Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest far by most
Are when some fool
Says what he’ll do
“in a forthcoming post.”

This isn’t the promised post on four revolutions in classical studies. Other revolutions keep overtaking it; instead, I want to post a brief note about a speech that Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado gave yesterday in the aftermath of the MAGA mob’s assault on the Capitol.  You can find the full text here, but this is the paragraph that caught my attention:

And I was thinking about that history today as we saw the mob riot in Washington, D.C., thinking about what the Founders were thinking about when they wrote our Constitution, which was, what happened to the Roman Republic when armed gangs — doing the work for politicians — prevented Rome from casting their ballots for consuls, for praetors, for senators. These were the offices in Rome, and these armed gangs ran through the streets of Rome, keeping elections from being started, keeping elections from ever being called. And in the end, because of that, the Roman Republic fell and a dictator took its place. And that was the end of the Roman Republic or any republic for that matter until this beautiful Constitution was written, in the United States of America.

Senator Bennet seems to be remembering events of the mid-50s BC. Rome had not only the two magistrates that Senator Bennet cites, consuls and praetors (senators weren’t elected as such at Rome—the Roman senate was simply the body of ex-magistrates), but others as well, called tribunes, who could veto any official action. The elections of 54 and 53 were hotly contested, and the tribunes used their veto so often that the years 53 and 52 both began with no officially certified magistrates to take office. Things got worse later in 52. Two of the tribunes, Milo and Clodius, had armed gangs of private bodyguards and used them to intimidate opponents. The gangs collided on the Appian Way, and Clodius was killed. His bodyguard led a mob that burned down the senate house and looted the Forum. As a result, the senate passed what was called the Ultimate Decree, Senatus Consultum Ultimum, imposing martial law, and Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey the Great) became sole consul—in effect, dictator. Three years later, Rome was embroiled in civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar.

We’re not there yet, thank God, and the parallel is far from exact. Senator Bennet, though, has given us a good example of America’s classicizing tendency to use Rome as a touchstone and example for understanding our Republic. Classicists deplore these analogies, and we should, but they are part of our political DNA. I’ve been passing time by casting the end of the Roman Republic with characters from Washington. Ted Cruz as Domitius Ahenobarbus, anyone? Or Rand Paul as Cato the Younger? It’s comforting to note that I can’t find anyone to play Caesar, or even Pompey or Cicero.  Suggestions are welcome.

~Lee T. Pearcy
January 7, 2021

Update: And in this blog post Mary Beard reaches the same conclusion.