What the article glosses over is that Roman lawyers were nothing at all like today's lawyers.
"Lawyers" in Ancient Rome were generally patricians who owed assistance to their cliens. There were no formal schools of law, and the law in Republican Rome was a changeable and largely customary thing, with a considerable religious component. What's more, from 204 BC onwards, these "lawyers" were legally barred from charging for their services, thanks to the Lex Cincia -- but even before, and well after, the passing of that law, it was considered beneath one's dignity to charge for legal counsel and advice.
In short, it wasn't a profession. Roman patricians generally knew the customs of Rome, and were capable of advising their vassals, retainers, and various plebians on points of law which reflected those customs. (Where the law was codified, it was extremely clear.) Some of these patrician-lawyers were orators and made pleadings before the court -- most did not, and in most cases pleadings were made directly by the parties involved.
Also: In Republican Rome, Judges (judex) were private arbitrators. They were not officials.
So it was what we'd call a customary and amateur legal system.
> What's more, from 204 BC onwards, these "lawyers" were legally barred from charging for their services, thanks to the Lex Cincia
Officially, yes. In practice orators were often rewarded with bequests, political favors, or "loans" that would never be called in (Cicero received one from Sulla, for instance).
Not really; no modern profession is a close analogue, because Roman lawyers of this era weren't professionals. They were first and foremost aristocrats, trading favors and running patronage networks.
The closest are probably modern media consultants. They plead one's case in public forums in an attempt to bend outcomes, even legal outcomes. For high-worth /profile individuals public opinion directly shapes eventual legal outcomes.
If you read roman histories, it is full of exceptions from the law that were based on little more than mob opinion. Rules such as term limits, pay or inheritance were regularly bypassed by high-profile people if they could get the plebs into the streets.
It’s tempting to think that if you just look and think hard enough you can find perfect analogs between the past and the present. But when you do that, you don’t engage with the past on it’s own terms and your understanding of it is fundamentally weakened. It’s best not to do that.
I don't think either of the two "sounds like ..." comments above are interested in any sort of understanding about the past (or present), fundamental or otherwise. It sounds like they're more interested in making cheap political / social commentary.
I think that this comment is not interested in any sort of understanding the parent comments, fundamental or otherwise. It sounds like it's more interested in scoring cheap putdown points and signalling superiority.
I'm also uncertain of what, aside from relevance, makes political/social commentary "cheap" as opposed to "expensive", or why the latter would be more desirable.
Perhaps it's based on a misguided idea that commentary must be tied in scholarship to be worthy of utterance (and that such "expensive" commentary is not just a ritualized and impotent form of social commentary). Or that history moves because of such "expensive" commentary, as opposed because of the "cheap" opinions and actions of puny laymen.
It's _hard_ not to take for granted the way our own societies functions. I know I'm treading a touchy issue here, but West/Westernized societies have failed to wrap their heads around Afghanistan repeatedly and engage with Afghans, because Afghanistan simply not a nation-state like the ones they are organized around.
It's not, it never was, and I don't mean to say that by that they're in a "prior" stage of development than how our societies have turned out, because these processes aren't linear, but a couple of centuries ago no polity or region was a nation-state, including the ones we live in, and despite the relative recency of that we can't understand how a "country" may not be what we imagine a country to be like, when presented with an example right now.
As they say, the past is another country, and I'd say the past of an ancient, foreign culture is doubly-foreign.
Human cultures can be very different and alien, which is especially hard to really wrap your head around when you've only experienced your own WEIRD one.
What you describe as desirable is a form of analysis paralysis.
Engaging to the past "on it’s own terms" is noble.
But refusing or failing to find patterns and analogies (lest they not be "perfect"), and to engage with the past as a store of experience to learn from, and leverage the past to inform your understanding of the present, renders the whole point of studying the past a moot endeavor.
