Everyday Erinyes #196

 Posted by at 8:04 pm  Politics
Dec 132019
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

As we get close to Christmas – and Impeachment is on the table – I thought it might be interesting to look at the Senate – no, not OUR Senate, but a Senate which existed around he same times as the events which (much later) became Christmas. Especially since, as long ago as that was, there are some lessons for us in the look back.
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What the Roman senate’s grovelling before emperors explains about GOP senators’ support for Trump

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks to the media with members of the Senate Republican leadership, Oct. 29, 2019.
AP/Jacquelyn Martin

Timothy Joseph, College of the Holy Cross

Unhinged leaders, dynastic intrigue, devastation and plunder: For 15 years I have been researching and teaching the ancient historian Tacitus’ works on the history of the Roman Empire. It has rarely been difficult to find echoes of the history he describes in current events.

I’m not the first person to make this observation.

In a letter dated Feb. 3, 1812, retired President John Adams wrote to fellow retiree Thomas Jefferson about Tacitus and his fellow historian, Thucydides.

“When I read them,” wrote Adams, “I Seem to be only reading the History of my own Times and my own Life.”

Over the past three years the world depicted by Tacitus has seemed much more immediate. The U.S. political situation during the Trump presidency has led me to better appreciate the closeness of Tacitus’ observations to our times.

And while commentators have compared Trump with several Roman emperors, from Tiberius to Nero and Commodus, the comparison that has struck me – and may be most meaningful – is between other elected officials in the U.S. and members of the Roman senate described by Tacitus.

As Tacitus explores, the Roman senate declined from a long-held position of authority under the Roman Republic to become a body almost wholly reliant on the whims of a given emperor.

A modern statue of historian and senator Tacitus, outside the Austrian Parliament in Vienna.
Wikipedia, Pe-Jo photographer, CC BY

Erosion of senatorial sway

Tacitus (c. A.D. 55 – c. A.D. 120) was himself a Roman senator; his writing shows a particular interest in the conduct of senators.

Prior to Tacitus’ time, Rome had been a republic (509-27 B.C.). In that system magistrates were elected and alternated annually. Those who had served in elected office entered the senate in perpetuity. This body was, in essence, a collective of hundreds of members of the political class, who deliberated and voted on domestic and foreign policy.

During the period Tacitus writes about (A.D. 14-96), the Roman state remained a republic in name, with its institutions more or less intact. Yet one individual, the emperor – known as the princeps – held what were essentially emergency powers over domestic and foreign affairs. So the “republic” of this period was functionally an autocracy. This meant that government institutions other than the emperor had little power.

So in the period Tacitus describes, senators still formally convened, gave impassioned speeches and debated issues of the day. But most often resolutions would go nowhere without the “encouragement of the emperor,” as the historian puts it in one passage. The situation frequently left senators tongue-tied or, worse, “stooping to the most abject supplication.”

Their subservience could be seen in, for example, senatorial decrees to celebrate military victories that had not occurred; or, after the emperor Nero snuffed out a plot against him, in the senatorial motion to erect a Temple to the Divine Nero.

Senatorial fealty to the emperor was perhaps most apparent in the proliferation of prosecutions of other Romans for perceived acts of treason against the emperor. From a successful prosecution a senator could win the favor of the emperor, along with untold riches. Tacitus considered this rash of self-serving prosecutions to be “the gravest of destructive forces” under the empire.

Senatorial timidity

The writings of the senator-as-historian Tacitus continually explore this paradox of a republican system that was autocratic in practice, asking: What exactly had become of the senate’s role? What did senators understand it to be? What type of governmental system was this?

A revealing moment about the long-term consequences of senatorial dread of a given emperor’s whims takes place in Tacitus’ account of senatorial debate in A.D. 70, soon after the death of the infamous Nero.

The senator Curtius Montanus decries the culture of complacency and deference by senators toward emperors. Condemning their “greed of gain,” he says to his fellow senators, “Do you think that Nero was the last of our masters? Those who survived the reigns of (earlier emperors) Tiberius and Caligula thought the same thing.”

Montanus’ speech gets to the heart of the senate’s uncertain status. Assertion of independence was possible, and Tacitus’ works present a number of voices of senatorial independence. But many in the senate – aware of a given emperor’s power to end their political lives and damage their fortunes – were happy to wait it out and hope for a more temperate successor.

Tacitus attributes this very approach to the senator Eprius Marcellus, who managed to stay influential under a series of emperors. Marcellus, he writes, considered the best plan “to admire the past, but conform to the present; to pray for good emperors and tolerate whatever sort you got.” Marcellus’ conformity to his times came out most of all in his willingness to attack a given emperor’s enemies. His skill in this pursuit earned him both prestige and wealth – until, according to the later historian Cassius Dio, a successful prosecution against him spelled Marcellus’ end.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, right, has shifted from a Trump critic to a Trump supporter. Here, he speaks at the White House, Nov. 6, 2019, as the president looks on.
AP/Patrick Semansky

Relevance or acquiescence?

There are countless differences between the Roman and American political systems. But Marcellus’ credo about “conforming to the present” and getting by in the face of a strong-willed executive has found resonances in the words and actions of U.S. senators of late.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said earlier this year that his about-face – from staunch Trump critic to frequent defender and now investigator of the president’s political rivals – reflects his concern “to be relevant” under changing political circumstances.

This fall, when a constituent brought up the House’s impeachment inquiry and asked Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, “When are you guys going to say, ‘Enough’?,” Ernst responded, “The president is going to say what the president is going to do.”

