The reading this week was overwhelming. I was taken back by the amount of instability the Roman government underwent. Could you imagine changing presidents four times in one year?! It would have been worse for the Romans because the emperor had way more power than our presidents do. It seemed strange to me that powers that were simply didn't abolish the senate all together. With all the power that they had, what position did the senate really have? It didn't seem that they had any real power.
I found Augustus to be the most interesting of all the rulers we read about. They way he expanded the boundaries of Rome is impressive. Also the characteristics of his ruling seemed to be the most appropriate for the time--given some power to the senate. I also found it quite enlightening to learn how our calendar came to be. The origin of the month August and July, and the meaning of SEPTember, OCTober, and DECember never crossed my mind. It never made sense that they were numbered wrong--now it does.
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I think you start to touch on some very key ideas in the whys and hows things worked in Rome.; We definately see the situations with the change in government on a regular basis but why you comment that the senate had not real power. we do see that the senate grands the powers to their leaders or takes it from them. The senate represented the people and with out the support of the senate the leader did not have support of the people. It may seem that the powers that be could have taken over at any point but then you must ask the question why they had to change so frequently..obvisously something was not working the way they thought it should.
I agree with the fact that changing the head of state so frequently would be unsettling for everyone involved. We think that hardly anthing gets done in Congres as it is, if we changed presidents even every year our government would not survive. But this is the way the Roman government is used to working, if something isn't working get it out! They were only allowed to serve one term in the Senate (which is only a year any way) because they were afraid of someone having too much power. How ironic that turned out to be.
The instability of this culture is what layed ground for the slew of rulers. The thing that amazes me i that not many changes were made. Expectations were kept the same for each ruler. Although this may have been touhg, i think the Romans were pretty used to it. Power struggles have been in that culture for years and years, new laws and rulers, probabaly weren't going to make huge changes.
I think Lindsay makes a key point about the power of the Senate. The Senate was to represent the wants of the people. Maybe the will of the Roman people is what kept the Senate around for so long. It seemed to me that the fight was consistantly over who should be in charge and who would return the Republic to Rome in the way it originated. The struggle was who's idea of origin. The Senate or the current militant leader.
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