This is no doubt small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but as a classical history buff this bit of facile glibness from Politico (or, as Charlie Pierce likes to call it, Tiger Beat On the Potomac) deserves to be called out. Tim Elliot is credited as “an ancient historian” but if I’d turned this in as a paper in any of my Roman history classes back in the day I’d have probably gotten an F and a serious dressing down from my professor.
Where to begin? How about here:
The Donald Trump of his day, Julius Caesar, promised to return Rome to an imagined ancient glory—but instead constructed himself a throne, bulldozing democratic norms, ignoring checks on his power and eroding political debate. Rome chose to follow Caesar, putting the famed Republic on a glide path to destruction.
Alright, stop. First off, there is no universe in which Julius Caesar was the Donald Trump of his day, or Trump the Caesar of ours. Caesar was one of history’s great political and military tacticians, and in the brief periods he had the time to do so, an able administrator.
Secondly, the Roman Republic was not “on a glide path to destruction” when Caesar decided the die was cast and crossed the Rubicon. It was dead. Gone. Buried like a moldering corpse in a Blumhouse horror movie. The only real question at this point was whether Caesar or his fellow strong man Pompey would seize overall control of the Roman state and what that state would look like once the victor consolidated his power. So right off the bat we’re drifting into alternate history.
Then, there’s this:
At the heart of this democracy was a battleground of public opinion and ideology, the contio—the public meeting held in the forum in the shadow of Rome’s most sacred monuments.
This raucous organ of direct democracy was central to the Republic. As the official means by which legislation and public information were put to the people and debated, it was not a place for the faint of heart; there are stories of shouts at the contio so loud they knocked birds out of the sky—and the risk of riots or even lynching was ever-present. Yet for centuries, the contio was constrained by a set of norms—known as mos maiorum, or the “ways of the ancestors”—that balanced the sovereignty of the people with the authority of the state.
Yeah. No. The idea that the “the people” ever had any real levers of power in republican Rome is a sheer fantasy. There were civil wars fought in the Republican era over this and yes, the plebs theoretically did well. But the Roman Senate ultimately won the war by giving the people an illusion of power. I would have liked Elliot to have explored this rather than deliver a glib parallel between Trump and Caesar, because there are real lessons we could have drawn.
I could go on. At length. But at this point I think the horse is dead and beaten six feet under. So why does this matter? I love and study history because it does has lessons to teach—if we ask the right questions and draw the right lessons. An article like Elliot’s, which is little better than clickbait, manifestly does not. At best, by calling Julius Caesar the Donald Trump of Rome, burnishes the Trump myth rather than diminishes it.
More importantly, history represents our collective memory. How we remember it matters. Whose story we tell, and how we tell it matters. And the lessons we glean in how to chart our own course forward matters. That’s why I feel it is important to clap back at articles like this one. Even if you agree with the note of warning and caution Tim Elliot is trying to sound in his piece—and I do agree with him to that extent—you have to get it right and not just be happy with eyeballs on a middlebrow politics website.
If you want a far better take on Rome to reach your own conclusion, I highly recommend Mike Duncan’s podcast A History of Rome. His ongoing followup, Revolutions is fantastic as well. Be well, folks, and try not to freak out too badly!