Nothing is eternal in the world, except for the Senate. It’s like an Ouroboros: unless you completely kill it and then burn its body with some Holy Fire, it will just go on forever. Empresses come and go, dynasties change, but the Senate remains. Long live institutional entrenchment !
4 Likes
I am the SENATE!!!
2 Likes
Why does everyone hate the Senate, what did the Senate do to you? Did the Senate steal candy from a baby or kick a puppy?
Because it’s more likely Julia would do that.
1 Like
I think the idea that a collective of the largest hereditary landowners and wealthiest families in the Empire won’t be above kicking kids and stealing candy is an interesting take.
16 Likes
I literally gave them everything they asked of me and they still rebelled just because I helped the auxiliaries to not get shat on, they deserve what’s coming to them.
9 Likes
I hate the Senate because they’re oligarchs acting like they genuinely care for the masses when they’re all just looking out for their own power
Julia is worse but I live in a country that calls itself democracy but is functionally an oligarchy so the Senate just pisses me off even more
I live in Asia
5 Likes
If such things were to occur, they would have occurred pursuant to the will of the Senate and People of Kyro. The Senate would never stoop to stealing candy for mere private interest, as self-aggrandizing monarchs would.
How curious — this is exactly what the ungrateful barbarians did to me. Do they also deserve what’s coming to them?
(But seriously — if ya’ll hate the Senate because one side or the other is pre-scripted to be an antagonist, that’s a bit unfair 
)
Indeed, and as we know, our boss the Empress Julia never once looked out for her own power. And she surely never got mad at the prefect for trying to feed the poor citizens of Kyro as Consentia and Ceto ask the prefect to do — oh but Julia does get mad, doesn’t she? 
Anyway I’m just having fun of course, but our boss Julia is like a thousand times worse than the Senate but isn’t nearly as hated. It’s a funny thing.
4 Likes
As has previously been mentioned on this thread, the Senate is not a modern democratic parliament but a late-antique oligarchical institution that serves to marshal popular sentiment and violence in service of Iudian elite interests. If they’re anything like the Roman Senate, they’ve certainly got their fair share of blood on their hands.
12 Likes
We’re talking about an institution based on one which historically beat a considerable number of people to death with chair legs for suggesting that maybe reducing Roman citizens to a state of near-slavery was a bad idea.
Fuck the Senate. All my homies hate the Senate.
26 Likes
No weapons are permitted within the borders of the old City.
“Never said anything about chair legs.”
“Let’s get these pricks.”
13 Likes
Out of curiosity, which continent do you live in?
Oh, now we’re getting somewhere fun. I would implore everyone not to take a straightforward reading of the Gracchi as either heroic reformers or tyrannical demagogues because the situation is a lot more complicated. And to remember (I’ll stress this down below) the Gracchi WERE senators. They were part of that institution. And Tiberius wasn’t killed by order of the Senate anyway — you’d have a much better point here with Gaius.
There’s certainly cause not to take our literary sources at their word because there’s considerable rhetorical flourish in how the state of Roman smallholders are described in the sources and considerable complication in the behavior of the Gracchi. The material archaeological evidence does not support the latifundia suggested by our imperial-era sources, writing in an era where estates had gotten much larger and employed considerably more slave labor than under the republic.
Consider one: Tiberius Gracchus proposed to appropriate and distribute public land — not just lands held by the Roman people mind, but public lands of the Italian allies to boot. There were reasons people would be unhappy with it, and not just because of the traditional narrative that the oligarchs wanted to keep leasing the ager publicus on the cheap. The Italian cities were clients of the Roman senators, who were obligated to defend their interests as patrons. There were legitimate reasons to oppose Tiberius here.
Consider two: Tiberius Gracchus was the first to threaten a tribune of the plebe with expulsion for exercising a veto. The process of the steady breakdown of the republic and the high-stakes gamesmanship that ensued began with him. He did serious violence to the consensus based order and showed he would not brook any opposition.
