Jan 29th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
What Would The Roman Empire Do?
Tom Ricks: “The latest round of massive corporate layoffs reminds of the financial crisis the Roman Empire suffered in 33 A.D.”
The Emperor Tiberius seems like a man who wouldn’t shy away from nationalizing a bank or two:
Tiberius also raised funds by accusing Sextus Marius, the richest man in Spain, of incest — almost certainly a trumped-up charge — and then having him thrown headlong from the Tarpeian Rock (see below), a cliff at the edge of Rome’s Capitoline Hill. “Tiberius kept his gold mines for himself,” Tacitus notes. It makes me think that Wall Street is getting off easy.
Among other things, we have some real crooks on Wall Street.
55 Responses to “What Would The Roman Empire Do?”
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January 29th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
O tempora o mores!
January 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
More from Tacitus’s Annals:
“Meanwhile at Rome people plunged into slavery- consuls, senators, knights. The higher a man’s rank, the more eager his hypocrisy, and his looks the more carefully studied, so as neither to betray joy at the decease of one emperor nor sorrow at the rise of another, while he mingled delight and lamentations with his flattery ”
———–
I dunno –sounds like Washington DC to me.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I don’t know what a Roman Empire would do, but I would support coliseum cage matches between Pallid Plutocrats. Think of the Teevee stimulus that would have. Not to mention poetic justice.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Speaking of Tiberius, The director’s cut of Caligula is out on Blu-Ray. It’s every bit the train wreck I’d been led to believe.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Speaking of Tiberius, The director’s cut of Caligula is out on Blu-Ray. It’s every bit the train wreck I’d been led to believe.
Um….thanks for the heads-up on that, dude. I’ll sleep easier at night knowing I didn’t miss out on an underrated classic.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
If you haven’t read this, it is certainly worth a look:
What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/business/29bonus.html?th&emc=th
January 29th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
It has been argued that American empire is in its last throes. The evidence is clearly there … an empire without financial means is no empire.
Time’s up ladies and gents.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Speaking of Tiberius, The director’s cut of Caligula is out on Blu-Ray. It’s every bit the train wreck I’d been led to believe.
Caligula would throw an epic orgy and then pay a visit to the vomitorium.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Matt,
Are you going to start advocating a Roman approach to military/foreign policy too?
January 29th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
If Obama wants to be like Lincoln, he needs to discover his inner Whig: massive infrastructure projects, a national bank, and increased incentives to buy American goods. Get the man a Henry Clay biography.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Caligula appointed a horse to the Roman senate. Kentucky elected the back half of a horse to lead the American senate.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
What was Tiberius’s Mideast policy again?
January 29th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
It’s worth noting that the Rome of Caligula’s day had rampant abortion in addition to its economic inequalities and foreign military adventures. Yet another way that we resemble Rome. I wonder who the equivalent of the Goths is going to be?
January 29th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
My favorite Emperor was Gordianus II. Gibbon’s description of him:
“Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation. “
January 29th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Fred,
If you’re referring to the expulsion of the Jews, that happened in the reign of Claudius, I believe. Early Christians believed that the order was given by Tiberius, in retribution for the death of Christ, but there’s no evidence for that and it was probably made up by anti-Jewish polemicists.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
What was Tiberius’s Mideast policy again?
Um….he appointed reasonably competent governors to make sure the area was well-administerered? What exactly are you getting at?
January 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
It’s worth noting that the Rome of Caligula’s day had rampant abortion in addition to its economic inequalities and foreign military adventures.
FYI: by the time of the first Emperor, Roman military adventurism was over. From about 30 BC to 200 AD (the “Pax Romana”) there wasn’t any military expansion or new conquest.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Re Hector’s comment “I wonder who the equivalent of the Goths is going to be? ”
———-
I dunno — we haven’t had any foreign tribes crossing our borders illegally and settling in our own homeland, have we?
As I recall, part of Rome’s collapse in the West occurred because she started recruiting foreigners from outside her borders to serve in her legions:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/12/26/military_considers_recruiting_foreigners/?page=full
January 29th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Tiberius was actually one of the ‘better’ emperors, who according to Gibbon at least paid lip service to the outward forms of republican government. His history of the “decline” of the empire begins circa 200 years later.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
As I recall, part of Rome’s collapse in the West occurred because she started recruiting foreigners from outside her borders to serve in her legions
Cause, meet effect. Or possibly the other way around. How does H.L. Menken’s saying about complex questions and simple answers go again?
