Rome Reborn on Western Shores: Historical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic

Epilogue: From Republic to Empire: Beyond 1776

217 Epilogue From Republic to Empire: Beyond 1776 His country sav’d Proud Briton’s sons did he subdue; Like Cincinnatus then withdrew, Content like him to take the plough, In vernon’s shade. —An Ode, on the Occasion of George Washington’s Birthday, 1790 What the Founding Fathers feared has indeed come to pass; the President of the United States has become an uncrowned king . . . the Julius Caesar of the American Republic. —hans morgenthau, “The Colossus of Johnson City,” 1966 Are We Rome?” asks a trendy book that compares the United States and the Roman Empire. In light of the return of classical Rome as a common metaphor for the United States this question does not seem as odd as it would have only a few years ago. After a long-term decline in the perceived aptness of Rome as an explanatory model for America, the trend seems to have reversed, with a plethora of comparisons between America’s position in the opening of the third millennium as a sole superpower and the mighty Roman Empire of old.1 Representations of the United States in terms of that ancient republic-turned-empire, which were a mainstay from the revolutionary era until well into the antebellum period, seemed “ rome reborn on Western shores 218 to have receded by the end of the nineteenth century. Although classical allusions occasionally resonated thereafter, the classical societies, with their store of heroes and villains, seemed less and less adequate to explain the modern—not to mention, postmodern—American democracy. All of this changed, however, with the inception of the new world order at the dawning of the third millennium and America’s leading role within the transformed geopolitical situation. It is too easy to forget not only that these allusions to imperial Rome have eighteenth-century origins, but also that this classical idiom demonstrated a remarkable stability throughout the existence of the republic. Acknowledging the roots of the twenty-firstcentury identifications of America as the overextended, declining “Roman Empire” may help to frame the current vocabulary of America as Rome in its historical context. It also demonstrates that the republic’s historical imagination has changed less over the past two centuries than we might have expected. A striking continuity between eighteenth-century and twenty-firstcentury classical discourse is the fascinating and complex role that Julius Caesar and Lucius Cincinnatus have played in American political selffashioning . While Cincinnatus, the retired senator who was called from his plough to save Rome, subsequently retired peacefully from his dictatorship and returned contentedly to his farm, Caesar sealed Rome’s fate by subordinating the republic’s interests to his burning ambition, initiated a civil war, and transformed the republic into an empire. From the early days of the Revolution, Americans looked back at these antithetical models to define the immensity of the perceived danger that certain individuals— “American Caesars”—posed to the republic and identified those who could potentially redeem the United States as “American Cincinnati.”The continuous crowning of American Cincinnati and the condemnation of American Caesars is especially illuminating in light of the radical changes the American republic has endured throughout its existence. While this discourse has involved questions of the first magnitude, it has been carried on within the context of a political culture whose conceptual framework has changed little in more than two centuries. These two classical paradigms have helped Americans throughout the existence of the republic to make sense of their nation’s fears and hopes and to define, and come to terms with, contradictory ideas about leadership, citizenship, politics, and society.2 The continuity in the use of classical discourse demonstrates how 219 Epilogue similar anxieties have haunted America since its inception and still fuel its apprehensions about the Roman-like appearance of the world leadership it has achieved.The presence of homegrown Caesars and Cincinnati gave, and still gives, rise to fears that, like that of Rome, the empire America has gained will consume the republic it so badly wishes to preserve.3 Throughout most of the eighteenth century, Julius Caesar loomed large as one of history’s most compelling figures, whose consuming ambition doomed the Roman republic. Since Caesar’s undeniable merits were acknowledged , from his superior generalship to his literary genius, Americans could occasionally turn a blind eye to his pernicious role in history. The overwhelming attitude toward Caesar was nonetheless negative, and contemporaries regularly portrayed him as...