Compelling contemporary resonances leap from the pages of Harris’s nuanced and captivating novel. And “Imperium” is just one of a slew of timely new books drawing on the history of this powerful ancient democracy. Adrian Goldsworthy’s recent, impressive biography “Caesar: The Life of a Colossus” ( 576 pages. Weidenfelt and Nicholson ) explores the public and personal life of the emperor who, by the time of his dramatic death, effectively ruled most of the Western world. Next month Anthony Everitt follows suit with “The First Emperor: Caesar Augustus and the Triumph of Rome” ( 432 pages. John Murray ). Bryan Ward-Perkins’s “The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization” ( 256 pages. Oxford University Press ) was published in paperback over the summer, and recently won the prestigious Hessell-Tiltman prize for history. In it he casts new light on the end of the Roman Empire, arguing that it was in fact an era of positive cultural transformation rather than decline.
Roman civilization is dominating small screens, too. Starting Sept. 21, the BBC is showcasing a new series, “Ancient Rome–The Rise and Fall of an Empire,” with an accompanying book by Simon Baker. The BBC is simultaneously launching “CDX,” a broadband videogame in which players compete online using clues derived from the TV series.
None of these works explicitly predicts that America will suffer the fate of the Roman Empire. But Rome’s dominance of global culture, law, technology and language from the second century B.C. to its demise in 476 A.D. raised questions and concerns among politicians and philosophers that are increasingly relevant today. “Societies have constantly reinvented ancient Rome, likening it to the contemporary world,” says University of Cambridge professor Mary Beard, a script adviser on the forthcoming BBC series. “The fascination is about how we discuss power, political corruption and what it is to govern sensibly in an imperial world.”
Unlike the British governing classes of the 18th century, who scoured Edward Gibbon’s epic “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” for signs that their own might be decaying, audiences today no longer believe that history is doomed to repeat itself. Still, some of the issues the Romans debated sound eerily familiar. “The BBC series shows that they wondered about the nature of power,” says Beard. One episode of the BBC series, for instance, focuses on Tiberius Gracchus, who was eventually assassinated for his political beliefs. “He was trying to think about how you can govern more fairly in relation to a whole community, rather than just in relation to the fat cats,” says Beard.
Harris is especially well placed to draw out the parallels between ancient Rome and modern global politics. As a high-flying journalist he covered the rise of Tony Blair in the 1990s. Peter Mandelson–the Labour Party’s former director of communications, dubbed the “sultan of spin”–is godfather to one of Harris’s children. “My first and primary interest [in crafting ‘Imperium’] was to write about the excitement and adrenaline of politics,” he says. “I quickly found in [statesman and orator Marcus Tullius] Cicero the archetypal modern politician, and so he became the central character.” Like Bill Clinton or, until recently, Tony Blair, Cicero had a charm that dazzled his audiences and an uncanny ability to capture and ride the wave of popular opinion.
Most significantly, a prominent theme of Harris’s book as well as the BBC documentary, is the question of whether a superpower can ever remain true to its democratic ideals. Rome was a surprisingly sophisticated democracy, with a constitution full of checks and balances on power. Yet, as the republic expanded to become the world’s sole superpower, this system collapsed. “Rome [like America] started off as a citizen militia, then morphed into a democracy,” says Harris. “But Rome was incapable of surviving once so much of the national interest had been diverted to military adventures abroad and as national security became an overriding consideration.”
After the sack of Ostia, the autocratic rule of Caesar’s successor Octavian transformed Rome from a republic to an empire. In 43 B.C. Octavian effectively sealed Cicero’s death warrant, adding him to the list of enemies of the state who were then hunted down and killed. “By then the worst thing you could be said to be was anti national security,” says Harris. Yet when in his old age Octavian caught his young grandson reading a work by Cicero, he noticed that the boy tried to hide the book, fearing his reaction. Instead, Octavian read aloud some passages then handed the volume back, saying, “He was a learned man, dear child, a learned man who loved his country.” It was a poignant acknowledgment of what had been lost. So too is this engrossing series of books and programs, which provides a gripping reminder that we too risk relinquishing the values we hold most dear.
