ABSTRACT
Many historians emphasize the critical roles of warfare in state building, foremost in the democratic states of modern Europe, to a lesser extent in the despotic states of the ancient Orient. The Roman constitution was a direct democracy with popular sovereignty in legislation and election. The disparate outcomes of democratic movements in the early and late Republic reveal the effects of what political scientists call the circulation of elites, whereby the ruling circle enfeebles the masses by creaming off their potential leaders. The Roman Republic and pre-imperial China coincided with the golden ages of classical antiquity. There were the times of Confucius and Socrates, when meritocracy emerged in China and democracy thrived in Greece, when ideas blossomed that are inspirational today. The Roman Republic made a clear legal distinction between the state and the family, which the Chinese under Confucianism had difficulty achieving. With its roots in feudalistic China, Confucianism confined politics to asymmetric personal relations, all-pervading guanxi.