These comments are matched by more concrete demonstrations of the marginalizing of the Republican-led Senate. Trump has appointed a number of acting secretaries, bypassing the usual Senate confirmation vote. He has circumvented Congress’ power of the purse by using emergency powers to get money to build his border wall. He has evaded the requirement for congressional approval of arms sales to foreign states, and vetoed Congress’ attempt to block the sales.

In June he asserted that he does not need congressional support for war against Iran – much less to withdraw troops from northern Syria, as he did unilaterally this fall.

While we may chalk up senatorial inaction – in the first or 21st century – to fear of an individual leader’s powers, there is another underlying factor that may align political figures from these two periods: The rise of an autocrat was personally good for them.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie recently described this as the “simplest explanation” behind the motivations of many Republican lawmakers. He notes that their independence still emerges in, for example, opposition to the withdrawal from Syria.

But since Trump has pushed for policies long wanted by Republicans, such as lower taxes on the wealthy and minimal regulations, as well as a conservative judiciary, Bouie asks, “Why would any of them stand against a president who has delivered on each count?”

Tacitus made a comparable diagnosis. Of the first princeps Augustus’ emergence in the 30s and 20s B.C., he writes:

“Slowly he rose, dragging to himself the guardrails of the senate, magistrates, and laws – with no one opposing, since the fiercest had died in battle or through proscription, and the rest of the prominent men preferred the security of the present to the dangers of the past. The readier one was for servitude, the more he would be lifted up in wealth and in prestige…”

The members of the political class that for hundreds of years had provided a guardrail for Rome’s republican system now gained both financial prosperity and status from their cooperation with Augustus.

This, Tacitus explains, is how autocracy comes about – and persists.

Is this same process playing out in the U.S.? Is the history of our own times, as John Adams put it, replaying the era that Tacitus describes? Or will political figures in the U.S. – or the U.S. electoral process – respond to a growing autocracy in ways that the ancient Romans did not?The Conversation

Timothy Joseph, Associate Professor of Classics, College of the Holy Cross

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, thankfully, we are not quite there yet (not that the roman Senate got there overnight, of course.) We still have direct election of our Senators by the people, for specific terms. They may end up Senators for life, but must face reelections in order to make that happen (And thank Ceiling Cat for the Seventeenth Amendment!) But no one should be under the illusion that we couldn’t possibly get there.

The Furies and I will be back.

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  6 Responses to “Everyday Erinyes #196”

  1. For those willing to look, history has uncountable examples of situations frightfully similar to our present time and the one you present in this excellent article, Joanne, is eerily recognizable. Yes, we’re getting there, as our own ancestors and those of many other cultures have been there many times before. And despite some clearheaded thinkers recognising the signs, trying to teach others what lessons history has to offer and hoping to ward-off the same thing happening again, people will not learn from history.

    The human nature that feeds the greed of senators and their willingness to leave all morals behind for their own wealth and status is something the Furies have not been able to overcome yet. And that it is because it relies on that other element in human nature, the tendency for masses to follow those that howl the loudest, lie the most and promise the impossible. In the course of history, those in power couldn’t possibly establish the autocracies if “the people” were not willing to let them do it. Yes, we still have democracies and electoral processes that should keep the “emperors” from our door, but what good is it when voters choose their Donald Trumps and Boris Johnsons, their Recep Tayyip Erdogans and Vladimir Putins who will lead their countries, and the world, into ruin?

    After the unimagined landslide victory of Boris Johnson in the UK, a second term for Trump, propped-up on his throne by kowtowing Republicans is a nightmare that may become reality too unless. The Furies need to find a way to strengthen the Democratic Party’s will to try to subdue their own human tendencies and do what is needed to win the election on ALL fronts. They did it in the times of Enlightenment, they should be able to do so again.

  2. History has, and will continue to educate us generation by generation, and political party by political party. Not that some will learn, or those who don’t care, or are interested in where we go from here. dt – from 20 Jan 17, onward to today and all the tomorrows. We must use the rule of law, and get him out!! with impeachment! 

    I believe that most of us, who stay tuned into the political arena, if even a little…know how the R’s subjugate their issues by greed, lies, and deceit. Every.single.Day!
    We must stay vigilant, get involved, and most importantly…vote BLUE ! 

    Excellent post, and history lesson, Joanne and Furies.
    A post to read, and re-read. Thanks! 

  3. Looks like that old adage is true: Everything old is new again.

    It’s clear that Trump and Rethuglicans are truly an existential threat to our country.  Consequently I’m beginning to transition my candidate priority to “Whoever can beat Trump!”

    Ideological purity is NOT the hill we should die on.  We need to be sure we succeed in ridding our nation of this scourge so we can live to fight that battle another day.

    Delendus est Trump!

  4. Brilliant article, JD! 04

    It reminds me of the Reichstag at the dawn of the Third Reich.

  5. Excellent article, Joanne.
    I understand that we had this type of chaos times in our country in the past, but it seems so worse now.
    After reading through it, you’ve answered many of my questions on why the R’s are standing behind the idiot tRump. Of course they want someone who is giving them (the rich) lower taxes plus allowing them to screw around and do nothing pertaining to the jobs. Like these R;s are a group of wild apes going crazy, out of control because they have a brainless leader who cares less about our country.
    I honestly pray that we can get someone in there to turn our country around. We MUST.
    Thanks Joanne

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