Cheap Rome -- Power & Glory: Vol. 3 -- Seduction of Power (Video) (Producer, Director, Writer Neil Barrett) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Rome -- Power & Glory: Vol. 3 -- Seduction of Power

Veni, Vidi, Vici: "I Came, I Saw, I Conquered"-Julius Caesar
This mini-treatise on the interplay of Roman politics and their consequences of Roman styles of government starts out in the ancient year of 82 B.C., with a Roman general, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who has camped out just outside the gates of Rome with his army of 50 000-strong Roman soldiers, whom he plans to use as a menacing bargaining tool. Actually, Sulla's complaint was the demand for more land for the soldiers under his command, who, still up to that point, were comprised of the poor, peasant classes of voluntary soldiers. Because Rome still was the Republic at that time, and not the Roman Empire, the Senate opposed this ultimatum of Sulla's because it would grant more empowerment to Rome's lower classes, and, in doing so, would thwart some of the aristocrats'-the Senators-power. Lucius Cornelius Sulla's response was swiftly forbidding. He posted a list of his political enemies that he wanted dead across Rome, with cash rewards for their heads. The presaged civil war ensued, with thousands dying and Sulla's influence being restricted to only four years.

The program then assails with a stunning backslide, returning to 509 B.C. and the advent of Rome being the first civilization to experiment in representational government. Seizing on the example of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a farmer, as the quintessential Roman citizen who was granted absolute rule to lead an army to quell a rebellious local tribe and-after successfully squashing them-voluntarily resigned and humbly returned to his unnoticeable labor on the farm, the Romans molded their treasured Republic in the tradition of such dedication, loyalty and sacrifice for their country. Sorrowfully, as with all things, an ideal is never upheld to its virtues, and the encouragingly democratic system of representational government was misused monstrously through patronage. Patronage was the denigrating act of bribing people to vote for Roman consuls by promises of various favors, such as employment, to the taken-advantage-of, which were always the poor, since only the rich 5% could ever aspire for public office. Thus, because of the iniquitous disproportion of wealth for the rich versus the poor, the rich could dictate-by exploiting the Poor's neediness for work-the class that would solely be represented in public office.

The grandson of Scipio Africanus, Tiberius Gracchus, wanted to change this inequity. After seeing how miserably his Roman countrymen were maltreated, in regards to being disenfranchised with landownership, Gracchus wanted to coerce the Senate to give public lands to Roman soldiers. The Senators reacted in the worst possible way for representational government to act: They massacred Gracchus, highlighting heinously the imperfection in Rome's Republic. Rome's representational government was just in theory, but dissolutely corrupt in its practice. The Senators-that same 5% who tyrannized elected office due to the pressured needs of the Poor in the inequity of wealth-refused because they debauchedly persisted on ostracizing the perks of representational government for themselves exclusively, instead of the equal-representation of a Republic.

This strain on the principled ability of the Roman Republic to continue to functionally operate would threateningly soon be divulged in an explosion of anti-democracy. Enter Julius Caesar, who, unlike his forerunner Sulla, planned to oppose the government of the Senate not for selfless reasons of caring about his soldiers' wellbeing, but to solely usurp himself as the absolute dictator for life in Rome. Caesar wickedly used the thousands of legions under his command after his Gallic campaign in Gaul's northern provinces, as they were now loyal to him, not Rome, from the years they spent fighting with Caesar up North. When Caesar marched on the Senate, it was blatantly transparent that he was doing it for personal seizure of control. The Senate dispatched their best general, Pompeii, who fled to Egypt after being stormed by Caesar's fighting force in Greece. Upon reentering Rome, victorious upon taking over as sole dictator, Caesar guilefully preyed on the barbaric masses of poor by changing some enactments that were neglected by the Republic's Senate, such as free food handouts to the Poor. Accidentally, this ambushing action of Caesar's got him the support he needed to solidify his dictator status, as the Poor then voluntarily voted him dictator. In this enormity, the masses unjustly chose dictatorship over the Republic's representational government, due to the immediate benefits from Caesar, contrasted with the malignant omissions of the Republic.

The moral of the story that Seduction of Power progresses to is how the overthrowing of the Republic to Empire actually harmed Rome's citizens catastrophically more than the wealth inequity that was Rome's only ordeal beforehand. After Caesar had the unfearing objectionability to extort the people to name him absolute dictator for life, Rome's Senate became so threatened, they killed Caesar. Caesar had already murdered the remaining Republic, and Empire was the only form of government left for Rome. Instantly demonstrating the larger warring nature of Empire, after Caesar's assassination, Rome plunged into civil war between Augustus Caesar and Mark Antony. Augustus eventually trounced Antony. Augustus started the 1st dynasty of emperors. Despite Augustus' stewardship of the Pax Romana, this unofficially fleeting mishap of luck wouldn't last. His successor Tiberius misruled with misjudgment. In 23 A.D., frailly, Tiberius withdrew from emperorship to Capri, leaving in charge his closest bodyguard, Sejanus, who was commander of the Praetorian Guard. Sejanus was treacherous; he propagandized Tiberius with rumors of conspiracies against him, which would further distance Tiberius from Rome and usurp more power for Sejanus, who'd ambitions of becoming emperor. Sejanus went so far to imprison Tiberius' own family, all the while with Tiberius becoming evermore estranged from Rome, due to the illegitimate sense of trust Tiberius had for Sejanus. Finally, Tiberius discovered Sejanus' treason, and lured him to a meeting under the cover of promotion. Instead, Sejanus was confronted with an arrest warrant, but killed on the spot. Subsequent emperors-Caligula, Nero-were even worse hurters, with Caligula being a genocidal madman, and Nero deserting his duty for his personal selfish pursuits, like the arts and his palaces.