Not Of Rome's World: While the similarities between the Roman and American republics are striking - especially in terms of the deliberate corruption of their politics by wealthy elites - the notion of belonging to a moral polity, as enunciated by Christ, could hardly be more different. The Kingdom of Heaven will always stand in sharp contrast to the brutally contested rewards of worldly governments.
I’VE JUST FINISHED READING Robert Harris’s historical novel,
Dictator. Set in the final tumultuous years of the Roman Republic, the book
has sharpened my appreciation of the current campaign for the American
Presidency. Though separated in time by more than two thousand years, the
political similarities between the world’s two most influential republics are
more than a little unnerving.
In both instances we are confronted with extremely ambitious
and fabulously wealthy men joining forces to subvert the institutions of the
republic. The weapon of choice against the Roman and American constitutions are
the all-too-easily aroused passions of the long-suffering plebs. Having whipped up
the fury of the common people against the depredations of the elites, the
enemies of the republic then set the plebs to dismantling the
constitutional checks and balances which are all that stand between them and the exercise of unbridled power.
All that is lacking from the political stage of contemporary
America is a Julius Caesar. There is, as yet, no United States equivalent of
Rome’s all-conquering general. No one in command of an army of fanatically
loyal soldiers ready to march on Washington itself – if that is their imperator’s command.
Some would cast Donald Trump in the role of America’s
Caesar. Having read Harris’s novel, however, I would rather cast Trump as
America’s Publius Clodius Pulcher.
Clodius was a populist Roman politician who relinquished his
aristocratic privileges so that he could be elected to the office of Tribune –
the representative and protector of ordinary citizens. Like Clodius, Trump is
vilified by “decent” citizens for adopting the vulgar accents of the mob, and
is accused of inciting them to intimidate and attack his opponents.
In Trump’s recent prediction/threat that there will be
“riots in the streets” if the elites attempt to deny him the Republican Party’s
nomination, one detects ominous echoes of Clodius’s actual use of his fiercely
loyal plebeian followers to overawe the aristocratic Roman Senate and secure
the passage of his populist legislation.
The fall of the Roman Republic was, paradoxically, the
result of its extraordinary success. As Rome’s conquests multiplied, its wealth
grew to the point where the civic virtue so essential to the operation of its
complex constitution was utterly overwhelmed by avarice and corruption.
There was simply too much money to be made out of Rome’s
expanding empire: more than enough to buy up the key public offices of the
republic. Gold could also create legions, the military power upon which the
city state and its empire ultimately rested. Inevitably one ambitious
politician would lay his hands on sufficient wealth, and swords, to dispense
with the consent of the Senate and People of Rome altogether.
This fascination with Rome, stronger today than it has been
for many decades, may strike you as odd until you are reminded, every Easter,
of the events which bind the world of two thousand years ago with the world of
today. Whatever else it may purport to be, the story of Jesus of Nazareth; his
birth, ministry and ultimate execution; is a story which takes place in the
context of Rome’s imperium.
Jesus and his followers could no more avoid the political
and moral questions posed by Roman rule than we can escape the challenges of
American hegemony. In his time, as in ours, there were many who sought to free
themselves from imperial rule by violence. Only a handful of those struck by
Rome were willing to turn the other cheek.
The Judea of 33AD was as plagued by terrorism, and the grim
reprisals it provokes, as the Israel of 2016AD. It’s people awaited the coming
of a mighty leader: someone to make the land of God’s chosen people great
again. For a moment, they thought they’d found one. But, when asked by the
Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, whether he was this long awaited King of the Jews, Jesus replied: “My kingdom
is not of this world.”
What did Pilate make of that enigmatic answer? Did he shake
his head – incredulous at his doomed prisoner’s naivety? How could Jesus not know
that imperium and reality are inseparable? That nobody is more of this world
than a king.
The idea of a moral imperium was as foreign to Pontius
Pilate, then, as it is, now, to Donald Trump.
A version of this essay was
originally published in The Otago Daily Times of Thursday, 24 March 2016.