I think a much larger problem is that most people are not looking at the past at all, and know very little about it except what they've seen in some movie or, at best, some documentary. Rather than people making distorted analogies based on a less than functional understanding of it.
I'm not sure using the word "Patrician" in this case (when talking about the late republic) is accurate. By that point almost all legal privileges patrician had were abolished and plebeians aspiring for a public career generally actually had more opportunities (you had to be one to stand for election as a people's tribune and at least one consul legally had to be a plebian).
By that point Rome was a full on plutocracy and most senators/nobles weren't patricians. Probably one the most famous Roman "lawyer" Cicero was not only a plebian but a complete no-name from a provincial town (and most famous Romans from his time like Cato, Pompey, Brutus, Mark Anthony, Octavian were all plebian while Ceasar, Lepidus and Metellus Scipio were patrician) .
It was possible to switch from patrician to plebeian and vice versa by adoption. Clodius is the best known example of the former and Octavian of the latter.
> "Lawyers" in Ancient Rome were generally patricians who owed assistance to their cliens.
Certainly by the late republic I'm not sure that it's true they were generally patricians? They were generally upper-class, certainly, often senatorial-class, but by then a lot of them (Cicero, say) would have been plebeians.
That is interesting. Do you mean that the judges like hired mediators? Was this only for civil disputes or in general? Who held the authority to enforce the judge's decision?
In civil disputes, both parties agree to have their case heard by a prominent member of Rome's upper classes. When this judex makes his decision, he has no power to carry it out -- but if his decision is ignored, the guilty party can be brought by force to a magistrate and made to answer for his dishonorable conduct. (Despite the name, the magistrate is also not a judge, but an elected administrator of the Republic with various executive functions at his disposal.)
> After the issues were delineated and sureties set, both parties agreed upon a judex, who was neither a lawyer nor a magistrate but a prominent layman, to try the case. The proceedings before the judex were more informal: advocates spoke and gave evidence, and witnesses often appeared. The judex made a decision but had no power to execute it. If the defendant refused to pay the fine or make restitution within a certain period of time, he could be brought by force to the magistrate. Then his property could be seized, or he could be made slave to the plaintiff to work off the debt or property claim.
ius privatum, which includes all of what we would call civil law but also most crimes against individuals. The ius publicum mostly concerned crimes against the state: counterfeiting, embezzlement, treason, etc.
I'd hesitate to call it real power as well. You could not just go against someone of let's say senatorial class or god forbid, the Emperor himself, without substantial (military) backing and/or being an untouchable demi-god yourself.
Today you can take the government itself to court and actually win.
There is to my knowledge no historical precedent for the amount of practical power the common citizenry has over the powerful classes today.
Threads like this always make it painfully obvious how logically-minded and clever tech folks (HN crowd) are really clueless about anything outside their area of expertise.
“logically-minded and clever tech folks” is even too generous. Keep in mind the only barrier to entry to post here is the ability to write moderately complete sentences.
Aahaha, "nobody may have an opinion about how they are governed, or an interest in thinking about different possibilities unless they are 'experts'". That's rich. Exactly what some kind of self-proclaimed "government expert" would say, thank you for that.
I’m not sure there is anything wrong with having an opinion it’s just a lot of the time any post related to economics/history/other non tech subjects is full of overconfident people offering semi-absurd solutions (some of which have even been tried but they are obviously not aware of that).
> Private legal system with non-profit counsel. Would be interesting to try it again, but no state would ever revert that kind of power to its citizens.
"Over-confident"
"solution"
This is just too much, it's satire right? Really good if it is. Nothing more fragile and angry than an "expert" who has their proclamations challenged, or an indoctrinated follower who is threatened with scary opinions.
The Roman legal system was extremely arbitrary and highly dysfunctional by modern standard. Why transporting some random feature of it (which contributed to it being such) to the modern world would ever be a good idea?
> revert that kind of power to its citizens.
It think it’s the inverse and would significantly decrease the “power” a random person has due to obvious reasons.
