Originally Posted by TimWalker

I think the USA has reached a Point of Departure. We might end up following a course similar to the dying Roman Republic. Or, concievably, follow the course of the Assyrians, who embraced militarism, leading to the hollowing out and eventual ruin of their society.

Alternatively, we might see a future similar to that of Britian in the second half of the twentieth century. This seems promising, as the USA has not (so far) had a civil war during the MilSaec.

There are also trends that would indicate the Late Empire saeculums are relevant to the conversation. Among them are:

-New powers rising in new places to challenge the hegemon;
-The cost of waging war going up - frankly, it costs much more to project force and even sending 100k troops to Iraq is financially difficult. Thus, the actual scope of war is devolving toward the local level as opposed to the large national army model of prior saeculums;
-Internal political paralysis and increasing gamesmanship among political rivals (though this was also true in the late republic). Adrian Goldsworthy, in his book How Rome Fell, puts forward the idea that Emperors after the Principate increasingly had to account for their own survival instead of the good of the realm, and many structural reforms of the late Empire stemmed from keeping rivals at bay (bureaucracies, multiple emperors, etc.);
-Financial and trade centers shifting away from the hegemon's national centers (away from Rome, to wherever the Emperors chose to go - a multitude of cities in the West, such as Milan, Ravenna, even Trier);
-A lack of political legitimacy among sectors of the elite (Senators, I think, in both eras- after the Principate, the Senate was less and less of a factor, and we may be heading the same way with our own Senate being in the process of discrediting itself as a functioning political institution).

The problem is picking a particular time period in the late empire. We may be near the end of Marcus Aurelius' rule, or we may have already had our Commodus for the past 8 years and are facing a few years of a Pertinax or his like - the last gasps of a mostly-dead Principate. Of course, it may be even later in the process - the reign of Diocletian comes to mind, if a few things go poorly.

I recall that the saeculum has become linked to the "War Cycle." I will see if I have an old print out in my file.

I think part of the confusion is that for the USA, some external features of the Late Empire era are occurring while the country is - in domestic politics - in a period comparable to the "Dying Republic Saeculum."

Given asymetrical warfare, wars of agression no longer pay (except for some war profiteers).

Originally Posted by Prisoner 81591518

Here's a relatively optimistic scenario (for me, at least) which I have posited on another thread for the course and outcome of this 4T, where America is concerned:

Suppose history does repeat itself to some degree, in that the next 4T bears at least some resemblance to the 3rd Century Crisis in the Roman Empire? How might that go?

Well, first we would have to go with the scenario that many Bush-haters here are predicting for the next four years - that Bush plunges us into another depression, even worse than that of the 1930s. At the same time, our enemies grow bolder with their attacks on us while our few remaining friends begin to desert us. This leads to the massive Democrat sweeps in 2006 and 2008 which so many here so fervently hope for.

George W. Bush is the least competent President since at least the Gilded Age, but his damage came with support from people of similar ideology. One needed not be much of a Bush-hater to predict the economic calamity and that Dubya, intellectually hollow as he was, would mess up badly in handling a war, the economy, and even a natural disaster. Would a Democratic President (Gore before 2005, Kerry after 2005) have dealt with such matters differently? He certainly would have tried, but whether Republican majorities would have let him do so is a different matter.

Many thought that the bad lending circa 2005 that Bush and his GOP associates promoted as a substitute to the usual forms of investment would lead to a Depression even worse than that of 1929-1933. Such, it turns out, didn't quite happen. First, reforms of the banking system in the 1930s -- most notably deposit insurance -- were in place. Bank runs had been the cause of the continuing meltdown of the economy from at least 1931 to 1933. Second, one could argue that the real coup happened in September 2008, when the Treasury Secretary and the Fed took over the economic role that the President had so botched. Dubya was still President, but his power was gutted. Congress, now under the control of the Opposition Party, concurred. Third, Dubya wasn't formally overthrown.

