Pdestroyed

Pagans Understood

• Polybius as the "Historian of Historians" believed "All democracies fail".
• Polybius explains in "The Histories" (130 BC), A Fatal Sequence commonly occurs "... when a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them, and begin to aim at pre-eminence; and it is chiefly those of ample fortune who fall into this error. 6 So when they begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities, they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way. 7 And hence when by their foolish thirst for reputation they have created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence." Polybius#Translations_compare Polybius
• Part of this corruption, "So when they begin to be fond of office, and find themselves unable to obtain it by their own unassisted efforts and their own merits, they ruin their estates, while enticing and corrupting the common people in every possible way. By which means when, in their senseless mania for reputation, they have made the populace ready and greedy to receive bribes, the virtue of democracy is destroyed, and it is transformed into a government of violence and the strong hand." Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh, Translated, EBook #44126
• This is all because "The masses continue with an appetite for benefits and the habit of receiving them by way of a rule of force and violence." And this is the result of, "The people, having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others..." This leads to the people and their government will, "institute the rule of violence; and now uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and find once more a master and monarch."

Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus (c. 100 AD.) states, "That the man who first ruined the Roman people twas he who first gave them treats and gratuities. But this mischief crept secretly and gradually in, and did not openly make it's appearance in Rome for a considerable time."

• These practices from Nimrod to Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, and Herod among others all were rulers who exercise authority ushered in a social decay. This is why Plutarch also reported, “The real destroyers of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and benefits.”
• Julian the Apostate, who followed Constantine, believed “the disbanding of all private welfare institutions” seeing that private charity had the power to potentially liberate people from dependence on the state.