Caesar and the Roman mob

After getting a tip I'm now reading The Roman Revolution, by Ronald Syme, a book about Rome's transition from Republic to Empire and features such figures as Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Cicero and Augustus. This is also the subject matter from HBO's Rome, tremendously good TV which, in all honesty, is helping me read this book. This is not a beginners book on Rome, so I do need the help. It's very dense and blunt and I would not have been able to get through it or understand most of what's being discussed, especially all the names and the interspersed Latin, without having read several others beforehand. But it's definitely worth the effort. Because this assumes you know the basic outline of events, referring off-hand to, say, the Ides of March or the Battle of Pharsalus for two examples, it can dive deeper.

I hope you're not over hearing about the ancient world or Rome in particular. I'm certainly not.

I'm not even a third of the way through and much conceptually has already stood out. For one it completely dispenses with the perfectly theoretical setup of the ancient Roman Republic. It certainly no longer functioned as described by Polybius in the second century BC (as much as I love the guy - see this post), with an ideal balance of power between the consuls, the Senate and the people. Or, at least, it no longer did by the time Caesar crossed the Rubicon after the previous ~100 years and the likes of Sulla, Marius and Pompey. But it was also more complicated than a procession of men grabbing more and more power for themselves.

The key point revolves around the factionalism of the Roman oligarchy - this is who really ruled Rome! - and how they formed into something akin to modern day political parties, just not nearly so formal. Caesar wasn't able to seize power on his own, not even in the aftermath of the other dictatorial figures that preceded him. He needed to navigate the dynamics of the fluctuating power of the various ancient Roman families, many of whom could trace themselves back beyond the founding nearly 500 years prior. The biggest players were usually ex-consuls (and therefore Senators) from these families who held a lot of sway. There was quite a bit of Game of Thrones-like marriage alliances etc. too. I had heard of the 'optimates' (pro-Senate, kind of a conservative elite, often lead by Cato) and the 'populares' (anti-Senate, appealing to directly to the people) before, but Syme breaks down how these groups shifted and altered who they supported throughout the revolutionary events in great detail. When Caesar marched on Rome most of the political powers were arrayed against him. But still he won, and in doing so he formed what the author refers to as the 'Caesarian Party.'

Mistakes were made by Caesar's assassins in allowing the mantle of the Caesarian Party to pass on. It was first taken up by Antony and eventually by Octavian (later Augustus), who proceeded to turn the party into a newly transformed, and finally fully functioning, state. Aka what we now call the Empire. That seems to be one of the main thrusts of the book.

Hopefully I didn't get too far into the weeds and lose you. One short section in the chapter about Antony was especially striking, again (like with Tiberius Gracchus) forcing me to see the similarities between this era of Roman history (i.e. the end of the Republic) and where we stand in American politics today. Read this, talking about how the Liberators (a noble name for Caesar's assassins) erred in thinking that the people, the mob, would support their actions:

'Nor could the faction of Brutus and Cassius reckon upon the citizen-body of the capital. To the cold logic and legalistic pleas of the Republican Brutus, this motley and excitable rabble turned a deaf ear; for the august traditions of the Roman Senate and the Roman People they had no sympathy at all. The politicians of the previous age, whether conservative or revolutionary, despised so utterly the plebs of Rome that they felt no scruples when they enhanced its degradation. Even Cato admitted the need of bribery, to save the Republic and secure the election of his own kinsman Bibulus.

Debauched by demagogues and largess, the Roman People was ready for the Empire and the dispensation of bread and games. The plebs had acclaimed Caesar, the popular politician, with his public boast of the Julian house, descended from the kings of Rome and from the immortal gods; they buried his daughter Julia with the honours of a princess; they cheered at the games, the shows and the triumphs of the Dictator. In Caesar's defiance of the Senate and his triumph over noble adversaries, they too had a share of power and glory.'

- The Consul Antonius, page 100 in my book

It had gotten to a point where the plebs, the lower class of the Roman capital, not only were not bothered by the consolidation of ultimate power in the form of a single man, they craved it, they cheered for it, they felt a part of it. This group had been spurned all too frequently in recent memory and were cool with ditching hundreds of years of history and tradition as a result. Maybe they knew in their bones the difference between what Rome ought to be, what it used to be, and what it was in actuality in their present time. The appeals of the Liberators, earnest or not, did not change that sentiment.

There are people who think this way today. They're the 'burn it all down' contingent. And, while I don't like it or altogether agree, I can see how they got there.