"What Power Has Law Where Only Money Rules?"

 

I've mentioned Gaius Petronius Arbiter a/k/a Titus Petronius Niger, author of The Satyricon, Suffect Counsel of Rome, courtier of Nero, on more than one occasion in this blog.  He's mentioned by Tacitus and others, so there's credible evidence he existed.  He appears as a character in the novel Quo Vadis, which formed the basis for a movie of the same name.

He was known as the "arbiter of elegance" in Nero's court and a voluptuary, but also was competent and vigorous in performing his public duties.  He eventually fell afoul of the Emperor, like Seneca, and took his own life in a most remarkable way, slowly bleeding to death by opening his veins but stopping the flow of blood using tourniquets to prolong his life while enjoying conversation and banter with friends and writing a description of Nero's misdeeds which he sealed and had delivered to the Emperor after his death.

I qoute him in the title of this post.  It's a perceptive statement by a fascinating man intimately familiar with the rich and powerful oligarchs of a great empire ruled by a meglomaniac.

The ancient Romans had a high regard for law.  They generated a vast amount of written law through the centuries.  Much of current European law derives from that of Rome.  A knowledge of law was considered essential to a successful career, and many prominent citizens acted as advocates (such as Cicero).

The Roman respect for law wasn't limited to written laws.  Romans also revered the mos maiorum, the unwritten code of the customs and traditions they considered peculiarly Roman, such as duty, respect and discipline, which governed the conduct of their ancestors.

When Petronius wondered whether the law had any power where money ruled (implying that it did not), he was therefore maintaining that money had profoundly corrupted and undermined Roman society; had in fact perverted it.  The power of money had changed what it meant to be Roman.

It's become a cliche that the United States is failing and falling as the Roman Empire did and for similar reasons. Like all clichés, it's too simple, but there are similarities.  The U.S. was founded in large part by lawyers.  The Constitution is a legal document--essentially a set of laws.  The rule of law was essential to its creation and forms the basis for its continuance.

It's rapidly devolving, however, because plutocrats have usurped the administration of the government and have no respect for the law to the extent that it serves to thwart their power and influence and the realization of their desires.

The Supreme Court has assured that the nation's government can be bought by sanctioning its purchase as a Constitutional right, and narrowing the definition of bribery, in effect holding that politicians may be paid in return for their services except in rare circumstances.

So we may well ask Petronius' question now, 2000 years after he posed it, and come to the same conclusion he did.

An Ancient Roman Perspective on Good Friday

Today is Good Friday.  It's been a long time since I've been in a church to "celebrate" the gruesome death which we're taught took place that day in the Roman province of Judea.  I wonder how it's celebrated by the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church these days.  If I recall correctly, proceedings in my days as an altar boy were appropriately solemn.  Are they still, or has the effort to make observances cheery and attractive resulted in a kinder, gentler version of the crucifixion? 

Even as idealized in El Greco's painting shown above, a crucifixion must have been a horrible death.  Just how the Romans crucified people is a matter of some dispute, but there's no doubt it took place.  Some question whether the nails were placed as depicted here; sometimes the crucified are shown as tied to a cross.  

Presumably, this particular crucifixion, if it took place as described in the Gospels referring to "Doubting Thomas," involved the use of nails as Thomas is shown the wounds which resulted.  Whether it took place is disputed by some, of course.  

Unless one is a Christian believer and accepts the Gospels, the story of the Passion, the death and resurrection, isn't immediately acceptable.  Some parts of it, though, seem credible.  By this I mean that based on information available, some of what is said to have taken place could have taken place, though very little.  We can conclude that if we take a Roman view, and make reference to non-Christian sources.

We know at least that Pontius Pilate (Pontius Pilatus, properly) existed, and was a prefect governing the province of Judea around the time in question.  This has been confirmed by the so-called "Pilate Stone" which is a damaged block of limestone found in Caesarea Maritima (modern Caesarea), bearing an inscription in which he is named as making a dedication to Augustus and Livia.  Caesarea Maritima was the Roman administrative capital of the province and so would have been where Pilate stayed and from which he governed.  However, he no doubt travelled to and stayed in Jerusalem from time to time and as appropriate, and it makes sense he would have been there at an important period of time such as Passover.

Tacitus refers to both Pilate and "Christus" when he writes of the fire which destroyed much of Rome while Nero was Emperor.  Tacitus relates that Nero sought to blame Christians for the fire, and also notes that "Christus, from whom the name [Christians] has its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus...."  So, there is a non-Christian source which, though it indicates Pilate was a procurator instead of a prefect/governor, states that such persons existed and "Christus" was put to death by a Roman official.

There seems to be no contemporaneous Roman account of the crucifixion, however.  Flavius Josephus makes a reference to it, and Pliny the Younger while a governor famously wrote the Emperor Trajan regarding how to treat Christians, but Josephus and Pliny, like Tacitus, wrote long after these events were said to have taken place.  By the time they wrote, Christians were known of and deemed suspicious and anti-social among the Roman elite.  No sources are cited by any of these writers, and what they knew may have been based on rumor, or have formed part of the "backstory" of the Christian faith for many years at that time.  For that matter, the Gospels were written decades later as well.

We have a reasonable basis on which to say that Pilate existed and was prefect/governor of Judea during the reign of Tiberius.  There is reason to think Judea was a difficult province to govern,  Herod the Great was a client-king of Rome, but the Jews were thought even then to be peculiar and the Herodian dynasty was known to be made up of people who wouldn't hesitate to kill each other as needed.  Augustus once remarked that he would rather be Herod's pig than one of his sons.  After his death Judea was split into smaller kingdoms, and Rome assumed rule of the area after the death of the last Herod, Herod Antipas, circa 39 CE.  The Jews revolted against Roman rule 30 years later.

Herod Antipas is the Herod referred to in the story of the death of Jesus.  Pilate supposedly sent Jesus to be judged by Herod.

So, there is a basis to believe Pilate lived and was the Roman governor of Judea.  We can probably infer that people were crucified while he was governor.  We have a single source which indicates one of those crucified was the "Christus" from whose name "Christians" has its origin.  That's a bit of stretch, perhaps, but it's arguably correct.  That would seem to be the most that can be said based on Roman, non-Christian sources.

From that perspective, we can plausibly infer that there was a person crucified under Pontius Pilate, presumably in accordance with Roman law or the authority of Pilate as governor, for some reason.  That person, if he existed, was decades later associated with the Christianity.  About three hundred years later Christians, of which there were several varieties, made up the ruling class of the Roman Empire.

If the death took place, it likely did so as part of a normal "day at the office" for Pilate, and would have been treated as such by him and his staff.  It probably wasn't even known of by other Romans.  Over the years the death, if it happened, became very important of course.  But again from the Roman perspective, by the time it became important, it simply didn't matter whether it took place or not.  

For someone who isn't a believing Christian, that seems the most sensible way in which to think of Good Friday, given the lack of evidence.  One can dispute with believers about whether the crucifixion took place, but it makes no difference.  It makes a difference to some of them, however, as it seems they hope to find some corroboration for their beliefs.  Perhaps "Doubting Thomas" has had more of an influence than has been suspected.

Social Media and the Roman Empire

 

It seems there is a trend, fostered for God knows what reasons by Social Media such as TikTok, by which women ask men how often they think of the Roman Empire.  Supposedly, the men have responded that they think of it quite often.  Just what these men consider the Roman Empire to be, or what it is about the Roman Empire they think about (there was a lot involved in it, after all) isn't clear.

Nor is it clear whether this trend actually exists, or how it arose if it exists, or the extent to which it exists.  These days, it seems possible that a woman may have asked a man about the Roman Empire one day and posted the response on Social Media, whereupon women all over the world having read of it began asking men about it or at least claimed they had done so.  Such things are possible in these unfortunate times, where it seems anyone may be an "influencer" or can claim to be one.  I can only say that I see the trend mentioned in posts and headlines.

