The Great Republics: Rome vs USA
Examining the last days of a corrupt decaying political system and comparing it with the Roman Republic
If I had a nickel for every time someone compared the current political state of the United States of America to late Republican Rome, I’d be bothering the currency exchange quite often. Unfortunately you will often see these comparisons get mixed up with conservatives bemoaning ‘moral decay’ and arguing that this ‘soft’ age is going to lead to the same downfall for America that the Roman Empire experienced - which is always interesting to hear, given the Empire hadn’t even started yet in the late Republic…
Regardless, there are many and various comparisons to be made, perhaps on a more nuanced level than Francis Ford Coppola in his recent film Megalopolis, which according to his own notes boils down to “what if the Catilinarian Conspiracy was in America.” I’ve decided to make some broad-strokes comparisons here, from an outsider’s perspective of course, around the following categories:
Political System
This is perhaps an easy comparison to make, as the Founding Fathers of America quite deliberately drew on Ancient Rome when establishing their new republic. This filters through to the terminology, with terms such as Senate and Republic being lifted directly from the Romans. Likewise, the concept of “checks and balances” drew upon the Roman dislike of unfettered power - although the execution of this ended up quite different. While there was a lot of inspiration from Rome, there were a lot of more practical aspects that drew on the status quo in democracies of the day - the Senate, for example, was much closer to the British House of Lords (albeit with voting) than its Roman namesake.
What is even more interesting is that the Founding Fathers took inspiration from the Roman Empire just as much - and this can be seen particularly in the use of Architecture. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching a comparative course on the influences of Roman Art and Architecture upon the American founders, and it is frankly fascinating. Fasces, fasces everywhere! A number of political buildings were modelled on surviving Roman edifices, such as the Parthenon and the Maison Carrée. The impression that this neoclassical style gave to government buildings was one of permanence and power, which the Founders were exceedingly keen to permeate through their barely-newborn babe of a state.
As it stands today, the push from the Right and Libertarian movements to diminish the power and size of government has undercut much of this vision. Although the Roman Republic fell to the machinations of powerful generals and sycophantic toadying, America is far removed from this picture. It is also important to consider at all times that in the days of Cicero and Caesar, the population of the city of Rome would have been only around 1 to 1.5 million, smaller than very unimportant city of Auckland when I was born…
Politicians
Despite the relative size differences and differences in the political systems, there are many comparisons to be made about the politicians themselves. It’s fair to say that, while identity politics is too great a focus nowadays, the identities in politics have always been the real focus - political figures in Rome and America have so often been loud, proud and bombastic; daring, arrogant and narcissistic; inspiring, decisive and revered; or calculating, manipulative and two-faced. The range of characters that populate the scenes today could have just as easily slipped into the cut and thrust of Roman politics (provided they were men of course).
Perhaps unfairly, Donald Trump is the most well-known American politician of the day, which is surprising given how little of his life he spent in politics, only really getting involved through his accumulation of wealth; but Rome had its fair share of people who made their power through money, like the famous triumvir Crassus (not a very fair comparison I know). The American political families like the Kennedys and Bushes come straight out of the Roman playbook - the great patrician families of Rome dominated the highest offices for centuries, to the point where a ‘new man’ like Cicero was looked down on, since none of his family had ever previously held office. All the other styles and roles played by politicians you see today can find their counterpart in the cast of characters that Rome produced.
On top of all this, the Roman elite was incredibly incestuous (perhaps literally, we shall not get into that) and you could guarantee that during any major event in Rome during the Republican period, all the important figures show up one way or another. The Catilinarian Conspiracy? Of course, Julius Caesar was caught up in this, but slid his way out - much like the ‘teflon dons’ of our age. Just a glance at the family tree of any famous Patrician and you’ll see them all inter-married somehow or other. If you were to follow the family tree of Caesar through to the Empire, you’d find not only all the Julio-Claudian Emperors but also the likes of Marc Antony, Pompey and even some of the subsequent Emperors who deposed the previous dynasty. There simply wasn’t enough room in the Patrician class to avoid it! In the same way, it’s hard to keep the Kennedys out of anything today…
Elections
There’s no shortage of intrigue around elections in America, especially the Presidential ones, but also the primaries and many other seats, states and propositions that go on the ballot seemingly every other year. In the Roman Republic it was much the same, though these happened every year (!) and had no shortage of drama. It’s useful to know the various positions that were elected for any given year, mostly by a public vote, although some role were appointed by the Senate.
