America is Not Rome

Writers, journalists and historians often compare Rome to modern day America.  Though there are definite similarities, and lessons to be learned, these claims are false.  

Transcript

America is not Rome

October 2024

Even allowing for the Persians, the Romans, or the Mongols, there was nothing like the British Empire.  Built over a period from the 16th century and culminating around 1900, Britain controlled the seas and had significant possessions in Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.  The statement that the sun never set on the British Empire was not hyperbole. Britons would go to bed on their home island, and other British would wake up on the island of Hong Kong, half a world away.  And yet, even at the height of their powers, the British were concerned with their own decline.  

In 1817, just two years after Wellington’s victory over Waterloo and the establishment of Britain, not France, as the leading state in Europe, the incomparable (he is my favorite artist) Joseph Mallord William Turner completed one of his masterpieces, The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire. In this work, in which Turner explicitly gave tribute to the French landscape painter Claude Lorraine, the artist depicts the fall of a once mighty empire.  Though several harbor structures are intact, the foreground of the painting portrays fallen buildings and ruins.  Also, the setting sun leaves no question about what is happening.  Nor was the Turner’s choice of Carthage an accident.  

Less than 40 years earlier, Edward Gibbon penned, over the course of a decade, his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  Though in Gibbon’s account, Christianity was one of the major culprits that did in Rome, like Turner after him, he saw the fall of all empires as not just an eventuality but an imminent one.  Yet Gibbon wrote that before the final conquest of India, the acquisition of Hong Kong led to the dominance of China and that later in the 19th century, Britain would hold more than one-quarter of Africa. Neither Turner nor Gibbon were wrong about predicting the fall of the British Empire; they were just more than a century wrong in their timing.

The game of deciding when a mighty state will fall is not something just for 18th and 19th-century Britons but a sport played with enthusiasm today.  In an article in The Atlantic written in 2021 entitled “No, Really, Are We Rome?” Cullen Murphy asks, “The scenes at the Capitol on January 6 were remarkable for all sorts of reasons, but a distinctive fall-of-Rome flavor.  Outside, a pandemic raged, recalling the waves of plague that periodically swept across the Roman Empire. As the nation reeled, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the role of a magister militum addressing the legions, issued an unprecedented advisory that put the sitting ruler on notice, condemning “sedition and insurrection.” 

Writing for the Free Press a few weeks ago, Eli Lake noted, “Because the stakes are so high, it’s essential to ask: What leads a republic to choose the gun over the ballot? To try to answer that question, I looked back to ancient Rome, a republic that not only fell but fell because of the rule-breaking of one man—and the response of his enemies. His name was Tiberius Gracchus.” 

In his new movie Megalopolis, one of the greatest movie directors of all time, Francis Ford Coppola, names his characters after Romans, and instead of New York, his city is New Rome.  Coppola is making a very un-subtle comparison of our state to the one that began along the banks of the Tiber River.  “What’s happening in America … is exactly how Rome lost their republic thousands of years ago.”

In his review of that film, Grant Lefelar writes, “If Coppola is not trying to offer an exact comparison between the two global superpowers, he is instead throwing every Roman-coded reference at the silver screen and seeing what current phenomenon he can stick them to.”  

As noted in an earlier podcast and on many occasions on Twitter, I am not just the guy who thinks about the Roman Empire a few times per week, but several times each day.  But that is not exactly odd.  I imagine an F1 racing obsessive thinks of car engines, or the baseball fanatic considers batting averages in the morning, noon, and evenings.   But in his piece, Lake makes a significant distinction: “You probably know about last year’s trend of American men confessing on TikTok and how often they think about the Roman Empire. I’m a bit different. I’m obsessed with what preceded the Empire, Rome’s Republic. Empires are a dime a dozen in human history. They rise and fall from Babylon to the Soviet Union. But republics—a form of government in which representatives of the people rule a state—are orchids: rare, precious, and fleeting. If you take the long view of human history, tyranny is the norm. A system that checks the power of its leaders and legislators and makes them accountable to citizens? That’s special.”  

It is difficult for a 21st-century American to understand this.  Similar to a fish who cannot conceptualize being wet.  We look around our world and see our allies like Canada, Britain, and Australia, all with elected representatives leading their nations.  Former authoritarian nations such as Japan, Germany, Italy, and Spain all have this form of government.  Of course, there are strongman nations, but note that China’s and Russia’s current rulers do not style themselves as Tsar or Emperor as their forebears did but the republican term of President.  Today’s royalty are often figureheads such as Charles III of the United Kingdom or Emperor Naruhito of Japan.  Where there is a true King with real power is seen as exotic, as in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the Sultan of Oman holds sway.  

