Rome's refusal to ever sue for peace, rooted in its citizen democracy where politicians feared being branded cowards, allowed it to absorb devastating defeats and keep fighting until its enemies were ground down.
Rome's nature as a citizen democracy meant its leaders could not sign peace treaties without political ruin, so they repeatedly voted to continue wars even after catastrophic losses, grinding down enemies like Pyrrhus through sheer manpower and refusal to quit. ✦ AI generated
Paul Cooper · Fall of Civilizations · 2023-06-18 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 178:34
Some have argued that Rome's very nature as a citizen democracy actually contributed to their immense doggedness in warfare. Their leaders were politicians and existed in a state of constant competition with each other for the support of the voting public. Any politician who signed a damaging peace treaty could be eviscerated in the senate as a coward, a fool, or even a traitor. This meant that Roman senators would often overwhelmingly vote to continue a war rather than admit defeat.
verbatim transcript · starts at 178:34
178:29some unusual sacrifices were offered; amongst others, a Gaulish man and woman and a Greek man and woman were buried alive in the cattle market, in a place walled in with stone, which even before this time had been defiled with human victims, a sacrifice wholly alien to the Roman spirit. To raise a new army, the Romans reduced the age of boys that were allowed to serve in the military to 17, and began
178:59enlisting criminals, those with crushing debts, and even slaves. But their situation looked bleak. After the battle of Cannae, many of the old Greek cities of southern Italy began to join Hannibal and rebel against Rome. Sicily looked like it could break free, too, and for the next 11 years, war would rage all over southern Italy. In the year 211 BC, Hannibal even marched against Rome itself, causing great panic
179:34in the city, but like the Greek king Pyrrhus before him, Hannibal saw no hope of breaching the city's imposing Servian walls. The Carthaginian senate made several attempts to open up a new front in this war and capitalize on Hannibal's stunning success. They sent armies into northern Italy and Sicily, hoping to regain some of their former territories, but none of their other generals had the same ability, and these attempts all
180:08ended in defeat. Rome now realized that trying to stop Hannibal was useless, and the only way they could turn the tide of this war was to attack Carthage in return. They sent one army into Spain, led by a general named Publius Cornelius Scipio, who had been among the few survivors of the battle of Cannae, and he was remarkably successful. In the year 209 BC, in a devastating blow,