While the Senate as a body held the majority of power, the most important individuals in Rome were the two consuls - yes two, since no one man should have all that power - who served for one year terms. Checks and balances, guys! They set the tone, organised the senate and could do fun things like lead an army in war-time. Below them came the Praetors, Aediles, Quaestors, Tribunes and more. Each one was a step on the ladder towards the ultimate prize - a year in the top job where you pray that something interesting happened so you could make a name for yourself (or if you were Cicero, you make sure it happens so you can tell people you made a name for yourself). If the ‘Bush did 9/11’ conspiracy got traction in our age, imagine the ‘Cicero invented Catiline’ one we could have had…
The one year term limits really helped to restrict any one person from getting too famous - Rome really, really hated those pesky Kings they once had - until the most ambitious men realised that they could game the system and use military power to do what they wanted, as per the First and Second triumvirates. These were of course groups of three powerful men (checks and balances still!) who bossed everything around until it all fell apart and two of them ended up in a bloody civil war. It’s funny that the same thing happened twice. These were, of course, unelected - but preferable to the horrors of the dictator Sulla and his proscriptions which saw Stalin-esque purges across the state.
With so many elections came natural plots, intrigue and enmity. The origins of the Catilinarian Conspiracy can potentially be traced to Catiline himself being shafted several times from being elected Consul - enough to drive an ambitious man to mutiny. With these came assassination attempts, bribery, corruption and smear campaigns - oh dear, I think I’m talking about the ongoing American elections now!
Bribery
Another fertile area of comparison is the concept of money and bribery. Just as elections are won and lost on donors and Super PACs today, money played just as important a role in Rome. Politicians would not earn a salary from their role, and would need to have significant wealth to even arrange a campaign. In this way, they would often use previous stints as administrators and governors of minor provinces to embezzle and extort as much money as they could, in order to finance their next election. Money could be spent on public exhibitions, games, buildings and more - it really helped the circus that was the city go round. Bribery was of course illegal, so it happened all the time.
While money in American politics is more of an ‘influence’ and ‘lobbying’ game, there is little doubt that the wealthiest exhibit a huge control on the decisions being made behind the scenes. In Rome, this was more obvious as the two groups were often one and the same. Rome functioned on a patron-client system, which helped to move money down through the strata of society so that the poor didn’t (always) starve, in return for political and social favour. In this way, a wealthy person would give some money to their clients, who would pass some on to theirs, thereby creating a giant pyramid sized scheme of influence which could be called upon during elections. I can’t think of anything like that which happens today… Oh we call it ‘philanthropy’ now, huh.
Propaganda
I couldn’t finish without a mention of how much Romans would have loved the American idea of ‘manifest destiny’. They absolutely loved that sort of stuff, especially once the Empire got going. Augustan propaganda really leaned into their ‘mission’ to be the leaders of the world, which I’m sure would have seen them amass nuclear missiles to ‘keep peace’ if they had the technology. Virgil give us the great summation of this in his Aeneid (although he perhaps was being less than sincere):
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.Remember your mission, Roman, to rule the nations;
these are your tools: to establish peace and customs,
to spare the conquered and overthrow the arrogant.
The Romans loved the idea that they had to bring civilisation to the rest of the world, and America could not have lived up to this spirit any better - they both have such a great track record in the Middle East too… (cough).
Well that’s more than enough rambling for me - please leave a comment if you have any other areas you’d like to add or discuss!