Cato V, Part XIX: The Same Causes, contd.

The last of the Emperors which George Clinton made reference to in the cited text of Cato V was the aforementioned Domitian (51-96 AD), known before his ascension as Titus Flavius Domitianus. His father, Vespasian (9-79 AD), had been the last of the four Emperors to rule in 69 AD, and his older brother, Titus (39-81 AD), had immediately preceded him as sovereign of the Roman Empire. Despite these close family ties, however, there didn’t seem to be much in common between Domitian and his immediate predecessors. Vespasian had been an especially generous patron of writers and historians and had done much to rebuild Rome after the destruction wrought by the civil war in 69 AD. And Titus had completely abolished the use of treason trials, completed the amphitheater begun by his father – now commonly known as the Colosseum – and donated large sums from the imperial treasury to those affected by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius (79 AD) and another disastrous fire in Rome (80 AD). Domitian, by comparison, was an inveterate micro-manager who dispensed with the authority of the Senate almost entirely, had numerous opponents executed, and promulgated a cult of personality whereby he was depicted as a divine autocrat from whom all political and moral authority flowed. There was more to the man than just his worst qualities, of course, as had been the case even with Caligula and Nero. But Domitian was in almost every way a much more effective ruler than his immediate predecessors, and this effectiveness found expression in his flaws as well as his virtues.

            Domitian’s relationship with the Roman Senate would seem to speak to this aspect of his character and rule. Though Vespasian and Titus could hardly have been considered anything less than the autocrats their authority entitled them to be, they did both at least attempt to cultivate reasonably harmonious relationships with what remained of the traditional Roman elite. Vespasian, for instance, though he did have the Senate memberships of certain of his enemies removed by manipulating the requisite property qualifications, nonetheless seemed generally uninterested in questioning or altering the accustomed role of the Senate in Roman government and culture. Indeed, he even went so far as to provide charitable relief to members of the Senate whose fortunes had suffered and whose personal circumstances no longer aligned with their social standing. His son Titus followed much the same pattern upon ascending the throne in 79 AD, going so far as to declare soon after his affirmation as Emperor that he had no intention of ever making use of the existing laws against libel and slander – laws which Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero had used to great effect – to silence what opponents to his reign may yet have arisen. “It is impossible for me to be insulted or abused in any way,” he accordingly explained, “For I do naught that deserves censure, and I care not for what is reported falsely. As for the emperors who are dead and gone, they will avenge themselves in case anyone does them a wrong, if in very truth they are demigods and possess any power.” Neither Titus nor his father made any effort to elevate the Senate above the decidedly secondary role which it had taken on following the triumph of Augustus and the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, of course. It simply would not have been in their interest to do so. But they did both at least seem to acknowledge that the Senate had some manner of role to play in Roman political and cultural life, and both of them arguably also behaved as though they thought it better than not that the Emperor and the Senate should peacefully coexist.

Domitian, as it happened, had very different ideas. Having assuredly come to understand the reduced importance of the Senate over the course of his father’s and brother’s reigns – during which time he often served as ordinary consul or suffect consul – and having seemingly little patience for useless artifice – as opposed to useful artifice, which he valued very much – he openly and completely concentrated almost all public authority in Rome in the office of Emperor and in the supporting imperial court. Not only did this result in the Senate losing almost all of its traditional authority – its powers transferred either to the Emperor himself or to one of a handful of trusted advisers – but the very nature of political authority was rearticulated as emanating directly from the person of the Emperor rather than from any institution, social order, or geographic locality. To that end, the city of Rome in many ways ceased to be the immovable capital of the Empire under Domitian as it had been under his predecessors and during the era of the Republic. Tiberius, it was true, had spent a significant amount of time away from the Eternal City – indeed, the last decade of his life and rule – but his absence never did much to change the practical reality that the Empire was governed by and from Rome. The fact that the Senate and the Praetorian Guard were able to amass as much power as they ultimately possessed at the time of Caligula’s ascension in 37 AD would seem proof enough of exactly this axiom. Domitian broke with this custom by first subsuming almost all political authority under his own personal auspices and then establishing successive residences at numerous locations across the Italian Peninsula. What this proved, in practice, was that it no longer mattered whether the Emperor was in Rome, or in Antium, or Circei, or Tusculum; the Empire and the man had become functionally synonymous.

The practical extent of Domitian’s concomitant assumption of governing authority was, given the sheer size of the empire which he had determined to administer, exceptionally vast. Being, as aforementioned, a micromanager by temperament, he accordingly took almost complete responsibility for managing Rome’s finances, revaluing and devaluing the Roman currency as he saw fit, supervising continued reconstruction efforts left over from the Great Fire of 64 AD, the civil war of 69 AD, and the additional fire that had occurred during his brother’s reign in 80 AD, overseeing the construction of new theatres and stadiums, and even endeavoring to raise the material and artistic quality of the coinage which bore his name and image. In his role as supreme commander of the Roman military, he spent as much as three years in the field with the legions – more than any Emperor since Augustus – raised soldier’s pay by one-third, personally oversaw the defense of Roman Dacia – modern Romania and Moldova – between 85 and 88 AD, and celebrated numerous triumphs in recognition of the successes of his armies in Germania and Britannia. And as Pontifex Maximus – essentially the high priest of the state religion – he emphasized associations between the office of Emperor and the cult of Jupiter – building or renovating several temples to that effect – revived the practice of deifying the imperial family, and made himself the personal arbiter of Roman morals by taking up the office of censor on a permanent basis in 85 AD. This latter endeavor particularly suited Domitian’s fastidious administrative style, and under its auspices he had people expelled from Senate for immoral behavior – i.e. acting, dancing, divorce, etc. – prosecuted corruption and conflicts of interest, regulated the content that could be shown in Roman theatres, and harshly punished a number of Vestal Virgins – the priestesses of the hearth goddess Vesta – who were found to have broken their oaths of chastity in 86 AD by having them buried alive.

