mindstalk | (Reply)

At the beginning of this process, there was a reasonably healthy representative system of government

The Republic never had any such system in practice. Every time anyone (e.g. the brothers Gracchus) tried to use representative leverage against the elite they were beaten down violently.

Actually, both the radicalism and the murder of the Gracchi brothers were symptoms that the Republic was breaking down. Not so much that one brother was radical, and was murdered for it, but that both were, demonstrated the increasing inflexibility of the Republican system. Things would only get worse until they climaxed in the Civil Wars, with Augustus and Empire the denounement.

To be stable, the Empire had to progressively gain greater and greater control over a population increasingly disarmed and psychologically unable to take the initiative.

In reality, the development went more or less the other way.

No, that's untrue. Under the Republic and even the early Empire, there was a constant potential for Roman citizens, particularly senators, to take the initiative and attempt some reform or revolt. Under the Empire, the initiative moved to the army, and the army was increasingly professionalized and composed of non-Romans in part because the Emperor feared the political implications of large bodies of armed citizens. The fear was, of course, quite justified under the Imperial system.

... the potential Hellenstic scientific and industrial revolution was aborted.

...or at least, historians during the 19th and early 20th century used to think so. Take some time to read up on current research.

Recent research only emphasizes the degree of advancement of Hellenistic technology, and shows that they were even closer technologically to an industrial revolution than we previously assumed. The barriers were cultural, political and economic rather than technological.