The Foreign Policy Similarities Between Ancient Rome and Modern America

Does this rallying cry sound familiar? One might initially think that it can be attributed to a protester marching down the streets of Chicago or Washington D.C., speaking vociferously against the conflict in Iraq triggered by the brief, but successful, 2003 War in Iraq that saw the ousting of Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, one would have to look back before President George W. Bush to find the foundations of this message, by about 2100 years. Indeed, the cries of "illegal" and "unjust warfare" were the common mantra of the Optimates faction of the Roman Republic, the conservative nobility caste that saw Caesar's popularity with the people as a resounding threat to traditional noble strangleholds on the Republic.

In previous articles, the author explained the economic impact of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul and more specifically, how the friction that came about by Sulla's (an extremely hard line Optimate) sacking of the city of Rome contributed and ultimately led to the collapse of the Roman Republic and its replace by the Principate (or Roman Empire, although this is not a direct translation, which would be Imperium Romana). However thousands of more economic, political, and social factors played into the hands of decay that finally rotted out Marcus Junius Brutus's cherished Republic.

It was no real secret that a new era of Rome had dawned. Sulla's brazen defiance towards traditional law, specifically marching his soldiers into the city without a Triumph - to say nothing of the massacres that would put the Crusaders' sacking of Jerusalem to shame - showed the world that Rome of the old days was gone, the political center of the earth was up for grabs. It's important to remember that until the Gallic Wars and the subsequent annexation of Egypt because of Ptolemy XII's betrayal of Caesar, geopolitically was not that influential. Controlling North Africa, Hispania, Itallia, and large portions of Helennia (Greece) were indeed accomplishments, but this said nothing of Egypt, Persia (then ruled by the Parthian regime), Pontus, Seleucid controlled Syria, and Armenia which held a stranglehold on Eastern spices, silks, and other valuable imports, as well as the All Powerful Grain. It was the centrality and stability of Rome which made it powerful at this time - it ruled the Mediterranean and that was quite the deciding factor in international politics.

The political climate of Rome when Gaius Julius Caesar, a patrician of a little known but extremely wealthy family, and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better Anglicized to Gnaus Pompey the Great), a plebeian with eyes of ruling Rome and a brilliant military commander in his own right, ascended the scene as dual Consuls was one of tension and apprehension. It was well known that the two had long dominated with Marcus Licinius Crassus in a form of government known as the Triumvirate, where Caesar brought with him the support of the people, Pompey brought with him the support of the legions, and Crassus carried the financial empire built on the backs of the tax farmers. As Pompey and Caesar continued to amass fame and popularity (Pompey was the genius who defeated the Cilician Pirates and the Gallic Wars were making Caesar increasingly popular amongst the masses), and the memory of Crassus's defeat of Spartacus began to fade from the public eye, the extremely wealthy Crassus was impressed into trying to subjugate the Parthians.

The consequence? A mouth full of molten gold, the destruction of three Roman legions, and the all embarrassing loss of a Roman eagle and its accompanying standards. Though that kind of embarrassment was probably the least of Crassus's worries as he stared down the Parthian king while swallowing a vat of burning gold.

There is something deeply amusing about the noble Julius Caesar abandoning his noble roots to form the Populares party, siding with the dogged masses known as the Plebeians, while the considered crude and vulgar Pompey strode with his allies the Optimates to try to hold onto aristocratic rule. But much of this was through the machinations of Marcus Portius Cato Uticensis, known as Cato the Younger to differentiate him from his great-grandfather, the equally dubious (due in no small part to his brazen opposition to anything that could be conceived as positive for the Republic if it was done by Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus) statesman that had sought to see Scipio Africanus executed as a traitor.

Cato, who had been a chief financier and supporter for Calpurnius Bibilus, had long been opposed to anything he saw as a threat to his own particular vision for Rome. While he was lauded as impossible to bribe and corrupt he showed many of the fatal flaws his great-grandfather did and was fiercely antagonistic towards the Plebeians, who were constantly reeling under the pressures placed on them by Sulla's often times maddening legislations. Ironically, he helped add legend to Caesar's name before he ever marched off to Gaul when his candidate for Consulship, the aforementioned Bibilus, managed to do little in his time but threaten to kill himself if legislations he was in favor of did not pass, to which the crowd responded by pouring a bucket of fecal waste over his head. For reasons unknown, he quickly disappeared from the public view and played no part in politics. At the time, the Roman Calendar was based on Consulships (since each Consul could only serve a one year term at a time before being re-eligible to run), and therefore they referred to a year as the Year of the Consulship of, for example, "Brutus and Cassius" (although no such year actually existed), "Which was X years after the formation of Rome", or the formation of the Republic based on the current social climate.

