Rome early in its history was organized according to republican principles, and flourished. Yet historically literate Americans of the founding period well understood how fragile republics can be, when their people fail to uphold the norms, values, and ethics that conduce to the republican ideal and thus to human liberty: When these fail, tyranny must follow. Rome — and Athens, too — are the classical object lessons of how great societies, great human cultures, great political orders, fail and fall, with all the disorder that inevitably follows in the human sphere when such catastrophes occur.
Seems I'll have to check into this book...
8 posted on 11/13/2006 7:47:32 PM PST by Alex Murphy