The fact that there is a "trend" having been noted somewhere, sometime, somehow by someone, various and sundry pundits and pontificators have pondered why there is such a trend and, of course, what it means.  What it means to some is that men are vulnerable and confused about themselves, and apparently long for the good old days of Rome, where it is said the patriarchy reigned free and undisturbed, and women kept in their place.  Alternatively, men may just want to repress and dominate women and think fondly of an era and place where that took place with greater ease than it does now.

Our current fascination with sex and gender issues makes it unsurprising that speculations and conclusions of this nature abound.  But explanation of the fascination with Rome and its empire is found easily enough because its memory is everywhere, and in some respects and forms it still exists.  The Catholic Church is in many respects a ghost of the Empire.  Portions of Latin are used in discourse, and in the law, medicine and science, and of course the Romance languages are derivations of it.  Roman Ruins, still spectacular in many ways, lie throughout Europe, the U.K., North Africa, and large parts of Asia.

Its impact on law and government is immense in the West., and not merely in the continent of Europe.  The government of the U.S. was inspired by it and mimicked it.  Christianity was born and developed in the Empire, and its history and that of the Christian religion are intermixed.

Movies and books based on Roman history have been made and written for many years.  Roman architecture can be seen in many public buildings.  Nations are compared to it.  Its authors are still read and studied.  There's really no getting away from it, in the West.

This is not to mention the fact that, in the history of the West, there has been no other nation or form of  government which ruled over so many diverse peoples and regions so successfully and for so long in all of history.

It seems unlikely, then, that the popularity of the Roman Empire is due to feelings of sexual inadequacy or insecurity or urge to dominate being experienced by modern men.   It seems rather peculiar that there are those who come to this conclusion; it may say more about them than anything else.

Rome was a patriarchal society, no doubt.  It was military and imperialistic, cruel and hierarchical. It can be maintained, though, that this is the case regarding its successors as well, and it's unclear it was any worse than other empires and nations that came after it, even relative to the rights of women, who could not vote until recently, could not freely divorce until recently, and whose legal rights were minimal until recently.  Women were, in fact, less free and had less rights in many respects after the dissolution of the Empire than they had during the Empire.

Razzle-Dazzle

Sometimes, when feeling despair at the fact that such a large percentage of my countrymen are seemingly incapable of making reasonable judgments based on available evidence, and subject to delusion, I try to comfort myself with the idea that they are not truly saps, but rather are so entertained by the spectacle our politics have become that they simply don't want the show to stop.  What is taking place now would make a good dark comedy, after all.  Perhaps not even a subtle one, subtlety being something lacking in American politics and perhaps even culture, but more of a Marx Brothers' movie along the lines of a farce like Duck Soup or A Night at the Circus, though Groucho was far more clever and intelligent than the main character of this ongoing farce can ever be. Can it be that they are so amused by the freak show that they fear it may end, and so clamour for more and more despite the consequences for our nation?

This is wishful thinking, unfortunately.  It's odd enough that anyone would find this thought a satisfying alternative to what's actually taking place (better a perverse but knowing cynicism than what Mencken would probably have called "boobery"), but no.  We may not be sophisticated enough to be decadent.  Only ignorance and gullibility can explain what's now the case.  Gullibility in particular, I think.  Which brings us to the notion of razzle-dazzle.

This is a word which it seems has its origin in late 19th century American slang.  So, at least, is thought by the editors of the Online Etymology Dictionary which describes it as "a word, app. of U.S. coinage, used to express the ideas of bewilderment or confusion, rapid stir and bustle, riotous jollity or intoxication, etc.  Also, deception, fraud; extravagant publicity."  The rallies we see seem to be a sort of tent show of the kind that evangelical preachers and faith healers used to put on (or do they still?), inspiring the believers to unthinking credulity.  Or, maybe, a magician's act of a sort, in which the misdirection is obvious enough but nonetheless persuasive.  The snake oil salesman has a place in our history.  Perhaps its become an honored one.  Is there a nostalgia for the days of the bumpkin being taken advantage of by the city slicker, which also is a part of our history?

How do we explain the appeal of something or someone so obviously a con?  There must be an explanation.  Razzle-Dazzle seems as good as any.  If it's a peculiarly American word it may also be a peculiarly American tendency, to be dazzled and confused by showy deception.  Do we long, spiritually, for the arrival of the circus or the Wells-Fargo wagon, to bring color to our drab lives?

I find it hard to think of any historical precedent for this situation.  Hitler wreathed himself in Romantic, mystical appeals to a German Volk, a Master Race, and was aided in such claims by philosophical and intellectual loonies like Heidegger, but there is no philosophical appeal being made in this case.  Resentment is being fostered, but not yet to the extent it was in Germany after WWI. Intolerance and the desire for sameness has always been characteristic of Western civilization, but the blithe disregard of honor and virtue we seethe with as a nation is extraordinary.  

I don't think charisma has a place in the mix.  Those involved in this remarkable song and dance have none.  They resemble Willie Loman more than any successful leader in history, good or bad.  They seem gnomish, if not in actual size then in stature and character.  

We can look to the example of Rome in this and other cases, and there may even be some justification in doing so.  Spectacles were wildly popular with the people.  Celebrations of triumphs, the games of the arena, the races of the hippodrome, attracted the attention of the populace and even the most depraved of the Emperors, such as Caligula and Nero, had the admiration of many merely because they kept the people entertained.  Perhaps our future leaders will be entertainers.  They will take residence in Washington as they now do in Las Vegas.  

Maybe this is the new form of American Exceptionalism.  We can hardly be seen as exemplary anymore, but we're certainly distinctive and unique.  Mencken called us boobs, and his assessment was thoughtful.  We're seeking, and may yet attain, a government for the boobs, by the boobs and of the boobs.

Nation Building, Nation Leaving

 

Not for nothing has Afghanistan been called "the graveyard of empires."  It's seen several come and go, and it's unclear that any of them left it changed in any significant or enduring respect.  This isn't to say that it has been unchanged since the time of Alexander the Great, when he and the army his father Phillip built wandered and conquered there.  But it is to say that what has changed in Afghanistan would very likely have changed regardless of efforts made to control and dominate it by foreign powers.

Our Glorious Union was there in force for twenty years.  Let's not debate whether our Great Republic is an empire, properly speaking.  Let's not debate the soundness of the reasons for our entry, though that's certainly something which can be debated.  Of more importance at this time (I think) are what took place after we intervened in that country's history, and the manner of our departure.

I can't think of an instance where a foreign power has conquered a nation and successfully built another, different nation in its place.  The concept of "nation building" strikes me as essentially hubristic.  It's a task so colossal, and therefore so expensive, that it's hard to believe any would attempt it.  Ancient Rome managed to conquer and have imperium of vast territory occupied by different nations for centuries, but even when "Romanizing" its provinces, it never sought to drastically alter the religion and culture of those conquered, except in the case of Judea.  Judea was a special case, though.  It revolted twice, and its distinctness, otherwise tolerated by Rome due to the fact its uniqueness was ancient, became dangerous.  Also, the emperor who presided over the second revolt of its people, Hadrian, was misguided in thinking he could change it into something it simply could not be.

It's likely that Hadrian may have thought not merely that the response to the second revolt should be brutal and thoroughly so, as it certainly was.  He may have thought, as an avid Hellenophile, that suppression of Judaism and forceful imposition of Graeco-Roman culture and religion was in the best interest of its people.

It doesn't seem to be the case that we entered Afghanistan to engage in nation building.  But the mission must have changed, somehow.  Our leaders evidently thought it was in the best interests of the people of Afghanistan that its society, culture and religion be changed, not merely that its people be controlled and rendered quiescent.  The latter was generally the strategy of Rome.  Let them be orderly, peaceful, and tax-paying, respectful of the genius of Rome and its emperors; then all will be well no matter what gods they worship or what their customs may be.  It's possible that order may have been achieved, and violence, at least against the U.S., limited if not eradicated.  But I think it's always been highly unlikely that Afghanistan would become anything like America or Europe in its customs, or in its religion or system of law, or in the freedoms and rights granted its people, though that may well be in the best interests of its people.

When that's unlikely or impossible, the wisdom of "nation building" must be questioned, and the costs especially in terms of lives lost or destroyed that result from such an ill-fated effort recognized, and it should be avoided.  Some people are very different from us and some don't even want to be like us.  They can't be made to be like us.  This should be a truth easy enough to accept.  But it seems we don't, or can't accept it.

