Many modern historians and informed citizens believe “As Rome went, so goes America” usually in relation to moral decline. Gibbon provides many factors. Romilly’s research brings out the same diverse factors for Greece as Rome but the Greek authors reduce all those factors to hubris (Hybris) which defined means the same – a decline in moral values, first by leadership then by citizens.
- “Supreme power, which everybody longs to acquire, is indeed hard to manage, and it breeds folly in those that court it, for its nature can be compared with that of the prostitutes, who compel people to fall in love with them, but ruin those who indulge in their intercourse.” Thucydides in Peace 102-3; Romilly p.18
- “Prosperous situations [military victories], …are attained and maintained not by those who have the largest and most beautiful fortifications, or by those who can group the greatest number of men, but by those who have, in their State, the best and wisest administration.” – Isocrates, Aerop p. 13-14; Romilly p. 34
- “The beginning of the downfall of States usually begins when it achieves security and prosperity.” – Romilly, p.37. Note: This is true of the U.S. in the “turbulent ’60s as the spoiled brat Ivy League college students tried tearing America to pieces on their parents’ dime. It continues today by them and their spoiled brats.
- “The qualities that enable the State to oppose the natural [de]volution from success to moral corruption, and thence to decline and fall…rest on self-control; they enable people not to be effeminated by wealth, divided by personal ambition, or carried too far by national ambition [foreign wars]. Constitutions help in fostering these virtues, but they cannot produce them directly.” – Polybius; Romilly p.40
- “The sociology of power has but recently replaced the pedagogy of good policy, resting on one man’s morality and responsibility.” – Romilly, p.42
- “Political mistakes arise from a decline in civic morality.” – Romilly, p.49
- “Athens was ruined because of her [internal] divisions. Samos [California, New York] would obviously give the Ionian region and the Hellespont to the enemy.
- …Neither the orators [politicians] nor the people in general were considering the interest of the State before their own any more…
- …the people not only lost their civic morality but their ideal and the faith they had formerly placed in their own greatness…
- …a sort of regular decline in idealism accompanied by a progress of greed and by a more and more realistic emphasis on power…
- …as the war[s] went on, Athen’s tyranny became more oppressive [DHS]…
- …it bred self-complacency and left the people lazy, devoid of courage or ambition…
- …what counts more than anything in the preservation of power is morality – both for the individuals and the State…
- …it explains the passage from power to downfall by the corrupting influence of security, prosperity, and power…
- …the arrival of wealth was one of the causes that ruined Sparta…and Rome. Private luxury leads to indolence, idleness, and insubordination… [Note: several Founding Fathers describe southerners in those exact terms for the use of slavery]
- …the first step toward obtaining a State’s respect and love of its citizens is to change advisors.” – Isocrates, Thucydides, Demosthenes, and all the authors! Romilly, pgs. 54-57.
- Did you read the news article describing President Trump’s firing of all the IG directors (who were all Obama appointees) because he needed people he could trust to spend that 2.2 trillion “bail-out” where it was intended? – only 20% of which is going to the taxpayers (thanks a lot Pelosi). What previous president have you ever heard say that! Trump 2024!
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – George Santayana.
