How Did Rome Become Good?
In ancient Greece there was a situation where there were multiple city-states in a relatively small area that all had different political ideologies. These City States had highly regarded philosophers that wrote great lengths about them. This gives us a great foundation to try to understand the different systems and how they were based. The goal is to analyze some of the different ideologies and find why they were thought to be so good, and what made them good. To begin there is Pericles’ Funeral Oration written by Thucydides, which documents a speech that Pericles used to address a crowd in Athens, comparing Athens to most notably, Sparta. It is evident that Athenians were certain that Athens was the greatest, “When you realize her greatness,
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This resulted in a hybrid system, where if you consider the livelihood of the state, and the happiness of its citizens to be the benchmark of what is good, than Rome would be the best state. Polybius considered it the best state because “the strength which is developed by the State is so extraordinary, that everything required is unfailingly carried out by the eager rivalry shown by all classes to devote their whole minds to the need of the hour, and to secure that any determination come to should not fail for want of promptitude;” (Polybius, 1889) The qualities that he describes as good, come down to the drive and confidence of the Roman citizens. As a result of drive and confidence you get successful men that achieve happiness through the acquisition of material wealth. To the Roman man, they strive all their life to achieve happiness which commonly comes through material wealth. This is somewhat common to Athens, but nowhere near the same qualities as Sparta. Although there are differences between the Roman idea of success and the Athenians’. The Athenians, although they used money would not judge each other on the basis of monetary wealth. So in the Athenians eye, the Romans were more likely to get corrupted by monetary wealth. On the contrast because of the government infrastructure, in Rome the state was less likely to get corrupted by sophists, whereas
This resulted in a hybrid system, where if you consider the livelihood of the state, and the happiness of its citizens to be the benchmark of what is good, than Rome would be the best state. Polybius considered it the best state because “the strength which is developed by the State is so extraordinary, that everything required is unfailingly carried out by the eager rivalry shown by all classes to devote their whole minds to the need of the hour, and to secure that any determination come to should not fail for want of promptitude;” (Polybius, 1889) The qualities that he describes as good, come down to the drive and confidence of the Roman citizens. As a result of drive and confidence you get successful men that achieve happiness through the acquisition of material wealth. To the Roman man, they strive all their life to achieve happiness which commonly comes through material wealth. This is somewhat common to Athens, but nowhere near the same qualities as Sparta. Although there are differences between the Roman idea of success and the Athenians’. The Athenians, although they used money would not judge each other on the basis of monetary wealth. So in the Athenians eye, the Romans were more likely to get corrupted by monetary wealth. On the contrast because of the government infrastructure, in Rome the state was less likely to get corrupted by sophists, whereas