In any case, it seems that if we're inclined to accept it, we do so far too late, and when we do we strive to extricate ourselves from the mess created precipitately.  We want to "cut our losses" as soon as we can.  The thought is to remove Americans as quickly as possible, regardless of consequences.  The result is chaos.  Such is the fate of those who purport to create a Western style democracy in Afghanistan, perhaps.  

The speed with which the Taliban was able to "take back their country" to use a phrase we've heard before was apparently surprising.  Also surprising, we hear, was the manner in which the army we tried to create to replace us, eventually, took flight from them.  Perhaps it was our intent to help those who helped us, putting their lives at risk, by evacuating them as well as ourselves.  One would hope so.  One would hope we still manage to save all the people we can.  But we won't save all who helped us or wished for a change, and their fate becomes the legacy of our twenty years there, to little purpose though the cost was great.  What did those who died in service to their country there die for?  We ask the same question regarding those who died in Vietnam. 

A helicopter perched on the top of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, a line of people trying to climb into it.  That photograph taken in 1975 during the Fall of Saigon is a famous one, and has been dug up for display alongside photos taken much more recently in Kabul.  The evacuation of Saigon was called "Operation Frequent Wind."  One wonders who came up with the name, and what was intended by it.  Better than "Breaking Wind" I suppose.  What will the evacuation of Kabul be called?  Something like "Frantic Departure" probably won't be selected.  

The United States should not be an empire.  It acts as if it is one from time to time.  In the Mexican War, in the Spanish-American War, in taking the Philippines.  There clearly are moral reasons for not being imperial.  But I also think that we're too inclined not only to enrich ourselves and our friends, but  also  to impose not merely order but what we think and believe on others, our culture and society, on others.  That may be impossible and is certainly impractical.  We're not Romans, that's to say.

Welcome to the Fifth Circle

The Fifth Circle of Hell as described in Dante's cheery Divine Comedy is populated by the wrathful, those condemned by their indulgence in the sin of Anger, broadly speaking.  Anger expressed, and Anger repressed.  Those souls condemned for the expression of Anger spend their unending time fighting each other near the surface of the river Styx, or the mud or marsh associated with that river.  Those that are condemned for the repression of Anger, the sullen, are lodged farther beneath the surface, complaining or perhaps better yet stewing at the bottom of the fiery mud and water.  Their complaints appear as bubbles on the surface.

It seems we're in the Fifth Circle of our own peculiar hell.  Medusa and the Furies may not be in evidence as they we're in Dante, but we have plenty of figures that resemble them among us.  

We're possessed by a curious anger, I would say.  At least some of us are.  For a president to refuse to accept the outcome of an election before it takes place, should it go against him, is obviously unprecedented in our Great Republic.  Therefore, it's also unprecedented that this fact seemingly leaves many of us unconcerned.  Our commitment to representative government as well as the rule of law is questionable.  We've heard of such doings in the past in connection with other nations, called "banana republics."  Have we become one?  Ben Franklin famously said we have a republic, if we can keep it.  Perhaps we no longer can, or no longer want one.

If so, how and why did this transformation take place?  One tires of comparisons with the Roman Empire, but are the satires of Juvenal, coming as they did after the Roman Republic was replaced by the Roman Empire, suggestive?

The People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions...everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

 Or perhaps Cicero is more apropos:

The evil was not bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies for the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never achieve.

The consuls and the Senate handed out just about everything in the Roman Republic, except when a dictator was appointed, and not the "people" as we would understand that word, so Juvenal may be said to exaggerate.  Also, the real people may have been more concerned with their bellies then than now.  But we love entertainment as much if not more than the people of Rome did, although they were less adverse to the sight of blood and death than we are, as a rule, except as portrayed in TV and movies and, of course, video games.  And, if the "bread" referred to by these ancient writers is thought of broadly as securing continued life, in a more or less comfortable condition, I think there is something analogous involved.

Personal security and self-satisfaction seem of particular concern to us now.  Provided we're not interfered with, called upon to do things we need not do (particularly for others), and are reassured with some frequency that our way of life is proper and indeed admirable, we're content.  We're perfectly happy if someone else makes the important decisions.  It bothers many of us not at all.  We resent having to make such decisions and, worse yet, having to think about what's involved in making them.

We particularly resent any implication that we can or should be better than we are or that there are others less fortunate than we are, who should be given assistance.  That makes us very angry.  We fear the less fortunate, and being selfish we are suspicious that that they're selfish too, and so envy us and wish us harm.  We want security, sameness and salvation from the perceived evils of others and the world at large.  We want a leader who thinks as we do, and will protect us from those who don't.

Alas, Alas Babylon!

One thing that can be said of the Bible is that it has provided titles to authors of books, particularly (and appropriately?) books of fiction.  The Bible is known to most of the West fairly well, as it was hammered into us by various and sundry adults we were exposed to as children.  It was the source of titles for William Faulkner,  John Steinbeck and Earnest Hemingway, and for Pat Frank who wrote a book entitled Alas, Babylon, which I read with considerable interest as a teenager.  I remember it fairly well, which is more than can be said of other books I read, whether under the compulsion of a teacher or freely.

The title of that book, and of this post, is taken from the cheery Book of Revelation, the favorite of so many of us Americans, who tend to associate Babylon, the great whore, with New York or perhaps Hollywood.  It seems likely the actual author (or authors) of the Book meant to refer to Rome, but Americans and others like to associate America or parts of it to ancient Rome or the Roman Empire, so maybe it makes no difference.

The book of Frank Pat or the Book of Revelation comes to mind as I observe the antics of our self-described stable genius and inadvertently amusing president and the ruler of North Korea as they revile one another, as Frank's novel was devoted to the describing of the results of a nuclear war on survivors in Florida.  They themselves bring to mind, to my mind at least, the Elvis Costello song Two Little Hitlers.  But comparing the president with Hitler, even to a little Hitler, is as tiresome as the president himself.

Sin and punishment of and for sin are of course the essence of the Book of Revelation and of the Bible itself.  They're also essential to any religion, and I think ethics, founded on the belief that right and wrong are determined by following or failing to follow divine commands.  Follow those commands and one acts rightly; fail to follow those commands and one acts wrongly.  As the commands are those of God, the failure to follow them must result in punishment of a particularly vicious  kind, and as what happens to wrongdoers in life is often thought to be insufficiently vicious, that punishment must come in the afterlife.  Naturally, if God decides to intervene in life, the punishment will be adequate, and in order to be adequate that punishment must be as mighty as possible, and nuclear punishment is as mighty as we can conceive at this point in our sad development.

An ethics or religion based on divine command strikes me as unsatisfactory, but I can understand the impulse to believe that our conduct presages some kind of disaster if it does not merit some kind of devastating punishment.  It's difficult not to think that bad things are bound to happen, and soon.  "Dangerous creeps are everywhere" as Warren Zevon and Hunter Thompson wrote.  We have cause to be afraid.

So it seems, in any case.  I take some comfort in the fact that it's possible we perceive ourselves to be in greater peril than in the past simply by virtue of the fact that information, good or bad, true or false, is so much more available to us than in the past, and instantaneously.  Perhaps we've always been this way and our nation and society has always been in this condition, but we were better able to cope with it, or at least ignore it, in the past merely because it wasn't there before us at all times, as it is now.

But an aspiring Stoic should be undisturbed by all of this, as it is beyond the power of our will.  Our business is to govern ourselves to do what is right, and treat what we cannot govern as indifferent.  A Stoic, and even an aspiring one, should be able to survive even our time without being disturbed.

The Birthday of the Sun

Not to contribute to or perpetuate the purported War on Christmas, but the early Church, or someone, was wise to co opt (or usurp?) this season of ancient celebration and designate it the Christmas season.  But if it signifies the birth of anyone or anything, history tells us it is the birth of the Sun that is celebrated in the northern, or at least the northwest, hemisphere at this time of the year.

