The Parallel Lives

What did it mean to be an emperor in ancient Rome? 

     That is the question that Mary Beard sought to answer in her 2023 book, “Emperor of Rome.” She wrote, “Everyone then, including emperors, was trying to construe their idea of what an emperor should be in a nation that could not and would not accept kingship.”

     Centuries before in Rome, a series of kings had ruled, but in 509 B.C.E., certain noblemen threw out their last king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, and established a new government, with two consuls who served for one-year terms, plus a Senate, and popular assemblies. 

     For five centuries, Rome existed as a Republic. Mary Beard called it “a sort-of democracy.”

     The Republic began to transition itself into an autocracy once Julius Caesar, a military leader, crossed the Rubicon River on January 10, 49 B.C.E., and launched a civil war against Pompey. 

     At that time, the Senate named Julius Caesar “dictator,” and after he defeated Pompey, he “used his victory in the civil war to take sole control of Rome’s government.” The Republic was destined to expire soon. In 44 B.C.E., the Senate named him “dictator forever.”

     Some were shocked at Caesar’s clutch of power. Cicero—a statesmen, orator, and writer—pointed out “the danger of absolute autocracy.” The people, he wrote, “were surrendering their Republican liberties in the hope of enjoying the wise rule of one man.”

     “At all costs,” he told the people, “they should fight against political servitude, for it was a form of slavery.” “Liberty could not exist unless the people held supreme power in government.”

     Some Senators who feared Caesar’s one-man rule—Brutus, Cassius, and Casca—assassinated Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 B.C.E., the year Caesar was named “dictator forever.”

     Another civil war followed. It was Julius Caesar’s great nephew, Octavian, who won that civil war against Marc Antony, in 29 B.C.E., and thereafter Octavian claimed the title of emperor and the name Caesar Augustus. Elections were held for a while, but results were foreordained.

     Julius Caesar’s assassins had failed to solidify Rome’s Republic and prevent an autocracy.  

     In Mary Beard’s book, she examines twenty-nine of ancient Rome’s emperors beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Alexander Severus, who ruled from 222 until 235 C.E.

     On her book’s second page, she states her theme, “The Roman world was, in our terms, a cruel place of premature death. Murder was the ultimate way of resolving disputes, political and otherwise. The corridors of power were always bloodstained.” 

     After the first chapter, “One-Man Rule: The Basics,” Mary begins her second chapter, “Who’s Next? The Art of Succession,” with chilling words, 

     “Succession planning was the single, most glaring weak spot of the Augustan system. Who should follow Augustus? How should any successor to the Roman throne be chosen, by whom, on what principles, and from what group of candidates?

     “After Augustus’s death, over the next two hundred years or so, and over the next two dozen emperors, the transition of power was almost always debated, fraught and sometimes killed for.”

     Mary explains that in 54 C.E. emperor Claudius’s fourth wife, Agrippina, served her husband a dish of poisoned mushrooms, clearing the way for her son, Nero, to claim the title of emperor.

     And Nero was a vicious tyrant. It was said “he fiddled while Rome burned.”

     In a later chapter entitled, “I Think I Am Becoming a God,” Mary Beard discusses how the emperors transformed themselves into gods, persons they believed worthy of worship.

     Our month of July originates from Julius Caesar and August from Caesar Augustus. January though is taken from the two-faced god Janus, whose left face looks into the past, pleasing historians, and its second face looks right, into a future, thrilling science fiction readers.

     You and I have started a new year, 2025. Study the past to determine next steps, what ideas and actions work and those that do not. “The years teach us things that the days never knew.”