Republics fall when they forget the past

The Fall of Republics: A History from Ancient Carthage to the American Constitution, Thomas F. Madden, Princeton University Press, £30

‘The American Framers believed that the basis for individual virtue worthy of a free people was a classical education, and assumed that this would remain true in the future. It has not,’ observes Thomas F. Madden in his new book, The Fall of Republics. ‘Familiarity with the classics or the history of past republics is a rare thing in the twenty-first century.’

As a result, Madden posits, many Americans have come to think of the US Constitution as a quasi-sacred document rather than one inspired by the history and political theory of republican government. He writes: ‘With the decline of history in schools, colleges, and universities, many Americans see every contemporary challenge as something genuinely new. Few are.’ Taking John Adams’ 1787 A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States  as his inspiration, Madden’s new book charts the history of republics from ancient Carthage to the framing of the US Constitution.

The term ‘republic’ is derived from Latin rēs publica, literally meaning ‘public thing’. As Madden reminds us, it was the word the ancient Romans used for their commonwealth, but it has not always denoted a specific form of government and has frequently been used as a synonym for government or state. Ancient republics sometimes combined monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, but the Roman legacy meant that it came to refer to kingless governments, usually with mixed constitutions divided into executive, legislative and judicial branches.

The book homes in on mixed-government systems. As the author notes, many such republics in history have been short-lived, especially in Renaissance Italy. He therefore concentrates on republics that have lasted for more than 100 years, in particular Sparta, Carthage, Rome, Venice (about which the author has previously written a leading history) and the United States. He also refers to 18th-century Britain, or rather ‘England’, as a republic rather than a constitutional monarchy, agreeing with Montesquieu that it was a republic disguised as a monarchy.

As Madden argues, mixed-government systems are ‘not designed to be streamlined, but cumbersome and deliberative’. Above all, they are ‘designed to guard against any one person or group acquiring the predominance of power’. Such governments have often come to an end when political opponents start to treat each other as existential enemies that must be vanquished, rather than realising that mixed governments thrive on regulated conflict. Somewhat paradoxically, republics have tended to fall in periods of relative prosperity when there were no external enemies to be feared.

Since the beginning of civilisation, most governments have been monarchies, but ancient Greek civilisation invented the polis, or the city state, understood as a partnership of free men. It is from the polis that we get the word ‘politics’. The Greek city states had different forms of government and many of them were unstable and changing. Athens was a democracy in the most famous part of its history, developing around the sixth century BC and lasting for less than 200 years. Most of its great philosophers – Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – were all critics of Athenian democracy.

While Plato believed that the ideal state should be ruled by philosopher-kings, Aristotle identified the most stable form of government as a ‘polity’ – sometimes translated as ‘constitutional government’ – which approximated what Madden calls a mixed-government republic. Such governments were rare in the ancient world. Aristotle identified three: Sparta, Crete and Carthage.

In contrast with Athens, Spartan society was closed and disciplined by draconian rules. Much about Sparta seems strange and cruel to modern readers, including its regimented education, communal meals and infanticide. Gold and silver were banned and its land was worked by its many slaves, the helots.

The Spartan government was rather moderate, however, with two kings drawn from the two ancient and prestigious families, a small council of male elders over 60 years old, who had served the polis and were chosen by the old priestly families, and an assembly of all citizens. Later, the five Ephors, selected by lot, were added to the Spartan constitution. The Ephors had a range of executive powers and were intended as a check on the power of the two kings. Their power was limited by the fact that they were ordinary citizens who served for one year only. In total, the constitution was designed to arrest change and provide stability.

Sparta was remarkably long-lasting compared with other Greek city states. The decline of Sparta is often told with a focus on the influx of luxury from the East and the decay of old customs. Madden puts a spotlight on the constitution. When the Spartans became divided over property reform, King Cleomenes took control over the state with the aid of mercenaries, killed four of the five Ephors and abolished them as a body, thus removing the crucial check on the kings’ power. As in the better-known history of Rome, wealth and power created divisions, and when the constitution prevented popular reforms, leaders bypassed and undermined the constitution. Recovering the ancient constitution became a cover for introducing tyranny. Sparta survived into the third century AD as a quasi-independent Roman colony, but towards the end it was merely a ‘tourist attraction’.

The Romans found solace in Sparta’s longevity as they considered their own republic. Polybius, a Greek living in Rome, drew on Aristotle in identifying mixed constitutions as essential for preventing the vicious cycle whereby monarchy degenerates into the rule of a tyrant, who is overthrown by aristocrats, themselves eventually turning into oligarchs, who are deposed by the common people, in whose hands the government degenerates from a democracy into mob rule, ripe for demagogues and a return of monarchy.

Polybius thought that the Roman Republic successfully blended monarchy (the consuls), aristocracy (the senate) and democracy (the popular assemblies) into a government of what we would call checks and balances. He was convinced, however, that Rome would one day fall. He was not a philosopher but a historian who thought about the long term. His historical analysis had a profound impact on subsequent political thought, including that of Cicero, Machiavelli and John Adams.

The ancient historian Dio Cassius once argued that the Roman Republic was changed into the Principate because the republican form was designed for a city state rather than the worldwide empire it became. Madden touched on this theme in relation to America’s ‘empire’ in one of his earlier books. Unsurprisingly, and sensibly, the present book is framed around the threat to republics posed by populism, as the Roman Republic was ruined by the clash between optimates and populares, or elitist and populist leaders.

Rome was an expansive, imperial republic that often converted its defeated enemies, including Carthage, into quasi-independent allies. The Romans eventually destroyed Carthage, as Cato the Elder had urged them to (Carthago delenda est). As Madden emphasises, ancient mixed-government republics took shape in response to two kinds of threats: external and internal. Whereas Carthage was crushed by an external enemy, republican Rome was destroyed from within. With no external enemy to fear, Roman politics descended into factional strife.

Steeped in the history of republics, the Founding Fathers of the United States were determined to create a balanced constitution ‘designed to check the radicalism and chaos of unfettered democracy’. Indeed, Benjamin Franklin quipped that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention turned its deliberations into a classical studies seminar. Armed with extensive historical knowledge, the Framers created a republic that has stood the test of time. With many nervous about current divisions, Madden calls for calm, pointing out that heightened partisan strife is often a sign of a healthy republic without an existential external enemy. Just as importantly, he implies that the future of the American republic may depend on a revival of the teaching of history.

With historical knowledge and teaching in decline, and increasingly focused on the modern and near-term, The Fall of Republics is first and foremost a powerful plea for civic education and for the place of history within it. Madden points out that Aristotle viewed what we would call civic education as essential for the preservation of a polity. According to the Greek philosopher, citizens must be taught the history, law and constitution of their polis in order to be able to maintain it. As Madden argues, a republic cannot survive without a degree of reverence for its constitution, traditions, and history (the good, the bad, and the ugly), which should take the form of active understanding rather than ‘blind devotion to empty patriotism’.

The Fall of Republics is fast-paced and written in a straightforward manner, blending narrative history with analysis of constitutional developments and political thought. Though most of the material will be familiar to experts, it is an impressive and wide-ranging book, almost exclusively based on the author’s reading of a range of primary sources. From a scholarly perspective, engagement with more recent secondary literature would have added another layer to the book. If the book sacrifices historiographical complexity, it gains in readability, making it ideal for the general reader. For anyone interested in reinvigorating civic education, reading this book is a terrific start.