“I en klasse for seg er Christian Meier. I Res Publica amissa. Eine Studie zur Verfassung und Geschichte der späten römischen Republik, Wiesbaden 1966, finner han at bruk av valgforbund er sjeldnere enn factio-skolen (Taylor, Scullard og Ronald Syme) har hevdet. For øvrig er boka preget av total mangel på kildekritikk idet moralistiske utsagn fra seinrepublikken som beskriver eldre tider som sunne og nøysomme, tas på alvor. Han mener at den romerske revolusjonen er en krise uten alternativer. Det er vel helst hans eget tolkningsskjema som gjør at aktørene mangler fri vilje. Det er heldigvis ikke ofte man støter på en bok som framstår som en så ukritisk hyllest til grosse Männer, grosse Ideen, grosse Politik. Boka blir her omtalt bare fordi andre mener den er viktig, ikke fordi dens kvalitet berettiger omtale.”
— Bjørn Qviller, in a historiographic summary of the Roman Republic,
Romersk politisk kultur og sosiologisk historie, p. 33.
(And this is a book intended for 100- and 200-level students, mind you. 
)
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I cannot say I’ve read any of Meier’s writings, but that does sound a bit harsh. There is quite the aura of inevitability surrounding the fall of the Republic ensuing after the conservative eradication of the Gracchi. Scipio Africanus, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Catallina, they all operated more or less on the fringes of what was plausibly Republican, and all attempts at reconciling the Republican system with the condition and needs of Rome as a gargantuan empire rather than a city-state were effectively watered out by the Good Men of the Senate for a period of centuries. Caesar, Antony and Octavian were hardly the only ones radically changing the Republican system in order to make it work, they just happened to end up being the ones who finally beat the conservativism of the Senate. Could this plausibly have been stopped too? Probably. That doesn’t mean that the so-called “revolution” wouldn’t have taken place sooner or later anyway. ‘Cause without a drastic change in policy from the conservative forces of the Senate, the system kept encouraging “big men”, strong individuals, to blow themselves out up and above the system, and at some point sheer logic would dictate that they would overpower the conservatives. (As they indeed did, to the extent that the conservative Senate’s main defense against Caesar ended up being their age-long enemy Pompey Magnus because the Senators themselves were no match for him anymore.)
30. March 2008 @ 02:12 ( Permalink )
The quote’s funny, though. Comes off as a little bit bitter and petty, but hey.
30. March 2008 @ 02:18 ( Permalink )
Interesting as your first comment was, Loki, I gotta say I focused primarily on form rather than substance on this one.
31. March 2008 @ 19:54 ( Permalink )
Oh, I know that. Just me and my running sore of a mouth slash keyboard is all.
31. March 2008 @ 20:15 ( Permalink )