Discuss the Roman bureaucracy during early fifth-century C.E. What is its relevance in the present times ?
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In 458 BCE, facing a military attack from the two neighboring tribes of the Aequi and the Sabines, the Roman Senate took a drastic measure, reserved for the direst of circumstances: they appointed a dictator, who would single-handedly lead the state in this time of trouble. As the Roman historian Livy tells it, Cincinnatus, the senator who was appointed dictator, received the news while working on his farm. Abandoning the plow, he immediately rushed to join the army, which he then led to a swift and brilliant victory. Then something astonishing happened: Cincinnatus resigned his extraordinary powers and returned to his farm. For the remainder of the Roman Republic, and well into the Imperial Period, Cincinnatus continued to be seen as the quintessential Roman cultural hero and model of virtue: an aristocratic man who was a talented soldier, general, and politician who put the interests of Rome first, above his own. While no other Roman politician displayed Cincinnatus’ degree of self-sacrificing humility, the other Roman heroes of the Republic and the Empire were still uniformly male, pre-dominantly aristocratic, and famed for military and political achievements.