> fragile and angry
I’m neither angry or fragile. Why would you even use these words? I just shared my observation, that’s it.
> indoctrinated
That generally comments which include this word tend to be at least mildly deranged is another thing I noticed here as well.
I'm sorry you're so angry you're resorting to not addressing my comments and doing the "I know you are but what am I" shtick, while still being incapable of pointing out this fanciful "over-confident solution" you had somehow dreamed up. Maybe it's time to stop thinking about things that scare you so much if this is how you react.
What's more tiresome is people spouting rambling and incoherent "critiques" of others which they are incapable of substantiating due to their dishonesty and/or other mental deficiencies.
But just to clarify a bit: I’m not “backing down” from anything I said.
Unfortunately it’s just hard tell what exactly I’m supposed to substantiate because your diatribes are a bit too incoherent.. and it’s quite hard to comprehend what are you trying to say.
I would advise you to tone do the amount of “personal” insults when trying to communicate with other people.
They really obscure your actual points (assuming they exist?) and they they aren’t doing much anyway since I still can’t really tell whether you’re talking to me or somebody else.
Also I generally find that insults are most effective when used sparingly or in a subtle backhanded manner.
> There is to my knowledge no historical precedent for the amount of practical power the common citizenry has over the powerful classes today.
To be fair ancient Athens even elected most public official using a lottery system so that the rich/powerful would be able to monopolize the power because they had time/money to campaign and extensive client networks.
Multiple other societies had they "eat the rich" moments as well it's just the it wasn't sustainable, almost immediately after the last ruling class was removed a new one (just as corrupt) arose.
I think you're romanticizing the present. There is no law that results in monotonic increase in "goodness" of social systems over time. It can appear that way if you look at the past few hundred or thousand years because incredible technological advances do tend to result in more, but that can also mask inequality and injustice on the fringes.
Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.
It's a fantasy to believe the ruling class are not in an eternal struggle to take more, or that they have ever only restrained themselves due to the threat of revolt.
> I'd hesitate to call it real power as well. You could not just go against someone of let's say senatorial class or god forbid, the Emperor himself, without substantial (military) backing and/or being an untouchable demi-god yourself.
I wouldn't hesitate to call it real power. You're trying to make it an all or nothing thing, but it's not. There's a lot of power between cockroach and omnipotent.
> Today you can take the government itself to court and actually win.
And what does "winning" mean? It means the government decides that it must take some money from other citizens and give it to you.
> Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.
If you lived in Rome this time 2000 years ago, well, you'd be going through a period of relative stability (Tiberius was, well, a bit odd, but things were mostly stable enough), but just coming off about a century of civil war, and looking at, well, interesting times in 2038. And, post the end of the republic, that stretch from start of Augustus to end of Tiberius was about as good as it got.
Even ignoring the civil rights issues (unless you were (a) a man and (b) pretty wealthy you were an unperson; while Rome had a concept of citizenship some citizens were very much more citizen than others) it was just very messy relative to just about any developed country today. Your chances of being collateral damage in a civil war at some point in your lifetime would be, well, quite high.
Even if you assume wealthy man, btw, don't think you're off the hook. In fact, in the period covered in the article that might even put you in more jeopardy than a normal person. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription#Sulla's_dictators... - have the wrong politics, or even just the wrong friends, and you might end up on the extrajudicial murder list. Cicero, one of the lawyers mentioned in the article, died this way.
> Tiberius was, well, a bit odd, but things were mostly stable enoug
If you were a rich aristocrat it’s likely that you lived under a constant threat of being killed during one of his “stalinist” style purges. Which to be fair wasn’t that odd even the “good” emperors like Claudius engaged in stuff like that.
Rule of law wasn’t much of a thing during the imperial period.
You might be right, actually. Common bias eh? But I suggest we look at it practically.
> Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.