Notwithstanding the ruthlessness with which Domitian often conducted himself, it would nevertheless seem to bear emphasizing once again than he was – by the standards of his era – an exceptionally effective administrator. He was highly competent, rigorous, and decisive, suspicious of threats to his leadership, swift in the use of state power to stifle dissent, and very wise in the attention he paid and the resources he allocated to the army and to the masses. He kept the value of Rome’s currency high, raised the pay of the legions, kept the people satiated with games and festivals, built splendid temples, completely sidelined the Senate, and vested his trust almost exclusively in a small number of confidantes and advisers within the imperial household. It might accordingly be said, then, that whereas Caligula made far too many enemies in far too short a time, and Nero indulged his ego too freely and too often, Domitian simply ruled. Indeed, during the whole of his reign – excluding the events that led immediately to his death – he faced only one serious revolt. This came at the hands of one Lucius Antonius Saturnius (??-89 AD), Governor of Germania Superior. Quite possibly dissatisfied with Domitian’s handling of Rome’s external security arrangements – his tendency to defend rather than attack, his retreat from Britannia, his appeasing attitude towards the Dacians, etc. – Saturnius, with the aid of the two legions under his command and an alliance with the Germanic Chatti people, declared himself in revolt against the Emperor in January, 89 AD and quickly secured the frontier military stronghold of Mogontiacum. Fortunately for Domitian – and standing in stark opposition to the events that had led to the downfall of Nero – the discontent which had prompted the rising to begin with did not ultimately spread beyond the German frontier. Not only were legions from Germania Inferior, Rhaetia, and Hispania successfully summoned to put down the revolt, but the Emperor himself led the Praetorian Guard from Rome to attend to the matter in person. The rebellion was crushed in less than a month, thanks in part to an unexpected thaw of the previously frozen Rhine River which prevented the Chatti from dispatching reinforcements. Saturnius and his cohorts were executed, their heads brought to Rome for public display, while the rebellion legions were dispatched to a less stable region of the Roman frontier where frequent attacks by tribal peoples from across the Danube would serve to thin out their ranks.

While the revolt of Saturnius did ultimately end in failure, its aftermath may well have set in motion Domitian’s eventual downfall. His treatment of the Senate, to be fair, had always been exceptionally callous, to the point where he dismissed the very idea of an aristocracy and treated the members of the Senatorial class as being no better or worse than any other of his subjects. But after the rebellion of Saturnius in 89 AD, the Emperor turned more aggressively than ever towards the use of the treason laws that his brother had publicly shunned to make clear his dissatisfaction with the pretensions and the prejudices of the traditional Roman elite. According to the aforementioned historians Tacitus and Suetonius, as many as twenty people identified by Domitian as enemies of his rule were subsequently tried and executed during this period. Certain of those killed were members of Domitian’s own family – cousins Titus Flavius Clemens and Titus Flavius Sabinus, for example – and certain of the charges laid were exceptionally petty and trifling. That Domitian believed such actions were within his right as Emperor was arguably a testament to the success he had thus far enjoyed. Under his rule, the Empire was stable, prosperous, and peaceful, while the most serious threat to his leadership up to that point – the aforementioned revolt of Saturnius – had been contained to the province from which it originated and was swiftly put down by the combined forces under his command. True though this may have been, however, what Domitian had failed to account for despite his fastidious attention to almost every aspect of the administration of his empire was the degree to which his aggressive alienation of the Senatorial elite was bound to produce an equally violent reaction.

Though the exact details of the resulting conspiracy remained a subject of scholarly debate – i.e. who was involved, what they intended, etc. – the immediate circumstances of its culmination were scrupulously recorded by the chronicler Suetonius. Evidently, having received a number of omens which appeared to foretell of his imminent demise during the summer of 96 AD – one of which even went so far as to decree that he would die at midday – Domitian had become increasingly agitated and took to repeatedly asking his servants and stewards to tell him the time of day. At length, on September 18, when the Emperor accordingly asked of a servant named Stephanus whether it was midday or not, the trap that had been set was finally sprung. Stephanus, as it turned out, had been enlisted by a group of conspirators intent on ending Domitian’s reign. Upon telling Domitian (wrongly) that it was in fact much later in the day, he accordingly waited until his target grew suitably relaxed, drew a dagger he had been concealing in his sleeve, and stabbed him repeatedly. While Stephanus himself was killed in the ensuing struggle – an event which came to include a number of former slaves and bondsmen who loyalty to the Emperor had been subverted – Domitian was successfully dispatched, his body spirited form the imperial palace, and his remains unceremoniously cremated. Upon receiving word of the Emperor’s demise, the Senate understandably rejoiced, pronounced Domitian’s ally Marcus Cocceius Nerva (30-98 AD) as his successor, and proclaimed a damnatio memoriae – i.e. a condemnation of memory – on all aspects of Domitian’s reign. Across Italy, statues were destroyed, coins melted down, triumph arches erected in his honor taken apart, and all public mention of his name erased. While this order was largely disregarded in the provinces, it was not out of love for the late ruler of the empire. Though they may not have rejoiced, the masses reportedly met news of Domitian’s death with indifference. Indeed, it was only the army that seemed particularly aggrieved – their pay having increased substantially under his rule. But while the legions initially called for Domitian’s immediate deification by the Senate, and even revolted in some regions, they also eventually gave way to the general consensus of opinion that his death was not a cause to mourn.

At the time that George Clinton set himself to penning the text of Cato V, of course, the United States of America had never seen anything even close to a Domitian, a Nero, a Caligula, or even a Caesar at the head of its government. The nearest it had yet to come – as previously discussed – was George Washington, and in truth this wasn’t very near at all. Washington arguably could have made himself into the Caesar of America, to be sure. He was popular, he commanded the loyalty of countless soldiers, and he was an exceptionally shrewd judge of character and talent. But his personality – as much as the intensely private Washington made himself known to other people – was simply not that of a wannabe tyrant. He was too humble, too retiring, too eager to live quietly and unobtrusively while others jousted for influence. His countrymen accordingly had nothing to fear in what he might do with whatever authority he was given and little reason to believe that the great hero of the Revolution would inaugurate a reign of terror on par with the worst of the emperors of ancient Rome. As Clinton seemed intent on pointing out, however, and as the preceding examination has hopefully made manifest, such thinking was rather at odds with the facts of history. Caesar did not rise to the pinnacle of power over ancient Rome solely as a result of his own initiative and efforts, and nor did the period which he inaugurated immediately devolve into one of absolute autocracy. The truth – as is almost invariably the case – was far more complicated.

Caesar was a man of initiative, to be sure. He took whatever advantage he could, pushed every envelope, bent every rule until he had what he wanted. But he was aided in these efforts – all of them – by soldiers, senators, sailors, magistrates, and even the common people of Rome. Caesar rose, yes, but he was also raised. Roman civilization was remade by Caesar according to his ambitions, but it also made him what he ultimately became by either tolerating or encouraging these same personal impulses. Notwithstanding their supposed moral superiority, the author of Cato V seemed intent on communicating to the American people that this exact dynamic was hardly beyond them. If tyranny ever came to America, it need not have been at the behest of some external force. The Continental Congress and its allies and supporters may well have succeeded in casting off the authority of the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, but there was no reason to believe that this should have inoculated the American people for all time against the more seductive aspects of authoritarian government. The people of ancient Rome cast off the rule of their Etruscan kings in 509 BC, establishing in their wake a republic which would go on to weather any number of crises for the better part of the next five centuries. Did this mean that they were forevermore immune from inaugurating a similarly tyrannical government of their own making and on their own initiative? Of course not. At length, and in response to a sequence of events stretching out over decades, the people of the ancient Roman Republic gave their tacit approval to what was essentially a homegrown revival of the monarchy whose abolition still represented one of their proudest moments as a culture.

