Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

It was an article of faith to the Romans that they were the most morally upright people in the world. How else was the size of their empire to be explained? Yet they also knew that the Republic's greatness carried its own risks. To abuse it would be to court divine anger. Hence the Roman's concern to refute all charges of bullying, and to insist they had won their empire purely in self-defense.

Gain cannot be made without loss to someone else.

Honour, in the Republic, had never been a goal in itself, only a means to an infinite end. And what was true of her citizens, naturally, was also true of Rome herself. For the generation that had lived through the civil wars, this was the consolation history gave them. Out of calamity could come greatness. Out of dispossession could come the renewal of a civilised order.

Just like any electorate, they delighted in making candidates for their favors sweat.

This [for opposition leaders to claim royal lineage], in a world ruled by a republic, was what revolution had come to mean.

Enthusiasts for empire argued that Rome had a civilizing mission; that because her values and institutions were self-evidently superior to those of barbarians, she had a duty to propagate them; that only once the whole globe had been subjected to her rule could there be a universal peace.

The Roman character had a strong streak of snobbery: effectively, citizens preferred to vote for families with strong brand recognition, electing son after father after grandfather to the great magistracies of state, indulging the nobility’s dynastic pretensions with a numbing regularity.

The fish fanciers, sitting by their ponds and gazing into their depths, were tracing shadows darker than they understood.

Achievement was worthy of praise and honor, but excessive achievement was pernicious and a threat to the state.

The news, when it leaked out, caused outrage and horror in Rome. The Republic was never so dangerous as when it believed that its security was at stake. The Romans rarely went to war, not even against the most negligible foe, without somehow first convincing themselves that their preemptive strikes were defensive in nature.

Of all Rome’s seven hills, however, the Palatine was the most exclusive by far.

always been, and the safety of the Republic would be assured. This was a presumption buried deep in the soul of every Roman.

More people worship the rising than the setting sun,

Even when they have been felled, let alone when they are still standing and fighting, they never disgrace themselves,

Achievement was worthy of praise and honor, but excessive achievement was pernicious and a threat to the state. However great a citizen might become, however great he might wish to become, the truest greatness of all still belonged to the Roman Republic itself