Seduction Of Power (3 of 22)

The Senate granted Cincinnatus, a Roman landowner, absolute power to defend Rome from an aggressive local tribe.
He accepted the position and defeated the enemy.
Fourteen days later, he voluntarily resigned and humbly went back to work on his farm.
His sense of duty, sacrifice and loyalty to the state embodied everything the new Republic stood for.
The Roman Republic has served as a model for Western democracies ever since.
Everything from its public architecture to its political rituals is strangely familiar.

Once a year, the whole city would turn out to vote for its leaders.
Competition for the consulship, the most important public office, was intense.
The election of a consul in the Roman Republic is like the election of the American President.
You call people friends who you would not normally call friends.
You shake hands.
You kiss babies.
And what you're trying to do is to get a bandwagon going to appear a winner.
And very gradually, as in American presidential elections, people drop by the wayside.
Something goes wrong with their campaign.
The remaining candidates then turn to their spin doctors.
If it can be managed at all, there should be scandalous talk of character, about the crimes, lust and briberies of your competitors.
Quintus.
It was up to the senators to ensure that politics didn't get too frivolous.