Categories History

7 days 30 days All time Recent Popular
This is Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Roman general and dictator. Right-wing strongman of the 90s-70s BCE.

I've been thinking a lot about Sulla this past week, and people like him.

Ever heard of him? I bet not. 1/


You've certainly heard of Julius Caesar who (the story goes) ended the Roman Republic, and was slaughtered by freedom-loving patriots.

But everything Caesar did--marching on Rome, setting up one-man rule, remaking the Senate--had been done by Sulla 40 years before. 2/

So what's the difference? Both men were fantastically wealthy oligarchs--but within that spectrum, Caesar was considered a liberalizer, and Sulla a conservative.

Caesar said he was going to change things; Sulla said he was re-establishing the old ways. 3/

Rome didn't have a written Constitution. Instead they had a set of customs called the "mos maiorum," or "way things are done." We'd call them "norms."

If you asked Sulla and his supporters what they were fighting for, they would've said the mos maiorum.

Which was a lie. 4/

And we KNOW it was a lie, because invading the pomerium (sacred boundary) of Rome was overturning the heaviest norm there was.

Sulla did that in 88 BC, over a personal slight. He was mad he didn't get a generalship.

Is now where I make a modern equivalence? No, I'll wait. 5/
The British - Chinese Opium wars - Foreign mud Part 1
(Note: the British "elite" made their fortunes with opium and still do 😉)
https://t.co/eeUUJU1hnG


Aaron Hardoon (1851-1931): Business, Opium, Politics and Philanthropy in Republican Shanghai, 1911-1931
Hardoon and Trade Diaspora of Baghdadi Jews
https://t.co/pzOsXyoXKZ

You are looking at a handful of Scottish Opium Traders.

Keswick Family :

An old firm:
https://t.co/XURQUI11nH. Check Governance. 1600's. HBC is still going.

Common founders to HSBC

The Governors is where it's at.

House of #Windsor, #uk "Elite" 🤔
"In the early 1800s, the Brits controlled 90 percent of the #Chinese opium trade".
#British East Indian Company in 1715 till today, mass scale drug addiction was a policy against targeted

The British - Chinese Opium wars - Harrying the Chinese coast Part 2
(Note: the British "elite" made their fortunes with opium and still do 😉)
https://t.co/sZzx2dz4mG