“…Roman writers had been lamenting the decay of the national character for years. As early as the second century BC, Polybius blamed the politicians whose pandering had reduced the republic to mob rule. Sallust railed against the viciousness of political parties, and Livy– the most celebrated writer of Rome’s golden age– had written that ‘these days…we can bear neither our diseases nor their remedies.'”
Lost to the West, Lars Brownworth