Though we find this unique, the concept of royal rulership was the norm for almost every nation for roughly 96% of recorded history.  A strongman, consummate warrior, or minor member of the royal house seizes power, proclaims their title and royalty, and then tries to pass power onto their sons (or sometimes brothers and daughters, but that was rare).  

Democracies were exceptional, including the city-states of ancient Greece and Republics such as medieval Venice or the Roman version.  This brings us to the differences between Rome and the United States.  

One cannot fully understand the United States of America without appreciating that our nation is different.  Unlike so many other peoples, we did not begin as an ethnic identity or union of a common language. There was a strong Northern European identity, and English was the common tongue, but that was not the genesis of the way it was in France or Spain. America’s inception was based on an idea and series of rights.  As I have noted many times prior, I can go to Russia, learn Russian, and master Russian history or the works of Dostoyevsky and Pushkin, but I will not be a Russian.  However, a Russan can come here, learn of the Declaration and Constitution, embrace individual liberty and limited government, and become an American. 

Any discussion concerning the fall of Rome, in order to provide comparisons, will have to consider that there was not one fall of Rome, but four.  Rome did not begin as a Republic but as a standard historical kingdom.  Given the time frames (around 700 BCE), much of the actual founding is veiled in myth.  Sorry, fans of Virgil, but there was probably not a Trojan Aeneas nor twins like Romulus and Remus suckling from a She-wolf.  These have suspicious parallels to folk myths prevalent at the time, and just as Christmas comes a bit too close to the ancient, pagan Yule to be a coincidence, so it is with the founding of Rome.  But the first of the falls is the end of the Roman Kingdom and the beginning of something quite unique, the Roman Republic.  The date is traditionally set in 509 BCE with the ejection of the last king, the awesomely named Etruscan Tarquinius Superbus.  Then, we need to consider the distinction between a republic and an empire, as Lake does.  The end of the Republic is typically placed in 27 BCE when the Senate gave Octavian the title of Augustus.  Then, the Western Empire fell in 476 with the last of the Western Emperors.  What remained of the Eastern Empire was considerable, consisting of modern-day Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, much of Hungary, Greece, Turkey, the Levant, and Egypt. Historians have awarded it the distinctive title of the Byzantine Empire. However, it was known as Rome after the 400s and by the rulers themselves.  Yet, with all proper nods to my online friends who are passionate about the Eastern Roman Empire, it was different.  For one, the primary language was Greek, not Latin.  Yet it was Roman enough to consider that for the millennia after the fall of the West, the vestige of Rome, as it was reduced through the centuries to a small rump state, was paramount.  

But this podcast will focus on the second of the Roman iterations because they, too, were a Republic. In a later podcast, I will focus on the imperial period, 509 BCE to 27, but for pithiness.  

Geography

Let’s start with the size of the Roman Republic and our American one.  Rome was still the city-state controlling a few surrounding regions when the Roman Republic was established.  They were not even the undisputed masters of central Italy, much less a continental state.  The United States began as such.  The distance from Milan in the north of Italy to Palermo in Sicily is 500 miles, and it took the Romans four hundred years to conquer the entire peninsula.  In contrast, the distance from Bangalore, Maine, to Savannah, Georgia, is 1,200 miles, and Virginia is about 400 miles from the Ocean to its interior. At its inception, the American Republic began with 800,000 square miles.  ALL of Italy is 150,000. When the US government was constructed, it was the first continental Republic in history. This is important because the brilliance of our system of government, unlike the Romans, was the ability to continually expand our nation’s size and scope in terms of geography and economy without needing to fundamentally change that system.  

Organization of Government

The Roman Consuls, the chief magistrates of the Roman government, served a single year in office and could only run again after ten more years had elapsed. American Presidents originally served four-year terms, and due to Washington’s decision, eight years was seen as the logical limit. A similarity of the Roman Republic was that it was based on the separation of powers and checks and balances.  For example they had not one but two leading magistrates or Consuls as a check against each other.  With the election for the Consuls, there were also Praetors and Aediles, so authority was further diffused.  The Roman Republic eventually created the office of Tribune of the Plebs to restrain the magistrates and the Senate further. Like Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Washington, there was a wariness of monarchies’ tyrannical power; in both cases, the Republics threw them out.  However, the differences were as great as the similarities.  Noted above, the term of all magistrates was a single year as opposed to the four for the president.  Members of the Senate, once in, were members for life, whereas ours must run every six years and even two for House membership. 