It's clear that this is time of the winter solstice.  The Romans thought that it took place on what we call December 25, and that date was considered the birthday of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun, the god of Aurelian and even of Constantine for a time.  But long before them great significance was accorded that day when the Sun became stronger and stronger, and the daylight became longer and longer.  Light was once again dominate over the Dark.

It's always been clear that we owe our own existence to the Sun, and that all life we know is dependent on it.  Why not substitute the Sun, the giver of life, with the Son (of God)?  Why not speak of the resurrection of the Son of God (and of other savior-gods) as we spoke and still speak of the resurrection of the Sun?

Even someone as pragmatic when it comes to religion as Napoleon said that if he was to worship a god, it would be the Sun, the giver of life, the ruler of the sky.  It gives us food and warmth, it allows us to see what's before us.  It's hardly surprising ancient people worshipped it, even to extreme lengths as did the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations.  It would be surprising if they didn't.

And now we know that the Sun, being a star, is undoubtedly a creator; of the solar system, of us as we are the stuff of stars, true children of the universe and made of the same substances as all else within it.  The Sun may not have said "Let there be light" but it made light and created our world more completely than the God of Genesis, and its part in that creation can be established with much greater certainty than the Genesis story.

So we're right to celebrate this time of year, and should do so, call it what we will.  It is a rebirth of sorts, and a celebration of life, literally and figuratively.  It's worthy of reverence if not worship by a Stoic, even; or perhaps even especially by a Stoic, who knows that the universe is divine and that we partake in it.

The Quest for Ancestry

It seems that in these unnecessarily interesting and unnerving times, many of us have become fascinated with our ancestry.  We investigate it not only in the old fashioned way--search of records--but are now able to do so by analysis of our DNA.  DNA presumably provides a far less detailed picture of our lineage than would a careful record search, but this hasn't prevented the marketing and sale of DNA kits.  People, or some people, long to know what groups of people have combined to produce them if not their individual ancestors themselves.

Why have many of us become inclined to investigate our ancestry?  The ancient Romans, or at least the patricians among them, valued their ancestors considerably.  Portrait masks of ancestors were made and displayed by them.  Actors would don those masks and famous ancestors would thereby make an appearance at important occasions like a triumph or games given in honor of a particular member of a great family.  None of these masks have survived, but we know of them from sculptures like the one appearing above.  The devotion of the Chinese to their ancestors is well known.  Ancestors were also important, and may still be, to some of noble descent, to kings and queens that remain.

This is a concern which hasn't been of much concern to most of us, however; not at least to the extent that it seems to be now.  But we have resources available to us now our ancestors didn't have.  Has this made a difference in our desire to investigate from whence we came?

Perhaps it has, but there may also be other factors at work.  We live rootless lives in a rootless time, I think, and seek roots as a result.

I say "rootless times" because it strikes me that what has rooted us in the past here in our Glorious Republic and perhaps the West in general no longer does so.  Traditional religion is uninspiring to many.  Liberal democratic values provide little support or comfort.  How could they, now, when it seems our democratic system, which was never all that democratic to begin with, is apparently failing?  We have gone from electing such as Washington, Adams and Jefferson to electing an ignorant and often incoherent buffoon, and have matched him with a venal, oafish crew of legislators lacking the intelligence needed to legislate and utterly without principles.

"Rootless lives" seems apt as we seem to lack the steadiness required to think intelligently ourselves.  Instead, we grasp at anything or anyone providing a simple answer to questions we face which in turn demands only the most thoughtless response to any problem.  In a sense, ignorance of anything new or different is indeed bliss, though, perversely, it is what we are quick to accept unthinkingly which demands new and different answers.

There's a certain comfort in being able to say my ancestors were so and so or such and such.   An association is created which we can use to provide ourselves with an identity, a character, ancestral customs, ancestral values, which already existed and perhaps have existed a very long time.  We have them ready-made, as it were; there's no need to manufacture them ourselves.

And it may be that we look to the past as it's unusually difficult, or maybe even disturbing, to look to the future.  There are times when many will have few expectations, and rightly so.  This, it seems, is one of those times for most of us.  There may be a "happy few" but their happiness becomes more and more extraordinary.


The past can be an escape, as many historians and fans of history have found.



Perhaps we seek hope in our pasts as we can have little hope in our futures.  That's a troubling consideration, but it's likely that as it is such, few will take note of it.

"The Triumph of Barbarism and Religion"

These words appear in the final chapter of Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  Thus he characterizes what he's described in prior volumes in six words.  It seems a clear statement of his position, very incisive and succinct.  It's something of a pleasure to read such a bold pronouncement from a historian, as the historians of today seem hesitant to make judgments of any kind, victims perhaps of a what appears to be a growing culture of timid ambivalence in Academia.  Woe to those who are perceived as having come to a conclusion, especially regarding anything it is now customary to claim cannot be judged.  Which is a great many things.

 

It's no doubt inadvisable to come to such a definite conclusion regarding something as complicated as the Fall of Rome (though Gibbon is always a joy to read).  Also inadvisable to attribute the Fall to only two causes or factors.  Barbarians certainly came to rule territory formerly ruled by Roman Emperors, but they did so sometimes as at least nominally the functionaries of the Emperor of the Eastern Empire, which survived for may years after the year traditionally said to be the fall of the West, 476 C.E., or if not as rulers who perceived themselves and were perceived as successors to the Emperors, continuing the rule of Rome albeit in somewhat different ways.  The leaders of those  barbarians were usually high-ranking members of the Roman military, trained by Romans, familiar with Roman customs and civilization.

 

As late as the 9th century, Charlemagne, (a descendant of the barbarians known to the Romans as Franks) took up the mantle of Rome in the Latin West.  Rome's shadow falls over most of the history of the West, though.  The Holy Roman Empire which Voltaire said was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, survived into modern times, and the Kaisers and the Czars owed their titles, at least, to the Caesars.

Religion in the form of Christianity certainly came to rule in a sense as well, in both West and East.  An intolerant religion which believes itself exclusive, possessing the truth and worshipping the One True God, by its nature seeks to rule the minds and conduct of all.  But it's difficult to maintain Christianity was a cause of the Fall of Rome, as the Christianized Roman Empire of the East continued to exist for roughly one thousand years after the year 476 C. E., although in a continuously diminished form.

 

What is taking place in our times, however, in the name of a religion and through the efforts of people who can justly be called barbarians, threatens a triumph of the kind Gibbon felt took place in the 5th century.  If Gibbon was right about the corrosive effect of barbarism and religion, combined, then perhaps his statement will be more true of our century than the centuries of which he wrote.

 

It's difficult to believe that there are heavily armed people who are intent on causing us, by force, to live and think as members of a particular religion did in the 7th century.  What reasonable person living in the 21st century would think that desirable, or even possible on a large scale?  Why return to the distant past?  But then, it isn't merely the time after the spread of Islam that these barbarians reject and want others to reject.  The time before the 7th century is also condemned by them.  Witness their destruction of the great remains of civilizations of the even more distant past.

 

Here we have the true fanatic at work.  Great efforts are being made to destroy the new barbarians or at least stop their progress.  Well and good, but one wonders, sometimes, whether some of those involved in the effort or their masters have come or will come to believe that it is necessary to fight fanaticism with fanaticism inspired by another, better, religion; or to employ irrational means to fight the irrational.

 

That would lead to a triumph of barbarism and religion of a different kind, resulting in a state somewhat more familiar to we of the West but I think equally deadly to Western civilization.

 



Non Fui, Fui, Non Sum, Non Curo

Certain ancient Romans had the words of the title to this post inscribed on their funeral monuments (above is one example, using slightly different wording).  They may be translated as:  "I was not; I was; I am not; I care not."

This epitaph is attributed to Epicurus.  Being a Greek born in the 4th century BCE, it's unlikely that he ever spoke or wrote these Latin words, but likely enough that he did so in the Greek of the time.  It seems an Epicurean sentiment.  Lucretius and others have praised Epicurus for ridding mankind of the fear of death which arises from certain religious beliefs--those which maintain that, on death, unbelievers or those violating particular standards will suffer eternal torment in particular.  Epicureanism and Stoicism were the most popular philosophical positions in the Roman Empire, from what we know.

