The Consul’s Legions

 

In the times of the Republic, Rome was ruled by the Senate. Senators were elected by the Senate, of course, but all men born within a senatorial family would be elected by birthright.

Senate had the power to declare war, and, therefore, it controlled the State Legions, the Roman Army.

Senate leaders (consuls, proconsuls, praetores or propraetores, province governors) therefore needed agreement and support from the Senate itself to use the Army for carrying on any war that sparked.

Commanding legions and succeeding at a military career was not an uncommon way to gain personal glory or reputation to step up for the commander. In many cases, successful political careers were based precisely in military reputation.

Therefore, political success required commanding legions, and commanding legions required support from the Senate. In other words, it was the Senate who controlled who could succeed in his political career by granting him command of legions, regardless the personal value as military leader of the commander.

If we look to the smartphone market, we see some parallelism with what happens to handset or operating systems manufacturers. Carriers do have a lot of power, and the success of this or that vendor depends quite much on this power. Carriers can, somehow, make or break success for this or that manufacturer. Much is being said, for example, about iPhones being distributed through Verizon, or about Apple’s relationship to carriers.

Successful Apples, Androids, LGs, Samsungs, HTCs, Nokias or RIMMs would depend on how “gracious” carriers might be when granting command of legions.

Back to Rome, we as well can see that if a given individual Senator was resourceful enough (ie rich and smart at the same time), he might enlist and equip his own legions, which would rival the State’s, controlled by the Senate. In fact this is what Gaius Marius did around 100 b.C. Thus, he became independent from the Senate to build his military and political career, pretty successful by the way.

We believe this is what Google might be doing, Rich and smart, they might be planning independence from senatorial carriers. And this might lead to a successful career, similar to Marius’, the only person in Roman History to be elected Consul nothing less than seven times.

Careful, Jobs… Androids might take this road to outflank you.

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