Consider three: Even after obtaining his land commission and staffing it with his factional allies, Tiberius sought an unprecedented and possibly illegal (determining this is complicated) second consecutive term as a tribune. He again set in a motion of the concept of continual magistracies that would lead to the later abuses of Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar. He again showed it had to be his way or nothing.
Consider four: I’ll leave my main point to the last. Tiberius Gracchus was a senator. His opponents were senators. Tiberius sought to reverse a frustrated political career and win renown the way his ancestors (including his illustrious maternal grandfather) did. He was not killed by the Senate — there was no senatus consultum de re publica defendenda, no Lucius Opimius — that came later, with Gaius Gracchus.
I often find that somehow people forget that the Gracchi were senators, that Caesar was a senator. And unlike our fictional Julia who is a matrician who despises the Senate, even the Gracchi enjoyed being senators and played the role well. I don’t believe the bunk that they aspired to regnum.
Y’all can’t despise the Senate as a whole while criticizing a few particular senators for killing another set of senators. They’re all senators, they’re all part of the same oligarchy with the same value set. The republic’s dysfunctional end was due to all of them taking violent brinkmanship at every possible moment where they could’ve stepped off the ledge and chilled.
I firmly take the view that power politics were at issue more than policy. Even idiots like Cato (both of them) were happy to be hypocrites about things they yelled at others about.
I think you know that I am quite aware that the Senate isn’t a democratic parliament, otherwise I’d find them very boring. :p.
I just, again, find it surprising that the Senate gets so much hate and not a murderous tyrant who burns cities. Like, I know y’all know what kind of person Julia is (obviously) so I’m not saying y’all aren’t aware. But while people will be critical of Julia and also praise her, the Senate almost always just gets only the reflexive hate. I find that very interesting and I’m trying to figure out why.
It’s just that for some reason people are really heated about the guys at the country club and not Pol Pot I suspect I know why** but damn.
**obviously dislike of oligarchs is probably more personally relatable to the audience and that’s fine, I’ll happily boo oligarchs too but man, everyone in Iudia sucks, there should be a lot of hate to go around instead of directed just at the Senate ***
***except Augusta, she’s done nothing wrong. Unless you raised her as a tyrant I guess
**** just to forestall it, if someone says the guys at the country club have done more harm to the world than Pol Pot I won’t fight them on those details because it’s a joke
6 Likes
You absolutely can. In fact, the assertion that any “good” members of an institution are purged or silenced by the “bad” members is not uncommonly used to argue that the institution as a whole is irredeemable because it cannot be “reformed from the inside”.
That’s the foundational reasoning behind the slogan “All Cops are Bastards”. It’s not saying that everyone in a police uniform is necessarily a bad person - but that the way a police service is organised invariably punishes or neuters “good cops” in a way which consequentially makes their influence negligible or nonexistent.
19 Likes
i will be contrasting senate and foderati from what infromation game gives us and why i prefer foderati over senate.
firstly sentae activly represes 50% of population so from most male prefects point of view allying with them is bed idea. they may tolerate you for time becouse you have power but male prefect having any power is not outcome that they would like.
same is not true for foderati at least on some level they do have female kings as shown if you get to know them and also dont have any problem with empress so they are at least more open to female rulers even if they prefer male which i do think is a bonnus.
Demands of foderatin and senate are vastly difrent. Foderati mainly whant to be compenstaed for there service they whant to live in livable conditions and get some respect all of these is understandable and frankly they deserve they are first line of defense for our empire and they deserve to not live in horrible condtions and get some support from state.
senate meanwhille is preocupied mainly with power strugle with empres which is also understandable. problem with them is that they are not really contirbuting that much to empire. yes yes they whant more power but what are they going to do with that power, how are they going to strengthen empire with it? they as hell are not going to pay more taxes 
difrence between senate and foderatis demands is that foderati are activly fighting for empire and they whant somthing Becouse they are serving empire whille senate whants power and dose not really dose anything with it. more coruption i guess 
giving themselfs more
postions so they can complain more.