The separation of powers in Rome was less evident than in the American Republic.  Until Gnaeus Pompeius, later named Magnus or the Great, Consuls were to be drawn by the Senate.  And later, after provincial acquisitions, only ex-magistrates could be governors.  Unlike the British parliamentary system or the Roman Republic, the American executive branch is separate from the legislative one.  Though most American presidents served in some of the legislatures, whether it be state or federal, it was not a prerequisite for office.  Individuals, mostly generals such as Taylor or Grant, never served in Congress.  

Oligarchy

Americans celebrate the rags to riches stories.  As much as we have wealthy presidents ranging from Roosevelt to Donald Trump, they love that “anyone can be president” is ideal. We even have Kamala Harris, daughter of two academics, celebrating her middle class-ness and dishonestly suggesting that she worked a summer at McDonalds frying Quarter Pounders with cheese for the masses. Is that a trope?  Not really. Beginning with Andrew Jackson, who started with nothing, the up by his bootstraps guy mirrors the thought of new opportunities embodied by the early Republic.  There are the log cabin stories of Abraham Lincoln, but even before 1860, William Henry Harrison was celebrated as such, even though he was born to wealth in Virginia.  

The Roman Republic was the opposite, with a few aristocratic families, originally Patrician, but later even Plebian, dominating the higher magistracies.  Towards the end of the Republic, families such as the Scipii and Metellii considered the consulship a birthright.  And the elections were rigged as such to keep these families in power as much as possible. The first class had more votes, as did the urban tribes over the rural ones.  In the 1st century, a bloody was fought between Rome and Italian tribes who wanted full citizenship. There were exceptions such as Gaius Marius and Cicero; the so-called Novus Homo, or new man, could rise to the top of the Roman firmament on sheer ability.  But these were the exceptions.  Despite being on separate sides of the political divide, men like Sulla, Cato, and Caesar were all nobles.    

Military

Roman consuls were the chief military leaders of the early Republic during their single year in power.  When the main enemies are 50 miles away, this is achievable.  However, as one example, the 2nd Punic War, which featured battles in Spain, was 1,200 miles away from the Capitol.  A consul would only just arrive in the theater when he would need to return to lay down his office.  So later, consuls, or proconsuls, were extended into their commands.  When a Consul such as Gaius Marius, contesting against the Numidians or the Germans, needed more time to campaign, he was allowed to be Consul for more than one year.  Two things resulted.  The Chief Magistrate had the military power not for one year but for the duration of the campaign.  The second was even more complex as troops became fewer farmers than soldiers, and their loyalty transferred from the state of Rome to that of their general.

After his consulship, Caesar strongly armed the Senate to give him five years of command.  Pompey had several extraordinary assignments without a clear end date.  And as loot, in the form of precious metals or slaves, became available after the conquest, the general, not the state, rewarded the troops.  As time proceeded, it became more apparent that these generals should reward loyal troops in such a fashion lest another general provide an even larger bribe.  

One of the keystones of the United States is civilian oversight over our armies.  Not just one, but two civilians oversee the military, with the president as Commander in Chief and the Defense Secretary reporting to him.  The Sec Def is often an ex-general, but the key is the ex-part.  In this case, The General in Central Command (the Middle East) cannot also be Secretary of Defense.  And no president has ever directly led troops.  One of those moments was with Washington, but it passed, and not even Jackson, Grant, or Eisenhower have taken to the field.  George (little Mac) McClellan was probably as close as we have ever been to a general usurping the authority of a president as he commanded the loyalty of the Union Army of the Potomac far more than Lincoln.  But even McClellan would not have done as Sulla, Pompey, or Caesar had done and marched on Rome.  

When the Republic was born, armies were raised from local Romans, often farmers, who would leave for the campaign and then return to their farms in time to sow seeds or bring in a harvest.  Again, something was impossible when the Roman legions needed to march to Spain or be shipped to Africa and back.  As the city-state became a regional hegemon, then ruler over a far-flung empire, the old concept of one-year consuls and farmer soldiers became antiquated.  This meant that soldiering became a way of life, not a temporary situation.  Logically, soldiers would reward the general who could best deliver the goods.  The state gave the soldier a modest stipend.  Caesar could make a lowly ranker a wealthy landowner.  It was no contest.  

Our Republic features professional soldiers, but again, civilian control and no general had the independence enjoyed by Pompey and Caesar enough to build a solid power base. One of those problematic generals, Douglas Macarthur, was fired by Truman in 1950, and his troops needed to raise their own force.

