American grearness
Michael Walsh
Aug. 22, 2018
Near the end of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, in the first century A.D., with the emperor having removed himself from Rome and living out his dissipated life on the Isle of Capri, the Eternal City was gripped by a kind of madness. Plots and rumors of plots were everywhere; senators of high standing and noble birth were accused of everything from treason to the slightest trifle, and were executed—their veins were opened, they were strangled in jail, or they fell on their swords. Noblewomen were banished or murdered on whispers of adultery. To even associate with one who had fallen into the chaos of disfavor was tantamount to a death sentence.
Guilt-by-association was rampant, especially in the wake of the plot by Sejanus—as Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, once numbered among Tiberius’s intimates—against the emperor. Anyone associated with Sejanus effectively was liquidated. The madness persisted through the brief reign of Caligula, and extended into the rule of Claudius and, of course, Nero. Any chance Rome might have had of a restoration of the Republic vanished in a welter of blood and legal savagery. Forget Gibbon’s theory about the destructive nature of Christianity upon the Roman spirit: practically from the birth of Christ, the Empire had already sown the seeds of its destruction in the ambition, venality, and cruelty of men—and all based on a lust for absolute power.
And so here we are. Since the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States—a verdict that rocked official Washington to its foundations—we have been embroiled in a struggle for control of the government that is almost unprecedented in our history.
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https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/22/a-not-so-fine-madness/