January 29th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“Tiberius was actually one of the ‘better’ emperors, who according to Gibbon at least paid lip service to the outward forms of republican government.”
Not an opinion held by Tactitus or by Ben Jonson in his Sejanus. Hiding out in Capri for the last 11 years of your reign cannot be precisely considered much dedication to your office. Also, his selection of Caligula and Gemellus as his successors was more than a little ill-advised. And I don’t think you can correctly characterize Tiberius as showing much lip service to republican government – he did as much as any other Emperor to encourage the rapid rise of the Praetorian Guard as the major force in the Empire.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Give Tiberius a break; never even wanted to become emperor. His mommy made him.
Actually, if the story Matt describes had occurred anytime near the financial crisis in 33 AD, Tiberius, while emperor in name, wouldn’t have had anything to do with it – he largely withdrew (to Capri) from his duties several years before that and abandoned Rome to the hands of Sejanus and Macro, one worse than the other, and to the bureaucracy, which had grown vast
January 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Just beat me to it, burritoboy. great name btw
January 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Among other things, we have some real crooks on Wall Street.
Indeed, one might even call them “motherfuckers.”
Actually, with a little exposure, that could become some pretty good dog-whistle politics. To my Broderish uncle, if I call a Wall Street banker a motherfucker, well, it just means I’m not happy with the economy. Big deal, everyone agrees. Around here, henceforth, it means I think they should be defenestrated and their banks nationalized.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
by the time of the first Emperor, Roman military adventurism was over. From about 30 BC to 200 AD (the “Pax Romana”) there wasn’t any military expansion or new conquest.
This is incorrect. Under Augustus the Roman Empire gained more territory than at any other point in its history (northern Spain, the Balkans, Galatia, Egypt, Pannonia, Rhaetia and Noricum) and growth continued under later emperors — prestige required each emperor to acquire some new territory. Among areas gained after Augustus we can name Thrace, Mauretania, Britain, Dacia, the Agri Decumates, Cappadocia, Arabia and, briefly, Armenia and Mesopotamia. There were several prominent attempts to conquer parts of Germany and Transdanubia.
Expansion didn’t really slow until the 3rd century, and even then there were frequent expeditions across the frontiers.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Re Tiberius, harold left out the “raping children” part. Tacitus dishes the dirt.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
This is incorrect. Under Augustus the Roman Empire gained more territory than at any other point in its history…
Wow, a quick look at Wikipedia indicates that you are right and I am completely wrong.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
This is the key problem with locating our capital city in swampland… no cliffs! I guess we could hurl a few banking CEOs off the top of the Washington Monument… or maybe trip them at the top of the escalator at Woodley Metro.
As for the “Pax Romana”, it’s best to keep in mind that the Romans had, shall we say, a neoconservative attitude toward the meaning of “peace”. This was a time period during which there were no wars fought in or near Rome. This state of peace did not preclude the Romans from fighting wars all around the rest of the ancient world and attempting to expand their empire, which they did pretty much constantly.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
LaFollette, they fought them over there so they didn’t have to fight them here
January 29th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Correction: it was Suetonius, not Tacitus, who dished the dirt on Tiberius. Tacitus was great at political invective but kinda mealymouthed on sexual matters.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Time’s up ladies and gents.
Rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated
January 29th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Egypt, Galatia, Cappadocia, Gallaecia (N. Spain), Mauratania and Arabia Petraea were client kingdoms of varying levels of independence before Augustus. Galatia was a province in all but name. Noricum and Pannonia could be included in this list as well, but they were extremely independent for client kingdoms. Augustus “conquered” these places for the empire by defeating other Romans, or by a royal line dying off.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Rome fought wars against everyone. Whupping ass with a legion was a great way to move up the political ladder. You’d have cash and a whole pile of armed nasties who were willing to back you up.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
My sense of Tiberius is that he was a bad emperor for the Roman elites in the capital, to whom he was a capricious, paranoid tyrant. They’re also the ones who wrote the history books, so we largely get their picture of the man. But he was very competent and his reign was a very good one for the administration of the Empire.
