The Human Condition IV
“When she was freed of the fear of her enemy and her rival in empire was out of the way, the path of virtue was abandoned for that of corruption, not gradually, but in a headlong course. The older discipline was discarded to give place to the new”.

You may have 2 guesses about whom this quote is concerned.

If your first answer was “the Roman Republic after 146 BC”, when Carthage was finally nothing more than a field of ploughed furrows full of salt, you would be absolutely spot on, although there is another answer as well.

Velleius Paterculus, who authored the sentences quoted above at the time of emperor Tiberius as part of his historic account of the death throes of the Roman Republic, was close enough to the Republic’s last 100 years BC. This was a period full of personal greed, infighting, self aggrandizing, proscriptions, state expansion and individual megalomania. After the civil war of 88 BC and the presence of an exceptional number of personalities larger than life (Sulla, Marius, Pompeius, Cicero, Caesar, Antonius and a vile range of provincial governors like Gaius Verres and Catilina, there was no system in place to restrain neither the state nor the incumbents, who tried to make the best out of a time of confusion.
The rather unique Roman characteristic of individual- and state hubris created a range of extraordinary situations, which are well described in e.g. Cicero’s letters: Being a Roman citizen would be a better argument for being right than any legally convincing argument provided by someone from the provinces, colonia or socii.
There were Romans and there was the miserable rest of the petty world.

The humanitarian protagonists were few and far between, although Cicero perhaps could be mentioned, provided we realise that he was a lawyer – and a good one at that. He would, as all super-lawyers, win cases where the accused was guilty beyond doubt. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus were probably more genuine humanists in their attempt to create land reforms, but this, typically for the period, cost them their lives.
In short: The Roman Republic and its key players were in it for the money, the power and the ‘auctoritas’, i.e. the authority with which they could express an opinion and have the people follow. This created more power and money. The only object of becoming quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul and senator was to improve wealth and 'auctoritas'. It became a competition with not only other Romans, but with one self. There was only one way ahead: more wanted more.

Velleius could in my opinion easily have been suspected for having had a glimpse into a far distant future.
So, if your other guess was “the USA after 1991”, when the Soviet Union finally collapsed – wouldn’t that be a correct answer as well?
I am not the first person to compare the Roman state of affairs of 2000 years ago with the scenario of ‘deja vu’ of today.
With the Soviet Union well out of the way for some 20 years now, an un-opposed drive to expand the state, using the devices of today, was to be expected: money and one-way political influence, peppered with a good portion of righteous religion.
The economic criminality and the Iraq wars are perfect, but sad illustrations.

The country that produced the Declaration of Independence (i.e. human freedom) in 1776 and who keeps bragging about “we liberated you guys twice from the “Huns” (see my previous blog on the Human Condition) has started a headlong, not gradually, course of corruption while abandoning the path of virtue.
Consider Enron, Ponzi, Madoff, greedy bankers, credit fraud and pyramid schemes.
And then there are the Oil-wars with all their lame excuses of WMD, and the hypocrisy around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Not to speak of ‘justified torture’ such as water-boarding, a self-created terrorism plague and the incredible Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison scandals.

A country that faces no serious external threats or imperial competitors and which possesses a huge surplus of assets and energy will inevitably begin to mortgage its resources and start to compete inwards – just like the Roman Republic. With no need to defend itself and no opponent with the capacity to whip it back to the path of virtue, the ‘capital’ can be used to augment its own interest, in competition only with one self, while continuing to use the arguments from the ‘virtue’ days to build power. It takes some naivety not to see how arrogant this is - but an excess number of blind spots is always the hallmark of such states, whether the Roman Republic or a modern super-power without competition.
Hubris again.

As the world has become global this attitude spills over on the ‘partners’ – the UK being the primary one.
UK MPs soon realised that the world was one big jam pot and started sucking it empty. After the intense scrutiny in 2009 more than 200 have chosen to leave parliament, taking the golden handshake while they can.
Oone of the worst offenders is the Home Office Secretary, who managed to get away with an illegal £100K mortgage. Had unemployed Mr. Smith managed illegally to squeeze 80 Pounds out of Job Centre Plus, the might of the state would have hit him with a ton of bricks.
So, what’s the difference from the Roman Governors looting Corinth, Africa and Sicily and keeping their loot?
Gordon Brown glues himself to the stool with mistake after mistake, leaving a bankrupt country in his wake and the UK’s ex-PM, Tony Blair, who accepted a cream-job as a mid-east envoy in which he has done absolutely nothing for his excessive fee, abandons all decency and goes for the talks-circuit with his gained ‘auctoritas’, lining his pocket with millions of pounds. At the same time the tax-payers have to fund a security operation for him costing £6mill pr. year with Blair contributing nothing.
Is there any hope with the Conservatives, then?
I doubt it - they are as elusive on actual change-plans as everyone else and obviously as fiddling with both promises and funds as every other politician.

The Romans in the time of the Republic had the 3 remaining books of the Sybil, which they could consult in order to find a way out of trouble.
We are left with the mediocrity and continued greed from our politicians - and no clear way out.
They can't even agree to help save the planet through better husbandry of our energy resources, proving the point, that if you are rich, all you want is more.
How Roman.

It is not difficult to conclude that the world may have changed considerably in 2000 years, but the human species has not.