The Paulson/Bernanke/Geithner triumvirate took over command of the economic functions of the President with no resistance. Had the disaster been military we might have had decisions by the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the cover of the elected President and Congress; they would dictate military policy while leaving the rest alone. Two millennia later the central bankers call the shots.

But let's all remember that bad as Dubya was, he wasn't anywhere near being the worst tyrant or most incompetent leader ever. He wasn't Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, or Ivan the Terrible. He didn't dress up like Hercules and stage fixed gladiatorial contests that proved what a powerful figure he was. Our system becomes for all practical purposes a parliamentary system when the President fails.

Unfortunately, the new President proves to be no more capable of dealing with the economic mess, which continues to worsen. What he or she does do is to bring all US forces home, and propose their (at least partial) demobilization. This, however, does not regain any favor for us overseas. Rather, it simply turns the universal hatred of America into contempt, while the attacks against our homeland become even bolder and more damaging than ever before. Those few countries who had stuck by us during Bush's second term now turn against us, as war spreads across the Eastern Hemisphere like a plague, with nukes employed in many cases.

So far such has yet to happen. It may not. If anything, things seem to have calmed some.

Meanwhile, a Republican minority in both houses of Congress continuously employs the same obstructionist tactics that many expected from the Congressional Democrats for the remainder of Bush's term, and upheaval spreads across the land. The country is now staring it's seemingly inevitable destruction in the face.

Soon after the normal pleasantries began, the obstruction began. Such is a gamble -- a bet on the failure of the President -- and likely a bad one. That has happened. Can a political party that alternates between others for power commit blunders that doom it or otherwise make it irrelevant? it certainly can. Think of the Federalists and Whigs in America, the Liberal Party in Britain, Zentrum in Germany, and Progressive-Conservatives in Canada. That's before I even mention totalitarian Parties like Nazis, Fascists, the Iraqi Ba'athists, and Communists, the segregationist Nationalists of South Africa.

At this point, as far as a critical number of Americans are concerned, both parties have been equally discredited, and many believe that the same sad fate has befallen democracy itself. Thus, when a military coup occurs sometime between 2010 and 2012, while the act is entirely illegal, even treasonous, the resistance to it proves to be far less than would have been anticipated only a few months before it actually happens. This leads to a swift series of revolving door 'Generalissimos'. The (last-wave Boomer) Generalissimo who finally takes charge of the country a couple of years later proves to be the GC so long hoped for, and the Regeneracy finally begins.

A Seven Days in May scenario? Such suggests a weak leader holding fast to outdated politics in a time that he lagged. President Jordan Lyman (Frederic March) seems to be modeled upon an Adlai Stevenson who had somehow become President in 1961. Note that the possibility would be that the military would put the pressure on a weak leader and eviscerate his authority.

We have had weak leaders -- leaders completely unsuited to the Presidency (Millard Fillmore, George W. Bush); people who might have been acceptable Presidents had they been elected at some other time, but either unable to meet contemporary challenges because of a poor fit of talents and personalities (Herbert Hoover) or perhaps no longer up to the job when finally elected (James Buchanan). We had one above-average in all but one respect (Richard Nixon) who had a great gap in one aspect of life (basic morals). Unlike the Romans we have never had anything like a Nero, Caligula, or Commodus.

As he or she takes hold of things, the downward spiral finally slows, and then begins to reverse itself.

We elected Abraham Lincoln, and we elected FDR. Obama seems to fit much of the pattern so far, although it is still blasphemous to think of him along those lines -- yet. If I had to choose between democracy and either birth in the royal household, the most ruthless military officer, the most cunning revolutionary, or the most adept apparatchik to get a leader to fit the times, I'll go with democracy. During the last Crisis, the leaders who did best were two (FDR, Churchill) who achieved power through democratic methods and did not sacrifice civil liberties to their own lust for power. Even on the Axis side the toughest one to crack was Mannerheim in Finland, and he was the least corrupt, brutal, and tyrannical of the Axis leaders by a large margin.

