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Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

I wholeheartedly disagree that those checks and balances actually did underpin the republic in any way. The senate always attempted the keep them in place, but always abandoned them in a crisis. The first Punic war was won by a dictator of Rome. The only thing that changed over time was the scale of the crises that Rome got itself into.

Those checks and balances were simply not needed during peaceful times, and consistently failed any time they were tested during conflict. It’s like how people say Athens never had the position of “dictator”, yet for every significant crisis Athens got into, it found itself ruled by a dictator.

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I'm glad you brought up the Roman dictatorship, because it's a great example of the way checks and balances worked in the Roman Republic. There were nearly 100 dictators prior to the 2nd century B.C.E. - often appointed in times of crisis - and not a single one attempted to seize control of the state. There are probably a number of factors that led to this (the fact that dictators were only granted their powers within the realm for which they were appointed; the fact that dictators could only last 6 months at maximum; the fact that dictators couldn't legislate; the fact that the tribunes of the plebs were absolutely outside the authority of the dictator; etc. etc.)

> Those checks and balances were simply not needed during peaceful times

There weren't any peaceful times. Almost literally. Rome was at war for all but 6 years of the entire Republic.

Wasn't the dictator aspect built into their system though? I thought the point was that Rome felt dictators were needed in times of crises. I think the term was 6 months.

Is this analogous to the modern concept of martial law, perhaps, in today's democracies? Including the restrictions placed on them legislatively (albeit few)!

Partially, I'd say. It's been a while since I've read about it, but martial law is a suspension of normal restrictions on police actions. I'm not sure if there are other pieces involved.

A roman dictator on the other hand was anointed by the Senate to "get shit done" until the scourge was over or 6 months, whichever comes first. Normally in Roman times, they tended to shy away from single authority. Even the military was divided between two consuls so that if one got any funny ideas, the other could effectively repel their attack. During a dictatorship though, the anointed would have supreme authority over all things Roman. They could wield armies and the state coffers at their disclosure. This rarely happened and the senate really tried to only anoint people that were worthy of it.

Cincinatti, the capital of Ohio, is actually named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus who famously saved Rome twice. He was farming when he was anointed dictator and was very reluctant to stay in politics unless needed. It's a fantastic story.

There's perhaps some relationship, and of course "martial law" can have a wide variety of definitions under different political contexts, but I think it's worth pointing out that the Roman Republic worked pretty differently to most modern democracies despite some nominal similarities. Most of the executive offices of the Republic were extraordinarily weak by modern standards (and had more checks on them than their modern equivalents). This extended to the dictatorship which was really more akin to appointing a temporary executive with the power to run a single part of the government with fewer (but still some!) checks on their authority for a short period of time.

All western democracies have these features today, and martial law would simply be one way in which they can be used. More broadly they would include basically any “emergency” powers that governments have to suspend ordinary democratic processes. If you look at the way the role of dictator worked in Rome, then most of the world has been run by legally appointed dictators for the past two years. With ordinary legislative processes suspended, public scrutiny and engagement in governance severely drawn back, and with new laws typically being announced via executive authority at press conferences rather than being debated and voted on by representatives. Factually these are what would be described as dictatorships. History is full of examples where dictators have temporarily assumed that level of power for the benefit of the people they’re governing, but the word is such a PR nightmare that no 21st century western dictator would ever accept the label.

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