Democracy to Strongman: Part 1

How does a democracy transform into one-man rule? In an age where strongmen are increasingly the norm (US, China, Russia, India, Turkey etc), this question is more than just academic. We’re told to learn from history, so let’s turn to ancient Rome. How did ancient Rome change from a Republic into a monarchy?

That’s the question physicist Sean Carroll asks historian Edward Watts in his podcast. If you thought, “Simple. Julius Caesar took over, and that was that”, you’d be wrong. The institutions that governed Rome had been there for centuries, and they wouldn’t have gone out easily.

Let Watts explain how things really played out. Caesar knew that the existing institutions were well entrenched, which is why he never wanted to become the emperor. All he wanted was a guarantee that he wouldn’t be prosecuted for his crimes from his earlier term as Consul. But could he trust any promises by the Senate? What if they went back on their word? The Senate, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate being dictated terms by any general, even (especially?) by a uber-popular one like Caesar. What kind of precedent would that set, they worried. Caesar couldn’t go back to Gaul: what if the Senate assembled an army to come and wipe him out? You see the problem: neither side could trust the other. The system simply didn’t have that kind of credibility.

That last part, the lack of the credibility of the governance system to provide cast-iron guarantees is a recurring theme through history: Trump tore the nuclear deal with Iran. The BJP revoked Article 370… you get the idea.

We know what happened next: a civil war that Caesar won. He may have won but he knew he had mounted the tiger, and he couldn’t now get off it and hope to live. So how should he govern? Hadn’t he declared the Senate dysfunctional? Remind you of the parallel with the policy paralysis of UPA II, leading to the clamour for a decisive leader?

The onus now was on Caesar, the victor, to formulate a solution. He rolled out many reforms, and knew to play to the masses. The strongmen of today are decisive and have the pulse of the majority. But the frustration of convincing others even when he was trying to do good for Rome got to him: and so he legally became dictator-for-life. Xi did the same recently, and given how well China has been doing, perhaps he truly believes he is best for China.

But the idea of liberty was too fresh in many Romans’ minds: even if Caesar was doing good, wasn’t liberty being squashed? That point is what led Brutus & Co to assassinate Caesar. Back then ‘liberty’ meant adherence to laws, not freedom of expression. This made things tricky for Brutus: technically, Caesar hadn’t broken the law, rather he had changed the laws (See the parallel with NRC/CAA and abrogation of Article 370?). So Brutus had to justify his action: he had killed a tyrant, he said. But most Romans didn’t want chaos and so they didn’t view Brutus as a liberator or a hero at all. (Many Russians feel the alternative to Putin is anarchy). Even as Brutus was bewildered by how things were playing out, Mark Antony crafted a narrative that justified everything Caesar had done. The optics/perception game had started. (Sound similar to the propaganda and fake news on WhatsApp and Facebook?) If that sounded too depressing, perhaps you can take cheer in the fact that we’re now in Shakespearean territory.

With Caesar dead, let’s now learn about the man who completed the transition from the Republic to monarchy and how we went about it.