Thread 17920607

Why do meme images like this conflate Roman conceptions of virtue and heroism with those of the Greeks when in fact there were numerous differences between Greek and Roman virtue to the point where conflating the two is flat out wrong.
The Romans, in contrast to the Greeks, praised poverty as a virtue and saw great fortunes as leading to decadence. The belief that the influx of wealth after the Punic Wars led to a severe moral degradation was something the Romans themselves thought after all. For the Romans Cincinnatus' poverty was not detrimental to his virtue but the cause of it.
Pride and ambition were likewise condemned by numerous pre-Christian Roman writers. It was not uncommon even for the Romans to ascribe the death of the Republic to pride and ambition. How could one say the Romans considered the selfish desire to dominate and rule for its own sake a virtue after reading Sallust or Cicero?
As for heroism the Romans did not look to Homer like the Greeks but to Vergilius and any reckoning of what the Romans considered heroic should take that into consideration. It is not self-serving pride, haughtiness, or ambition but deep piety and a firm sense of duty that the Romans saw as heroic.

The meme is kinda true though

>>17920607 (OP)
Because the romans adopted much of the greek philosophy that established those as virtues

also
selfish desire to dominate and rule =/= pride and ambition

>>17920707
>Because the romans adopted much of the greek philosophy that established those as virtues
They didn't though
>selfish desire to dominate and rule =/= pride and ambition
This is a fair distinction but ambition ("ambitio") and pride ("superbia") were still seen negatively by many Romans

>This is a fair distinction but ambition ("ambitio") and pride ("superbia") were still seen negatively by many Romans
This is complete nonsense
The entire Roman political system, both in its Republican and Imperial form, was based on individual men achieving great things, for the most part in war and politics, and bringing honor and fame on them and their family's names
Completely tossed off horseshit opinion as if its some irrefutable fact that could be corrected by reading one fucking book about the Roman Republic/Empire
>welll ackshewally
Every time, every fucking time its complete horseshit
Shut the fuck up

>>17920857
These things aren't as mutually exclusive as you might think, and i see you addressed the point about ambition but didn't even bother touching on how negatively the Romans viewed "superbia"
Its true that the Greeks viewed Pride as a virtue in of itself but that is not something present natively to the Latin tradition where the word Superbia by and large had negative connotations. Its no coincidence that the Romans gave it as a name to their most hated King, Tarquinius Superbus.
As for ambition you're right that the Romans did see some good things in it, but they also attached a lot of negative qualities to it as well, especially after the fall of the Republic, a series of events which many Romans blamed on the pride and ambition of its leading aristocrats. But a lot of this is down to Semantics, in the literal sense, Ambitio and especially Ambitus were often associated with political corruption and vice.

"The greater a man's ambition is, the more easily he is tempted to commit injustice by his desire for greater glory"

>>17920607 (OP)
None of that matters. Greeks and Romans were both brutal and highly stratified in practice. The same would be true of Christians when given enough power.