Considering that Nietzsche hated left-wing politics as decadent and a sign of slavish morality, would he have also considered the Roman Republic as degraded?
Throughout his work, Nietzsche waxes poetical about the virtues and necessities of aristocracy as the healthiest sociopolitical organisation of mankind, the one that brings about the best of mankind to the top to affirm life through personal excellence and art. As such, he considered leftist movements, like the French Revolution and socialism, to be turns for the worse, where aristocratic structure fails and gives rise to democracy, the rule of the unwashed masses and a complete anarchy of instincts and vanquishment of higher values. Considering this, would he have also thought that the Roman Republic, which was the most liberal state at the time where patrimonial kingdoms were the norm, basing itself on rights, liberty, rule of law, legal equality and elections, was a decadent state? Would he have considered the Roman Kingdom that came before and the Roman Empire that came afterwards to have been healthier than the Republic in the middle?
Posted Sep 5, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC