FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS (OFF A CLIFF)

In the glory days of the res publica, when Roman armies took on enemy after enemy, and trounced them all, both citizen and soldier felt invincible. The Roman Empire combined a strong sense of social solidarity with a powerful individualism, especially among its elite, the nobles. This combination of individualism and willingness to work together created some of the greatest cultural achievements of Western culture. Recovery came with the emergence of a new type of imperial regime that increased the size of the army, imposed many more bureaucratic controls, and restored the currency. The solution to the crisis was not greater freedom and increased involvement by citizens, but greater control and central direction. And it worked in the short term. But it was an increasingly brittle regime that was always on the defensive. To pay for its armies, it had to assert more control over its citizens, and the cost of ensuring survival became increasingly greater. Rome slowly died.

As it became more despotic and struggled to put armies in the field to defend its vulnerable territories from those who wanted to enjoy the benefits of its civilization, Rome became more dictatorial and sought to extract more from its subjects.  It lost all of sense of its once great solidarity.

Does this remind you of any other civilizations?

Here, let me help you.  Replace the words “empire”, “nobles” and “barbarians” with “country”, “CEO”, and “immigrants”.

Any closer?

Americans would not for a moment consider themselves threatened by ‘‘barbarians’’ (though this threat may also be constant, from within!), but what if the outsiders trying to get in were called ‘‘immigrants’’? Suddenly, the comparison becomes immediately clear.

Anyone who follows national events carefully should have reason to worry about the consequences of Empire-building, particularly the need for security and military strength.  The parallels are not only intriguing, some are downright frightening.  Of course, times have changed.  Diet, pollution, medicine and technology have all obviously taken alien-like strides in the hundreds of years since the rule of Rome.  The face of a Roman citizen at the sight of an airport would be worth a bushel of fleece at the market, indeed.  But, could it not be argued that technology has done nothing but speed up our demise?  It took months for the Romans just to get to their enemies much less plan and conquer them.  We can do the same with an executive order.  We have cures for Polio, syphilis and small pox, bur our sedimentary lifestyle and the McDonalds drive-thru has created a nation of overweight organ failures in its stead. Somehow I think no matter how hard the life of a Roman citizen could be, I doubt they ever suffered from lack of exercise, processed food and dirty air.

And there is this:  As the ‘bumpkin” citizen of Rome gawks at an airport, what would be our reaction as we gazed at the genius of the roadways and aqueducts crisscrossing their enormous empire, built by hand and engineered so brilliantly and beautifully, they still exist?   My point is this:  the passing of time has not and never has, changed the course of a ruling nation or empire.  The old fallback “we’ve outgrown that,” does not, and never has, applied. An empire does not become an empire without greatness, of this I have no doubt, but this begs the question, if we are to consider ourselves one of the great civilizations, are we to fall like one?