If you listen to stupid people, the founding fathers of the United States
were all about Jesus.
As with most popular lies there is a grain of truth here.
Many of them were probably more into their Christianity than most folks here in the
21st century.
But their version of religion was a lot more sophisticated
than that of the Michele Bachmanns and Mike Huckabees ofthis world. Their historical
world was also much broader.
when they sat down to set up this country's institutions they weren't
focused on the guy in the middle.
They were focused on Rome. From the fifteen hundreds through to about fifty
years ago
you couldn't call yourself an educated person without a deep knowledge of the
history of
Roman civilization, preferably in the original Latin.
The founders may have been Christian, but they were mostly inspired by pagan
Romans.
You can see this influence everywhere in our iconography. Everything from our taste
for Latin phrases to our choice of national bird
has Roman roots. Beyond the superficial stuff,
the history of Rome gave the founders a great cautionary tale.
One that was much more important to their thinking than the bible was.
Rome has appealed to centuries of lovers of freedom because it reached its greatest
power and influence
as a republic, not as a kingdom or an empire.
For centuries it was ruled by elected citizen soldiers who defended their city
and expanded its reach. Success eventually killed the Roman Republic.
The Roman territories got too big and the victorious generals that brought about
that expansion
got too powerful be content with merely being equals.
For generations, larger-than-life figures like Sulla,
Marius, Pompey, Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony
battled for power over the length of the known world. The terror these decades of
civil strife
eventually wore down the Roman people's commitment to the Republic.
We hear a lot about Julius Caesar because he was the adoptive father of
Augustus,
the guy who eventually won and set up the empire in 27 BC.
The emperors managed to lead for five hundred years in the west, and almost 1500 in
the east.
But the corruption and brutality of these leaders was legendary.
There is an 82 year period in the second century
known as the 5 good emperors. This should indicate how rare decent emperors were.
Some enjoy the peace that the early emperors created and
see some glory in the Empire. The founders, however,
noticed three things about the switch from Republic to Empire.
As a republic, the small Italian city-state of Rome managed to force the
known world into a single administrative system in a few short centuries.
After the switch to Empire some small territories were added,
but the story was mostly one of endless power struggles and slow decline.
The Empire couldn't change to save itself. Imperial overreach
and too much land to govern, caused the Roman transition to empire,
and that empire's eventual fall. This is why the United States are divided up into
individual state governments to this day,
and why American statesman use to be very suspicious
of standing armies. They start with the weak
and supposed enemies, but they ended up killing elites,
over and over and over again. Within one hundred years of the founding of the Roman
Empire
the families who had run the Republic for five hundred years had all been murdered
for their wealth. As elites themselves
the founding fathers would have been very interested in avoiding this result.
The lessons of Rome were foremost in the minds of the founders
and in the minds of their 19th century successors.
These lessons have faded in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In the coming weeks we may spend some time looking at why that is.
Thanks for watching. Please subscribe. -¨How will the world
speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher?
The warrior? The tyrant?
Or will I be the Emperor
who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome.
You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper
and it would vanish. It was so fragile. And I fear
that it will not survive the winter.