Livy, Latin in full Titus Livius (born 59/64 bc, Patavium, Venetia, Italy —died ad 17, Patavium), with Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians.
The History of Rome (Books I-V) – a foundational work in the history of western thought – covers the earliest history of Rome, from the arrival of Aeneas and the myth of Romulus and Remus to its capture and burning by the Gauls in 386BC. Livy’s storytelling radiates in vivid accounts of constant class warfare interspersed with military adventure. Here we learn about the Rape of the Sabine Women, the Alban Compact, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, the Fabii and the slave Vindictus, the rise and fall of the Tarquin kings, the battle of Lake Regillus, the Commission of the Ten (the Decemvirs) and their law-code known as the twelve tables, the coming of the consuls and the tribunes, the winter soldiers, and finally the Gallic sacking of Rome and Camillus’ memorable speech echoing the foundation of the city.
Livy recorded his history of Rome at the end of the first millennium, hundreds of years after many of the events he describes, in a period when Rome was just emerging from nearly a century of civil war. His retelling of these traditional stories handed down from ancient times was heavily influenced by political strife more contemporary to his day. Myth, history and tradition fuse together within a political superstructure that depicts early Rome in perpetual turmoil, featuring constant power struggles between the masses (Plebeians) and the elites (Patricians). He writes in 2.23, “Nevertheless, danger was threatening the city’s peace . . . [in the form of] ever-increasing bitterness between the ruling class and the masses. The chief cause of the dispute was the plight of the unfortunates who were ‘bound over’ to their creditors for debts.”
The author interweaves the entire narrative with this class-warfare theme. Plentiful throughout are stories about pressure from below for political and economic reform vigorously countered by ruling elites. Over and over we read that the primary method for bolstering the bulwark against popular change was the manipulation of external threats to divert popular opinion. Nowadays we’ve heard the standard refrain all too many times, eerily similar to that of Livy– an enemy, real or perceived, threatens the national safety so an army must be raised. Senate (Patricians) can vote for war, but the Tribunes (Plebeians) can block the troop levy. Brinkmanship ensues, lines are drawn and scapegoating begins, political vacuums emerge and are filled, frequently by dictators, then more war. Dictators rise and fall, heroes are worshipped and human frailties frowned upon, gods are angered and placated with religious offerings, consuls and tribunes come and go. Through it all the populace is kept in constant fear of the barbarians just outside the gates. Rinse and repeat.
History reveals that the Plebeians have not fared well on average over the years in this environment. On the rare occasions when popular sentiment won the day the victors sometimes gained only the appearance of more power. Take the story of Servius for example. In it Livy explains that there was fairly broad suffrage among men in Rome, but that each vote did not carry the same weight from class to class. “The political reputation of Servius rests upon his organization of society according to a fixed scale of rank and fortune. He originated the census, a measure of the highest utility to a state destined, as Rome was, to future preeminence; for by means of its public service, in peace as well as in war, could thence forward be regularly organized on the basis of property; every man’s contribution could be in proportion to his means.” Livy states that “this had the effect of giving every man nominally a vote, while leaving all power actually in the hands of the Knights and the First Class.” (Livy, 1.44) Hence a narrowing of the field upon which the struggle for power is contested to a small number of privileged property owners.
