The U.S. Faces the Same Risks Ancient Rome Faced in Caesar’s Day
Story by Jeffrey E. Schulman / Made by History • 20h •
Special prosecutors’ investigations of Joe Biden and Donald Trump do not mark the first time political tensions spilled into the justice system.
On Jan. 10, 49 B.C., Julius Caesar marched across the Rubicon river into Italy, launching a civil war against the Roman Republic. His reputed exclamation—iacta alea est, the die is cast—is famous. His reasons for fighting are more obscure. Though Caesar was certainly ambitious, it was not a desire for power that forced him to cross the river. It was legal danger.
Over his early career, Caesar had shown little respect for the law and constitutional norms, but neither had his conservative opponents. Corruption and political violence had become common while the justice system increasingly served as a political tool. Caesar had become governor of Gaul (modern France) due to the support of the elderly general Pompey and, while governor, he was immune from prosecution. But as Caesar’s governorship was expiring, Pompey turned on him. The old general devoted his army to the defense of the Republic, supporting officials who planned to charge Caesar with serious crimes. Pompey’s alliance with the conservatives pushed Caesar into a political corner. He only had one way out.
It’s hard not to see the resemblance between Caesar’s day and our own. Both featured conflict between populist politicians and a conservative establishment, which spiraled from legislative gridlock to the politicization of the criminal justice system. Resentment begot extreme measures and such measures demanded still sharper replies. While America’s military remains happily apolitical, Roman armies escalated the conflict from the courts to the battlefield. Officials who filed charges spurred outrage and sharpened the divides that would lead Rome to autocracy in the coming decades, a risk the United States may face today.
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