How do you suppose that technology came about? I don't wish to trivialize this, but I'm convinced systems of government and levels of technology have a very strong connection. Maybe we just need to agree to disagree on that.
> It's a fantasy to believe the ruling class are not in an eternal struggle to take more, or that they have ever only restrained themselves due to the threat of revolt.
I did not proclaim otherwise. Elite assholes are exactly the same. It's just that they are less capable of actualizing it now. In my experience they lack the privileges they used to have. Sure, they are rich and fuck you over, but that doesn't come close to what they were able to do in the past. I am only interested in results, nothing else. Human souls are as murky as they ever were and maybe it's worse now. I don't know about that.
> You're trying to make it an all or nothing thing, but it's not.
I'm sorry, maybe I did come across like that indeed. I meant to imply that whatever is between cockroach and omnipotent, it is more now, not less. Cockroaches these days have way more power than they ever did.
> And what does "winning" mean?
It's not just money. This could also mean forcing them to change course. We had something called "Urgenda" that took our gov to court (and won). In this case our government was blamed for doing too little about climate change and they had to adapt. There were also cases that for example challenged governmental oversight.
By people, inventors, creatives, entrepreneurs, explorers. Certainly not government or bureaucracy. Many of the most incredible inventions, discoveries, and creative works came about under governments that were not free or democratic.
I'm sure some amount of government is needed for a society to keep running. I have seen no evidence that it is what gives rise to technology and production rather than the other way around, or that bigger, costlier, more complicated, and more imposing is always better.
[snip]
> It's not just money. This could also mean forcing them to change course. We had something called "Urgenda" that took our gov to court (and won). In this case our government was blamed for doing too little about climate change and they had to adapt. There were also cases that for example challenged governmental oversight.
These are trifles. Corporations are all "on board" with climate change now. Petroleum profiteers have ESG scores. As far as the government is concerned, "doing more about climate change" means nothing for the people involved beyond making the commoners pay more for their food and energy.
Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.
The hockey-stick-like growth in technology, quality-of-life, and economic activity generally coinciding with the rise of modern market economics and liberal democracy suggests you might not be able to have one without the other.
You might not, but you might. And there's nothing about a liberal democracy that says government must have a massive centralized concentration of power, it just happens to be going that way because power begets power.
> there's nothing about a liberal democracy that says government must have a massive centralized concentration of power
That seems like it simplifies a few things like national security, civic safety of any kind, health care, migration, education. I can see a lot of arrows pointing towards centralization of power and for good reasons.
Not saying I'm happy about it, but I really, really struggle to imagine a solution for it that is as stable.
> national security, civic safety of any kind, health care, migration, education. I can see a lot of arrows pointing towards centralization of power and for good reasons.
Many "liberal western democracy" governments do very badly and and make ruinously expensive decisions that go against the interest and will of the citizens on some or all of those things.
In contrast to … ? Systems of government in your utopian visions?
You have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters before attacking them unfairly. These “governments” you are so fond of attacking are the best we can do in the present and they require enormous, continuous support from regular civilians. It behooves us all to be mindful of this.
These “bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials” are normal people, probably including members of your family. The enemy you are envisioning might actually exist, but I believe you are pointing your sword(s) in the wrong direction.
> In contrast to … ? Systems of government in your utopian visions?
Non sequitur. One does not have to contrast something with something else to make a statement about it.
> You have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters before attacking them unfairly.
Strange how fragile a lot of people are about daring to attack the government they are subservient to. I disagree, in fact I see you have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters to defend them unquestioningly.
> These “governments” you are so fond of attacking are the best we can do in the present and they require enormous, continuous support from regular civilians. It behooves us all to be mindful of this.
That's just some declaration you've made. You've asserted it. And I disagree. It behooves us all to be mindful of government's corruption, incompetence, and growing dangerous power and greed.
> These “bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials” are normal people, probably including members of your family. The enemy you are envisioning might actually exist, but I believe you are pointing your sword(s) in the wrong direction.
