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The other day I read this article on what we know about the government of Carthage. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/libyan-studies/article/generals-and-judges-command-constitution-and-the-fate-of-carthage/757F46BAE0CA1A08373A15D1E497198F
There's a lot there of interest, without being too long. Diarchic government (electing two judges, and two generals, similar to Rome's two consuls); discussion of how Carthage's different military (heavy use of Numidian mercenary cavalry vs. citizen-soldiers) and political structures and culture discouraged aggressiveness compared to Rome. (There wasn't much social or economic upside to generals winning, while losing could get you executed by the Carthaginian senate. Similarly Athens was a bit prone to executing or exiling failed strategoi. Meanwhile Roman consuls had a big upside in prestige and patronage if they won, little downside if they lost (assuming they survived at all), and a short time window.)
But what I wanted to quote was this, in reverse order:
"The privileges that republics offered to their citizens, chiefly political participation, social distinction and the capacity to negotiate matters of military service and taxation, made republican systems more robust during times of stress and crisis, and facilitated deeper mobilization of domestic resources for warfare."
"There is reason to believe that overall, republican (i.e. non-monarchic) states in the ancient world enjoyed significant advantages in policy endeavours in contrast to monarchic configurations of similar size and scope (Ober Reference Ober2008; Taylor Reference Taylor2020). However, republican city-states generally struggled to expand beyond a certain point and still maintain manageable internal politics, and this constraint explains why most ancient empires were monarchic, from the ethnic kingships of the Persians and Macedonians to the imperial monarchy in Rome after Augustus, as it was easier to scale up obeisance to a monarch than political participation in a republic."
These aren't new ideas. Josiah Ober talked about the robustness of the Athenian democracy to survive disasters (until conquered by a larger empire than overran everyone else and then Persia.) Mary Beard and Bret D have talked about how Rome could just _keep going_ despite massive losses to Hannibal, with deep resources of money and manpower. Republics through the millennia have been able to tax deeper and borrow at lower rates than monarchs.
But I liked seeing the statement again, here. And reinforces my idea that a big game-changer of the US was representative democracy, combining the legitimacy of democracy (more or less), with the scale of empire, better than Rome's attempt to run an empire with the government of a single city.
(Less seriously, I may have first seen these ideas playing the computer games Civilization I/II, where Republic and Democracy forms of government have less corruption (_none_, for Democracy, which from the description is more like a scalable direct democracy) and more trade, though also less willingness to fight. (Also, immunity to having cities subverted by enemy diplomats.) There was a fan made 'Ancients' rule set for Freeciv, with a more plausible government progression: Ancient Democracy was an early 'tech' with the highest trade, but not scaling well.)
(Related joke:
Rome: "I have an army."
Carthage: "We have a Hannibal."
Rome: "I can keep pressing this button, and armies will keep coming out."
Carthage: "Oh, so that's what Pyrrhus meant."
)
There's a lot there of interest, without being too long. Diarchic government (electing two judges, and two generals, similar to Rome's two consuls); discussion of how Carthage's different military (heavy use of Numidian mercenary cavalry vs. citizen-soldiers) and political structures and culture discouraged aggressiveness compared to Rome. (There wasn't much social or economic upside to generals winning, while losing could get you executed by the Carthaginian senate. Similarly Athens was a bit prone to executing or exiling failed strategoi. Meanwhile Roman consuls had a big upside in prestige and patronage if they won, little downside if they lost (assuming they survived at all), and a short time window.)
But what I wanted to quote was this, in reverse order:
"The privileges that republics offered to their citizens, chiefly political participation, social distinction and the capacity to negotiate matters of military service and taxation, made republican systems more robust during times of stress and crisis, and facilitated deeper mobilization of domestic resources for warfare."
"There is reason to believe that overall, republican (i.e. non-monarchic) states in the ancient world enjoyed significant advantages in policy endeavours in contrast to monarchic configurations of similar size and scope (Ober Reference Ober2008; Taylor Reference Taylor2020). However, republican city-states generally struggled to expand beyond a certain point and still maintain manageable internal politics, and this constraint explains why most ancient empires were monarchic, from the ethnic kingships of the Persians and Macedonians to the imperial monarchy in Rome after Augustus, as it was easier to scale up obeisance to a monarch than political participation in a republic."
These aren't new ideas. Josiah Ober talked about the robustness of the Athenian democracy to survive disasters (until conquered by a larger empire than overran everyone else and then Persia.) Mary Beard and Bret D have talked about how Rome could just _keep going_ despite massive losses to Hannibal, with deep resources of money and manpower. Republics through the millennia have been able to tax deeper and borrow at lower rates than monarchs.
But I liked seeing the statement again, here. And reinforces my idea that a big game-changer of the US was representative democracy, combining the legitimacy of democracy (more or less), with the scale of empire, better than Rome's attempt to run an empire with the government of a single city.
(Less seriously, I may have first seen these ideas playing the computer games Civilization I/II, where Republic and Democracy forms of government have less corruption (_none_, for Democracy, which from the description is more like a scalable direct democracy) and more trade, though also less willingness to fight. (Also, immunity to having cities subverted by enemy diplomats.) There was a fan made 'Ancients' rule set for Freeciv, with a more plausible government progression: Ancient Democracy was an early 'tech' with the highest trade, but not scaling well.)
(Related joke:
Rome: "I have an army."
Carthage: "We have a Hannibal."
Rome: "I can keep pressing this button, and armies will keep coming out."
Carthage: "Oh, so that's what Pyrrhus meant."
)