[extropy-chat] Romans (was Economic consensus on immigration)

[Lee Corbin]

Joseph asks

> How about the Romans?

Might you be a little more explicit in the future?  or perhaps willing
to venture a conjecture or opinion yourself?  :-)   Must I do all
the work?  8^D

The Romans achieved an historically unparalleled degree of faith in
themselves, their culture, and their people as a whole.

Take their little encounter with Hannibal, remembering that while
Rome had allies nearby, basically it was a very small city by today's
standards. The entire manpower of the whole peninsula was on the order
of a half million, according to Caesar (who came along later, of course).
And in 216 B.C., they and their allies made up just a fraction of the
peninsula.

First Hannibal, with just 30,000 troops, destroyed a Roman army at Trebia,
killing about 20,000 Romans. Next he annihilated a Roman army of 40,000
at Lake Trasimeno. Finally he slaughtered 60,000 Romans at Cannae. After
that, the Romans wouldn't come out and play any more.

Imagine a small city state losing 120,000 men in a few months. Imagine
what weeping and wailing there would be in a modern nation like the
United States under parallel circumstances (say the loss of forty or
fifty million (!) able-bodied men). The United States (population
260,000,000 was traumatized by the loss of 57,000 men in Viet Nam to
such an extent that a memorial---a weeping wall---was set up in the
nation's capital listing the names of all who had fallen.

But the Romans were made of sterner stuff.  When word reached Rome of
the incredible disaster at Cannae, did they cry and wail?  No, they
sternly went so far as to absolutely forbid public mourning.

They never stopped fighting, never considered making terms, and never
gave the Carthagenians an inch that they didn't have to. (They finally
wore him out, and then went on to win the Second Punic War.)

Could any nation, people, or tribe that has prospered since, say as much?

The Romans had unlimited faith in themselves, apparently unlimited self-
confidence, and on top of that, it was simply inconceivable to them that
their own inner strength---and the fact that they were *Romans*---
wouldn't eventually enable them to prevail over their enemies. 

But they were not a nation in the post-18th century sense. When the
Senate and People of Rome incorporated disparate peoples into their
realm, it soon became an empire, not even then actually a nation as
we conceive of it today. It was a city leading a league, and then
an empire, always with The City at its core. At least that's what
I think the term has come to mean.

Lee