The American people certainly had as much to be proud of in their own recent history, between successfully securing their independence and writing viable constitutions for themselves without any practical experience. But if, for a moment, these same people allowed their pride to blind them to the possibility that their accomplishments might prove to have all been for naught – that they might someday develop a taste for tyranny themselves – then the entire revolutionary project was basically pointless. Liberty, in perpetuity, can only be purchased at the price of ceaseless vigilance. The Roman people lost their vigilance, became complacent in their shared understanding of their values and their history, and in doing so opened the door for someone like Caesar to vault to power. Was it beyond the realm of possibility that the people of the United States of America might suffer a similar fate? Were they not as proud of themselves as the ancient Romans had been? “But wait,” they might say. “Vigilance is one thing. We see the need to guard against the rise of strongmen and demagogues as clearly as anyone. We erected constitutions in all the states, didn’t we? And explicitly enumerated the rights we felt it most essential to protect? How, then, can anyone claim that America might give rise to a tyrant on the order of Caligula, Nero, or Domitian? How could we, as a people, possibly change so much as to permit the rise of such odious personalities to positions of unchecked authority?” The simplest answer to this query would surely have been the same one which George Clinton appeared so eager to get across to his readers: a great many things which seem impossible in a given moment can, and often do, become possible in time.

Consider, by way of example, the aforementioned histories of the four cited rulers of ancient Rome. While there can be no argument that at the height of his powers Caesar was the undisputed lord and master of the Roman Republic, the regime which he erected bore only a partial resemblance to that which was inherited by the likes of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. Indeed, had Caesar attempted to rule in the fashion of a Nero or a Domitian, it seems likely that his assassination would have come all the more swiftly. For that matter, it seems likely that neither Caligula nor Nero could have ruled in the manner of Domitian. All of these men were autocrats, to be sure, and were accordingly possessed of far more personal authority than any individual in the history of the Roman civilization since the abolition of the monarchy. But each of them also existed within a distinct window of what it was possible for a Roman imperator to achieve. Caesar had the army, a portion of the Senate, and the masses on his side, but he was also pushing against centuries of tradition. And while he could, and did, change a great deal about the manner in which the Roman state functioned, he was still forced to acknowledge, account for, and to some extent even obey the existing strictures of Roman culture and Roman politics. He did not claim the mantle of king because monarchy was still considered anathema; he did not wholly dispense with the Senate because the Senate still remained quite powerful. He ruled, most certainly, but not solely on his own terms.

Caligula, by comparison, enjoyed a much freer hand. His predecessor Augustus had succeeded in formalizing and enhancing the ad hoc position which his adoptive father Caesar had crafted for himself, creating a power base and an administrative framework which Caligula benefited from tremendously. The Senate was still a force to be reckoned with, the army still needed to be kept in good spirits, and now the Praetorian Guard had emerged as a major player in Roman politics, to be sure. But decades of autocratic rule by Augustus and then Tiberius had served to recondition the political expectations of the Roman people. Where once they had abhorred the very idea of anything like an indigenous Roman monarchy, now they merely expected their acknowledged ruler to adhere to a pseudo-republican standard of behavior while exercising more power than any public figure since the creation of the Roman Republic. Caligula failed to fulfill this trust, of course, which ultimately led to his downfall. All the same, his behavior did arguably set an important precedent for those who followed in his wake.

Caligula, as aforementioned, had been erratic, unpredictable, and vain; his apparent lack of morals shocked the Roman people, and his pretensions of godhood offended their religious and cultural sensibilities. But while this might seem to amount to a somewhat dubious legacy, his successors Claudius and Nero arguably benefited from Caligula’s evident instability in that it made their own deficiencies appear relatively minor by comparison. Claudius, though widely viewed as weak and indecisive upon his ascension, could at least boast of being stable emotionally. He badly manhandled the Senate but was a very capable administrator; he could be temperamental and quick to anger but he also built many roads, canals, and aqueducts. Possessed of a similar mixture of vices and virtues, his step-son and successor Nero developed a similar reputation. He had his mother killed, reacted exceptionally harshly to any evidence of conspiracy, and spent excessively on construction projects whose principle object was blatantly self-serving. At the same time, however, he was well-liked in the east for his championing of Greek culture and art, he was by and large a very competent administrator, and his leadership of the official recovery efforts following the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD) was both thorough and thoughtful. Granted, he met a very similar end to the widely reviled Caligula, the political elite having turned against him following repeated abuses of power. All the same, it is worth noting that Caligula’s assassination came at the conclusion of only three years of rule. Nero, whose personal extravagances were only slightly less galling, was forced to take his own life at the conclusion of a full thirteen years on the throne. Clearly, the Roman people were learning to adjust their expectations. By the time Domitian assumed the imperial dignity in 81 AD they had adjusted them even more.

In fairness, a great deal had happened between the death of Nero in 68 AD and the ascension of Domitian some thirteen years later. The demise of Nero in the midst of a major revolt in the Roman provinces led to a brief but destructive period of instability since known – for obvious reasons – as the Year of Four Emperors. Over the course of the year 69 AD, four men in succession ascended the imperial throne, none of whom but the last – the aforementioned Vespasian – held on to power for more than a few months. The first, Galba – who had led the initial revolt against Nero in 68 AD – was acclaimed by the Senate upon Nero’s demise and very proceeded very quickly to completely ruin his own prospects. Not only did he grossly offend the provincial population by either destroying or severely taxing any town that refused to acknowledge his authority as he made his way to Rome, but he turned the Senate against him almost immediately by casting about with accusations of conspiracy and having a number of Senators executed without trial. When another revolt in Germania Inferior resulted in a second man – Aulus Vitellius (15-69 AD) – claiming the imperial dignity, Galba panicked, tried to stabilize the situation by naming a popular young Senator as his heir, and ended up offending another Senator possessed of wealth and ambition enough to do something about it. Evidently seeing the problem at hand in fairly uncomplicated terms, Marcus Salvius Otho (32-69 AD) opted simply to pay the Praetorian Guard to side with him against Galba. While this ploy did ultimately succeed – Galba was left completely isolated and faced execution shortly thereafter – Otho’s reign proved even shorter than his predecessor’s.