 

There's a certain admirable brevity in this blithe statement.  If indeed nothing awaits us after death, if we are in fact nothing then, it's clear that we would not care about anything at all.  Someone must exist in order to care about being dead.  We didn't exist before we were born, and so had no cares then.  We recall nothing before we existed.  Why should it be different after death? Indeed, it seems odd to even speak of ourselves as entities which existed before our birth or will after our deaths.  It's not clear to me it makes any sense to do so.  If we were or will be anything, we won't be what we are now, i.e. people who can be spoken of as people.

Other surviving "tombstones" from the Roman era urge those who stop to read them to enjoy life, eat and drink well, while they can.  The implied assertion, if it's not expressly stated, is that we have only one life and it should be lived as pleasantly as possible.  These statements also have an Epicurean ring to them.

These are not sentiments commonly expressed by or on behalf of the dead these days, and have not been common for quite some times, with some exceptions.  Since the advent of Christianity, the tendency is to express hope in everlasting life in a vaguely defined heaven, among its vaguely defined residents, doing vaguely described things which seem to relate primarily to worshipping and contemplating God (also vaguely described).

Just how much comfort did the ancients derive, and can we derive, by accepting the apparent position of Epicurus that we will feel, think, do, and experience nothing at all when we die?  Is the thought that we will simply be gone, soon enough, all that comforting?  Perhaps it's better to be gone than to roast in hell for eternity.  But the end of ourselves wouldn't seem to be something most of us would find satisfying.  Some may well find the idea that they will stop existing frightening, in fact.  Contra Lucretius, some may insist that religious belief can liberate us from the fear of nothingness, of dissipation, which is all we're promised by Epicurus.

Perhaps the cessation of their lives (and of themselves) didn't disturb the ancients as it seems to disturb us.  It has seemed to disturb us for quite some time, in fact, judging from views held by a number of well known persons after what's called the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, when belief in the God of Christianity became increasingly difficult for them to maintain.  I think of Nihilism, Existentialism (or what they're commonly thought to consist of) and those who wonder what the meaning of life really is or whether it has any meaning.

 Romanticism seems to have encouraged the glorification of self, and that would seem to make the belief that the self will vanish in a short period of time rather daunting.

Do we love ourselves more, now, than we did in the ancient past?  Is that self-love responsible for our proclivity to despair of life given the indifference of the universe, and yet fear death?

The Stoic view of death is different from the Epicurean, different from the Christian, and different from the modern.  Marcus Aurelius calls out the distinction between the Epicurean and Stoic view of the universe generally with some frequency.  Either the universe is simply the random result of atoms and the void, or the universe is divine, providential, infused with reason.  We as parts of the universe partake of the divine, and having the capacity for reason may by using it act in accordance with the divine plan.  On death, we remain part of the universe, though we may dissipate, and so continue to participate in the divine universe though our individual personalities may not survive or may survive for a period of time only, not for the life of the universe.  There are claims made that the later Stoics tended more towards the view that our personalities survive and that God was more personal than believed by the earlier Stoics.

For me, the Stoic view is one that doesn't incite despair or fear but instead inspires an acceptance of the universe, our fate, and our eternal place in a living reality.

 

 

 



Damnatio Memoriae

The ancient Romans had a practice called Damnatio Memoriae, roughly translatable as the condemnation of memory.  It was a decree issued by the Senate ordering that all likenesses of a person, all references to the person made on monuments, paintings, mosaics, inscriptions and, it was to be preferred, on other records be erased.  It was an effort to obliterate a person from recorded memory; official memory in any case.  Such a decree was issued as to Tiberius' all-purpose stand-in Sejanus, when he finally ran afoul of the morose old emperor.


You'll see an example of the effect of the decree above.  That's a portrait of the Emperor Septimius Severus and his family, including his wife, the Augusta, Julia Domna and their son Caracalla, himself later emperor, most famous probably for his Baths.  You might notice the large dark spot under Julia's face.  There used to be another face there, that of their son Geta.  For a brief time, Caracalla and Geta ruled together after their father's death.  That didn't turn out well for Geta.  His brother had him murdered, and then as sole Augustus convinced the Senate to issue a decree of Damnatio Memoriae to remove him from history as he had been removed from this Earth.

Of course, if the intent of the decree was to erase someone from memory, or history, it didn't work in the case of either Sejanus or Geta.  We know well enough who they were.  It's likely, therefore, that the intent was not to do so but to instead deprive them and their memory of all public honor and esteem.  Such things were important to the Romans, and to the Greeks as well and Hellenistic and Greco-Roman society.  The notion of the afterlife wasn't particularly alluring or vivid to the ancients.  One's immortality was assured by undying glory and monuments to fame.

The Romans were not the only people who engaged in this practice.  Most recently the Soviets tried something along these lines.  Stalin did his best to eliminate some of those who were his rivals, real or imagined, from the history of the Russian Revolution.   An effort was made to do the same with him, in a minor way, as to the history of the Soviet Union.  When one has control of the methods by which reputations are made or unmade, and where one is an autocrat, there must be a certain
satisfaction in doing this to enemies, or it may be that it is advantageous in various respects.

What seems to have been an impossible task even in ancient times is certainly impossible now, as we leave our marks everywhere in photographs, records electronic and otherwise, on the Web, etc. nearly ad infinitum--whether we do so voluntarily or at the behest of someone else.  Or so one would think.  Might it actually be easier now than before, at least if the idea is to hide someone from those who lack the knowledge to determine when a person's name has been deleted from the Internet or electronic records  and how to receive that information?  Now that we live online, the ability to control what is or is not online takes on a particular importance.  What is or is not online may be all or most of what we know or can learn, or what we want to know, perhaps very soon.

If, though, we can't "erase" someone from history, can we insert someone, or some unreal someone, into it, especially now?  There are instances where people have believed in the existence of a fictional, fabricated person in the past, but perhaps it may be easier now to create an identity or at least a more detailed, ubiquitous person that we could in the past.  Human, face-to-face contact is becoming increasingly less important, less necessary.  We can fake personality and likeness with remarkable success these days.

Ah, the disturbing wonder of these times.  What a time to be alive.

An Escape Into Another Dark Time

I find that I'm overwhelmed by the urge to comment on things which have nothing to do with the increasingly grotesque politics of our Great Republic and the bizarre person soon to become its enormous, orange head.  So bear with me if you please as I turn from one kind of darkness to another.

I've heard since I was in college (that is a long time ago, alas) that what is called the Dark Age of Europe wasn't nearly as dark as commonly thought.  Unsurprisingly, I've heard this claim from scholars of the Dark Ages, both professors and students.  I happened to hear a lecture to that effect by a learned professor while driving home one night.  What the professor referred to, though, were events and persons which took place and lived from roughly the 11th century to the 14th centuries.  If those are unjustly considered the Dark Ages, I wonder what we call, or should call, when considering the history of Europe (the Latin West) the period from the end of the 5th century to the 11th century.  In other words, the period from the fall of the Western Roman Empire traditionally thought to take place around 475 C.E. to the bright, brilliant, not at all dark period commencing sometime in the 11th century, when, as the professor noted, Aristotle was rediscovered in Europe, Abelard and Heloise loved and thought, etc.

Do those 5 or 6 centuries constitute something different from what are called the Dark Ages according to learned academics of our time?  Are they, for example, the Really Dark Ages, or the Very Dark Ages?

I can understand that it's appropriate to note that some good and interesting, and indeed admirable, events took place from the loosely defined Fall of Rome in the West to the Renaissance.  There were significant achievements during the Medieval Period and significant people lived during those times.  We have a tendency to identify as significant persons--as worthy of note--the influential thinkers, rulers, artists who appear in history.  Events we tend to identify as significant are usually military battles and conquests, political revolutions, inventions, and laws.  Especially during what are delightfully referred to as the "High" Middle Ages, (usually considered the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries) it's easy enough to identify "significant" history.  What of that part of those Ages which wasn't High?