The fact you've equated holding people to account for their actions as being their enemy is telling.
"And what does "winning" mean? It means the government decides that it must take some money from other citizens and give it to you. "
It can also mean countless other things. Like that government has to stop excessive surveillance. Cannot take your home away to build a road. Or has to lift a regulation for your buisness, ...
Not every government activity is money redistribution.
Sounds like the kind of "win" where the government tells the government that the government has to stop excessive surveillance and the government promises the government it will and then it doesn't, and it also starts spying on the parts of the government that tried to stop it so it can bring them to heel.
You can change a few roads around from time to time, resulting in the government taking more of your money to build road that takes a longer route so you and your fellow plebs have to commute 10 minutes longer. That's not the "real" power previous poster was talking about, going up against the ruling class.
The "government" is a behemoth multi-armed monster of gigantic propertions. It is utterly incapable of even observing itself in full. The best we can do is look at parts.
You are throwing the separate branches of government on the same pile, which I think is unfair to say the least.
The judicial branch tells the executive branch to stop or adjust whatever it is doing. The executive branch is not happy about this, but if it wants to survive it needs to listen or at the very least project the illusion that it is listening in some way shape or form. We haven't touched the legislative branch here which is also a force to be reckoned with.
All these branches are filled to the brim with people of various background and motivations. They might not be happy about eachother, but they are stuck with it.
I don't know about American politics, but these branches are pretty well separated in the Netherlands. Maybe not as much as we'd like, but I'm hard-pressed to call it anything but a clear improvement over the past.
I don't see how your comment address what I wrote. Systems of government are set up to gain and keep power over their citizens, and western governments have this down to a science, which is to give people the illusion they have freedom and self-determination.
I promise you your government does not give the slightest shit if it forces itself to force its citizens to pay more taxes on food and energy. Funny that they have people believing that is a "win" -- socialize the cost of climate change to the commoners. Have you not noticed that it has become fashionable for governments to apologize and promise atonement for such things? Have you ever wondered why that is? It's not because they are looking to take down the banks or the petroleum cartels or the billionaires or whatever. It's because government ~= people. They are accepting blame on your behalf to shield their friends and owners from the blame they deserve.
Wake me up when they dismantle the carbon profiteers and seize their profits and the profits of their profits from the past century or so. Then the war profiteers, and so on.
You have conflated major separate branches of not only government, but also society in general. You then build on top of these simplifications in the most general of terms in an attempt to strengthen your ideas about power and how it is distributed.
I get it, I really do and I am biased as well so your underlying points may just as well be 1000% correct. It’s just not something I can productively engage with.
> You have conflated major separate branches of not only government, but also society in general.
Where?
> You then build on top of these simplifications in the most general of terms in an attempt to strengthen your ideas about power and how it is distributed.
How exactly did I do that?
Pretty weak response to my post tbh. I get it though, it hurts to realize the benevolent and omnipotent protector and provider you are subservient to is anything but. Lashing out is not an unusual response.
> where the government tells the government that the government has to stop excessive surveillance
That is how to conflate branches of government. IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.
I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.
I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.
It's the government though. The point from the start was that the judicial branch is part of government control. You are the one confused if you don't understand that.
> IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.
IMO it isn't.
> I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.
And yet you seem to know that the government is the solution to them all apparently without knowing what they are.
> I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.
I think you're angrily lashing out at strawmen of your own making because it has become difficult for you to reconcile the scary new ideas in this conversation. But I do find it very interesting how wildly irrational and angry governments and bureaucrats become at the suggestion that they should be held to account for their actions, or that anything they do could be questioned or disagreed with, and by those "hateful commoners" of all people!
So just to confirm, you are in the government, and you view people who say the government should be held accountable for its actions as "the enemy", is that right? If not it should be simple to explain how you thought I saw you as the enemy for my comments.