Now think about how the US Congress is stacked against the popular will. By the time each Congress comes to order for the first time we the people have already surrendered a significant portion of our popular will by allowing ourselves to be winnowed down to 535 representatives (plus DC’s 3 electoral votes), some of whom stay on for decades. This narrowing of the target range to a manageable size creates a distinct advantage for influence peddlers (lobbyists and their benefactors). Then we double down by giving the less representative Senate the filibuster, thereby allowing a determined minority to kill bills that might emerge from the popular passions of the more representative House. The founding fathers did this by design to offset the tyranny of the majority. This is one of the famous checks and balances, and to be clear, by itself it is a strong philosophical concept and a serious requirement in a democracy. How else to offset the rule of the mob? In an oligarchy unfortunately it becomes a device to lock-in the desires of the ruling class. So, in the Senate, Wyoming has just as much power as California. Two senators each. Again the targets are narrowed even further for those fortunate enough to be allowed on the shooting range. Add a pinch of Citizen’s United and a dash of Gerrymandering and just as in Livy’s day there is broad suffrage, but most power actually resides in the hands of the Knights and the First Class. In that environment it is easy to see how the hopes and aspirations of the many can easily be hamstrung by the wishes of the few. Any wonder that it took one hundred years after the Civil War, and numerous failed attempts, to pass a civil rights act?
Livy writes in the preface: “The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see: and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings: fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”
The class struggle still exists, and it is still rotten. For the Plebeians hope is the dope their masters keep pushing, but it’s a weak dose, just enough to keep ’em strung out. The Patricians meanwhile continue to sit high on the hog. The history is there for all to see, but the power elite owns powerful tools to blind people from seeing it, and hence learning lessons from it. They keep a nice clean the sheet of the collective memory. When is the last time you saw a history of American labor on the TV? We get barraged with content on the history of war, and capitalism, and politicians, and celebrity, but you will be hard-pressed to find anything on the struggle for unions, equal rights and fair wages and better working conditions. Several years ago I visited the Newseum in Washington, which was advertised as the national museum on the history of the American media, dedicated to news and journalism that promoted free expression and the First Amendment. I found precious little material on working class movements, strikes or industrial and corporate malfeasance. How much of this information were you taught in school? How much is in the textbooks? Yet most of us spend a large portion of our waking lives laboring. I imagine you will hear plenty about Chinese balloons today though. Not much has changed in the 2700 years since Livy’s tales. RF
In the mid-1960s FM radio featured a handful of “progressive” or “freeform” programs that became foundational influences on a growing counter-cultural generation. Coinciding with the youth backlash against the sterile consumerism of the 1950s, against the “plastic people” as the Mothers of Invention coined them, listeners were primarily urban kids, many recently radicalized by the civil rights, free speech and anti-Vietnam war movements, many others were just lovers of provocative thought and music.
In the early days most FM and AM stations were owned by the same broadcasting companies. AM simply duplicated their programming onto the FM band in an effort to broaden audiences. Everything began to change in 1964 when the FCC moved to enact a non-duplication rule in an effort to broaden the chances for under-represented demographics to be served. The rule, emerging in the midst of the civil rights struggles, was at first vigorously opposed by many established AM/FM affiliate stations as an egregious example of government overreach, not to mention the financial costs of hiring new staff and DJs.
Not all stations resisted, WBAI in New York and Pacifica stations in California were early adopters for example, but powerful owners did manage to delay official enactment until January 1, 1967. Once passed the FM Non-Duplication Rule required FM stations to broadcast original content over 50% of their broadcast day. This little remembered event was a key moment in the cultural formation of the 1960s and early 1970s (and my life!). Programmers could no longer take the lazy route of repetitiously spinning Top 40 banality, they were forced to begin experimenting. Many gave disc jockeys more freedom and control over the material on their shows. These new “underground” jockeys began to manipulate their playlists to feature a broad range of genres interspersed with political and cultural discussions, comedy and interviews. The style came to be known as freeform. There was no preset playlist schedule to follow. The only rules were those laid down by the FCC regarding profanity and station identification. With no stylistic boundaries, programming was shaped by the intellectual eclecticism and uniqueness of the individual personalities behind the mic.