Identifying what and who were significant in that period isn't as easy, unless it's easy by virtue of the fact that there are few events and people typically considered significant to history during those times.  Again, I refer to Europe and specifically Europeans, not Byzantines or Muslims.  Augustine of course didn't live to see the traditional End of the Roman Empire.  The next significant philosophical figure would, I suppose, be Boethius.  Boethius had a wonderfully Roman name:  Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius.  He's sometimes called the Last of the Romans.

Boethius served as minister to Theodoric the Great, an Ostrogothic king, but one of several of what I think can fairly be called the quasi-Roman rulers in Europe who reigned after the Western Empire fell.  These kings and their kingdoms are justly considered Roman successor states, I believe.  They mimicked the Empire in various respects, even in the manner of their administration.  Boethius served until he was imprisoned by Theodoric and later bludgeoned to death by his minions.  While in prison he wrote his famous Consolation of Philosophy, and it's to be hoped he was consoled by it, particularly as he was beaten to death.

The Europeans seemed to have busied themselves primarily  by fighting off the infidels and fighting among themselves until the Frankish kings came along and, eventually, one Frank in particular, Charlemagne, became the (first) Holy Roman Emperor.  While he ruled, the Holy Roman Empire may not have been holy, but was in fact an empire and was in fact rather Roman.  The ghost of Rome certainly was regularly seen in those times and haunts us still today.

It was during Charlemagne's relatively benign and enlightened rule, and the fitful peace that resulted, that what is considered dark became less dark.  So we see such thinkers as Duns Scotus appearing, a greater appreciation of learning and writing (needed for administering a large territory).  We may owe to Charlemagne what there is of Latin Christian learning, knowledge and art during the less-than-high Middle Ages.

Naturally, Europe was impacted as well during the time of the less-than-high or darker Middle Ages by the incursions of the Byzantines while Justinian was Emperor of the East.  Justinian aspired to be Emperor of the West, and due to the ability of his generals Belisarius and Narses actually conquered portions of the old Western Empire, but only for a relatively short time.  The Arabs of course had taken North Africa and the Spanish peninsula, and held Spain until the Reconquista. 

Just what is "Dark" and how dark were the Middle Ages in Europe?  It seems there can be no question that something very bad happened after the Western Roman Empire fell, no matter what is said regarding those times.  Even what we today consider simple things, such as the provision of flowing water to people and the handling of their waste, disappeared.  Such things didn't reappear in cities like Paris until Napoleon's reign. 

It must have been a remarkably dirty world after the Roman baths stopped functioning. Roman moralists used to claim that the baths, which were frequented by many who relished soaking in the hot and cold water rather than merely washing themselves hurriedly, sapped the strength and weakened the sense of stern morality fostered by their ancestors. I think it's likely, though, that even the most censorious moralist would have been more appalled by people who either didn't bathe at all or did so only rarely. The effect on health and hygiene must have been profound. The poor have always been poor and miserable, but it's likely that they became more miserable during the Middle Ages, and less of them were educated and more died by hunger, disease and war.  Urban life was almost nonexistent for a time.

People no longer knew how to do certain things. The legions were gone, and the work they would do to build and maintain infrastructure when not making war was not done by anyone else. People began to borrow stone and marble from old buildings in order to construct anything new, not having the knowledge or skill--or perhaps even the opportunity--to do otherwise. Knowledge of the natural world wasn't encouraged, the world being less important than it was to those of the past.

It may be that the Renaissance led many to think of the Middle Ages as being Darker than they were in fact.  But it's difficult to think they were not darker times than what came before and what came after, in many important respects.  Why and how they were darker is an important question to be addressed.

The Curious Belief that it's a Good Thing to Die: Some Examples

One day in 185 C.E., a large group of Christians appeared at the house of Arrius Antoninus, Roman proconsul in Asia Minor, and demanded that he order their execution.  It seems he obliged as to a few of them, but told the rest of them to go home, noting that if they wanted to die there were available to them plenty of cliffs from which they could hurl themselves and rope by which they could hang themselves, without his assistance.

We learn of this remarkable incident from Tertullian (Quintus Semptimius Florens Tertullianus), a great Latin Christian apologist of the time, who noted it in correspondence to another Roman official written in defense of Christianity and urging against persecution of Christians.  Tertullian was a lawyer and, sadly, it's not unusual for lawyers to use almost any argument in making a case.  Here, it seems he was arguing something to the effect that "we Christians want you to kill us, so threatening to kill us or otherwise harm us won't do you any good."

Had I been a Roman official of the time, I wouldn't have found this argument very persuasive, except in establishing that Christians were annoying lunatics (which is it seems is how Antoninus thought of them and how he treated them).  This presumably wasn't Tertullian's intent.  The fact that Tertullian cited this event in his petition to a Roman official, however, indicates at the least that it wasn't a story made up by the opponents of Christianity to ridicule it.  Tertullian seemingly takes pride in it.

I don't want to enter into the debate regarding the extent to which imperial Rome persecuted Christians, although the subject is fascinating.  What I've read on that topic leads me to believe that most historians think that reports of the deaths of Christians resulting from Roman persecution are greatly exaggerated, like that of the death of Mark Twain.  For those interested, I'd recommend The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss.

Nonetheless, assuming Tertullian was noting an event that actually occurred, I find it interesting that it took place and find its use in an argument against persecution even more interesting.  Two questions arise:  (1) why did the Christians confront a Roman magistrate and demand that he have them killed? and (2) why did Tertullian believe their example noteworthy in arguing Christians posed no threat to imperial authority?

As it would seem clear that Roman provincial authorities didn't hesitate to execute those they considered dangerous (except Roman citizens who could appeal to the Emperor and would in that case be sent to Rome), it must be assumed that the Christians were quite aware Arrius Antoninus would execute them if he was so inclined.  So they must have known their execution was a real possibility if not a probability.  There's no real likelihood they expected he would not execute them.  They must have anticipated he would have them killed.

Their demand that he have them executed can only mean that they wanted to be executed.  They wanted to die at his hands.  They hoped he would have them killed.  According to Tertullian, Antoninus addressed them as "unhappy" or "miserable" men in dismissing them; he clearly thought them to be unfortunates, misguided or demented for desiring death, and wouldn't cooperate in their execution.  He must have annoyed them greatly when he chose to ignore their unusual demand and sent them away. 

The fact they sought out the proconsul and clamored for their deaths means they weren't content to await execution or patiently wait to be persecuted. It's not that they were willing to die for their faith if the Romans came and took them and demanded they give it up.  That didn't happen.  They were too impatient for that; they wanted to die so badly they tried to make the proconsul kill them.

It's difficult, then, to consider these particular Christians martyrs as that word is normally understood.   It's also difficult to think them noble for dying for their faith, or an idea, because they wouldn't abandon it or denounce it.  Someone who demands that they be killed isn't admirable to most people.  As Christianity became more widespread in the Empire and it became common for Christians to hold imperial positions, it seems the orthodox Church came to find such examples of zealotry embarrassing, and the insistence on death as indicative of heresy.

Unless these seekers of death are considered wholly demented, it must be assumed that they demanded to be killed because being killed, dying and perhaps just being dead in itself was good, proper, desirable in some sense, for them at least.  Perhaps they thought that they were literally better off dead.  Perhaps they thought they would be rewarded after death.  Perhaps they thought that by dying at the hands of Roman authorities they would become like Jesus.  Perhaps they thought God wanted them to die.

As for Tertullian, I think we can only assume he thought that referencing this incident would somehow act to convince a Roman official that Christians should not be persecuted.  Why he thought this is a mystery to me.  I think it's doubtful he thought this incident would persuade the official that Christians were noble or heroic and so should not be persecuted.  Although ancient pagans certainly recognized and honored heroic deaths, demanding death in this instance would likely be considered incomprehensible by them.  I also think it's doubtful he thought this example would convince the official that Christians were harmless, or good, peaceful, subjects of the Empire.  The official might fear he would be hounded by Christians demanding that he kill them, in fact, regardless of whether they were persecuted.  So, I think we must infer that Tertullian was telling the official that persecuting Christians would have no effect.  "We have no fear of death."