Vitellius, of course, was still actively claiming the imperial throne upon Otho’s ascension in January, 69 AD. Displacing Galba may have gained the new Emperor the support of the Senate and control of what legions remained loyal, but complete and unquestioned legitimacy remained elusive in the meantime. Seeking to remedy this, Otho accordingly departed for the provinces once it became clear that Vitellius was in no mood to negotiate. The resulting civil war was brief but bloody. After a handful of minor victories in Gaul and Italy, Otho’s forces were decisively defeated at Bedriacum in April, 69 AD. Some forty thousand men were killed, and Otho – supposedly fearful of the bloodshed he believed would follow if he continued to resist – chose to take his own life. Vitellius swiftly marched on Rome and was acclaimed by the Senate as the sole and unchallenged Emperor. The result, unfortunately, was far from a return to peace and stability. While Vitellius initially seemed intent on winning the favor of the Roman people by holding a series of increasingly lavish banquets and parades, the resulting drain on the imperial treasury swiftly brought to bear the less generous aspects of his personality. Money lenders who sought repayment were arrested, tortured, and killed, potential rivals were invited to the imperial palace and executed, and the Emperor took on an especial vendetta against astrologers after his attempt to ban them from practicing in Italy resulted in public ridicule. Distressed by this behavior, and doubtless still smarting from their recent defeat, the former supporters of Otho subsequently cast about for another prominent figure who might successfully seize the imperial throne. Such a figure ultimately emerged in the person of Titus Flavius Vespasianus (9-79 AD).

   

Vespasian, who had been tasked by Nero to put down a revolt that had broken out in Judea in 66 AD, was evidently encouraged by various oracles and omens seeming to indicate his likely success to ultimately accept the acclamation of his men as Emperor. With the aid of various local provincial governors, he then proceeded to occupy Roman Egypt – thus securing the Empire’s principle grain supply – dispatched troops to Italy, and secured the loyalty of the legions stationed on the Danube frontier. Suddenly and completely surrounded, Vitellius first attempted negotiation, then tried to flee, and was then seized and executed when Vespasian’s men entered Rome. As Galba, Otho, and Vitellius had been before him, Vespasian was swiftly proclaimed Emperor by the Senate, at which point he authorized the much-needed grain shipments that he had been holding in Egypt and proclaimed an end to the cruelty and barbarism that had characterized the last several months. While the thirteen years that followed – between Vespasian’s ten-year reign and the three years of his son and successor, Titus – were indeed both stable and prosperous, the restraint exercised by the first two members of the Flavian dynasty arguably masked the extent to which Rome’s political institutions and norms had been almost completely undermined.

Having already been weakened at the hands of Caligula and Nero, the Roman Senate – a body which had remained a formidable check on imperial power even during the reign of Augustus – had arguably lost what remained of its legitimacy by repeatedly recognizing military strongmen as Emperor who then proceeded to drain the imperial treasury and enact round after round of public executions. While Domitian could most definitely be said to have undertaken a tremendous seizure of power when he subsequently chose to sideline the Senate upon his ascension in 81 AD, this act should be viewed as the culmination of an existing trend rather than an isolated occurrence. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that Domitian was really only guilty of formalizing something that was already true in practice. The Senate no longer mattered as it had under previous rulers. Augustus had acknowledged its necessary role in Roman political life, Tiberius had ceded to it almost total authority when he retreated to Capri, and Caligula, though he showed little respect for its prerogatives, had never been able to ignore it altogether. Even Nero, whose death was celebrated by the Senate, had been unable to dispense with its authority completely. As a matter of fact, it was the purported news that the Senate had declared him an enemy of the people and were preparing to have him arrested that prompted Nero to flee the city of Rome and ultimately take his own life. Clearly, though he most assuredly would have preferred it otherwise, the Senate could still resist Nero in a way that he felt he had no choice but to respect.

The events that transpired during the Year of Four Emperors fundamentally changed this. By the time Vespasian entered the city of Rome to take up the imperial throne in the waning months of 69 AD, the Senate had fully shown its weakness. Whereas acclamation by the senatorial class had once arguably preceded legitimacy, the rapid succession of Emperors from Nero, to Galba, to Otho, to Vitellius, to Vespasian made it abundantly clear that the Senate had been reduced to following events rather than leading them. The mere rumor that the Senate had turned against him may have been enough to spur Nero to suicide, but Galba’s concomitant ascension was a fact attributable to military rather than political considerations. The latter’s recognition, therefore, was more a fait accompli than an essential ingredient to his rule. The same could be said for Otho, whose decision to simply buy the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard appeared to seal his ascension in and of itself. And for Vitellius, who marched into Rome at the head of some of the strongest legions in the Empire. And for Vespasian, who cut off Rome’s grain supply and secured the loyalty of large swaths of the Roman army. Far from actively seeking the Senate’s approval before they could take power, these men each captured the throne on their own initiative and gained the Senate’s acclamation by default. And though Vespasian and Titus were more considerate of the Senate than their immediate predecessors had been, their consideration did nothing to restore that selfsame body to its accustomed constitutional role.

     

In consequence, while the membership of the Senate and their allies among the Roman elite were understandably affronted by the blatant subversion of Rome’s political and institutional culture represented by Domitian’s assumption of almost total civic authority, the damage which they were actively lamenting had already been done. The Senate had become an accessory rather than an essential aspect of political authority in Rome. Its continued existence was an admission to custom. Control of the military was what really mattered, and of the Praetorian Guard, and of the food supply. The fact that Domitian was such an effective ruler perhaps made this reality a little easier to bear. He may have been an egotist, and a paranoiac, and a micromanager, and a tyrant, but he was also intelligent, and efficient, and thorough. He punished corruption, pursued sound fiscal policies, built stadiums and theatres, and paid homage to the Gods. True, he held more power in his hands than any man had since the end of the Roman monarchy some six centuries prior. But he wasn’t a Caligula, at least, or a Nero, or a Vitellius. He never demanded to be worshiped, built monuments to his own grandeur, or had people murdered when they requested their loans be reimbursed. Avoiding these missteps may not have preserved his rule indefinitely, but it bought Domitian more time on the throne than any of his predecessors since the absentee Tiberius. For fifteen years he was the lord and master of the greatest empire the world had ever known. And while he most definitely owed his ascension to the political reformation that Julius Caesar had set in motion, the manner of his rule was such that Caesar could only have dreamed. A great deal had changed in less than one hundred and fifty years. The impossible had become manifest. The Republic had become an empire.

Cato V, Part XVIII: The Same Causes

            If, in the text of Cato V, the name “Caesar” was meant to remind his readers of the immanent peril which lay behind the belief that Americans were somehow inherently, unchangeably virtuous, then George Clinton’s concomitant references to, “Caligula, Nero, and Domitian” were almost certainly intended to call to mind the dividends that this kind of delusion had historically paid. These three names, of course, were those of three Roman Emperors. In point of fact, they were the names of three of the most reviled Emperors in the history of the ancient Roman civilization. Caligula was thought to be insane, capricious, and self-absorbed, Nero, cruel and vain, and Domitian, despotic and egotistical. Among the rulers of the ancient Roman state – a cohort that could hardly be said to embody the values of moderation, virtue, and equality at its best – these men have been held by contemporary commentators and generations of historians in particularly low regard. By grouping them with Caesar, Clinton accordingly seemed to be indicating a sense of equivalency. There were all terrible, to his thinking, and they were all archetypes of leadership which the American republic would have done well to avoid. There was, of course, a difference between Caesar and the rest. Indeed, it would seem a very important one. Whereas Caesar, by crossing the Rubicon with his army in 49 BC, brought about the collapse of the Roman Republic – thus making himself into a cautionary symbol for subsequent generations of republicans – Caligula, Nero, and Domitian each inherited the authority which they later became notorious for abusing. If Caesar, therefore, was the embodiment of republican government’s latent capacity for self-destruction, then Caligula, Nero, and Domitian were what was likely to follow once the dust had settled and liberty had wholly given way to tyranny.