It’s also worth noting, re: Gibbon, that the Emperors with the worst reputations for depravity and insanity largely lived before the period when he opens his book – Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian were all in the first century of the Empire. Commodus opens up the narrative, but only very briefly. The personal caliber of the Emperors was at its worst when the empire was at its healthiest.
In the 3rd and 4th centuries, when the empire really came into difficulties, the emperors were generally competent soldiers. In the 5th century the Emperors got bad again, but they weren’t hilarious wrecks like Caligula or Nero. They were just weaklings under the thumbs of various (Usually barbarian) generals.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
As far as expansion under the Empire goes, Njorl is right that most of the expansion under the Julio-Claudian Emperors was basically just the annexation of client kingdoms when their dynasties died out – e.g. Egypt, Galatia, Cappadocia, Mauretania. The expansion up to the Danube, however, was a real annexation of territory in the earlier part of Augustus’s reign, and there was also expansion in Germany up to the Elbe – until the defeat at the Teutoberg Forest in 9 AD. There was also Claudius’s conquest of Britain. And, a bit later, Trajan conquered Dacia beyond the Danube.
January 29th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Re: The evidence is clearly there … an empire without financial means is no empire.
The Roman Empire hung in there for 400 years plus after the crisis of 33AD– or 1400 years if you count Byzantium.
Re: From about 30 BC to 200 AD (the “Pax Romana”) there wasn’t any military expansion or new conquest.
Uh, Britain (invaded by Julius Caesar, but not conquered until the 40s AD). And for that matter, Dacia, conquered in the 2nd century AD.
Re: Also, his selection of Caligula and Gemellus as his successors was more than a little ill-advised.
Caligula was a generally popular young man– at first. Either illness or some previously undetected psychosis turned him nuttier than fruitcake a few months into his reign.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Actually, I would prefer they imposed Roman sexuality instead; Italian boys are so pretty.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:17 am
The Roman Empire’s decline happened largely once it had become mostly Christianized. St. Augustine’s most extensive work is dedicated to refuting the widespread contemporary belief that Rome’s abandonment of paganism lead to the sack of Rome and generally the decline of the Empire’s fortunes — and much of City of God is dedicated to showing that temporal civilization isn’t all that important anyway, which doesn’t exactly speak of great confidence on Augustine’s part that Christianity had no part in Rome’s decline. Gibbon pretty much took the other side of the issue.
So if Hector sees pagan ancient Rome as an Yglesian cosmopolitan hipster state from two millenia ago, and if the USA is the Roman Empire of the late second and early third millenia, then copying the Roman model would mean that decline would mostly happen under a revitalized Christian dominionist polity.
Not that that strikes me as terribly implausible.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Also, in the later years, Rome’s economic policy moved away from free market economics toward a statist, corporatist, manorial system with hereditary professions, price controls, etc. This doesn’t really seem to be related to Rome’s Christianization, since the biggest moves in that direction were implemented under the murderously anti-Christian Diocletian. It is, however, another data point in the “the Roman Empire implemented Hector’s preferred policies when it went into decline” hypothesis.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Julian Elson,
Ah, a fellow lover of “CIty of God”, I see. Well, to be fair, St. Augustine also argues that the sack of Rome wasn’t such a terrible event anyway, since it was no worse than what the Romans had been doing to each other with civil wars and political purges- he particularly references the late Republican period.
I didn’t say that ROme was a perfect analogy for America, only that it was a very good one.
January 30th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
“My sense of Tiberius is that he was a bad emperor for the Roman elites in the capital, to whom he was a capricious, paranoid tyrant. They’re also the ones who wrote the history books, so we largely get their picture of the man. But he was very competent and his reign was a very good one for the administration of the Empire.”
The reason why Caligula succeeded him was that Tiberius (and the machinations of Sejanus) managed to kill off a whole crowd of (probably) better successors. I also think you need to distinguish between his early years of his reign – where I would agree he was at least moderately successful – and his later years.
“Caligula was a generally popular young man– at first. Either illness or some previously undetected psychosis turned him nuttier than fruitcake a few months into his reign.”
True. But it was partially Tiberius’ fault in that Tiberius had so purged all possible claimants to the purple such that only Caligula remained.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
At the risk of adding to a dead thread, Gibbon acknowledges that the Emperors of the first 200 years were monsters, personally — but he still maintains that the decline only started after their reign was over.
(One could also say that the decline of the Russian Empire started after the death of Stalin and Kruschev).
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