Origin stories are the most intriguing, at least this is my view. That of the Roman Republic is a stellar one because of how it was born from the ashes of extinguished ego, and what it is we need to learn if we are to ever become politically adult nations.

The hard-won liberty of Rome was rendered the more welcome, and the more fruitful, by the character of the last king, Tarquin the Proud.

Brutus snuffed out those last embers of audacity and hubris when he expelled the tyrant, Tarquinius Superbus. But he did so without plunging Rome into an instant cauldron of liberty.

Why do I say ‘cauldron’ to portray something we moderns consider to be cooling rather than fiery?

Because unrestrained liberty gained overnight would not have served well the “rabble of vagrants,” as Livy describes the populace. To suddenly enjoy complete freedom, unrestrained by the power of the long years of the throne, would have set them on a “stormy sea of democratic politics,” where popular uprisings and quarrels for power would be expected.

A sense of community needed time to grow. Patriotism comes slowly and is founded upon family and a love for one’s land.

Premature ‘liberty’ of this kind would have been a disaster: we should have been torn to pieces by petty squabbles before we had ever reached political maturity, which, as things were, was made possible by the long quiet years under monarchical government; for it was the government which, as it were, nursed our strength and enabled us ultimately to produce sound fruit from liberty, as only a politically adult nation can.

The point of this article is to highlight an approach that has become almost barren to we moderns - to suffer patience.

Again, I use a more burning word as in ‘suffer,’ because waiting for something honourable and integral requires a degree of suffering. Nothing good ever comes to us easily. And we ought not expect it to, lest we never grow.

This story is a lesson sorely needed for our contemporary time. Alas, I fear the lesson is long and too many will never learn it.