As to the men themselves, the details of their lives and reigns are admittedly somewhat more complicated than the late 18^th century Anglo-American imagination would have preferred to admit. Take the first of their number as a case in point. Born into the ruling Julio-Claudian dynasty as Gaius Caesar – after one Julius Caesar – Caligula (12-41 AD) was the son of general Germanicus Julius Caesar (15 BC – 19 AD) who gained his famous moniker – literally “little boots” – from his mother’s habit of dressing him as a child in a miniature version of the standard Roman soldier’s garb, complete with tiny caligae sandals. But while Germanicus was an exceptionally successful military leader and a popular hero to the Roman people – to the point of being favorably compared to Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) – his son showed the worst aspects of the populist and the autocrat in his treatment of the Senate, his use of the Roman treasury, and his personal style as a ruler.

His early reign, to be fair, started off promising enough. Indeed, upon inheriting absolute rule of the Roman state from his predecessor and great-uncle Tiberius (42 BC-37 AD), Caligula was regarded by the Roman people as something of a savior. In part, this was a reflection of the love which was still widely held for his late father, though it also stemmed from the simple fact that he was not Tiberius. Whereas the late ruler had been an aloof, secretive figure, Caligula was generous and paternal. To that end, soon after his ascension, he granted bonuses to the military, declared the end of the treason trials used by Tiberius to undermine his enemies, granted relief to those who had suffered as a result of recent tax increases, and put on a serious of lavish festivals and games for the enjoyment of the masses. The following year (38 BC) he began to pursue a course of financial transparency – making the records of the treasury public for the first time in two decades – abolished certain taxes, and restored democratic elections for Rome’s various magistrates. The Roman people were happy, it was said, and the new ruler seemed to be ably fulfilling his responsibilities – i.e. public generosity, piety, prudence, etc. – as established by his ancestor Augustus (63 BC-14 AD).

Matters began to turn sour, however, after Caligula suffered a brief but serious illness in the seventh month of his reign. He recovered physically after a fairly short convalescence, but his mood was never quite the same. In 39 BC, for example, the new ruler’s efforts to buy the support he needed from the military and the Senate brought about a financial crisis which he sought to escape by accusing wealthy individuals of some manner of crime so that they could either be fined or their estates seized entirely. When this proved inadequate, he proceeded to levy a whole host of new taxes, began selling the lives of gladiators at public games, had wills reinterpreted so that property left to Tiberius would instead go to him, and had land claimed by army officers as plunder turned over to the treasury. At around this same time, and in spite of the outwardly dire financial conditions of his administration, Caligula also began a series of building projects whose purposes were often plainly self-serving. He had harbors in Calabria and Sicily improved, it was true, allowing for increased grain imports, and build temples, and aqueducts, and new and better roads. But he also had a two-mile long pontoon bridge built from Baiae to Puteoli – two settlements on the shore of the same bay – just so that he could defy a prediction made by his predecessor’s soothsayer, and later ordered the construction of two massive, lavish ships – complete with marble floors and indoor plumbing – to act as floating palaces.

In the two years that preceded his death in 41 BC, Caligula’s behavior only became more egocentric. His relationship with the Senate began to deteriorate in 39 BC. Having grown accustomed to governing Rome almost entirely on their own following the departure of Tiberius to his self-imposed exile on the island of Capri in 26 BC, the Senate often disagreed with Caligula, leading the Emperor to conclude that certain of their number were disloyal and in need of removal. A number of Senators were subsequently investigated and put to death; others were degraded by being made to wait on Caligula or to run alongside his chariot. More executions followed as the Emperor began to perceive conspiracies around every other corner. He had his brother-in-law, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (6-39 AD), killed for plotting to overthrow him. Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus (??-39 AD), Senator and Governor of Germania Inferior, met the same fate for the same reason. Then, in 40 BC, Caligula began appearing in public in the guises of Hercules, Mercury, Venus, and Apollo; he asked to be referred to as a god, had temples erected in his honor in Rome and in Jerusalem, and declared himself Neos Helios, the “New Sun.” Later that same year, evidently because the cultural environment of Rome did not suit his ambitions, he went so far as to declare that he intended to leave Italy permanently and settle in Alexandria where he hoped to live out the rest of his life being worshiped as a living deity. Because this would have placed him almost completely beyond the control of the both the Senate and the Praetorian Guard – an organization which, in spite of its formal role as the Emperor’s bodyguard had amassed significant political power during the exile of Tiberius – it was decided by a small cadre of conspirators to bring a decisive end to his reign while they still had the chance. On January 22^nd, 41 BC, Guard tribune Cassius Chaerea (??-41 BC) accordingly led a team of his subordinates in accosting and stabbing Caligula to death while he addressed a group of actors in the basement of the imperial palace. Caligula’s uncle Claudius (10 BC-54 AD) became Emperor thereafter, having escaped his nephew’s suspicion by becoming the young man’s favored target for humiliating practical jokes.

 

Following the comparative respite represented by the relatively successful – if always at least mildly unstable – rule of Claudius between 41 and 54 AD, the ascension of Nero (37-68 AD), known at birth as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, arguably marked something of a return to the eccentricity and self-obsession which had characterized the brief administration of Caligula some thirteen years prior. The last of the Julio-Claudians to rein over Rome, Nero came to power aged only sixteen years and spent the early part of his administration under the close – one might say suffocating – direction of his mother, Agrippina the Younger (15-59 AD). In spite of the tensions that this power dynamic inspired, however – Agrippina often had potential rivals for influence at the imperial court killed, succeeded in having her face depicted on coins alongside her son, and even convinced the Senate to grant her bodyguards – Nero showed himself during the first several years of his reign to be a fairly restrained ruler who was only minimally interested in politics. In his first speech to the Senate, for example – prepared for the young monarch by his tutor, the philosopher and dramatist Seneca the Younger (4 BC-65 AD) – he promised to do away with the secretive proceedings that had characterized the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and (ultimately) Claudius, vowed to eliminate corruption and the influence of court favorites, and swore always to respect the autonomy of the Senate and the privileges of the individual Senators. The stability which characterized the next several years seemed to prove out the truth of these claims, though most modern scholars agree that the aforementioned Seneca and Sextus Afranius Burrus (1-62 AD), the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard chosen for her son by Agrippina, were almost certainly responsible for the direction and tenor of Nero’s early rule.

