Our main sources are two conversations of Dominic Flandry:
With Chunderban Desai
Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 239-426 AT III, pp. 271-276.
With Miriam Abrams
Poul Anderson, A Stone In Heaven IN Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (Riverdale, NY, June 2012), pp. 1-188 AT VI, pp. 70-76.
Flandry tells Miriam that the "'...earlier order...,'" (p. 73) i.e., the Commonwealth, had committed suicide, bringing on chaos:
"'So again, as before, came Caesar.'" (ibid.)
However, in the case of Rome, the Republic, although maybe (?) heading towards suicide, had not committed it yet. Julius Caesar did not restore order after the Republic but instead accumulated power during that period and his successor, Octavius, continued this process, gradually transforming the Republic with a princeps senatus into a Principate with a princeps.
If the Principate was the continued appearance of republican government, then how could there have been a Principate under Manuel I who merely imposed his own imperial rule directly onto the chaos of the post-Commonwealth Troubles?
Desai tells Flandry that the Terran Empire is:
"'...well into our anarchic phase... Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish to call it.'" (p. 273)
Interregnum between what? Flandry spells out to Miriam that she and he:
"'...happen to be living in a critical stage of the Empire's decline, the interregnum between its principate and dominate phases.'" (p. 74)
Again, how can there have been a principate? And surely they are already well into the dominate phase? - since Flandry also tells Miriam that:
"'Now nobody can claim power by right - only by strength.'" (p. 75)
Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization seems to place the Dominate phase much later.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But Anderson himself defined what he meant by the Principate phase of the Terran Empire in one of his letters to me. This Terran Principate phase marked the era from the founding of the Empire down to Georgios' reign when hopes were high and the Empire was reasonably well-governed.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I think the Solar Commonwealth was not a unitary state with one overall form of gov't. It was explicitly described by Hloch as a "nation of nations," meaning it comprised many member states. And it's not necessary to assume they were all republics. In THE STAR FOX, set in a different timeline, Earth was ruled by a World Federation where Italy had a Crown Prince Umberto. Which means not all member states were republics.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I would date the beginning of the open breakdown of the Roman Republic to the civil war fought by Marius and Sulla in the 80's BC. The triumph of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and his rule of Rome as Dictator was a sign of what was likely to come.
Before any man, bad or good, can restore order, he first has to gain the power and means for doing that. Julius Caesar's mistake was too openly coveting the symbols/appearances of power, which angered the Senatorial aristocracy. A mistake Octavian was careful to avoid.
Ad astra! Sean
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