Roman Politics Quotes

…the plebeians and the Senate of Rome were often at strife with each other concerning the enactment of laws, the canceling of debts, the division of lands, or the election of magistrates.

The Romans never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someone else's advantage

Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?

I am rearing a viper for the Roman People

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Julius Caesar was an aristocrat who sided with the Roman people. He's not my hero, but he was one of a long line of what we'll call 'populares,' which were popular leaders who tried to institute these reforms that the people were fighting for.

Julian sincerely abhorred the system of oriental despotism which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of four score years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition prevented the execution of the design which Julian had frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus or Lord, a word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin.

My voice is still for war. Gods! can a Roman senate long debate Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?

History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.

We offer them Roman citizenship in order to make them more desirous of living in the city and to induce others to do so.

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? In heaven's name,Catiline, how long will you abuse ourpatience?

[The] emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, [had] reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage.

Let us now relieve the Romans of their fears by the death of a feeble old man.

While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.

He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]

Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.

We are fascinated with our own history, and we are fascinated with the Romans because they were millennia ago, and yet they still capture our imagination because they were actually so similar to us. They were very civilized. They had a very similar political system.

They say that Nero started the fire himself because he needed a suitable backdrop for his concert.

In summary, the Romans were opposed to tyranny in any form; and the feature of government to which they gave the most thought was an elaborate system of checks and balances.

When I was a boy, my grandfather taught me the list of kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius the Elder, Servius Tullius. Tarquinius the Proud was to be the last, the very last, cast out and replaced forever by something called a republic. A mockery! A mistake! An experiment that failed! Today is the republic’s final day. Tomorrow, men will shout in the Forum, ‘All hail King Coriolanus!

I know not why any one but a school boy in his declamation would whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they were rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves and of one another.

[His key to politics:] Bread and circuses. Panem et circenses.

Beware the ides of March.