Anyone who knows me knows that I am fascinated by ancient history. I find myself continually returning to the subject year after year, even though it was not particularly related to my college studies, political interests, or career ambitions.
That’s because Ancient History is special. It’s often short, as sources can be scarce, and the sources we do have should be taken with a grain of salt. I’m very fond of what author Myke Cole has to say about the problem of ancient sources while discussing the 1st Century AD author Plutarch: “[Plutarch] has to be taken with a grain of salt, but he also has to be taken”. These few sources like Plutarch, Livy and Herodotus are the only ones to have survived to modern day. They are not in our understanding of the word true ‘Historians’, they are scholars but chiefly they are story tellers. Herodotus is probably most guilty of this, and podcaster Dan Carlin is fond of referring to him as an ‘ancient Alfred Hitchcock’. But it is the problems that exist with the ancient sources that make ancient history so compelling. It is often more interesting and gripping than any work of fiction, probably because large chunks of it are fiction. Ancient History is a fiction that has been work-shopped for hundreds or thousands of years, each story teller adding an embellishment here or supposed divine intervention there. When used correctly with recent scholarship and an eye on retelling these stories in a more modern way, professional classicists and amateurs alike can weave wonderful texts.
This brings me to historian Tom Holland’s absolutely fabulous book Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar. I got the audio book from the library earlier this fall after reading Robin Waterfield’s Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire, and doing a re-listening to Dan Carlin’s excellent podcasts on Roman history. From the moment I began Dynasty I was hooked. Not only does it pick up seamlessly from the end of Carlin’s ‘Death Throws’ series, it does so with style, gravitas and just the right amount of context. I’ve read my fair share of books about the fall of the Roman Republic, fascinated about how republican institutions fail, and make-way for rising authoritarianism. But what those books missed, and what Tom Holland’s book covers is what happens once those institutions have nothing left. In short: How does society deal with the end of a republican system and navigate the contradictions that arise while still trying to pay lip service to the corpse?
This key question was fascinating to explore. While the first two emperors, Augustus and Tiberius, still willingly played along with the Senate, styling themselves simply Princeps, the first citizen, their successors quickly abandoned these pretenses. While still calling himself the Princeps, Caligula tore off the mask of the new Roman Empire, and showed himself to be a true authoritarian. The system never recovered from this, and the senators began to realize that the reins of power in Rome had left the senate house long ago. Even after Caligula’s brutal murder by members of the Praetorian Guard (his own bodyguards and personal army), the Republic could not be resuscitated, despite attempts by the senate. Of course, the death of these institutions cannot simply be put on Caligula, or even Augustus for that matter. That story itself probably begins with Gaius Marius and Sulla’s civil war in the 1st century BCE, though much of what I have read begins with the Gracchi brothers back in 133 BCE.
I don’t have to tell you that the republican institutions of the United States are in grave danger today. Our Republican institutions are far younger than Rome’s, and our national identity far less defined. However, Roman history from the Gracchi to Calligula shows us what happens when these institutions are bent to the point of breaking. No individual, no single civil war or breaking of ancient laws brought the Roman Republic to its end. Institutions can shamble along, pretending to serve the functions they once promised. However, if we aren’t careful we may find ourselves like the Senators following Caligula’s demise: holding the pieces of institutions that can no longer be put back together.