The Fragile Film of Order
What lessons can be taken away from the stories of the three Julio-Claudian emperors, the city-bred descendants of Augustus and Livia? The language is that of Will Durant. Durant writes “They began like Gabriel, and ended like Lucifer.”
1. When power devolves from being distributed between the legislative and the executive branch an unconstitutional tyranny results. The Roman senate was weakened by limitation of its members to Patrician families, and by losses due to civil war. The prince naturally sought to limit the power exercised by the Senate. As a result the Emperor exercised the power of life and death over his potential rivals. When Antonia, the grandmother of Caligula attempted to give him advice his reply was: “Remember that I have the right to do anything to anybody.” In the midst of a banquet he reminded his guests that he could have them killed where they reclined.
2. Avarice and profligacy is ruinous to the national treasury. Men born to extravagance soon exhaust the treasury. Among the first act of these Emperors was the awarding of a donative, a gift of funds, — Claudius to the army to acknowledge their support, likewise with Nero’s accession to power.
No comment is necessary on the tax reform law of 2017 adding a deficit of $1.46 trillion over the next decade.
3. The personal values and habits of a head-of-state matter. An individual addicted to his or her appetites is unfit for leadership. Aggripina. Nero, in the madness of infatuation consented to kill the woman who had borne him and given him half the world. Durant writes, “The Emperor viewing the uncovered corpse, remarked, ‘I did not know I had so beautiful a mother.”
