LRFotS Bardelys the Magnificent once commented, a few years ago – I think – that March is a fun month, because you get all the silly holidays packed into the space of a few days. We start with Pi Day, then the Ides of March – aka “Caesar Stabbification Day” – and then St. Patrick’s Day.
The latter is, of course, known as “Kegger & Sawdust Day”, and involves a lot of drunken idiots who think they are Irish, dressed in green, doing stupid things while I over the VIII, and is a day regarded by pub-owners as a great day, and pub-goers as a horrible one. But we’ll get to that on Tuesday.
Today, though, we acknowledge – “celebrate” is perhaps too strong a word – the day when Julius Caesar got KILLED TO DEATH by the Roman Senate, a few years after he openly defied their calls to stand down from power, crossed the Rubicon with his legions, tand became, effectively, a Dictator for life.
There is rather more to the story than just that, of course. The decline and fall of Republican Rome took a long time to unfold. The seeds of Caesar’s ascension were sown long before, due to the increasing dissatisfaction and discontent of the plebeians, the ordinary citizens of the Republic, with the governance of their patrician betters. It was the classic argument between the landowners and the land-working peasants, which we only sort of resolved as a species with the advent of the modern industrial economy (and not very well at that, either).
The first attempts to rectify the situation came with the Gracchus Brothers – who failed to make a significant impact. The second was the dictatorship of Sulla. The third, and conclusive, one was Caesar’s successful rebellion. But his victory was only possible because of reforms to the Roman legions that took place long before him – in large part thanks to the work of his predecessor, Marius, who ensured that the legions swore loyalty to their general, and NOT to the Senate.
The circumstances of Caesar’s assassination uncomfortably parallel what we see today. The Roman “Republic” had long before turned into a proper empire, with overseas territories, holdings, vassals, bases, and so on and so forth. The demands of empire stretched and frayed the social fabric between the citizens and their rulers. The glory and greatness of Roman civilisation masked structural weaknesses and stresses that threatened to undermine the entire construct. Into the fray stepped a series of populist heroes – who all failed to make much of an impact, until Caesar came along.
The landowners, feeling the threat, decided to eliminate it, and in the process, they sparked the single most serious structural crisis Rome had ever known up to that point. It very nearly destroyed the Roman world, until Octavian won out and stabilised things. Thus began, over time, the two-century-long period of total Roman dominance over the ancient world – which then culminated again in a series of structural crises that shattered the empire.
It is a cycle as old as civilisation itself. A nation rises to greatness, creates for itself an empire, and falls prey to the trappings of that venture, before collapsing back into ignominy, never to attain its former glory ever again.
Americans should pay attention to this cycle – or at least, they might, if only their appallingly poor adolt edjoomuhcayshun system would permit it.
In the meantime – happy Caesar Stabbity Day, and by the way, everyone here, myself included, mispronounces the name, “Caesar”. The “C” is not a sibilant. It is a consonant. There is a REASON why the two civilisations that inherited the term, use a hard or semi-soft consonant to pronounce the word that corresponds to “Emperor” in those languages. In German, it is “Kaiser” – and in Russian, it is Царь (“Tsar’”).
Anyone, here endeth the historye lessone.
1 Comment
Don’t forget Mario Day (March 10, “MAR10”) which is a stupid “holiday” on the level of “Star Wars Day.”
Am I the only one who can’t stand how popular culture has been owned lock, stock and barrel by Reddit nerds for like 25 years now? As a reformed one myself, I’m heavily in favor of shoving all of them back into lockers/the dark corners of the internet where they belong. Like Chris Rock ‘s famous bit, there are nerds and what I call “f***in’ nerds,” and it’s the latter who ruin everything for those of us who are passionate about things but can otherwise pass as normal people. 🙂