It is inauguration day, 2009. The world witnessed the swearing in of America’s forty-fourth president today. It was a marvelous event. I was not one of the hundreds of thousands who gathered in the freezing cold on the Mall in Washington, DC but I did watch from the relative warmth of my home in Austin, Texas. Coming from a kingdom where the monarch only changes through death or abdication, I have yet to witness a coronation, although I have seen many a prime minister come and go. A presidential inauguration takes place every four years so the chance to witness the spectacle, with its solemnity and pomp is something of a treat. Its grand celebration did seem at times akin to what a British king or queen might expect – perhaps America learned how to put on a good show of marching bands and soldiers from its former British rulers. While the old president yields power to the new in this great republic, one is struck by the civilised ease with which it is done.
As readers of this blog know, I write about current affairs through the prism of Roman history, seeking parallels. The founding fathers looked to ancient Rome for inspiration for their new republic. The word republic derives from the Latin
res publica, literally ‘public deeds’ or ‘commonwealth’. The contrasts between ancient and modern republics is informative. The Roman system was embodied in the initialism SPQR –
senatus populusque Romanus – which welded the patrician aristocrats and plebians in a complex machinery of elected public officials. It was a democracy and elections were held each year using a ballot box, the plebs voting in the
comitium, an oval space just outside the curia or senate house. The Romans had an instinctive revulsion of monarchy and their system had checks and balances to ensure one man did not become too powerful. It had not one but two heads of state, consuls, who had to find common ground for legislation to be enacted. The plebian classes elected their tribunes who had the veto – Latin for ‘I forbid’ – to annul any act of the senate they did not like. The system worked well for over four centuries until a few super wealthy individuals decided it stood in the way of their access to power and broke it. The history of the late Republic is a depressing tale of class war, corruption, despotism, assassination, civil war and collapse.
Ironically, the Roman republic was resurrected by an autocrat, Caesar Augustus, who had mastered the art of manipulation, creating the outward show of a functioning democratic republic while actually acting as a monarch. This precedent paved the way for the imperial style rule of the emperors. Rome still appointed two consuls each year - and named the year after them - but, in the manner of George Orwell's
Animal Farm, one was more equal than the other. With Nero Caesar's suicide the Julio-Claudian dynasty ended and the office of
princeps, the ‘first man’, was thereafter more often than not taken by the sword. In the year following Nero's death, no fewer than four emperors ruled during the fateful AD69. (The word emperor derives from honorific title for commander (
imperator) acclaimed by Rome’s citizen army upon a military leader for bringing them victory.) The last vestiges of the republic took place only in the towns and cities of the empire. Voters could still elect their town council, court magistrates, public auditors and managers of the games, but no longer their heads (plural) of state.
Like the
princeps of the imperial republic of the Romans, the American president combines the roles of head of state and commander in chief. The Founding Fathers were very aware of the failings and temptations of the historical antecedent. So far, the evidence of two hundred years of their republic and forty-three presidents is that they learned the lessons well and built a system that works and will endure. I am quietly confident that the nation will be satisfied with their forty-fourth.
Good luck, Mr President. May you rule wisely.