The American economy staggers back onto it's feet, as the country turns inward, to heal it's wounds of the previous decade. The social cost, in terms of personal freedom, proves to be quite high, but after years of ever-increasing suffering, the American people find themselves surprisingly willing to pay it. Even as the country becomes increasingly authoritarian, the military is also reformed, top to bottom, for homeland and hemispheric defense. (There is no longer any interest in events beyond the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, except insofar as they endanger the Western Hemisphere.) As this is done, the attacks on American soil become fewer, less bold, and less damaging, until they become a rare occurrence. The contempt is turning once more into fear, though the hatred remains.

Coups happen because the general public is apathetic, because elites in charge before the coup muck things up badly, and paradoxically because the sorts of governments that result from coups have huge weaknesses of ethics and ideology. The martial culture is appropriate only for military life, and not for elective politics, commerce, academia, family life, or religion.

It is possible, of course, that America could become amenable to the sort of government that exists in Singapore -- an authoritarian system that regulates everything but gets desired results. Is that how we cut our gross inequities in medical care, improve basic education, reduce street crime (hang the drug traffickers), and regulate commerce to make it less cyclical? Government not only regulates production but also dictates consumption! Such would be a severe compromise of our tradition of liberty.

The Climax occurs in the late teens and early 20s, as a regenerated but now authoritarian America reasserts it's hegemony over the Western Hemisphere in a series of wars. As China begins to see that we have no further interest in stopping them from dominating East Asia and the Western Pacific in the same way, they turn their full attention to that task, leaving us to turn our full attention to our self-imposed task. As Russia by this time has become a Chinese client state, Japan, India and the Middle East a nuclear wasteland, and Europe is far gone in decline, China has no other credible opponent to deal with. The attitude in both governments is something like "One day there will have to be a final reckoning between us, but why rush it?"

Sometime around 2025, the task is completed, by both China and America. (In that order of strength, the two superpowers.) The 'GC' Generalissimo dies now, of old age and exhaustion, having chosen his or her (GenX) successor. The motto of the 1T that now begins is 'America Restored', as said successor moves to calm the stormy waters. His or her counterpart in China is doing the same thing, as both leaders realize that their countries, and indeed the world, are weary of war and tumult, and heartily wish for something better. Besides, both countries, and both leaders, realize how close run a thing it has been. Domestically, the iron hand begins to relax it's grip, sensing that the need for a tight grip is no longer what it had been. Still, everyone from the Generalissimo on down is all too well aware that things will never truly be the same again.

A 1T is a time in which authoritarianism seems to gain -- not lose. Not one Communist state founded during the previous Crisis or at the start of the 1T fell. An Iranian Prime Minister who showed signs of loosening up the rule of the Shah was overthrown with a crackdown on people with liberal tendencies. Dictatorships in Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Indonesia, Taiwan, and South Korea knew no challenges. The only solid gains for democracy in the middle-to-late 1940s until at least the middle 1960s were those that had been democratic before the Crisis (France, the Low Countries, Denmark, Norway, and possibly Greece) only to fall to fascism, those upon whom democracy was imposed under occupation (Italy, Austria, Japan, and the western sectors of Germany), and those founded as democracies that held fast to democracy from their inception (India, Israel, the Philippines). Only in the 2T did fascistic and authoritarian regimes fall in Spain and Portugal; only during the 3T did democracy supplant dictatorship in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa, and most of the Soviet bloc. That of course has everything to do with an authoritarian regime that might conceivably emerge in America (and I can imagine that an authoritarian regime in America would turn outward to push its program on countries that don't want it, probably in wars over resources that culminate in an occupation by foreign powers. Does anyone think that if the tables are turned from World War II and the victors are a democratic Germany and Japan, that the Germans and Japanese would not restore democracy to America by fiat?

Of course this has everything to do with the saeculum in the modern West and nothing to the ancient world.

BTW, for those who fear (or would welcome) a fundamentalist theocracy in America, I suspect that such a military GC would apply a more even-handed policy towards the religions of the country than that.

