A Case of Corruption
Since the matter of succession was not constitutionally regularized, the praetorian guard undertook to provide Rome with a steady supply of emperors. (Sometimes the legions set up a claimant of their own, and then the selection was decided by a test of arms.) Admitting that the soldiery considered the course of empire in making their choice, they were nevertheless not uninfluenced by the aspirant's promise to improve their economic welfare. We might call that venal voting, but in what essential does it differ from the promises to veterans that now embellish campaign oratory? Or, notice the emoluments and special advantages the modern politician holds out to conscripts so that they might accept the condition of involuntary servitude in better grace. That the praetorian guard still plays an important part in the selection of our political leaders is evidenced by the fact that for over a generation after the Civil War nearly every candidate for the presidency was a general, and that in every campaign the soldier bonus was an issue; since World War I, no candidate for any office would think of advocating any curtailment of the special advantages which organized veterans deem their due.
The point of the analogy is not that ancient and modern men of arms are alike in their pursuit of something for nothing—in that respect they are no different from the rest of the citizenry—but that in every age political power has lent itself to purposes that are uneconomic and antisocial, that it has never hesitated to purchase support with confiscated property. For the ancients it may be said that they conducted the business in a forthright manner, unadorned with moralisms; the Caesars did not invoke an ideology to cover up the real objective of "bread and circuses." Today, political preferment and the augmentation of political power are accomplished in
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