This all changed – quite understandably – in 59 AD when Nero had his mother killed. The reasons for his turn to matricide are not entirely clear. Roman historian Tacitus (56-120 AD), writing decades after the fact, claimed that the inciting circumstance was Agrippina’s disapproval of her son’s ongoing affair with a wealthy and ambitious woman named Poppaea Sabina (30-65 AD). While there may have been something to this – Nero did eventually marry Poppaea following his mother’s demise, though not until 62 AD – modern scholars tend to agree that Tacitus was more than likely grasping at straws for the lack of a more convincing explanation. In reality, Nero likely as not had his mother killed simply because, at twenty-one years of age, he had grown tired of being treated as an instrument of someone else’s ambition and desired instead to rule fully and completely at his own behest. While this outcome may have served Nero reasonably well, however, it didn’t do very much for the quality of his rule. On the contrary, his previous sense of restraint very quickly gave way to unpredictability and excess as he trampled successively on the accustomed prerogatives of the Roman Senate and then on the traditions and mores of Roman culture. This was aided in part by the death of Burrus – possibly by way of poison – in 62 AD, an event which was followed by the execution of his cousins and potential rivals for the imperial throne, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (22-62 AD) and Gaius Rubellius Plautus (33-62 AD), the isolation and exile of Seneca, and the divorce, banishment and execution of his wife, Claudia Octavia (40-62 AD). Owing to the impunity with which Nero now felt free to act, the next several years – from about 64 AD to 69 AD – were accordingly chaotic, destructive, and bloody.

64 AD, of course, was the year of the Great Fire of Rome, the single event with which Nero’s reputation as a tyrant is most closely associated. Roman historians who were particularly inclined to distrust him – like Seutonius (69-122 AD) and Cassius Dio (155-235 AD) – wrote that he started the fire himself in an effort to clear space in the city for a grand palace complex and was seen reciting epic poetry while dressed in stage costume as the week-long blaze destroyed entire districts. The aforementioned Tacitus, while not going so far as to absolve Nero of any blame at all, was significantly more generous in his recording of events. First, he avowed, the Emperor wasn’t even in the city at the time of the fire, having departed to Antium – now Anzio, where he was born – sometime prior. Second, upon hearing of the disaster, Nero returned to Rome immediately, began organizing relief efforts, opened his palaces to those rendered homeless by the blaze, and ensured – at his own expense – that adequate food was provided so that no one affected would be at risk of starvation. Then, in order to ensure that a disaster of such tremendous scale would never happen again, he moved forward with an extensive plan of urban development employing wider streets and the extensive use of brick as a fireproof building material. The end result, notwithstanding the destruction that had to precede it, was a safer, cleaner, and more sensibly laid out city.

   

The cost of such an undertaking was understandably tremendous, however, and Nero was forced to exact tribute from Rome’s various outlying provinces and to devalue the Roman currency for the first time in the history of the Empire in order to pay for it all. But while the relief and reconstruction efforts were doubtless considered to be a worthy undertaking, it bears noting that the Emperor also took the opportunity afforded by the fire to build for himself a vast, landscaped palace in the heart of the ancient city. The resulting Domus Aurea or “Golden House” was a sprawling complex that included an artificial lake, a vineyard, pastures, livestock, and a nearly one hundred foot tall bronze statue of Nero dubbed the Colossus Neronis. That Nero felt comfortable having his name and reputation attached to such a blatantly self-aggrandizing project would seem to call into question the sincerity of his efforts during the immediate aftermath of the fire, or at the very least to complicate them substantially. What kind of man expends his own resources offering relief to the destitute and the homeless one moment and builds a massively expensive monument to his own ego the next? It is, in truth, rather difficult to say, save to affirm it’s the kind of person Nero was. He could be generous and charitable, as when he directed treasury funds towards public works projects or tax relief. Through these polices, and his love of theatre, music, and games, Nero made himself a favorite of the Roman people This was particularly true in the empire’s eastern provinces, of whose language (Greek) and culture he was especially fond. But he could also be suspicious to the point of paranoia, and often so self-obsessed as to become disconnected from reality. Ironically enough, it was the former trait which, far from allowing him to stave off conspiracy and rebellion, likely hastened and multiplied both to the point of causing his eventual downfall.

In a terminal acceleration of the circumstances of his early reign, Nero’s final years witnessed a number of hasty trials, executions, and forced suicides as the Emperor’s enemies began to move against him with distinctly mixed success. The first of these attempted coups reached its final phase in 65 BC and was led by a powerful and influential senator named Gaius Calpurnius Piso (??-65 AD). The plan was simple enough. After having Nero assassinated with the assistance of certain well-placed figures in the Roman military, Piso would be conducted to the headquarters of the Praetorian Guard, whose co-leader, Faenius Rufus (??-65 AD), would then proclaim him Emperor. Piso was to be aided in his efforts by a number of soldiers, senators, and Praetorians, and his acclamation as Emperor made possible by the mounting unpopularity of Nero himself. As it happened, however, a woman named Epicharis (??-65 AD), who favored the conspiracy but felt it moved too slowly, ended up alerting Nero to the proceedings when she tried to initiate a naval officer into the plot who promptly notified imperial authorities. Epicharis was promptly seized and tortured, later killing herself in captivity. Piso and his co-conspirators – some forty in number – were subsequently executed or else forced to commit suicide. While Nero’s former tutor and confidante Seneca was not formally a member of this cohort, he was likewise made to take his own life – along with his nephew, the poet Lucan (39-65 AD) – for failing to alert the Emperor despite having known of the plot.

The defeat of Piso’s conspiracy served only as a temporary reprieve, however, from the fate which had arguably been barreling down on Nero since he did away with his mother in 59 AD and began ruling on his own. While a significant portion of the Roman people remained relatively pleased with his administration of the Empire – again, particularly in the East – the upper classes in Rome proper and its various outlying territories had grown increasingly frustrated by the exorbitant tribute which had been extracted from the provinces in order to pay for his monumental domicile, and increasingly disconcerted by his treatment of the Senate and his generally disgraceful behavior. Not only had Nero murdered a number of his relatives and ordered the summary execution of many of his opponents, but – in defiance of what was at that time considered to be morally appropriate behavior for an Emperor – he had also undertaken a public marriage to a former slave named Pythagoras during a Saturnalia festival in 64 AD. In consequence of these actions – among others – the governors of Gallia Lugdunensis – Gaius Julius Vindex (25-68 AD) – and Hispania Tarraconensis – Servius Sulpicius Galba (3 BC-69 AD) – rose up in rebellion against Nero in 68 AD, with the latter even going so far as to declare himself Emperor. While the immediate effect of this uprising was not wholly disastrous, with the Governor of Germania Superior, Lucius Verginius Rufus (15-97 AD), successfully defeating Vindex in battle and forcing the latter’s suicide, events rather quickly spiraled almost completely out of control.

