have you seen DOMINA, the MGM series... it made two seasons... about the life of Livia drusillia , before becoming, the very first empress consort of rome then the dowager and ' first ever mother to the emperor tiberius, grandmother to caligola and claudius..and great great aunty to nero... the genalogy is a bit messy and complex... in popular culture, we always talk about augustus and tiberus, cladius and caligula ...and nero the first 5 emperors, but we often ignore Livila Druisila role in persuasion, high polics, and drama,....
@@AlexIlesUK yes i agree, she moved the heavens and the earth, to ensure her son tiberius succeded augustus or was 'adopted into the imperial succession, being a woman, she could never attend the senate and mostly ignored it, mary beard mentions this : within her book, liviva druisilia main objective was never to restore the republic, it was her and her family survival, above all other obgliations, even her marriage to augustus was a political alliance.. she almost certainly profited from germanicus death, this weakend any idea of a new republic or any imperator or augustus being percieved as equal to any senate ... it is almost ironic, that livia drusilia background is from a devout republican dynasty, almost inveitable that by the time of caligula her great grandson .. the senate power is weakend, sejanus and the late period of tiberius was widely unpopular , almost viewed as a tyrant, sejanus downfall was dramatic ... livia hand was large, in the many events timeline, of augustus to claudius...
I thought you might mention the use of the Tribunate. Many emperors date their reign from receiving the Tribune power. The tribune was sacrosanct, could call the senate, introduce legislation and veto any bills they didn’t like. This it seems to me was the cornerstone of the Emperor’s control of the civil authority.
@@AlexIlesUK I can't recall the author - but there was an interesting theory put forward (it was particularly through the lens of WW1) that when a [modern] democracy comes up against a very autocratic state, at first it looks like the autocratic state is going to easily win with their ability to do stuff so quickly & easily without the cumbersome weight of deciding everything democratically ...but, it just takes the executive [in this case Kaiser Wilhelm] to make an error & it brings the whole state down, wheras democracies seem to have this uncanny ability to absorb disaster & sort of ...muddle through you could doubtless find examples of the inverse, but it was definitely an interesting theory
Intresting. Currently I belive Democracy is being tested as its fallen back on its laurels and belives it is the only true way of governing, but by doing so it has become authoritarian and like the Roman republic is at risk of falling apart.
@@AlexIlesUKI think that right now we are seeing western neoliberal democracies explicitly engage with their internal contradictions. They are certainly showing their authoritarian tendencies. These, however, I believe to generally and primarily serve the capitalist class.
