Cicero: The Axis of evil

I just had to share this with you. Perhaps we are also witnessing the fall of the Republic.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)

Roman Knight (equite) class of Roman tax farmers (collectors)
(perhaps paleo-bourgeios?) ;)

Selections from political speech "on the command of Cnaeus Pompeius" calling for a renewed war effort against King Mithradates of Anatolia. He is speaking to The Assembly of Roman People in 66 BC.

" The nature of the war is one which ought to stimulate and inspire you to a quite exceptional determination to carry it through to the end. For nothing less than the glory of Rome is at stake. This is the mighty heritage that has been handed down to you by your forefathers-mighty in every field, but mightiest of all in war. Endangered, too, is the safety of our allies and friends, on whose behalf those ancestors fought so many important wars. And soild, substantial sources of national income are also involved. If you let these go, not only will the funds needed to fight this war be lost, but your own peace-time comforts will go as well. And the same peril hangs over the personaql property of many of our individual citizens-whom you are under an obligtion to protect, both for their own sakes and in the national interests of Rome.

No country has ever equalled yours in it's appetite for glory, it's passion for renown. It is therefore imperative that you should wipe out the blot which stained Rome's reputation in the first war against Mithradates and has now been left untouched for so long that a blemish is deeply ingrained. For in many different cities throught the province of Asia, on one and the same day, by one single order and communication, Mithradates marked down every man who was a Roman citizen for murder and massacre.< 80,000 Roman citizens were put to the sword in one day> And in spite of this, he has totally failed so far to pay any penalty corresponding to the crime...on the contrary, out he bursts from his hereditary kingdom in order to occupy states that pay you tribute; while the whole of Asia watches what he does.

What he proposed to do was to organize hostilities on land and sea, conducted by widely separated enemies of Rome, operating far apart but closely coordinating their plans- so that you would be forced to face a world war with your forces split between two distant fronts.

Your ancestors refused to tolerate the slightest restriction upon the liberty of Roman citizens...<they> won themselves glory by the magnificent empire they handed down to you. See to it that you do not earn a corresponding load of shame by failing to protect and safeguard the heritage you have received as their gift.

The danger is so appalling that every community in Asia and Greece is compelled to look to you for help...Their plea is all the more pressing because of the kind of governor whom we usually send to administer a province. These are generally the sort of people whose defence of their territory against external enemies takes the form of decents upon allied cities which are barely distinguishable from hostile assaults.

Your own keenness to defend your allies, as well as your own imperial prestige, ought to be intense. For you have been subjected to the most damaging provocation, and your principle sources of income are menaced with reduction to nothing. If therefore, gentlemen, you regard either your success in time of war or your advantage in time of peace as of the slightest importance, it is imperative for you to protect this province from catastrophy- and fear of catastrophies to come. For the mere approach of hostile army, even if no attack has yet taken place, already leaves pastures deserted, fields untilled, sea-borne trade at a standstill. That means that harbour duties, tithes, and grazing dues all dry up, and so it often happens that a single rumor of peril, a single alarm of war, has the result that an entire year's income is lost.]

There is also another matter. This relates to the property of all those individual Roman citizens-whose interests you must take into careful account. For one thing, the repected and well to do personages who contracted to collect your taxes have transferred their business and their funds to the Asian province, and they are entitled, in their own right, to look to you for protection of their resources and possessions. We ahve always understood that our revenues are they sinews of the state. And that being so, we shall be right to maintain that the class which farms them<the taxes> is the mainstay of every other part of the community.

Besides, how can we forget the lesson which this same province of Asia and this same Mithradates taught us at the time when the war in Asia first started? It was a lesson learnt amid direst trouble, since the loss of numerous large fortunes in Asia was immediately followed by a collapse of credit at Rome due to the widespread non-payment of debts. For it is not possible for many members of a community to be deprived of their property and fortunes without dragging down still larger members in their downfall. That is the peril which it is your duty to avert from our country now Believe me when I tell you -though indeed you can see it for yourselves- that this whole system of credit and finance which exists here in the Forum of Rome is directly linked and bound up with money that is invested in Asia. If that is lost, then our Roman finances too, are inevitably involved in the same process of upheaval and collapse.

It is your duty, then, to prosecute the war with all the earnestness within your power. Your glorious prestige must be defended; and so must the safety of your allies. You have also got to protect your principle sources of income, and the fortunes of a large number of individual citizens- which cannot be separated from the interests of the state."


References:

Grant, Michael (transl)

1989 On the Command of Cnaeus Pompeius. In Cicero: Selected Political Speeches. London: Penguin Books pp 37- 44.