Mike Duncan > Quotes

“But as he stood watching Carthage burn, Scipio reflected on the fate of this once great power. Overcome with emotion, he cried. His friend and mentor Polybius approached and asked why Scipio was crying.

"A glorious moment, Polybiius; but I have a dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced on my own country." Scipio then quoted a line from Homer: "A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain."

Scipio knew that no power endures indefinitely, that all empires must fall.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Pompey snapped, “Cease quoting laws to us that have swords.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“But this was an age when a lie was not a lie if a man had the audacity to keep asserting the lie was true.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“But as he stood watching Carthage burn, Scipio Aemilianus reflected on the fate of this once great power. Overcome with emotion, he cried. His friend and mentor Polybius approached and asked why Aemilianus was crying—what better outcome could any man hope for? Aemilianus replied, “A glorious moment, Polybius; but I have a dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced on my own country.” According to Roman tradition Aemilianus then quoted a line from Homer: “A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain.” Aemilianus knew that no power endures indefinitely, that all empires must fall, and that there is nothing mortals can do about it.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“The plight of the dispossessed citizens might not have been so dire had they been allowed to transition into the labor force of the commercial estates. But the continuous run of successful foreign wars brought slaves flooding into Italy by the hundreds of thousands.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“The final victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars led to rising economic inequality, dislocation of traditional ways of life, increasing political polarization, the breakdown of unspoken rules of political conduct, the privatization of the military, rampant corruption, endemic social and ethnic prejudice, battles over access to citizenship and voting rights, ongoing military quagmires, the introduction of violence as a political tool, and a set of elites so obsessed with their own privileges that they refused to reform the system in time to save it.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Velleius Paterculus later observed: “Precedents do not stop where they begin, but, however narrow the path upon which they enter, they create for themselves a highway whereon they may wander with the utmost latitude… no one thinks a course is base for himself which has proven profitable to others.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Saturninus, on the other hand, was the first to show the demagogues of the future generations just how far cynically manipulated mob violence could push a man’s career forward.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“The emperor Tiberius would chide an overzealous governor: “It was the part of a good shepherd to shear his flock, not skin it.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Reflecting on the recurrent civil wars of the Late Republic, Sallust said, “It is this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any and every means and to avenge itself on the vanquished with excessive cruelty.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“A city for sale and doomed to speedy destruction if it finds a purchaser.”51”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“In the final analysis, Sulla’s attempt to restore the Republic was doomed because he misdiagnosed the problem.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Cristina Belgiojoso, who was so close to Lafayette at the end of his life, watched Lafayette’s reputation tarnished by the hands of more cynical commentators like Chateaubriand. “When he is given his place in history,” she said in 1850, “it will be recognized, I am sure of this, that his political mistakes were caused by too high opinion of the human species and of men; he judged the latter according to himself. One can understand the serious errors he made in attributing to others the integrity, the uprightness, and the sincerity that were only in him.”57”
― Mike Duncan, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette and the Age of Revolution

“Thus the seditions proceeded from strife and contention to murder, and from murder to open war… Henceforth there was no restraint upon violence either from the sense of shame, or regard for law, institutions, or country. APPIAN”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“A raging fire naturally commands attention, but to prevent future fires, one must ask how the fire started.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“it was no longer a specific issue that mattered so much as the urgent necessity to triumph over rivals. Reflecting on the recurrent civil wars of the Late Republic, Sallust said, “It is this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any and every means and to avenge itself on the vanquished with excessive cruelty.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Polybius argued that beyond their obvious military prowess, the Romans lived under a political constitution that had achieved the perfect balance between the three classical forms of government: monarchy—rule by the one; aristocracy—rule by the few; and democracy—rule by the many.22 According to Aristotelian political theory, each form of government had its merits but inevitably devolved into its most oppressive incarnation until it was overthrown. Thus a monarchy would become a tyranny, only to be overthrown by an enlightened aristocracy, which slid to repressive oligarchy until popular democracy overwhelmed the oligarchs, opening the door for anarchy, and so back to the stabilizing hand of monarchy again. Polybius believed the Romans had beaten this cycle and could thus keep growing when other cities collapsed under the shifting sands of their own inadequate political systems.23”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“But though there were no formal parties, it is true that there were now two broadly opposing worldviews floating in the political ether waiting to be tapped as needed. As the crisis over the Lex Agraria revealed, it was no longer a specific issue that mattered so much as the urgent necessity to triumph over rivals. Reflecting on the recurrent civil wars of the Late Republic, Sallust said, “It is this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any and every means and to avenge itself on the vanquished with excessive cruelty.” Accepting defeat was no longer an option.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“As Plutarch later wrote, “It is a most agreeable spectacle for a Roman soldier when he sees a general eating common bread in public, or sleeping on a simple pallet, or taking a hand in the construction of some trench or palisade. For they have not so much admiration for those leaders who share honor and riches with them as for those who take part in their toils and dangers.” Marius personified this type of leadership.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“We are silent when we see that all the money of all the nations has come into the hands of a few men; which we seem to tolerate and to permit with the more equanimity, because none of these robbers conceals what he is doing. CICERO”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“It is this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any and every means and to avenge itself on the vanquished with excessive cruelty.” Accepting defeat was no longer an option.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“It is this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any and every means and to avenge itself on the vanquished with excessive cruelty.” Accepting defeat was no longer an option.63”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Cato the Elder warned his colleagues, “We have crossed into Greece and Asia, places filled with all the allurements of vice, and we are handling the treasures of kings… I fear that these things will capture us rather than we them.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Cicero deplored the practice, saying, “It may not be right… for one who is not a citizen to exercise the rights and privileges of citizenship,” but actually expelling non-Romans was “contrary to the laws of humanity.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Thanks to these endless wars, lower-class families were “burdened with military service and poverty,” and their property would fall into a state of terminal neglect.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“AFTER FAILING TO avoid senatorial opposition with a generous bill, Tiberius and his Claudian backers decided the best play was to rally his popular base by making villains of the rich.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“But this was an age when a lie was not a lie if a man had the audacity to keep asserting the lie was the truth.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“In Sulla’s estimation the political upheavals that wracked Rome from the time of his birth in 138 until his death in 78 were the result of the Senate losing their dominant position. But what he did not realize is that the senatorial domination he had grown up with was a recent development. In fact, that domination was a leading cause of the problem, not a solution. Sulla thought he was resetting the constitutional balance to its natural state. Instead he was just winding back the clock on a ticking time bomb.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“According to Aristotelian political theory, each form of government had its merits but inevitably devolved into its most oppressive incarnation until it was overthrown. Thus a monarchy would become a tyranny, only to be overthrown by an enlightened aristocracy, which slid to repressive oligarchy until popular democracy overwhelmed the oligarchs, opening the door for anarchy, and so back to the stabilizing hand of monarchy again.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic