Learning from Rome
The country is undergoing a Rome moment. HBO has a series, titled simply Rome, and set during the transition from Republic to Empire; the show has the back page ad in this week's New Yorker. The buzzed-about biography of the moment is by one Adrian Coldsworthy and titled simply 'Caesar'. Over in the wingnutsphere, people are dreaming some feverish dreams of Empire, not all of them pleasant.
And of course, our legions are currently much engaged in the precise deserts where Rome once faught; and on our Capitol Hill, some are muttering darkly of war against Persia.
There is, however, something that we can learn from Rome; they knew, at least, what should be done with troublesome emperors.
Roman law knew a concept known as damnatio memoriae, the damnation of memory. This encompassed the destruction of all statues, inscriptions, all public records that kept the memory of someone alive. It happened to Nero, for example, and the emperors Domitian and Commodus. Damnatio memoriae was a conscious decision by the state to purge all reminders of the loathsome, the cruel and the evil from the public face of society. It was based, perhaps, on the realization that all truly evil men have vanity at least in common; Caligula, Elagabalus, Mao, Idi Amin. They hope to be remembered fondly one day. That hope can be dashed.
Food for thought, I say.
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Even more important lesson
When Rome went from being a Republic to an Imperial dictatorship, the transition was billed, and often seen, as a "restoration" of the Republic. Augustus, a far more intelligent and diplomatic man that Bush could ever dream of being, was able to convince most Romans that all was restored to normality after the civil wars and that they were now really free. He even theoretically retired from being the head of state for much of his rule.
Bush is doing his best to create his own little Imperial dictatorship. But he and his advisors don't have the skills and intelligence of Augustus and his advisors.