation of being a leader who was both an aristocrat and a friend of the people; then too from his earliest days he had been one who loved laughter and one who, so far from disguising his tenderer feelings, would often burst into tears. \u00a0It was natural therefore that his behaviour should cast a certain suspicion on the very idea of high office and should make people think that these great powers bring about a change in the previous characters of their holders–a change in the direction of overexcitability, pomposity and inhumanity. \u00a0However, I should have\u00a0to\u00a0write another essay altogether to determine the point whether this is a real change and revolution in a man’s nature, brought about by fortune, or whether it is rather the case that when a man is in power the evil that has been latent in him reveals itself openly.” Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Empire <\/em>trans. Rex Warner, Revised Ed. (New York, 2005), p. 96.<\/p>\n

Here we read Plutarch’s account of Sulla’s victory over his enemies in a civil war. \u00a0Marius, who had died in 86 BC, had promoted an authoritarian government in Rome particularly against the aristocratic Senators. \u00a0Sulla championed the traditionalists’ cause and won in 82 BC. \u00a0The Senate declared him dictator of Rome. \u00a0He used this power to purge Rome of his political enemies through proscription. \u00a0Sulla made lists with powerful men’s names on it and declared them to be enemies of the Republic. \u00a0Anyone could kill them and make a claim to their property. \u00a0This included their slaves who could gain their freedom through this action. \u00a0Plutarch depicts Sulla as a brutal, savage dictator. \u00a0The moral lesson: Don’t exchange one tyrant for another. \u00a0The second one, she, may be worse than the first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“This is clear at once to the dullest-witted man in Rome that, so far from having escaped from tyranny, they had only exchanged one tyrant for another. \u00a0As for the elder Marius, he had always had a savage character, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,120,55,73,105],"tags":[117,116],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-plutarch","category-politics","category-rome","category-war","tag-marius","tag-sulla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}