Our local public library up here in the Poconos runs a book sale every August, and this year I picked up a copy of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: A Modern Abridgement by Moses Hadas. Since I’ve never managed to get beyond the fourth century in my attempts to read Gibbon’s multi-volume history, which extends beyond the fall of Constantinople in 1453, I thought I’d give my old teacher’s abridgement a shot. On p.35 I found this: “The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army.” Hmm, I thought—that could be a description of an American president. “But unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians,” Gibbon continues, “the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism.” That too set me to thinking

Here, though, I want to talk not about the Roman Empire, but about its predecessor, the Roman Republic, which began, according to Roman legend, in 509 BC and ended half a millennium later, sometime in the middle of the first century BC. But when did the Republic end?  Was there a day, or month, or year with Republic on one side and no-longer-Republic on the other?  Probably not. History doesn’t work that way, and decisive events—the sack of Constantinople, Luther nailing his theses to the door of a church, the Twin Towers collapsing—are punctuations in the long paragraph of time, not fundamental changes in it. If one had to pick a moment to put a period after the Roman Republic, though, it might be November 27, 43 BC, when a tribune named Publius Titius moved a Lex Titia, which was approved by the Plebeian Assembly and became law.

The Lex Titia established a “commission of three for the restoration of the Republic,” triumviri rei publicae constituendae. The three commissioners were Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian, who later became the emperor Augustus. This so-called “second triumvirate” had the power to appoint magistrates and provincial governors, declare war, and levy taxes or confiscate property. With these powers, and by eliminating the right of appeal from a magistrate’s decisions, the law explicitly put the three above the laws and procedures that put checks and balances on the elected officials of the Republic. By November 28, the Republic was no more.

I mention these long-past Roman matters because we may have just glided over a similar moment in the history of our republic: the Supreme Court’s decision, in a decision handed down on the last day of its 2023–2024 term, that the President has “at least presumptive,” and perhaps absolute, immunity for his (or her) official acts. In the New York Review of Books for August 15, Sean Wilentz makes a good case that this decision is “The ‘Dred Scott’ of Our Time.” I suggest that by putting a president above the law, it may be our Lex Titia. Our republic is taking a long time to collapse, and I hope it pulls back from the brink to endure as long as the Roman Republic, but if it doesn’t, July 1, 2024, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision, will be a good choice for its final punctuation mark.

~Lee T. Pearcy
August 16, 2024