The first prototype for what would become freeform radio was Pacifica Radio (KPFA in Berkeley, California) launched in 1949 by a group World War II conscientious objectors. KPFA was dedicated to free artistic expression and countering many of the accepted political norms of the early postwar period. The first so-called freeform radio show was Night Sounds hosted by John Leonard. It was here that beat poets like Ginsberg, Corso, Ferlinghetti and Kerouac were heard for the first time over the airwaves. This was powerful stuff. Other founding fathers included WBAI New York’s Bob Fass, WOR New York’s Murray the K (who called himself the 5th Beatle) and in Los Angeles it was KPFK’s pioneering talk show “Radio Free oZ” hosted by the Firesign Theatre troupe.
But perhaps the most recognized commercial freeform station was San Francisco’s KMPX, with its DJ/program director Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue. His timing was perfect, coming online in the run-up to the summer of love just as the San Francisco sound was beginning to peak. On any evening in San Francisco one could tune in and hear everything from the Stones, Mingus and Miles Davis to Mongolian chants. KMPX-FM and Donahue were the amplifiers that first brought the likes of Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service to the Bay Area and world.
One evening in April 1967, Donahue invited Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia to be guest DJs on KMPX. Listen to the show below. This fascinating time-capsule has Phil and Jerry discussing the Grateful Dead’s brand-new debut album, their upcoming first tour in the east and odd topics such as a top-secret “sound gun.” But the real treat is the exposure of the musical influences that shaped Garcia and Lesh, both very young at the time, culled straight from their own personal record collections! I have visions of them riding the Muni bus from the Haight to downtown, stacks of wax tucked under their arms. Listen and Enjoy…
Henry David Thoreau. His book Walden and essay Civil Disobedience influenced my thinking greatly when I read them in college. I was not the only one– Tolstoy, Gandhi, MLK, John Muir, Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright all mention being profoundly affected by his writings. In the 1960s Thoreau’s concepts of civil disobedience and direct action helped shape the strategies of the civil rights movement, the free speech movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. His spirit is never far from the surface throughout the SDS manifesto, the Port Huron Statement, written by Tom Hayden.
When arrested in 1846 for refusing to pay poll taxes because of his opposition to slavery, the event that led to his writing of Civil Disobedience, he was visited in jail by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson reportedly asked: Henry David, what are you doing in there? Thoreau’s reply: Ralph Waldo, what are you doing out there?
On the evening of May 7, 1954 the last remaining French position, strong point Lily, manned by Moroccan soldiers commanded by a French officer, surrendered to the attacking Vietminh, ending the two-month long siege of Dien Bien Phu and with it the French-Indochina War. The French fought long, hard, and at times effectively, for French Indochina. The U.S. government gave more financial aid to the French cause in Indochina than it gave to France in the Marshall Plan. But in the end Eisenhower refused to send troops to rescue the garrison.
Dien Bien Phu was unquestionably an important event in world history. In a sense it was the last stand of western colonialism in the Far East. The Brits had already fled India and were in the midst of the Malayan Emergency. The Dutch war of reconquest in Indonesia had been futile. Unfortunately for Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese people, their Chinese and Soviet allies sold them short at the bargaining table later that year in Geneva. That, mixed with American actions to negate the treaty in subsequent years, set the table for the second Indochina War, known to many Vietnamese as the “American Phase.”
The picture below is probably the most famous of the battle, in reality it was taken after the battle as part of a re-enactment staged by a Russian filmographer…
Vietnam People’s Army, First publish in 1954. – Vietnam People’s Army museum (still from Soviet filmographer Roman Karmen).
Nashville shooter legally bought guns used to kill six at Christian school; Governor Newsom signs groundbreaking law aimed at stemming gasoline price gouging; Nationwide demonstrations and strikes against pension reforms in France: ; Evening News March 28 2023
Livy, Latin in full Titus Livius (born 59/64 bc, Patavium, Venetia, Italy —died ad 17, Patavium), with Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians.