These considerations are useful in these far too interesting times, as we're confronted by others who seek death, apparently for similar (that is to say, only, religious) reasons.  Those who seek death now, however, don't merely seek to kill themselves or have others kill them--they want to kill others.  Indeed, it seems they consider killing others the primary reason for killing themselves.

So, the ancient Christian death seekers were clearly different from those Muslim death seekers who kill themselves now intending to kill others as well.  There's a difference between wanting to be killed and wanting to kill others while killing oneself.

But it would seem that in each case it's believed that dying is good, and that God wants us to die in a particular way or will reward us if we do so.  And these are dangerous thoughts indeed.  Once we think God wants us or others to die, or that it's good that we or others die, we not only accept but seek death; our death or the death of others, or both.  Worse, we think we should kill.  Death becomes a moral imperative.

Reflections on Independence Day, 2016

This post addresses the Fabulous Fourth, not the movie sequel, which it seems based on reviews is unworthy of reflection.

For two hundred and forty years, our Great Republic has existed and more or less thrived.  Particularly in the last one hundred years, it has been a dominant if not the dominant nation of this Earth.  The United States has been compared to ancient Rome for quite some time.  That comparison has become commonplace.  Those who make the comparison generally mean to condemn Rome if not us, or at least warn us to take care that the fate of our nation not be that of Rome.  Let's indulge in the comparison for a brief time.

The First Punic War commenced in 264 B.C.E.  Augustus established the principate in 27 B.C.E.  During that period of time, Rome grew from a city which held sway over a good chunk of the Italian peninsula to the master of the Mediterranean world and most of Europe, successively defeating and destroying Carthage and the successors states formed from the dissolution of Alexander's empire.  The United States has in a similar period done much the same, relatively speaking.  This seems appropriate as Rome, or at least the Roman Republic, served as a model of sorts to the Founding Fathers as they created the U.S.

It's doubtful, though, that the Founders thought they were founding an empire like that of Rome.  We have for the most part denied imperial ambitions at least though the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, though Wilson submitted meekly enough to the imperial ambitions of England and France, thus participating in the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles, reluctantly signed by many in 1919.  Even before then, though, America had acquired by conquest the American West and a good part of the American East, Puerto Rico and the Philippines and other territories from Mexico, Spain and the indigenous people of North America.  The U.S. managed to buy a great deal of land as well, through the good offices of Napoleon.  So, if imperialism consists of the conquest of territory and its rule by the conquerors, it would seem that America has been de facto an imperial power.

So simplistically far, so simplistically good.  So we carry on.

It's generally thought by many that the fall of Rome began when the Empire replaced the Republic.  If that's so, however, then it was a long, slow fall.  What's usually considered the end of the Empire in the West took place about five hundred years later, and the Empire in the East vanished about a thousand years after that (though it slowly became a very small empire).  Moralists of all kinds seem to be unaware of or ignore the longevity of the decadent Roman Empire.  If it fell due to the sexual and moral corruption they're fond of citing (usually by reference to Nero), we shall be lucky if we last as long no matter how we conduct ourselves or what God we choose to worship (and then ignore when it's convenient to do so, that being our usual practice).

It happens, though, that at its end the Roman Republic was dominated by several gifted and ambitious men, e.g. Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Marcus Antonius, Cicero, Cato, Octavian the Augustus to be.  Most of them weren't particularly moral in our sense, though Cato certainly was ostentatiously virtuous and Cicero at least contemplated what was and was not moral.  Cicero, though, faulted Cato for his stubborn, uncompromising virtue, famously remarking that Cato thought he lived in Plato's Republic, not Romulus' shithole.

While America is full of ambitious men and women at this time, none seem particularly gifted, or moral for that matter.  Given the civil wars which resulted from the conflicting desires of the great of the Roman Republic, perhaps we should be thankful for this lack of ability.

Unfortunately, though, it's ability that might make the difference in the type of empire America will become if it follows the path of Rome.  Augustus, who created the Roman Empire, was a remarkably able politician.  Our politicians are craven and venal and have been for some time, and it may be that the political success of a capering, stridently ignorant man indicates that in the future they'll be craven, venal and boisterously stupid as well.

It's amusing to indulge in comparisons of this kind.  Overall and in the context of history I think the United States has done well in becoming what it is, but just what the future holds can't be predicted through the study of ancient Rome or any other Empire or nation.

There is one sense in which America now resembles old Rome, however, which may give us a hint as to our political future.  Money was of great importance at the end of the Roman Republic; votes were bought, directly or indirectly.  Roman politicians came from a restricted class, but required the support of the people at election time and treated them very generously in return for their support.  Money dominates our politics now, as well.

The difference is that money isn't used as it was in ancient Rome, to pacify and reward common people for their support.  It's used instead by the rich and powerful to pacify and reward politicians who require it to be elected.  Perhaps this accounts for the quality of our politicians.  It's demeaning to be, for all practical purposes, a lackey, a mere chattel in effect, of special interests, corporations, the very rich.  It's demeaning to be a panderer, and an American politician must pander.  What self-respecting, intelligent, able person could stand such a life?

Now, the votes of electors aren't bought; legislators and their votes are bought instead.  It's hard to say which practice will promote a greater degree of corruption in a nation.

O Bella Roma

Relatively fresh from a visit to Italy, specifically those cities which seem to be most visited by tourists like myself (Rome, Florence and Venice), I'm inclined to expound on them here--that place where I am emperor, of ice cream (or gelato?) if anything at all.

As may be guessed from my nom de blog and a review of this blog itself, I'm fascinated by the history of ancient Rome.  At long last, I've personally seen many of its ruins.  Edward Gibbon on viewing the Roman Forum was inclined to bemoan its condition, and this he wrote motivated his history of Rome's decline and fall.  It seems in much better shape now than it was when he viewed it, but in viewing it myself I'm inclined to marvel at its ruins.  Perhaps I entirely lack any Romantic instincts, but I'm too impressed by the remains of ancient Rome to indulge in pontifications along the lines of sic transit gloria mundi.

The ruins of the Forum including the rostra and the Curia, the arches of Titus, Septimius Severus and Constantine, Trajan's Market, his column, his forum; those of Augustus and Nerva, the Ars Pacis Augustae, the mausoleum of Augustus, the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the Flavian Amphitheater a/k/a the Colosseum, the tomb of Hadrian, the column of Marcus Aurelius and his equestrian statue, represent only the most evident architectural monuments of Rome and its empire, and they're stunning to one such as me.

It's difficult to imagine how impressive they were thousands of years ago.  Henry James, I know, found Roman ruins (or at least some of them) indicative of a kind of brutality and baseness.  They were just too big for Henry.  I wonder, though, whether his attitude and those of others with similar views is more an implied acknowledgement of how small we and our civilization became after Rome fell.  It's easy in a way to resent the Romans as it took us centuries to achieve what they achieved even in matters of plumbing and hygiene, in the building of roads, the supplying of water to cities, let alone the fine arts.

One thing I find disturbing was the tendency of the popes who restored certain of the ruins to emblazon their names on them.  I suppose the desire was that they be granted a kind of immortality by association with monuments which represented ancient glory and would clearly last far into the future.  Restoration by Christians seems entirely appropriate in any case, however, as various Christians after the fall of the empire regularly took stones and marble from the ruins of Rome to adorn their buildings.

Even more disturbing are the figures of popes and saints which were plopped on top of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.  As those columns depict scenes of the conquests and campaigns of those emperors, it's unclear why any pope or saint would be glorified by appearing at the summit of such military monuments.  Churches, of course, were regularly placed on top of pagan temples.  There's something profane about the imposition of Christian icons on and over these pagan relics; something profane about the physical triumph of the Christian sacred.  But who remembers those popes, compared to those who know the names of the emperors who lived centuries earlier?

It can't be doubted that brutality and cruelty were aspects of Roman civilization.  But walking along the Sacred Way, where emperors and generals rode in triumphs and religious processions took place, where Cicero, Cato and Caesar walked, one senses that much more was involved, good and bad, and that what we are now is in large part mere imitation or emulation.  And not merely that of "skirt-mad Mussolini" as Robert Lowell called him, unfurling the eagle of Caesar.