What would real winning look like to you? And whatever you pick: do you think it was easier to win in this sense in republican Rome for the average person, as compared to now?
Would be a government which is bound to work in the in the interests and to the will of the people, and one where bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials receive hash punishments if they are found to have lied or profited from office or been negligent or corrupt in carrying out their duty.
I notice a lot of dirty corrupt western politicians have started a lot of unpopular wars and "interventions" that have killed countless thousands of people and stolen trillions of dollars from their citizens since WWII, and all have escaped justice for it. Worse yet, they have the gall to blame victims of their crimes and force them to bear the consequences, "we meddled and caused wars and destabilization, and therefore we (read: you) need to shoulder burden of the consequences and 'help' more". That's not winning. Avenues of hanged war criminals would be winning.
You seem to equate government with the wealthy elite? If not, do you think, there is anything positive, the government is doing? If nothing, what kind of political system do you propose?
And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.
> You seem to equate government with the wealthy elite?
Strange.
> If not, do you think, there is anything positive, the government is doing?
Yes.
> And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.
Quite. There is something deeply appealing in making the law much more immediate and accessible to the commons. The labyrinthine system we have today makes me wonder how many people don't bother even when there are genuine disputes and injustices everywhere.
When I was 16 I lived with my sister for a few months, which were among the best of my life. She was in university and I'd moved in to help her take care of her infant so she wouldn't have to drop out.
Anyway, at her university library she got me a book on Cicero. I remember at one point, Cicero in the book travels around asia minor or somewhere trying to collect evidence to make the case for a client. However, he comes to the conclusion later on that facts and evidence don't really matter so much, as creating a compelling narrative.
It was nonfiction! In fact, it was in that library 15 years ago, and I think they have a website... However, after a brief search it seems they have a lot of books on Cicero.
I was obsessed with Rome (thanks to my high school Latin class) and the name Cicero seemed so cool and elegant to me.
I remember I'd stay up all night reading it. But I was such an idiot. At the break of dawn, I'd throw seeds at passersby beneath the window (high window) and yell I AM ELZIO REX OF THE BRITTTOOOONNSSS until my sister yelled at me to stop.
Did you know that one of the largest banks in Athens was owned / run by two slaves?
> Edward E. Cohen returns to the issue of slave-owned businesses previously addressed in his work on Athenian banking, reasserting his view that enslaved business owners were liable for their own debts. Through comparison with the Roman system, he argues that the Athenian conventions of credit worked alongside this legal liability.
IIRC, the slaves incorporated the bank, and then the bank (as a legal entity) paid the master of said slaves for the services of the slaves through a leasing arrangement.
I just started the 126 1/2 Hour Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire mostly because it is 1 credit on Audible. So far Gibbon is setting the stage but it is clear the many levels of Roman organization is a main factor he credits in thier ability to control such a wide empire. The rights enjoyed varied from who was a real Roman, who was conquered and under what terms, who fought for them, who was enslaved by them, taxed by them, how successful you were in your trade, or how far you were geographically from the centers. The law, and lawyers, had to operate outside the city of Rome in context for each of these factors in each of the lands where it was enforced along with a mixture of the local laws/customs/religion(s). It was their legal flexibility to absorb all these gradients that held the Empire together in its prime.
I won’t dissuade you from reading (listening) to Gibbon as he is something of a literary classic, but you must always be aware that Gibbon was writing two centuries ago and had his own ideological ax to grind. Historians today, drawing on a wider range of sources than Gibbon had access to, ascribe many developments in Roman history to very different factors than Gibbon claimed.
In fact, it is advisable to read several more recent works on Roman history first, so that you are then reading Gibbon purely as a literary classic and not as any authoritative source.
> In fact, it is advisable to read several more recent works on Roman history first,
I think that's the wrong way around. Start with reading the canon, and then delve into its refinements (schools get that all twisted too, only introducing cannon at the graduate level). Reading Gibbon will give you a deep appreciation of his influence. In the process, you'll get a genuine step closer to experience the Enlightenment (imagine yourself in your salon, by candlelight, a gaggle of kids playing in the room next to you) as well.
