The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury. CATO THE ELDER1

“this was the beginning in Rome of civil bloodshed, and of the license of the sword.” The definitive triumph of naked force was a lesson no one could unlearn.

“It is this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any and every means and to avenge itself on the vanquished with excessive cruelty.”

But this was an age when a lie was not a lie if a man had the audacity to keep asserting the lie was true.