Alan . # . 1/1

I suspect the Roman republic would be a lot less respectable if it had not extraordinary campaign managers in Gibbon and the authors of the Federalist Papers. In reality Rome was pretty much an oligarchy punctuated by outbreaks of social protest followed by oligarchic violence against reformers. it is instructive to count the number of Roman reformers who ended up dead. Had the firm of Gibbon Madison been less successful image makers we might be paying more attention to the Athenian experience and the use of sortition.