If anything, the election of 2008 has shown how culturally-polarized America has become. That must change. Is Obama up to it? We shall see.

As for analogies between contemporary America and ancient Rome -- the Slave War was a civil war, and it intensified the institution of chattel slavery in Rome so that it could never be challenged until the demise of the system. Our Civil War established the end of chattel slavery in any form. If I am to compare any figure in history to Julius Caesar in establishing a political system imperial in scope if not in government and arguably as durable -- then the closest parallel to Caesar is George Washington. I could argue that the entrenchment of chattel slavery in Republican Rome doomed it and the Empire to social rot that ultimately doomed the system. From the time in which Julius Caesar assumed the title Imperator to that in which Odoacer chose to allow no successor to Romulus Augustulus and determining that the Roman Empire was no more, five centuries had passed. Rome had far too many assets to decay before the Empire became irrelevant. Unlike Imperial Rome, a rotten order from its inception, the United States of America has far more assets to burn and rot before it gets in extreme danger.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

"He had never sought the approval of officialdom. In this sense he was the odd man out in the golden quartet of Augustan writers. Livy's History, in 142 books, had Rome's greatness as its unswerving theme. Virgil's Aeneid, a patriotic epic, climaxed in the birth of Rome and its rebirth under Augustus. Even the hedonistic and satirical Horace reflected, in his Odes, the great pageant of the Roman story. These were, in the highest sense, the Augustan apologists. Rome's mission had been their inspiration and they lifted Latin to parity with Greek as the supreme languages of civilized mankind. All three were, however, older than Ovid. Theirs was the civil war generation, which had longed for peace and prized the blessings it brought. Ovid's was the post-war generation, which took peace for granted and had heard enough of valiant deeds. Understandably, he turned toward less patriotic themes, unrelated to public events. His commitment was total but it was to poetry itself, not to a regime, however glorious. It is of course clear to us that, far from being contrary to the glory of the Augustan Age, Ovid's achievement was a proud part of it; and that his deviations from orthodoxy were refreshing as well as harmless."

I get the definite impression that Ovid was an Adaptive.

Re: Ovid's background

"...This was the eighth year of the Christian era and the thirty-ninth since the battle of Actium had brought peace to the Roman world and Octavian, generally known as Augustus, its first emperor, to unchallengable power. Ovid, aged fifty-one, with his wife (whose name is unknown to us) was on vacation in the Isle of Elba. She was his third wife and the only one with whom he had found lasting happiness. By rank he was a member of the equestrian order, entitling him to the white toga with a thin, purple stripe. He was proprietor of a fine estate, the Villa Ovidio at Sulmo, the family seat, ninety miles inland from Rome: and a comfortable town house close under the Capitoline Hill. As a young man he had studied law, indeed begun its practice and even held minor office. However, as he put it, 'no matter what I tried to write, it came out verse'. The Muse beckoned and he followed, abandoning the substance and respectability of a public career. Not that poetry was without respect. Despite his father's warning that 'even Homer died broke', there was no ore propitious moment at which to excel, especially for one who could combine poetry with patriotism...."

Re: Ovid's background

"...It is a peculiarty of the Augustan Age that its greatest artists were able to reconcile themselves to the political background, matching stirring events with noble song. Here Ovid was a misfit, whose destiny was to be the ancient world's supreme poet of love. His counterpart is surely Byron, with echoes of subject matter, of attitude, even of place...for both, success came early and in a rush. 'I awoke one morning to find myself famous', said Byron of the publication of Childe Harold and Ovid's first work, the Amores, brought much the same response...At a stroke he attracted distinguished patronage and the acclaim of dilenttantist Rome. This early reputation would be confirmed, indeed outshone, by the Ars Amatoria (Art of Love), published in his early forties: a sparkling essay on seduction, sometimes compared to Pope's Rape of the Lock and, it seems to us, as inoffensive. Be that as it may, Ovid would thenceforward choose subjects more suited to his maturity: the les successful and uncompleted Fasti (the Festivals), a poetical calendar of the Roman year and its holy days. Then came his central work, the Metamorphoses: a series of verse episodes, each concerning a supernatural change; a thesaurus of transmogrification; a glittering amalgam of myth, magic and invention. In all Ovid enjoyed thirty years' homage, first as the enfant prodige then as the literary lion of Rome. Any yet during the last decade of this happy and productive time, a cloud began to smudge his sky."