Bibilus's absence from view led to the masses guffawing the year as "The Year of the Consulship of Julius and Caesar". This served as a bitter embarrassment for Cato.

With the Triumvirate coming to a close and Caesar attempting to seal his name in immortality he sought the governorship of two provinces: Illyria and Cisalpine Gaul (today known as Albania and Northern Italy respectively). He was granted these (to the grumblings of the ever present Cato) as well as Transalpine Gaul due to the recent death (through no assistance of Caesar's) of its respective governor. In many ways, Caesar was eager to escape the heavy debt he'd found himself in in the city of Rome, which were among the first of his legislative reforms he enacted upon his return to Rome. While it would be easy to use this description to generate an image of Caesar that involved a no good money borrower, it's important to understand that at the time, Roman laws were almost awe inspiring in their favor of the creditors, which allowed interest rates to soar into the hundreds of percents. It could be said that they could drive a king to crippling debt (and with Caesar, you could argue, they did).

As governor of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, it was Caesar's responsibility to protect Rome's Gallic borders - and that he did. Although the initial conflicts were wholly the fault of the Gauls who arrived rather timely, it had long been in Caesar's interest to conquer the Gallic lands to the north. This chance was given to him when the Helvetii, a Celtic tribe from modern Switzerland, planned a massive migration through Gaul, across Roman territory, and into Rome's allies. The conditions were such that a migration was in many ways necessary - the rapidly multiplying Helvetii had driven their lands to famine, they had outstayed their welcome with tribal neighbors, and their land was simply not big enough to support their booming numbers.

Nevertheless, it was not in Rome's interest to see a single migratory megaherd of Gauls moving from one end of the region to another, uprooting Romans along the way and destroying Rome's allies. It should also be understood that while the initial goals of the migration were relatively benign, the end results were brutal. The sheer power of the multi-hundred thousand person march created a proverbial plague of locusts that turned to looting, raping, enslavement, and pillaging as they went, picking the land bare.

Caesar gave the Helvetii a keen order to return to their lands in Helvetia. The 320,000 strong megaherd (with 110,000 men at arms) refused the order, believing the puny 29,000 strong Roman force would be easily barreled over. When the Helvetii hit Caesars' legions however, they were utterly destroyed, and forced to march humiliatingly (although with only a fraction of their numbers, thus making Helvetia suddenly more appealing) back home. This resulted in the Gauls treating Caesar like something of a king - they were highly impressed by his superb skills, the manner of his fighting, and were eminently thankful for his saving of them from the Helvetii. This, however, impressed him into attempting to broker in inter and intra-Gallic affairs.

With the tribes constantly shifting and pulling power back and forth between one another, Caesar was constantly requested to aid Gallic tribes against the Germans, or against other Gallic tribes who were not friends of Rome, or as he was busy helping one tribe, another would sneak behind him and begin pillaging. This ultimately led in Caesar's decision to annex large portions of Gaul for Rome - making him something of a superstar to the masses, and only fueled Cato's already insatiable anger for the man.

As the Gallic slaves returned in hordes, the gold continued to fall in, and every Roman increased in wealth three times over (although this had a dramatic economic impact as was explained in a previous article), Cato and the Optimates resorted to an angry stamping of their feet, and calling out cries of his "illegal warfare", his "unjust killings". Although Cato had driven himself to hoarse breath over Caesar's destruction of the Helvetii, it wasn't until 55 B.C. that he generated a sympathetic following in the Senate from fellow Optimates due to the increasingly aggressive nature of the conqueror's actions.

As Cato continued his constant calls for the arrest and execution of Caesar, while blithely ignoring the constant Gallic threat to Rome (the Gauls had only half a century before nearly sacked Rome itself in a series of bloody engagements), he found himself quickly unable to hold onto his position. He dramatically backed Pompey's legislation to outlaw Caesar from the city walls, declaring him a traitor and demanding that he return to stand trial (which meant certain death in a kangaroo court). In his attempts to drive the people against Caesar with loopholes in legalities and the increasingly unpopular Senate - much like the current Senate, Cato's was among the least popular in Roman history - the great-grandson of the great enemy of Scipio was driven from the city walls and later killed himself in North Africa after suffering a crippling defeat at the hands of Caesar.

Meanwhile, it is widely believed that Caesar's conquest of Gaul, while in many ways bloody, strove to solidify Roman power, and helped pave the way for Roman policy and security for hundreds of years. By quelling the Gauls once and for all, it brought civilization to a region of the world that seemed would never evolve from ritualistic beatings for a single piece of meat, and transformed into a near metropolis. While political discussion is always welcome - Cato should serve as an excellent example of why trying to predict history's outlook on modern events will simply never work.