Posted on 08/08/2023 6:55:24 AM PDT by bitt
Today's selection -- from Collapse of Antiquity by Michael Hudson. One of the famed political conflicts of ancient Rome was between Lucius Sirgius Catiline and Marcus Tullius Cicero. According to the historian and economist Michael Hudson, that conflict centered on the oppressive debts held by Romans, Catiline’s intention to cancel those debts, and Cicero’s opposition to debt cancellation. According to the World History Encyclopedia:
“The year 63 BCE saw Rome as a city of almost one million residents, governing an empire that ranged from Hispania in the west to Syria in Middle East and from Gaul in the north to the deserts of Africa. Outside the eternal city, in the provinces, the next few decades would bring a strengthening of the borders -- Pompey battling King Mithridates of Pontus in the East while Julius Caesar fought the assorted tribes of Gaul and Germany to the north, but at home Rome was facing an internal threat. The difficulties on the home front stemmed from troubles developing in the eastern provinces.
"A significant decrease in trade and the resulting loss of tax revenue resulted in an increase in debt among many of the more affluent Romans. Unemployment in the city was high. The Roman Senate stood silent, unable or unwilling to come to a solution. The people longed for a hero, namely the ever-popular Pompey, to return and bring a remedy. In the meantime, however, there was serious -- or so it appeared -- unrest, an unrest that led to a conspiracy, a supposed conspiracy that threatened not only the lives of the people who lived within the walls of Rome but also the city itself.
"At the center of this turmoil were two men -- Lucius Sirgius Catiline and Marcus Tullius Cicero. Catiline was a near bankrupt aristocrat, while Cicero, his most outspoken adversary, was a renowned orator and statesman as well as a philosopher and poet. Catiline was from a distinguished patrician family -- his great-grandfather had fought against Hannibal in the Second Punic War -- whereas Cicero came from a wealthy landed family outside Rome, Arpinum, a small city southeast of the capital. He had had a brilliant career in law where he was able to use his famed skills as an orator. It was said that people would stop what they were doing to hear Cicero speak.
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sounds like today....
Ecclesiastes 1:9 That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
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