Re: Ovid's background....

The emperor was trying to crack down on Roman morals. However....

"In AD 2 a scandal broke around the emperor's daughter, Julia, who was accused of adultery and exiled to a tiny and desolate island. Such harshness is explainable only in terms of her father's acute sensitivity to ridicule. Another source of amusement was that the adultery law was part of a code called the Lex Julia; named after Augustus' family, the Julians.

"The appearance of Ovid's Ars Amatoria, only a year or so later, was an all-time publishing gaffe. Here was what appeared to be a philanderer's charter. It would have been less humiliating for the administration had the book flopped. But no, is sold like hot cakes! Ovid argues somewhat lamely that adultery had been far from his thoughts, that the poem was intended as a divertissement relating only to affairs of courtesans. In his favor was the fact that his own personal life was relatively blameless. 'No scandal ever attached itself to my name.' he maintains. 'My muse was merrier than myself', meaning he had been a playboy in poetry rather than practice. Whatever Augustus' feelings, there was no official rebuke and no action was taken. In any case, Ovid's pen now pursued more seemly subjects. However, to the government's and perhaps the author's embarrassment, that poem on illicit love refused to lie down. On the contrary, its popularity continued to soar."

"In AD 8...It is probable that the same year...saw the death of Ovid's patron, M.V. Messalla Corvinus, distinguished general, statesman and honoured friend of Augustus...Messalla's very presence would disarm retaiatory measures. With his passing, a trusty shield had fallen quietly away.

"We return to Ovid, unaware of the gathering shadows, on his visit to Elba during this same year...Ars Amatoria may have been an almighty faux pas, but seven years had elapsed since publication and no harm had been come. At this juncture, out of the blue, a man (or probably men) appeared at the villa where the happy couple were guests. Perhaps they were plain-clothes officers...for the secret police. The poet was staggered. Under arrest...for writing a love poem! But that was not apparently the question. Ovid was party to some knowledge. He had seen something. Something he should have reported.

"...Ovid...had blundered. An indiscreet poem, certainly...of the other matter, the last straw which roke the imperial patience, Ovid would never speak."

"Ovid would, however, be let off lightly...He would keep his knighthood, estate and fortune. Ars Amatoria, now in all the public libraries, would have to go; but otherwised he could continue to work as he pleased, write as he pleased, correspond with whom he pleased...."

"...We have compared Ovid to Byron, but there is also a resemblance to Wilde. Both were brilliant, witty men. Both defied the orthodoxies of their age. Both were early feted and abruptly dropped...both produced two 'poems of exile', works strikingly different from anything they had previously written."

Re: Ovid's background

"...He loved his wife, his home, his work and the adulation it brought. Virgil had died a generation earlier, Horace that very year, leaving Ovid as the language's greatest living poet. Above all he loved Rome herself; the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, talk and endless stimulus of this mother city; queen and crossroads of the world. Now the cup was snatched away. A sudden confrontation by nameless men; a verdict and a sentence pre-imposed.

"And yet life among the Greeks might be bearable. Romans of his class saw Greece as a spiritual home. Indeed he had studied in Athens. Neither was this to be relegatio in insulam; banishmenbt, like that of the tragic Julias, to some God-forsaken rock. Nor in oasim; expulsion to an oven-hot clump of datepalms on Egypt's fringe. At least he was bound for a city, long established, older even than Rome herself."

