I won’t bother to give a recap of each of the twelve Caesars. But I will note the pattern the book reveals. Rome went from being a Republic to a monarchy. How did it happen? Why did it happen? What are the things that we should look for that cause a people as prosperous as the Romans to give up self-governance and submit to a single ruler? Most of those lessons aren’t found in this book. But the fact is:  Rome got Julius Caesar as the first emperor. He was a relatively competent ruler and maybe the people felt that this single hand could accomplish more than the by then relatively useless Senate. But once a “king”, or princeps, as they called him, was established, it was only 3 generations before that concentration of power went off the rails. What followed Caesar Augustus was the maleficence of Tiberius, Caligula, Gaius, and Nero, each murdered by people who hated them and their deaths rejoiced over by the populace. The point being that once power is concentrated in the hands of one man, you’re not going back, and it’s going to attract the worst, most power-hungry men.

What this book shows is the malfeasance of men entrusted with too much power. There were, on occasions, emperors who showed themselves to be genuinely interested in governing well. They understood the trust that had been put in their hands and sought to rule wisely. But of the twelve Caesars, there were only 4 that fit that. And maybe we should throw out the first two since they were coming into the role from the viewpoint of a republic, not a monarchy.

That was another thing to note. The republic didn’t die at once. The Senate continued to exist, in a somewhat toothless form, well into the imperial age. The settings of the republic didn’t disappear, they just lost their power over time until they were institutions in name only.

I want to look at a few of the books Titus Livius wrote to see the history of the Republic. My guess is, having listened to the history on a pretty extensive podcast (The History of Rome- 10 podcasts of around 2 hours each) that there will be some lessons there that we would do well to learn. We are, as Americans, maybe increasingly feeling like stuff just isn’t getting done with the current setup. Both the left and the right seem to feel in general that the other side is just too obstinate and stupid… and more to the point- obstructionist, to allow policies that would really help the country (re: their pet policies). To this end, my guess is that both sides would be open to concentrating greater power in the hands of an executive that can execute their preferred policies and get stuff done! But the lesson of history is that once that is done, you aren’t going back. 

We need to beware of renouncing self-governance for the expedients of the moment.