As a boy the aesthetic of ancient Rome captured my imagination. The Roman soldier with his iconic rectangular shield, plumed helmet, segmented armor, and Spanish gladius; Julio-Claudian emperors wearing their Tyrian purple togas dispensing justice or cruelty; grave-faced senators gathered in the Curia to debate questions of war and peace: these images, found initially in books which my parents purchased for me, became inextricably woven into my imagination. Long before I visited Rome I loved her.
Most childhood passions pass away. Rome’s eternal and unwaning pre-eminence among my passions developed in large part thanks to the historian Tom Holland’s book Rubicon. I do not remember exactly when I read it - I must have been 12 or 13 - but that book translated the passion for Rome from my imagination into my intellect. Other interests which have withered away, consigned to the oblivion of forgotten childhood amusements. They never left the imagination, never sunk roots into the intellect, and new fads blew them away. Rome, on the other hand, sank its roots deep. Great and terrible characters won glory and ruined dynasties. The Roman echoes in the (American) world around me always pointed me back to Rome. I wanted to learn more about these people who seemed at once so familiar and so strange, to the point where my 7th grade language choice of French, Latin, or Spanish did not even register as a question.
The particular figure through whom this developed was Gaius Julius Caesar.
Caesar was the vehicle for my imagination to feed my intellect’s desire. He had the dramatic story of Rome, and his character shines brightly even now. What kind of young man, captured by pirates, tells them to increase the ransom because their demands insulted his dignity? How charismatic must one be to amuse your captors by promising to crucify them? How ruthless must one be to, upon release, actually do it? The life trajectory of Caesar has everything and more for a good story: a legendary family name on (relatively) hard times, perilous adventure and narrow escapes, an audacious rise to power, desperate gambles and alliances, betrayal by Pompey the Great, ultimate victory over the Senate, plans for even greater conquests, ultimate and tragic betrayal.
As a teenager I felt no shame in picking sides, and I considered myself firmly pro-Caesar. I felt Caesar’s distaste for Cato the Younger, and approved of the retribution Octavian and Marc Antony1 visited upon the traitors who murdered Caesar. The personal loyalty I felt to Caesar - made possible precisely because a 13 year old’s “support” in the greatest geo-political drama2 that has ever happened is absurd and has no consequence - fed, and was fed by, the general loyalty I felt to Rome. Rome could do no wrong that would make me forsake her.3 As I began to learn about the Punic Wars, I had a light-hearted rivalry with my best friend who also liked history. He preferred the perfidious Carthaginian infant-killers to the honorable Romans who would never sacrifice their children to the gods - they left their unwanted infants in the garbage like civilized men.4 I conceded that the destruction of Carthage was a tragedy, but, you know, don’t mess with Rome.5
The moral questions were there when I was a teenager. Of course the destruction of Carthage was morally repugnant. Of course leaving infants in the garbage heap was barbaric. Of course Rome’s slave economy was brutal and disgusting.6 But I loved history as a story, and so condemning it made no sense. Just as a teenager’s “support” for Rome is meaningless, a teenager’s condemnation of events resolved thousands of years ago has no meaning. If someone else had isolated one of those questions and asked me what I thought, I would have given the right answer every time.7 At the time I would have likened rejecting history on account of moral evils that took place to condemning Harry Potter for witchcraft.
Eventually a love of history drove me to take an interest beyond the narrative though. Once I knew the story, I started to look for different angles and new perspectives. That is the nature of loving the truth, historical or otherwise - you always seek to know it more fully, and other perspectives are exciting even if you think they are wrong. The first time I recall deliberately lingering with a non-narrative perspective on Julius Caesar (and, therefore, Rome) came from listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series Death Throes of the Roman Republic when I was maybe 21 or 22.
Dan Carlin described the Triumvirate’s8 rise to power. They used gangs of thugs to “ensure” the integrity of the election which put them in power, and I remember listening to Dan Carlin describe the violence these men (under direction from the Triumviri) to guarantee the vote went the right way. Violence in Roman elections was by no means unheard of, and I had read about it before. But through that podcast I, for the first time, looked at Caesar not as the protagonist of a story, but through the lens of political violence. My historical hero looked no longer the brilliant, dashing, peerless statesman and unequalled general, but like a brutish, wealthy thug who, frankly, resembled every other brutish, wealthy thug I had ever heard of. Many years later, another episode, The Celtic Holocaust, discussed Caesar’s invasion of Gaul and cited some estimates that Caesar may have killed a million people during the nine years of conquest. Again, Caesar stopped looking like the great man bringing Roman civilization to the barbarians and looked like any other ambitious, genocidal monster.
These are just two examples of the way a maturing appreciation of history changed my approach and perspective on individuals, cultures, and events. Even so, I still maintain the desire to read history and pick sides.9 The fuller picture and the moral questions are important and even enjoyable in their own right. But they do not scratch the itch.