Originally Posted by Prisoner 81591518

I personally suspect that some here would prefer to see the US as Carthage, and China as Rome, in an all too realistic replay of the 3rd Punic War. However, as you have probably figured out, I would more compare the US to Rome, and the old Soviet Union to the Parthian Empire, while China comes in as Sassanid Persia.

The relative sizes don't work out. In the modern world the size of the economy is what determines power. China will have an economy that dwarfs that of the US, and so is fundamentally the stronger power. This was not the case for Persia wrt Rome.

America cannot contest with China with any chance of success. If America is to have a decent future she will have to learn to treat China as an entity greater than herself while still retaining her self-respect.

We can learn from the Europeans. They have lost their empires, yet life for the average European today is far better than it was when their empires were in their heyday. Some of this, of course, reflects the fact that their successor was itself a European-derived civilization, and so their culture was not overwhelmed by an alien culture.

On the other hand, the sheer size of the American+European economy is such that the West will remain relevant well into the second half of this century, which gives us more time to adapt than, say, the Persians and Byzantines had to the rise of the Arabs.

For what it's worth, Victor Hanson's column today listed three real crises in history and one that wasn't. (I mean, 1979? Give me a break!) I was very pleased to see he included Vespasian's rule in +69 among them ... I've always thought the two most identifiable crisis eras in Ancient Rome were the end of the Republic, ending in Octavian taking power, and Vespasian ending the crisis hat started with Nero taking power.

The others he listed were the Persian Wars ~ -480 and the Great Depression/WWII. But it's good to see that someone else knows Roman history and knows a Crisis Era when he sees one.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

For what it's worth, Victor Hanson's column today listed three real crises in history and one that wasn't. (I mean, 1979? Give me a break!) I was very pleased to see he included Vespasian's rule in +69 among them ... I've always thought the two most identifiable crisis eras in Ancient Rome were the end of the Republic, ending in Octavian taking power, and Vespasian ending the crisis hat started with Nero taking power.

The others he listed were the Persian Wars ~ -480 and the Great Depression/WWII. But it's good to see that someone else knows Roman history and knows a Crisis Era when he sees one.

Do you have a link?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The relative sizes don't work out. In the modern world the size of the economy is what determines power. China will have an economy that dwarfs that of the US, and so is fundamentally the stronger power. This was not the case for Persia wrt Rome.

America cannot contest with China with any chance of success. If America is to have a decent future she will have to learn to treat China as an entity greater than herself while still retaining her self-respect.

We can learn from the Europeans. They have lost their empires, yet life for the average European today is far better than it was when their empires were in their heyday. Some of this, of course, reflects the fact that their successor was itself a European-derived civilization, and so their culture was not overwhelmed by an alien culture.

On the other hand, the sheer size of the American+European economy is such that the West will remain relevant well into the second half of this century, which gives us more time to adapt than, say, the Persians and Byzantines had to the rise of the Arabs.

I'm not sure economy alone is a sufficient measure of future power. Yes, China, and India, will have the populations to control and direct the world economy, but they will both be pressing down on their populations, while the US, with room to expand, probably won't. We sit on some best land in the world with peaceful neighbors and abundant resources. We will be the third largest county by population for the foreseeable future and we'll still be isolated from the two behemoths by two oceans.

I think we're fine.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Do you have a link?

It was a print column. let me go to "Da google" and check. Here we go:

http://townhall.com/columnists/Victo...ar_of_decision

The author included translated verse in The Poet chapter.



OVID ARRIVES AT HIS PLACE OF EXILE


"This was a frontier town, a 'wild west' in the Greek east. Violence might erupt at any moment; even in the agora...."

Law has no force and force is all they know
Since force replaces justice in their eyes...
Here sword is law and many is the wound
Inflicted in the middle of the market place

"Progressively the ice builds against the coast, sealing Tomis from the south; closing that last option of a beleaguered port: evacuation by sea."

The Euxine, called the Axine in the past,
Now holds me captive in its cold embrace,
No softness shields these waters from the blast,
No foreign shipping, safe in sheltered place.
Ringed round with ravening tribes, which endless vigil keep,
The land is no more docile than the deep.