Parallel Narratives 
The author interweaves the entire narrative with this class-warfare theme. Plentiful throughout are stories about pressure from below for political and economic reform vigorously countered by ruling elites. Over and over we read that the primary method for bolstering the bulwark against popular change was the manipulation of external threats to divert popular opinion. Nowadays we’ve heard the standard refrain all too many times, eerily similar to that of Livy– an enemy, real or perceived, threatens the national safety so an army must be raised. Senate (Patricians) can vote for war, but the Tribunes (Plebeians) can block the troop levy. Brinkmanship ensues, lines are drawn and scapegoating begins, political vacuums emerge and are filled, frequently by dictators, then more war. Dictators rise and fall, heroes are worshipped and human frailties frowned upon, gods are angered and placated with religious offerings, consuls and tribunes come and go. Through it all the populace is kept in constant fear of the barbarians just outside the gates. Rinse and repeat.
History reveals that the Plebeians have not fared well on average over the years in this environment. On the rare occasions when popular sentiment won the day the victors sometimes gained only the appearance of more power. Take the story of Servius for example. In it Livy explains that there was fairly broad suffrage among men in Rome, but that each vote did not carry the same weight from class to class. “The political reputation of Servius rests upon his organization of society according to a fixed scale of rank and fortune. He originated the census, a measure of the highest utility to a state destined, as Rome was, to future preeminence; for by means of its public service, in peace as well as in war, could thence forward be regularly organized on the basis of property; every man’s contribution could be in proportion to his means.” Livy states that “this had the effect of giving every man nominally a vote, while leaving all power actually in the hands of the Knights and the First Class.” (Livy, 1.44) Hence a narrowing of the field upon which the struggle for power is contested to a small number of privileged property owners.
Now think about how the US Congress is stacked against the popular will. By the time each Congress comes to order for the first time we the people have already surrendered a significant portion of our popular will by allowing ourselves to be winnowed down to 535 representatives (plus DC’s 3 electoral votes), some of whom stay on for decades. This narrowing of the target range to a manageable size creates a distinct advantage for influence peddlers (lobbyists and their benefactors). Then we double down by giving the less representative Senate the filibuster, thereby allowing a determined minority to kill bills that might emerge from the popular passions of the more representative House. The founding fathers did this by design to offset the tyranny of the majority. This is one of the famous checks and balances, and to be clear, by itself it is a strong philosophical concept and a serious requirement in a democracy. How else to offset the rule of the mob? In an oligarchy unfortunately it becomes a device to lock-in the desires of the ruling class. So, in the Senate, Wyoming has just as much power as California. Two senators each. Again the targets are narrowed even further for those fortunate enough to be allowed on the shooting range. Add a pinch of Citizen’s United and a dash of Gerrymandering and just as in Livy’s day there is broad suffrage, but most power actually resides in the hands of the Knights and the First Class. In that environment it is easy to see how the hopes and aspirations of the many can easily be hamstrung by the wishes of the few. Any wonder that it took one hundred years after the Civil War, and numerous failed attempts, to pass a civil rights act?
Livy writes in the preface: “The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see: and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings: fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.”
The class struggle still exists, and it is still rotten. For the Plebeians hope is the dope their masters keep pushing, but it’s a weak dose, just enough to keep ’em strung out. The Patricians meanwhile continue to sit high on the hog. The history is there for all to see, but the power elite owns powerful tools to blind people from seeing it, and hence learning lessons from it. They keep a nice clean the sheet of the collective memory. When is the last time you saw a history of American labor on the TV? We get barraged with content on the history of war, and capitalism, and politicians, and celebrity, but you will be hard-pressed to find anything on the struggle for unions, equal rights and fair wages and better working conditions. Several years ago I visited the Newseum in Washington, which was advertised as the national museum on the history of the American media, dedicated to news and journalism that promoted free expression and the First Amendment. I found precious little material on working class movements, strikes or industrial and corporate malfeasance. How much of this information were you taught in school? How much is in the textbooks? Yet most of us spend a large portion of our waking lives laboring. I imagine you will hear plenty about Chinese balloons today though. Not much has changed in the 2700 years since Livy’s tales. RF