End games of foderati and senate are also very difrent. senate explicity whants foderati out which is big problem we are dependat on foderati becouse of problems not becouse we whant to So expeling them will create big power vacum so im sure sentae has briliant solution to sollve thes. hmmmm … so they whant foderati out and they have no good idea how to replace them AND they still dont whant to increase taxes. yhea great idea good job guys. im starting to suspect that they dont have best intrest of empire in mind.
last and bigest reason why they suck is that becouse they are blodyy incompetent. they dont have any publc support why should they no one likes them which is udnerstandable. so they decide to get one and buy publics love to use it as leverage against empress. which is great idea finnaly one good move from senate lets see how it plays out .
They whant to make Ceto from some criminal with no power and cermeonial title To one of most influencial person in empire 
They are so incompentent they could not think any other way to get public support and allyied with person that whants all of senate dead,
also Ceto is best and anyone that disagress is wrong 
2 Likes
Wow. If this was a roasting contest this would a killer blow, hands down. Went from 0 to 100 real quick. I have some reservations about comparing Julia to the one and only Pol Pot, but I do understand the reasoning.
You can marry her, for one. You can have a beautiful daughter with her. She also puts you on her urn. Gives you some money too. Also if she loves you she becomes a force ghost to see you. Yes, she might burn some cities, or plan to make a BBQ out of the Gruthungi lands, but I’m biased.
Where are my parliamentary democracy enjoyers? Hasn’t anyone played the Lawgivers game? Nothing gets my adrenaline as high as trying to pass legislation and build parliamentary majorities.
5 Likes
If only that’s the way the Senate worked — but it didn’t. The comparison to policing reform is wholly inapposite and wrong. You are mistaking a factional disagreement with the views of the institution as a whole. That is not correct — it is overly simplistic.
In the 500 years of the Roman Republic, reform and compromise were the hallmarks of the institution. Time and time again the Senate chooses compromise: the whole story of the so-called conflict of the orders is a testament to this. Sure, the Senate had to be occasionally be pushed by force to do the right thing (the various secessions of the plebs, the so-called social war, etc) but it always did.
Flexibility and willingness to reform was WHY the Roman Republic lasted so long when other representative (by ancient standards) governments failed.
A tendentious and teleological reading of the late republic to paint the Senate as inflexible is not only wrong, it’s bad history. Reading the convulsions of the late republic as a simple fight between reformers and corrupt oligarchs works great for movies and podcasts but it’s not scholarship.
Also? It gives the Catos and Opimiuses of the world way too much credit. They never truly constituted any more than an obstructionist rump. They’d be pleased and flattered that modern pop history tends to give their views the imprimatur of the entire Senate.
The lessons of the fall of the republic are about increasing political stakes and brinkmanship — and remember that those that saw to the neutering and defeat of the Senate (and the popular assembled!) inaugurated a military dictatorship.
It was the emperors that robbed the people of their voice, not the Senate. What used to be a political system where the people granted offices and honors in exchange for service was replaced with naked dictatorship where honors were the gift of a tyrant.
Not an improvement.
3 Likes
The foederati don’t have female rulers, I should say. To them, the nature of rulership and the nature of womanhood are inherently incompatible, and the Gruthungian concept of gender is likely what we could consider more fluid.
Grimhilt explains it in his interactions further to a trans man prefect who comes out to him, but gender is claimed in Gruthungia, not permanently born into. Your role in society determines your gender and therefore your place in their more unorthodox patriarchal hierarchy. Grimhilt claimed his throne and his manhood at the same instance.
14 Likes
The Senators turned out fine. I mean, they survived the collapse of Rome and even got serfs out of it. Massive estates, slaves to run it, and no Emperor.
What can be better?
“I love democracy and egalitarianism, this is why I endorse the misogynists who want a military dictatorship that privileges their ethnic group.” statements dreamed up by the deranged.
11 Likes
I want to crucify the Senators along a major highway, seize their estate and fortunes.
Then use this as a way to stabilize the finances of the Empire and parcel out these former large estates into smaller farms that are leased out.
Socialism with Iudian Characteristics.
3 Likes