Rome remains a world capitol; a crowded, busy city apart from but existing in and around the imposing corpse of the Roman Empire and of course around the center of what may be called its ghost, the Roman Catholic Church, a sovereign state in its own right thanks to the Lateran Treaty (and Mussolini, it must be said).  But it's still served by the aqueducts which continue to bring potable water to its inhabitants.  Ancient Rome is a living presence in a living city.  It's filled not merely with monuments to the past or recalling the past, but with the past itself.  Rome's past is present.

Gravitas non Grata

Gravitas, which has been translated variously as dignity, seriousness, weightiness in one's bearing and conduct, was a trait much admired by the Romans, especially in their leaders.  Like pietas (faithfulness, dutifulness) it was considered a distinctly Roman virtue, a characteristic of Romans since ancient times, a part of the mos maiorum, the ways and customs of their sometimes legendary forbears.

It's a familiar enough Latin word, though likely not as familiar as the phrase persona non grata (plural, personae non gratae), meaning an unwelcome person.  And so the title of this post, intended to convey that the virtue of gravitas is unwelcome here in our Great Republic, particularly in our leaders and those who wish to be our leaders.

This is apparent in the tiresome gaggle seeking to preside over these United States, honking platitudes and boasts, fear-mongering, pandering and posturing continually throughout the seemingly endless horror show of the presidential campaign.  But it's apparent even more so among us citizens, because we permit them to do so and even, God help us, encourage them to do so.  Worse yet, we eventually vote for one or the other of them.

Look what we have done to ourselves.  We tolerate circumstances where the highest office in the land is pursued by a rogue's gallery including a snake oil salesman; a blustering, boorish brat; a secretive, artificial person who seems venal and narcissistic; a well-meaning but clueless old man; a right wing demagogue and holy roller.  These are only the more popular of the candidates.

Perhaps I exaggerate.  But I think it accurate to say that not one of them possesses the characteristic of gravitas.  One in particular is even juvenile in demeanor, and this apparently delights his supporters.  It's impossible to think of him as having dignity, or being dignified.  He doesn't seem to aspire to dignity in any case.

To be fair, there are few presidents or candidates in recent years who had gravitas.  Certainly our first president did; it seems to have been his primary characteristic.  This was appropriate given the Founders' evocation of Rome in our institutions and laws.  The fond recollection of the real or not so real Rome of the Republic can be seen in The Federalist Papers, and fondness for it and its traditions was prevalent during the Enlightenment.

Among more recent presidents, one may have to go back to Eisenhower.  He had of course accumulated considerable regard and respect from being Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII, and this certainly accorded him great weight as a public figure.  Nixon seems to have struggled to obtain gravitas, but his own personal flaws and the slings and arrows of those he angered kept him from it.  Reagan, I think it's fair to say, appeared to have gravitas on occasion.  But he was an actor (Gore Vidal liked to call him "The Acting President"), and whether he had gravitas or merely was able to act as if he had it on solemn occasions isn't clear.

Sadly, "gravitas" isn't a word that comes to mind with respect to any of the our candidates, or anyone in national office for that matter.   They are all small, petty, venal and nasty climbers and necessarily for sale in our money-driven political system.

This lessens our standing in the world.  Our leaders' lack of dignity results in our country's lack of respect.  This lack of respect baffles some of us, and it seems those baffled think we must be obnoxious in order to regain respect (I suspect that too many of us associate obnoxious conduct with being powerful and respected).  But those people or countries who lack dignity, seriousness, and weight in bearing and conduct are not respected, though they may be hated.

No Bread, No Circuses

The history of the Roman games (ludi) makes a fascinating study.  We're all too ready to draw comparisons with imperial Rome, which still haunts us after all these years, perhaps with good reason (the haunting I mean, not the comparing).  But they're fascinating in themselves, and don't serve merely as an expositive device on which to pontificate regarding the ills of our time.

It is the growth of the games that is astounding.  Not merely the growth in their scope and their expansion to all provinces, but in their number.  Initially a part of religious festivals, they became the means by which the people of the empire were placated, or at least kept relatively calm and complacent, even compliant.  There came a point when most of the year was made up of days devoted to the holding of games of one kind or another, for one reason or another, and this does not even account for the special games put on by the emperors in connection with triumphs or in honor of various favorites and family members.

The games became more and more frequent, and also more and more expensive.  Those arranging the games, senators, nobles, even emperors, regularly went into debt in doing so.  But it would have been unheard of for anyone to decline what became a duty as well as necessary if one was to obtain a high place or a desired end.  The games were an essential facet of politics and government.

Juvenal came up with the phrase that is the basis for the title of this post:  panem et circenses.  He was complaining (that's all he did, really) that in his time all the people of Rome cared for was bread and circuses, unlike their ancestors who were full of civic duty. That was all the people expected from the state, according to Juvenal, and he may well have been right.
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It's fair to be skeptical of the claims made by Juvenal and others (e.g. Tacitus and Suetonius) regarding the depravity of the Roman people and nobles, and of their emperors.  We're not certain when Juvenal was born or died, but it seems he lived during the time of the Flavian emperors, and perhaps even into the reign of Trajan.  It may not be the case that great hordes of gladiators, animals and criminals were killed on a daily basis in the arenas, or that the emperors took a personal delight in the wholesale slaughter they sponsored.  One can easily believe most anything said about Caligula, but this becomes problematic with the "good" emperors like Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian.  Marcus Aurelius is said to have deplored them, but he attended them nonetheless; he was expected to do so.  He is known to have annoyed the crowd by attending to the business of the state while at the games.  Surprisingly, it seems Domitian tried to curb the excesses of the games.

Nonetheless, the games can be said to have been characteristic of Rome, and their ubiquity and frequency establish their importance to Roman society and culture.  It's likely that all but a few enjoyed the games.  As the emperors were judged in part by their willingness to openly appear at the games and openly enjoy them, it may be that the games served in a peculiar way as a kind of bond between the emperor and the people.

Now, shall I do what I tend to deplore myself, and refer dolefully to the bread and circuses of our time?  It may surprise some to learn that I think we have nothing like them now.  It may be that we're simply not there yet.  Our politics are certainly money-based, and it is becoming more and more expensive to run for and obtain office.  Naturally, our politicians inevitably become more and more reliant on and beholden to those who have the money to give them. 

However, our politicians don't seem inclined to spend much money on the people, at least for the purpose of feeding them or amusing them, and are in this sense different from the politicians of ancient Rome.  They are, though, quite willing to spend money to persuade them, even to fool them, as the politicians of Rome certainly did--but the politicians of today need not do so by feeding them or amusing them.  That is no longer necessary.  For now, in any case.

The avidity of the masters of ancient Rome to spend great sums in feeding the people and holding games for their entertainment indicates not merely that they were manipulative.  It also indicates that they respected and feared the people.  They were the mob, and it was always possible that they would become angry and violent.  The games were in a sense an expression of the power of the people.  The people were a force to be reckoned with, even in an autocracy.  The emperor controlled the legions, true, but only those who ranked above centurions could be considered the aristocracy of the empire; the rest were its subjects, like those attending the games.  They could be relied on only to a certain extent.  The legions came to name their own emperors and revolt when they saw fit; they were to be feared as well, and shrewd emperors took pains to keep them happy as well as the people.

It is an interesting thought that the politicians of our time may not fear us as the politicians and rulers of ancient Rome feared their people.  I refer to the politicians and rulers of the United States.  We haven't demonstrated the capacity for fury and violence the people of the Roman Empire were known to display every now and then; perhaps because we're not as bad off as they were.  No doubt this is a good thing, but it may be that the trade off for this is a certain disregard in those who govern us, and those who govern them through money.  They need not concern themselves overmuch with seeing to it we are fed and distracted, or do so only sporadically, at election time.  Of course, we don't look to our government to entertain us as the Romans did, though there is much amusement to be found in the antics of our politicians.  We have other things to distract us.

As noted, we constantly compare ourselves to ancient Rome.  As far as I am aware, however, we have not done so to note the care taken by the great of that time to keep the people happy, amused and content.  There may be a lesson to be learned in this for the high and mighty, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.