{"id":2945,"date":"2022-10-12T09:06:53","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T14:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=2945"},"modified":"2022-10-14T10:17:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T15:17:50","slug":"legislation-abounded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2022\/10\/12\/legislation-abounded\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislation Abounded"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Hence arose demagogues like the Gracchi and Lucius Appuleius Saturnis – and the senate’s partisans such as Marcus Livius Drusus with their equally comprehensive offers.\u00a0 By these, Italian hopes were raised, only to be dashed by the tribunes’ vetoes.\u00a0 Even during the Social and Civil Wars, contradictory legislation continued.\u00a0 Then the dictator Sulla repealed or altered earlier laws, and passed more himself.\u00a0 A pause followed; but not for long, since disorder quickly returned owing to the legislation of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (II), and the tribunes soon regained their power of unlimited popular agitation.\u00a0 Thenceforward measures were concerned with personal instead of national issues.\u00a0 Corruption reached its climax, and legislation abounded.<\/strong>”\u00a0 Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome<\/em> III. 27, trans. Michael Grant (London: Penguin, 1956, reprint 1996),\u00a0 pp. 132-133. [Emphasis added]<\/p>\n

In this paragraph Cornelius Tacitus (b. c. AD 56) summarized part of the late history of the Roman Republic from 133 BC to 77 BC.\u00a0 At this time, Roman dominance of the Mediterranean world was already changing the Roman State from a Republic to an empire. Various factions emerged in a struggle for power that lasted for decades.\u00a0 Every leader of a faction seemed to want only to enrich his allies and punish his enemies.\u00a0 Sulla did this ruthlessly through mass executions and exiles.\u00a0 As Tacitus points out, they passed new laws constantly, but these laws only served their corrupt enforcers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Hence arose demagogues like the Gracchi and Lucius Appuleius Saturnis – and the senate’s partisans such as Marcus Livius Drusus with their equally comprehensive offers.\u00a0 By these, Italian hopes were raised, only to be dashed by the tribunes’ vetoes.\u00a0 Even … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,73,151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-politics","category-rome","category-tacitus","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945","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=2945"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2994,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2945\/revisions\/2994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}