Sensing the opportunity at their disposal, and doubtless influenced by Galba, the armies under the command of Verginius used the occasion of his victory over Vindex to declare their general Emperor in turn. While Verginius refused the honor, the mere fact of a second man having contemplated the imperial dignity in addition to Nero led to the rapid erosion of what was left of the latter’s legitimacy. Support for Galba increased, the Praetorian Guard deserted, and Nero ultimately found himself vacillating between plans for exile, surrender, or suicide. For a time, he even contemplated fleeing to the east, relinquishing the throne, and begging Galba to be made governor of Aegyptus in exchange for abandoning all claim to the imperial office. Such was not to be, however. Events simply moved too fast.  Mistakenly informed that the Senate had declared him a public enemy and was preparing to dispatch armed men to the imperial palace to drag him back to the Forum, Nero took refuge in villa just outside the city with a small group of loyal freedmen and – either on his own or with assistance – took his own life. When word reached the Senate of what had happened, the assembled Senators – who, wishing to preserve the bloodline begun by the deified Augustus, had actually sought to negotiate a settlement between Nero and the rebels – proclaimed Galba as the new Emperor, the first of four who would ultimately reign in the year 69 AD.

Cato V, Part XVII: Great Power Connected With Ambition, contd.

            No one, it would hardly seem an exaggeration to affirm, was more loved by Americans in the late 1780s than George Washington. Regardless of the contributions of his various subordinates in the Continental Army, the various state militia forces, the Continental Navy, the various state governments, and America’s French allies, he was unequivocally the popular face of the victory of the United States over Great Britain in 1783. From a shaky beginning in 1775, 1776, and 1777 – during which victory in Boston turned into a rout in New York – to a period of rebuilding and retrenchment in 1778 and 1779 – defeat at Brandywine, winter a Valley Forge, a stalemate at Monmouth – to a rendezvous with French reinforcements in 1780 and a climactic victory at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781, the story of Washington’s leadership of the Continental Army was very easily transformed in the popular imagination into a hero’s journey of self-sacrifice, humility, perseverance, and hard-fought triumph. He was also a very self-effacing person, which made his successes that much more impressive, and a cut a very impressive figure in uniform and saddle. True, he had spent his younger days angling for a commission in the British Army, was personally one of the wealthiest men in the Thirteen Colonies, and was not above indulging in the factionalism and infighting which plagued the officer corps of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, but such minutiae had entirely ceased to matter by the end of the 1780s. As far as the majority of his countrymen were concerned, Washington was a humble farmer who accepted a grave responsibility at a time of severe crisis, performed ably and well under very difficult circumstances, and then foreswore the power he had accrued out of love for his country and respect for his fellow citizens. In this sense, without having to promise anything or to level any threats, the master of Mount Vernon had become an effective Caesar-in-waiting.

           

            This, no doubt, is precisely what caused George Clinton to attempt to warn his countrymen in the text of Cato V that the American people could yet produce a homegrown tyrant. George Washington never demonstrated any intention to leverage his popularity for the purpose of raising himself to a position tantamount to monarchy, it was true. But it was also all too evident in the years following his resignation in 1783 that far too many of his countrymen would not have objected if he made the attempt. His decision to voluntarily relinquish his station at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War was thus, symbolically, both gratifying and troubling. On one hand he had effectively prevented the emergence of a potentially disastrous civil conflict between Congress and the Continental Army. On the other hand, by doing so he had also further burnished his already sparkling reputation and likely increased the degree to which the American people would follow his lead under almost any conditions.  Not only that, but it would surely have been a troubling thing to realize that perhaps the only circumstance which ultimately prevented the United States of America from becoming a military dictatorship following the final realization of its independence was not the virtue and forbearance of its inhabitants but rather the desire of one man to retire to his farm. Washington could have made himself the Caesar of American in 1783. That he did not was likely due more to Washington than to anyone else.

            And the danger had not yet abated, of course, simply because the great hero of the Revolution had made a point of beating his sword into a plowshare. It was widely known at the time that the proposed constitution was being considered by the various state conventions, provided the document in question was adopted, that George Washington was almost certainly going to be elected as the first President of the United States of America. Indeed, the likelihood of Washington ascending to the office of chief executive was made into something of a selling point by many advocates for the new plan of government. Alarming though the concept of a powerful head-of-state may have been, these partisans argued, surely the man who had made himself a modern Cincinnatus could be trusted, not only to exercise the associated prerogatives in a responsible manner, but also to set a desirable example for any and all who would later succeed him. Convincing though this claim doubtless was for many Americans who were as yet unconvinced, however, the scenario that it described also arguably reintroduced the same potential for danger that Washington’s 1783 resignation had notably avoided. The master of Mount Vernon certainly appeared to be a man of great probity and forbearance. While his countrymen heaped praise upon him for his leadership during the Revolutionary War, and had even begun referring to him as the “Father of His Nation” by the early 1780s, he continually demurred, downplayed his abilities, and claimed to want nothing more than to retire in peaceful anonymity. But what if this was all a put-on? What if, appearances notwithstanding, Washington was actually as ambitious as the next man?

            Again, there was never any evidence to suggest that the former Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army was more conniving than he appeared. Excepting his youthful determination to gain an officer’s commission in the British Army, he had never seemed to be an overly ambitious person, and by the late 1780s showed all the signs of being eminently satisfied with his personal accomplishments. But who could say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether this was truly the case or not? The possibility certainly existed that George Washington wasn’t nearly as self-effacing as he seemed. Perhaps he had only resigned his commission in 1783 because he believed it would be better in the long run to be acclaimed by the people than to become their ruler by force. Perhaps he was only biding his time until his countrymen saw fit to hand him the power he sought of their own accord. Certainly this would have appeared terribly unlikely at the time – and subsequent events would go onto prove that Washington could, in fact, be trusted – but the entire point that George Clinton was trying to communicate to his fellow citizens in the text of Cato V was that the preservation of American liberty required absolute vigilance. There was no place for sentimentality in government, no room for trust in the law. If it was possible, however unlikely, for George Washington to use his unparalleled popularity to make himself the undisputed lord and master of America – and it almost certainly was possible – then measures absolutely needed to be taken to prevent such an outcome from coming anywhere near to fruition.