"As winter advances, so does the hungry savage. Now arrows begin to fall inside the city."

I am a captive of the counterfeit Euxine,
That luckless land beside the Scythian shore,
Hemmed in by numberless and tameless tribes
Who recognize no way of life but plunder.
All outside is danger. Just saved by skilful siting,
Our little hill with little walls defended.
The foe rises quickly as a cloud of birds:
Scarce sighted, they are already on their loot-laden way.
Though closed the gate we gather deadly missles
In mid-street.

"Now Ovid, though in his mid-fifties, must arm himself and mount the town wall. Gentle Ovid, 'the soft philosopher of love'."

I shrink from matters military.
Even as a young man
I never handled weapon but in jest
Now, in middle age, I buckle sword to side,
Fit shield to arm and helmet to grey head;
For when the lookout signals the attack
I rush to arm myself with trembling hand.
The foe, with bent bow and poison-pickled
Arrow, wheels the wall on snorting steed;
And as the sheep, which lacks the shelter of
The fold, is dragged o'er field and forest by
The ravening wolf, so he who reaches not
The shelter of the gate can count himself
A goner, with a rope around his throat,
Or else a dead man, dropped by deadly dart.

"Weeks pass and the hit-and-run attacks upon the beleaguered town become more hit and less run."

Now are the fighted walls made dizzy by the mounted archer
As stockaded sheep are giddied by the circling wolf.
Now is the shortbow, strung with horse hair, never slack.
Our housetops bristle with a feathered mist of arrows
And the stoutly crossbarred gate scarce counters the attack.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

For what it's worth, Victor Hanson's column today listed three real crises in history and one that wasn't. (I mean, 1979? Give me a break!) I was very pleased to see he included Vespasian's rule in +69 among them ... I've always thought the two most identifiable crisis eras in Ancient Rome were the end of the Republic, ending in Octavian taking power, and Vespasian ending the crisis hat started with Nero taking power.

The others he listed were the Persian Wars ~ -480 and the Great Depression/WWII. But it's good to see that someone else knows Roman history and knows a Crisis Era when he sees one.

Actually, Vespasian's take-over is not a clear Crisis. If you dredge through earlier posts in this thread, you'll see my post #37 where I lay out why that crisis isn't a big deal at all when seen from a Roman perspective.

Also, given that Hanson thought 300 was good history, I'd take his views with a salt mine or two.

Ovid makes references to different steppe tribes. For example, the Getans, who were allied to Rome.


"The barbarian is at the gate, yet there is little comfort inside it."

The town's defences scarce defend; and even within
The walls a tribal riff-raff mingles with the Greek.
what safety when unbarbered barbarians
In skins inhabit over half the houses?
Even descendants of the Grecian mother-city
Instead of patriotic dress wear Persian breeches.
What conversation! They in local lingo, I in gestures.
Here I am the barbarian, understood by none.
At Latin words the Getans simply gape and giggle.

"Ovid was an aimiable, companionable man; Tomis shrewdly selected to ensure his dejection. He broods constantly on the total absence of Latin-speaking company, indeed of kindred spirits of any kind. He feels his powers waning through disuse and the absence of stimulus or encouragement. He struggles with composition in surroundings deeply hostile to poetry....

"...If exile were a contest to break or preserve his spirit then, in the long view, we must judge Ovid, life's loser, the winner. At the same time, however, he was a desperately lonely man. He even began to learn the despised Sarmatian tongue. Such was his need of an audience that he started to write in groping Getic:"

I have become, to my embarrassment
Something of a Getic poet, having
Done a piece in Getic tongue, working their
Wild words to fit our metre. So the uncouth
Getan begin to call me 'bard'.