That itch matters. Desire is a good thing.10 My personal itch to endlessly re-engage the story of Rome, and not merely the historical data, is a particular manifestation of the desire not only to know the truth, but to love my ancestors. To my knowledge I have no blood descent from the Romans, but the Roman concept of law and justice, of virtue, of government, has so influenced Europe and the United States11 that there is a natural affinity for the Romans, their culture, and their story.12
By no means am I the only one to have this itch. Sometime last year there was a Tiktok13 trend where (mostly) young ladies would ask the young men in their lives how often he thought about the Roman Empire, and she then expressed her shock at how often the young man thought about the Romans. It turns out that most men, apparently, think about the Roman Empire daily.14
This trend reflected the enduring appeal of the Romans. Rome is a myth, in CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien’s sense of the word. It expresses a truth too grand to convey in simple prose, and if you tried it would fail to adequately capture the idea. One of the best summations came from the excellent Ridley Scott film, Gladiator:
Maximus:
Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.Marcus Aurelius:
And what would you believe?Maximus:
They fought for you and for Rome.Marcus Aurelius:
And what is Rome, Maximus?Maximus:
I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.Marcus Aurelius:
Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become…There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter.
This quote captures, perhaps better than any other, the myth of Rome that has captured so many today. The myth affirms good and evil, even if it rarely uses such explicit language. It provides a grand sense of purpose, and captures something of the “Trends and Forces” theory of history. But it is also personal - thousands of men, from the quote, and hundreds of thousands - probably more - labored, fought, suffered, and died to create it. The myth allows for the “Great Man” theory of history as well. The Great Man in the film is Maximus, with Commodus being the evil Great Man. Historically, Marcus Aurelius was the last of the Five Good Emperors, and certainly fits the bill for a “Great Man of History.” Roman historical sources give us such powerful glimpses of personalities15 that it becomes hard to accept that the Crisis of the Third Century would have happened anyway if Commodus had died as an infant and some abler man been adopted.
The line about Rome being a dream is what wraps everything up and guarantees Rome will continue as the object of fascination indefinitely. For it is a dream, and when teenagers (and young adults, and anyone else) imagines Rome, they imagine an idealized Rome. The conquests are the march of the light into the darkness. Roman politics are rational and discursive. Certainly, Cicero’s famous quip about Cato the Younger applies to me and many others:
For he [Cato] gives his opinion as if her were in Plato’s Republic, not in Romulus’s shithole.
Yet Romulus’s Rome is long gone (an Rome the current capitol of Italy is an incredible city). All that remains of Romulus’s Rome is the fragile idea that the Marcus Aurelius of Gladiator speaks of. Yet that idea was never abandoned - the Roman Empire set the gold standard for European states into modernity, it provided the exemplar and subject of high culture for centuries, its artwork has never ceased to amaze and delight its viewers. Where so much of modern life feels transient, Rome is permanent. Contemporary trends will pass away, and Rome, the Eternal City, which conquered the world16 will still, and always, be there. Its aesthetic will charm the imagination, and its substance will nourish the intellect, until the end of days.
When I read an account of Caesar’s life now, I still find myself cheering for him. When I watch a play or a film, I still curse Brutus whenever he appears. I know the violence the Caesar and the Romans used to build their world, but I still love it. The moral questions are inert: they have a right answer, or maybe no answer at all, but their time has passed and there are no stakes. I cannot fail to see Caesar’s viciousness the way I could when I was a teenager. Even so, when the question about what historical figure I would invite to dinner comes up17, the top of that list will always be Gaius Julius Caesar.
I am, in some sense, still pro-Caesar. I guess you never really move on from a first love.
Recommendations
Rome
Rubicon by Tom Holland
Death Throes of the Roman Republic by Dan Carlin
The Celtic Holocaust by Dan Carlin
Gladiator by Ridley Scott
The Hapsburgs (referring to footnote 9)
The Hapsburgs: Rise and Fall of a World Power by Martyn Rady
Europe’s Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Year’s War by Peter H Wilson
East Romans (referring to footnote 9)
History of Byzantium by Robin Pierson
Poor Lepidus.
I deny any accusations of bias.
Rome literally crucified Jesus, whom I worship, and that did not dent my enthusiasm.
In case anyone missed it, that’s bad.
To be fair to the Carthaginians, Cato the Elder really wanted to destroy Carthage. But then, ending every speech, whatever the topic, with Carthago delenda est (Carthage must be destroyed) is really cool.
“Of course,” because I live in a Christian world; the Romans of the first, or third, century BC would disagree. I will write a separate post about moral relativism, but for now I will just leave it with a firm “of course.”
Being, of course, Destroying cities is bad, etc etc.
Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus
Recently I have found myself upset with the Hapsburg’s failure to win the Thirty Years War and in a despondent rage at the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople. These seem natural progressions for someone who began with Julius Caesar.
There are bad desires - desires aimed at improper objects - but desire qua desire is good.
This isn’t an exclusive claim - anyone from anywhere can fall in love with the Romans.
And, of course, the story of Christianity is intimately (though not exclusively) tied up with Rome.
Cursed be that application, and its capacity to so affect the culture that someone who does not use it becomes aware of its quakes.
As with all things on TikTok, and mass-media generally, I doubt this fad told the whole, unvarnished truth. Even so, I think the fad’s focus on the Romans, specifically, is illustrative.
At the very least, perceived or projected personalities
Which is a true statement even though plenty of places weren’t in it.
This happens less than I think it ought. Usually I bring it up to myself.