            The problem wasn’t just with Washington, of course, any more than the fall of the Roman Republic was entirely the product of Caesar’s machinations. Caesar was successful in his attempt to overturn the conventions of Roman politics and law because his soldiers were loyal to him, because the masses had faith in him, and because the Senate gave in to him. If any one of these groups had decided to withhold their cooperation at key moments in Caesar’s rise to power, it would seem something of an open question whether he would ever have ascended to the office of dictator perpetuo – i.e. dictator for life. The fall of the Roman Republic should thus properly be thought of as a failure of the Roman people and Roman institutions as much as the product of one man’s unstoppable ambition. Just so, if George Washington – or someone like him – were to ever successfully transform the United States of America into an instrument of personal tyranny, it could only be the result of the acquiescence of the American people. The masses would need to express their support, the military to follow his orders, and the Senate to give in to his grab for power. Was this an unlikely outcome? Quite possibly it was. But it was George Clinton’s belief than any American who believed it impossible did so at their peril. Washington, after all, was the most popular man in the nation, and he stood poised – circa 1787 – to become the first chief executive of the newly re-constituted American republic. He had the love of the people on his side. He had the loyalty and affection of what remained of the downsized American military and thousands of veterans of the Continental Army. Was it so hard to believe that he could have gained the cooperation of Congress as well? Maybe it was true that Washington himself would never make the attempt, being truly too humble and too restrained as a personality. But if that was the only thing keeping the United States from tilting towards dictatorial rule at such an early period in its history – the inclination of one man – there was little reason to believe that public virtue alone would sustain the nation indefinitely.

            Clinton’s invocation of Caesar, then, in the cited text of Cato V would seem to have been intended as both a portent of the future and a reminder of the present. If the American republic, he seemed to be saying, was going to model itself on the example of the Roman Republic – an intention to which the pseudonyms of so many American polemicists and the widespread popularity of works like Joseph Addison’s Cato, a Tragedy (1712) would appear to attest – then it was essential that the American people not think themselves immune to the shortcomings that had ultimately led to the collapse of the latter. The Romans had also prided themselves on their virtue and invested a great deal of effort into erecting a system of government which they believed would be immune to abuse or corruption. They were wrong, of course, for a great many reasons which there isn’t space to get into here. But far from the least of them was that the version of Roman society from which the basic tenets of the Republic emerged essentially ceased to exist almost as soon as those tenets were codified into law. Citizenship was expanded to larger and larger groups outside of the traditional population, new industries and new sources of wealth emerged, the army was reformed in response to challenges faced during military campaigns, and new political offices were created to try to stabilize the domestic political situation amidst demographic shifts brought about by a growing population. These were all organic changes, of course, and each was innocuous enough in its own right. But the cumulative effect was that, as time went by, the Romans who lived in the Republic had less and less in common with the Romans who had created the institutions that still governed it. The result, at length, was dislocation. People began to behave in ways for which their system of government was never designed to account. At length, conventions were overturned, laws were disregarded, and one man succeeded in seizing absolute power.

             As of 1787, the American people were yet in the early period of their history as a nation. They were still bright-eyed and optimistic, buoyed by their recent victory over Great Britain and confident in their ability to build a society on just principles. But time was bound to change them. Regardless of what they told themselves, their opinions and manners were as mutable as anyone’s. Liberty, at the time that the proposed constitution was being considered in the states in 1787 and 1788, may well have been their fondest possession, and the cornerstone of whatever system of government they eventually saw fit to erect. But they would have been foolish to believe it impossible that future generations might find other things to cherish. The ancient Romans, recall, had also once been great lovers of virtue. Indeed, the unwritten but widely understood social code of Roman culture – the Mos Maiorum or “ancestral custom” – notably prized such values as honesty, self-control, faithfulness, and prudence. But in time, as the lower social orders gained political power closer in proportion to their numbers, and as the military became a reliable vehicle for individual political advancement, popular personalities emerged for whom adherence to the mos was less important in practice than simply having the power to do whatever they wanted. In consequence, while in the early years of the Republic it may have been the case that the reigning social order would not have tolerated magistrates or military authorities who claimed to speak for the Roman people while plainly pursuing their own narrow interests, by era of the late Republic political and social realities had changed so much that a whole succession of strongmen were able to successfully bend the institutions of Roman political life to their will while claiming to be acting in the best interests of the state.

Granted, these efforts did not meet entirely without resistance. The popular reformer Gaius Marius (157-86 BC), for example, who transformed the Roman army from a citizen militia into a professional military, was famously opposed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78) in a pair of civil wars that effectively split the Republic asunder in the 80s BC. While Sulla was an ardent traditionalist, however, whose stated aim was to restore the accustomed preeminence of the Senate amidst the erosion of its authority brought about by the reforms of Marius and the rising political power of the plebs, his efforts had almost the exact opposite effect. Following Sulla’s final march on Rome in November, 82 BC, he was appointed dictator by the Senate – a temporary office intended to allow a single individual to take complete control of the Republic in times of acute crisis – and proceeded to oversee the execution of almost ten thousand “enemies of Rome” while pursuing a substantial overhaul of the Roman constitution. His intention, as stated, was to return the Republic to an earlier era when the Senate was dominant and the plebs – through their exclusive possession of the office of tribunus plebis – exercised only minimal political power, as well as to prevent future military strongmen like Marius (or himself) from using their authority to seize power in Rome. The result, in point of fact, was that ambitious generals like Pompey and Caesar – whose independence had been guaranteed by the reforms wrought by Marius and left intact by Sulla – saw that it was possible to basically bully the Senate into giving them whatever they desired. And though Pompey ultimately sided with the Senate during Caesar’s own march on Rome in 49 BC – leading to another civil war – both men were very much the products of the same trend in Roman history away from stability and conservatism and towards militarism and populism.

Notwithstanding the fact that the inhabitants of the United States in the late 1780s enjoyed the benefit of hindsight when compared to their Roman forebears, there was still no reason for the former to ever think of themselves as being somehow morally superior to the latter. People change, George Clinton attempted to remind his countrymen. Their values change, their priorities change, and so do the things they think of as being permissible and forbidden. How long had it been, at the time that Cato V was published in 1787, since the only acceptable toast in the whole of America was “God Save the King?” Twenty years? Twenty-five? How many of the Founding Generation’s shining lights had begun their public careers in dutiful service to the Crown? No less than George Washington himself had once desperately yearned for a commission in the British Army, while John Adams had famously defended the British soldiers accused of firing on a crowd of demonstrators in Boston in March, 1770. The fact that such things had become, by the late 1780s, more or less unthinkable would seem to testify to what Clinton was arguing. In a remarkably short span of time, the Thirteen Colonies had become the United States of America. A great deal had gone into this transformation, to be sure, but it was still frankly stunning thing to contemplate. So how, then, given the changes that millions of people living and working in the American republic in the late 1780s had either witnessed or partaken in over the previous two decades, could anyone had believed that the American people would thereafter remain exactly as they were? A people who had stretched their imaginations to the extent that they almost completely altered their socio-political situation were afterwards going to maintain themselves in a state of static equilibrium? Clinton’s invocation of the name “Caesar” in the text of Cato V was a dread reminder that such thinking was utter foolishness. The American people were capable of great things, clearly. But they were also capable of a great deal else besides.