_Especially_ so if you are reading out of a dilettante interest, rather than professionally.
> Reading Gibbon will give you a deep appreciation of his influence. In the process, you'll get a genuine step closer to experience the Enlightenment (imagine yourself in your salon, by candlelight, a gaggle of kids playing in the room next to you) as well.
That's all well and good, but OP seems to be interested in learning about Roman history, not 18th century English historiography. And for those purposes Gibbon is extremely unreliable.
Thanks and I have heard the same it's much like the proper old sources like Herodotus or Josephus in that you are reading through a certain lense with artistic license. I got through the life of Samuel Johnson and there are definitely stylistic similarities from the era. I also got into The 12 Rulers of Byzantium back in the early podcast days so I hope that helps. Best part so far was descriptions of the old Roman footprint and what was there "now" as in 1780ish and needing to make another translation to the present. My how the times have changed(ish;)
Any you’d recommend? I’ve listened to the History of Rome podcast and read SPQR. I’ve thought about Gibbon but it is long and everytime it’s brought up online people say it’s outdated.
Modern historians have largely gone away with attempts to do works like Gibbon. Perhaps in part because of how his attempt ended up. So if you want to take a look at Roman history in general, you have to dip into popular history. And that is very uneven.
Alternatively, you can get books about specific periods, like say late republic, and read those in sequence. But that takes more time.
Finally, and this is my preferred approach, get things written by Romans. Yes, they were biased too, and often quite obviously. But at least they didn't have stake in modern society and politics. As long as you pay notice to fact that they are mostly recording either hearsay, or propaganda, you should be fine. In that course I would recommend Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (hearsay) and Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Caesar (propaganda).
It's not always true, but it gives you a good idea of how they were thinking, what was their morality like and their values.
Gibbon was writing out of an Enlightenment-era perspective warts and all, it was his firm position that the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity is what did it in. Today, historians generally view the crises of the 3rd century (well before Constantine) as the fatal blow to the Empire, which then just stumbled along for the next two centuries before collapsing.
Also, in England in Gibbon’s day there was very little knowledge of or interest in Byzantium. That half of the empire lasted another thousand years in spite of a remarkably tight connection between church and state. Only the Western Empire fell in AD 496.
We can read what some random Roman lawyers did 2000 years ago.
But what did people who lived near the Baltic sea do at that time? We have no idea. They might as well have not existed at all as far as historians are concerned.
We're extremely lucky in a way. Others civilization like the Etruscans or the Carthaginians which existed during the time of the Roman republic had an extensive literary tradition (according to the Greeks and Romans) but we have no surviving works written in their languages at all.
Cicero was one of the central figures of the Late Republic (or at least made sure he was seen as such, while others decided the actual fate of Rome). What’s your objection here?
There is a republic somewhere there. Though the text itself lacks certain coherence and a main focus beyond listing people and some details around them.
"Lawyers" in Ancient Rome were generally patricians who owed assistance to their cliens. There were no formal schools of law, and the law in Republican Rome was a changeable and largely customary thing, with a considerable religious component. What's more, from 204 BC onwards, these "lawyers" were legally barred from charging for their services, thanks to the Lex Cincia -- but even before, and well after, the passing of that law, it was considered beneath one's dignity to charge for legal counsel and advice.
In short, it wasn't a profession. Roman patricians generally knew the customs of Rome, and were capable of advising their vassals, retainers, and various plebians on points of law which reflected those customs. (Where the law was codified, it was extremely clear.) Some of these patrician-lawyers were orators and made pleadings before the court -- most did not, and in most cases pleadings were made directly by the parties involved.
Also: In Republican Rome, Judges (judex) were private arbitrators. They were not officials.
So it was what we'd call a customary and amateur legal system.