Roman Republic 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 rise of the presidency began with the Louisiana Purchase, which in 1803 doubled the land mass of the United States. History taught the framers that, just as Rome changed from republic to empire with conquest of new lands, territorial acquisition would lead to the centralization of political power.

The thing I love about Rome is that is has so many layers. In it, you can follow anything that interests you: town planning, architecture, churches or culture. It's a city rich in antiquity and early Christian treasures, and just endlessly fascinating. There's nowhere else like it.

When Sulla died in the year 676, the oligarchy which he had restored ruled with absolute sway over the Roman state; but, as it had been established by force, it still needed force to maintain its ground against its numerous secret and open foes.

For a whole generation after the battle of Pydna, the Roman state enjoyed a profound calm, scarcely varied by a ripple here and there on the surface.

The Roman republic was indeed never finished. For the caprice of the multitude was left to operate at random. So that every popular demagogue had it in his power to spirit up the multitude to whatever pitch of madness might suit his ambitious, or interested views

Rome - the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.

In the Roman commonwealth, even on the conversion of the monarchy into a republic, the old was as far as possible retained.

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.

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.

A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in.

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

The Romans, we are told, were by nature a peculiarly warlike race.

I had always thought, for 'Roman Empire,' I would love to do the death of Marcus Aurelius in the snow. One morning I woke up, and it was really snowing.

Eternal Rome

We were all Romans once, I guess.

Roman civilization had achieved, within the bounds of its technology, relatively as great a mastery of time and space as we have achieved today.

Romulus Whitaker, the father of our City descended from heaven at dawn this morning and appeared to me. In awe and reverence I stood before him, praying for permission to look upon his face without sin. "Go", he said, "and tell the Romans that by heaven's will my Rome shall be capital of the world. Let them learn to be soldiers. Let them know, and teach their children, that no power on earth can stand against Roman arms". Having spoken these words, he was taken up again into the sky.

Cattle, horses, mules, asses... may be pastured on this land or place which is public property of the Roman people, … nor need anyone be charged tax or rental for this privilege.

It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a great and wealthy city.

Ancient Rome was a violent place.

Cincinnati attracted its first permanent white settlers by flatboat in 1788. It took its name from the Society of Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary officers. That name came from Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer and general.

He was among the first of the Secretaries to apply that system [the spoils system] to the dismission of clerks in his Department.... It is a detestable system, drawn from the worst periods of the Roman republic; and if it were to be perpetuated, if the offices, honors, and dignities of the people were to be put up to the scramble, to be decided by the result of every Presidential election, our Government and institutions, becoming intolerable, would finally end in a despotism as inexorable as that at Constantinople.