It is thought that Roman officers "visited Tomis in connection with the campaigns. It is, however, possible that Ovid visited them, for he writes of 'verses composed on the battlefield'. Flaccus, the commander, was the younger brother of a friend. Here was an opportunity for Ovid to push his case. To Vestalis:

You see yourself the Black Sea white with ice.
You see yourself the frozen wine stands stiff.
You see yourself the ferocious Iazygian
Steering laden wagon over mainstream Danube.
You see how poison, flying on fast feathers,
Delivers death twice over.

"To Graecinus, another brother of Flaccus, who was about to return to Rome after his tour of duty:"

Should you see Flaccus, recently commander
Of this region...
Ask him of Scythia and its climate.
How it is to live in fear of foes so near.
Whether the slim shaft is dipped in snake venom.
Whether the human head is used as gruesome talisman.
Whether I lie when I say the sea freezes over
Acres at a time.

"The years were passing, Ovid weakening. He complained of brackish water and poor food. He suffered stomach upsets, fever, sleeplessness and a constantly aching side. He was pallid, with hair prematurely white.

"Augustus, too, was ageing. He had passed seventy-one when Ovid's exile began. What if the emperor should die first? Would his successor grant a reprieve? Augustus did in fact die first: at seventy-seven, during the sixth year of Ovid's absence. The poet wrote him an elegy, in Getic:"

You ask me what I wrote: a song for Ceasar,
Telling of Augustus' earthbound body
But his spirit soaring high in heaven
And Tiberius holding now the reins.

"But no word from Tiberius; and there was little hope of reaching this increasingly reclusive and stone-hearted man. By now Ovid himself had less than three years to live. His sole consolation was an unexpected one. Latterly the city of his exile had begun to seem less hateful. He was touched by the simple kindness of its people. Though no one could read his verse, they honoured him. Perhaps the officers' visit enhanced his standing. He was exempted from taxes. At last Tomis was starting to seem like home!"

Dear as Latona to the Isle of Delos
Which alone gave haven to her wanderings,
So dear to me is Tomis. From home far exiled
It has become for me a faithful home-from-home.
Would the gods had placed it nearer to some
Promise of peace, further from the chilling pole!
Tomitans, I have affection for you,
But little for your land.

"The steppe evoked little wit. Though never losing technical mastery, circumstances turned Ovid toward inwardness and darkness and away from the brilliance and brightness which had been his genius...."

Ovid is a case study, an Adaptive artist and city body, abruptly shoved into a frontier setting. His experience in middle age reminds one of a Reactive generation, such as the Cavaliers, in the wilderness.

Ovid loathed this experience.

"...see the poet Ovid looking from the wall of a Black Sea outpost onto savage but skilful horsemen. This exemplifies the security problem of antiquity. On the one hand, a cultural gap and disparity of wealth between the classical and barbarian worlds too big to promise indefinite peace; on the other, advantages in military techniqe too small to guarantee a permanent Roman lead. Furthermore the pax Romana, with its laws against the bearing of arms, created a state whose civilian majority would forget how to fight.

"The situation described by Ovid will not be revived till the 16th-19th centuries, when the age of exploration takes Europeans across oceans and the Old and New Worlds collide. Most obviously, his vision of mounted archers circling the walls reminds one of Indians round a paleface stockade. But the comparison is unfavorable to Rome in two respects: the American settlers had firearms; and their support, in terms of numbers migrating from the motherlands, was almost limitless. Rome's lacklustre technology would never put a decisive weapon into her soldiers' hands; and population pressures would work not outwards against the barbarians but inwards against the empire.

"...In short, this was not comparable to the all-out collision of steam age with stone age, but a more moderate encounter between different aspects of the same age...."

If you're gonna compare Rome and America than one direct parallel in Patrick Buchanan and Cato the Younger-both were against a multicultural empire and wanted the old republican systems to stand. Remember Buchanan's book Republic, Not an Empire?

America has been imperial in scale if not governance from its inception. The War of 1812 should have left no doubt that the United States was not a power to tangle with. Deal, sure, but the United States has contributed to the demise of many leaders who have underestimated its military power.

If you think that America is multicultural now, then think of what it was in 1783 after it took over a huge swath of "Indian Country".