The fall of the Republic was one primary reason from which all of its other ills fell.  Its government was designed for one thing, but Rome became something else.  One of the wonders of our government was that the Constitution was always designed for a continental-sized state of millions. So when the nation expanded from sea to sea, its population became hundreds of millions, and its economy and military were the dominant force on Earth; the government could accommodate that in a way the city-state of Rome never could.  I thoroughly enjoyed Lake’s piece, but Tiberius was not the change agent but rather the vessel through which the forces of disintegration were operating.  As Lake notes, after Tiberius’s death, his brother took over.  And Lake does not mention later demagoguing on the part of Tribunes such as Lucius Saturninus, Publius Clodius, and even Gaius Julius Caesar himself.  

Again, this is not to say that Lake, Murphy, or even Coppola are wrong in looking for comparisons.  There are several lessons to guide us today as we navigate a host of ills.  But our issues are just so different from Rome’s.  The wars of the Republic, whether conquering their Latin neighbors, the Greek city-states in South Italy, the Carthaginians, or later in the East, all cost money.  Yet by first looting the provinces and then taxing them, the Republic could pay up.  This is not to say that, at times, the Republic found itself broke.  Yet this was due to ambitious generals raiding the treasury during the Civil War.  Once Augustus took power and reduced the size of the army to a manageable size, crushing debt was not, initially, an issue.  

Our military in 1950 was similar in scale to Rome’s, comprising over 50% of all spending.  Yet in 2024, it is less than 14%. It is entitlement spending now well over 58% of all outlays and easily the fastest growing portion of the budget that is costly.  And we cannot loot other nations nor tax faraway provinces for the difference.  Historically, national debt has been well under 100% of GDP, but it has ballooned to over 120% in the last decade.  This means more money for interest payments, and there is no sign.  I rarely agree with Pat Buchanan, but he got this right: “No nation with a massive debt has ever remained a great power.” 

Another contention is eventual submissiveness to another power.  In the 1970s, it was the Soviets. In the 1980s, the Japanese.  In the 2000s, the BRIC countries were going to rise above us.  And today, China.  None of that ever happened, and China’s severe demographic problem will eventually catch up with them.  We are not in danger of a Red Dawn movie-style invasion, and I am referring to the 1980s version and not the crappy remake. I remember that because to this teen of the 80s, running around in the woods with Leah Thompson and Jennifer Grey did not seem such an arduous duty.   

However, the Roman Republic’s history was rife with invasions.  In fact, in the 400s, Celts conquered the city.  In the 200s, Hannibal of Carthage nearly did the same.  Our Republic has not seen a military incursion since Pancho Villa over a century ago. Prior to that, we went back to 1815 in New Orleans.  A sound argument can be made that when millions pour across our Southern border, that is a different kind of invasion.  And the cultural implications of this are severe.  However, under Trump, the numbers were managed and manageable.  It was Biden who, in an attempt to create future Democratic voters, created a porous border.  The Romans could not stop the Celts.  We can close our border effectively, assuming both political will and, as we have seen, political desire.  As I argued in my previous contest, we need immigrants, so it does us some harm to slam the border shut ala Ming or early Qing era China.  

This argument is similar to one Augustus wrestled with and even today by China’s Xi. Our fertility rate among Americans who are of at least one generation removed is net zero. We are not producing enough children, which could be the root of our demise.  

But if there is one linking thread between our Republic and Rome’s, it can be captured by one word: success.  If Rome had remained a provincial city-state like Capua, Syracuse, or Massilia, the later problems of far-flung provinces or rampaging generals would not have arisen. Of course, they probably would have been conquered by the Carthaginians.  Only a nation as wealthy as ours could contemplate maintaining the world’s preeminent military while providing a monthly stipend and free healthcare, meds, and all to over 45 million people, few of whom hold jobs.   Of course, these entitlements came about in 1935 and 1965, and the drug benefit in 2003.  Twenty years later, our ability to pay for all this becomes dim, and our current politicians only want to add more.  Kamala Harris is proposing adding at-home senior care to Medicare.  Trump wants to take away taxes on tips and overtime.  

I have noted that the Roman Republic fell in 27 BCE with the award of a new title. Still, perhaps the actual event occurred not in Rome itself but in waters off of Greece in 31 when Octavian’s fleet under his stalwart Marcus Agrippa defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra’s fleet.  This was the last of the civil wars, and it would be 100 years later before massive Roman armies contended for power and, by then, for the title of Emperor.  The Roman Republic ended in battle.  The American Republic might end in bankruptcy.