Sallust and Superpowers

--15 July 2020

            Some of the earliest surviving histories from Rome are the works of Gaius Sallistus Crispus (commonly known as Sallust). Two of his works, The Conspiracy of Cataline and the Jugurthine War, exist in their entirety and we have fragments of a third, The Histories. All three of his works discuss events leading into the period known as the Roman Revolution, the era of civil wars when Rome transitioned from being a Republic to an imperial state. He had personal experience with the wars, as he gave his support to Gaius Julius Caesar from his low-level position in the Senate. If he wrote of his own experiences, however, it has not survived into the modern day.

            The events covered in The Conspiracy of Cataline (during the year 63 BCE), took place when Sallust was a young man, who had not yet entered the Senate and so was not a first-hand witness.[1] Even though he was not a direct witness, he is considered an excellent source because he had access to (some of) the people involved as well as the Senatorial records. His Jugurthine War discusses events that happened about a generation before his birth (the war lasted from 112-105 BCE), but which had immense consequences in his own time. It discusses Gaius Marius, his seven consulships, his changes to the army, and how he and Lucius Cornelius Sula came to be rivals. Their rivalry culminated in a short civil war which set the precedent for the later war between Caesar and Pompey, in which Sallust participated. And while it’s this work that gives the story, it’s commentary in his Conspiracy of Cataline that offers an interpretation for why these events came to pass.

            Sallust, like many Roman historians, sees a gradual but unmistakable decline in the strength and morality of the Roman people over the course of the Republic. Unlike others who seem to simply lament the loss of the past (Tacitus in particular) Sallust has a reason: Rome destroyed all other powers who could match it and so became the sole power over most of the Mediterranean. With no external enemies against which to prove themselves, the Romans fell to fighting each other. Before (and during) the Punic Wars, Romans who wished to cover themselves in glory looked to do so for the benefit of the Republic. Great Roman generals and statesmen, like Scipio Africanus, Cincinnatus, and Quintus Fabius Maximus, gained notoriety for themselves while fighting for the good of the Senate and People of Rome. After Carthage was destroyed, Romans who wished to gain notoriety did so by vying with each other politically. Sallust sees this as damaging to the state, eventually leading to repeated civil wars. Sallust did not live long enough to see the completion of Rome’s transition to an imperial monarchy, but I can’t imagine he would have been surprised by the result.

            It has long been said that the United States is following in the footsteps of the Roman Republic, and not without reason. The men who put together the American government consciously echoed Rome in the creation of a Senate, an executive with the power of veto, and, in general, with the idea of a republic in the first place. But the comparison didn’t really work its way into the culture until after the Second World War. After that war, the United States found itself in a position of unprecedented power in the world. The US was even able to dictate the terms of aid to the Allies with the Marshall Plan. However, the largest contributor to the success of the Allies, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was refused any aid, financial or otherwise, by the US. This contributed to the development of a Cold War between the two powers, though hot proxy wars were fought in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

As Carthage and Rome had divided the Mediterranean between them, the United States and the USSR divided the world. They balanced each other—when one pushed, the other pushed back. Carthage moved into Spain, Rome pushed back. So it was with the Cold War: if the Soviets pushed into Western Europe, the US (and NATO) pushed back; the Soviets travelled into orbit, the Americans went to the Moon, and so on. Yes, in both republics there were political squabbles and serious domestic issues which were ignored, but the general picture was of a united republic, in which the people had roughly the same goals, even if the citizens disagreed on how to get there.

            The Cold War ended with the slow collapse of the USSR over the course of the last decades of the Twentieth Century. Their resources were stretched thin by involvement in war in Afghanistan, the ongoing arms race against the United States, and (perhaps most prominent) the Chernobyl disaster. The destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was the symbolic end of the Cold War, while the signing of various treaties over the next two years allowed American President George H. W. Bush to say officially that the Cold War had ended. And, not only had it ended, but the Capitalist West, as represented by the United States, had won. Though it had, of course, always been there, it did not take long for infighting to come to the fore. The next decade saw further solidification of political ideology, exemplified by the activities in the 1992 Presidential Election, eventually leading to the election of Bill Clinton, the successful Republican campaign to take a majority in the House in 1994 (commonly known as the Contract with America), the impeachment of President Clinton, and, finally, the fiasco that was the 2000 Presidential Election.

            The 2000 election was decided extra-constitutionally by the Supreme Court in a decision that explicitly said the justices understood the unique nature of the case and that Bush v. Gore should never be used as precedent to decide on issues in future elections. From two decades on, one can see Bush v. Gore as a flashpoint for the increased partisanship in the US and the current frame of mind that causes members of each party to believe that the other seeks to destroy the country and therefore must be stopped at all costs.

            The situation in Sallust’s Rome was not terribly different. Roman politics was less organized around parties (though they did exist) and more focused on individuals in power and their ideas. People could and did change affiliation regularly. The split that came about during the civil war had more to do with the personalities of the men at the head of each faction than party loyalty. Gnaeus Pompey Magnus represented the Senatorial faction, who presented themselves as the defenders of the Republic, but whose true commonality was hatred of the leader of the other faction: Gaius Julius Caesar. Caesar also presented himself and his actions as seeking to protect the form and function of the Roman government. In reality, both men, and their factions, were fighting for their personal primacy. After he won, Caesar “restored” the Senate and made a point of appearing to be directed by them, even as they named him Dictator.[2]  Caesar’s successor, Octavian (later Augustus), fought a similarly organized civil war against Marcus Antonius, but had the advantage of spinning it as a foreign war because of the influence of Cleopatra. When he won, he also did his best to assure the appearance of Senatorial control while at the same time possessing offices which allowed him to override the legislative body any time he liked. After nearly fifty years of his rule, the Senate was little more than a consulting group, but still appeared to observe all of the forms. Augustus’ successors would not be so subtle.

This essay is the first in a series of comparative essays about the Roman Republic and the United States. The collapse of the Republic was a great deal more nuanced than the political rivalries discussed above, as is the current American political state cannot be simplified to the way the Cold War played out. I am aware what I’ve said above presents a nostalgic view of the postwar United States; I know I’m leaving out the racism, sexism, and xenophobia inherent to the American way of life in this period. But, in my defense, so was Sallust. The Romans didn’t have quite the same issues: the societal construct required for racism wasn’t there, sexism was inherent to their patriarchal society, but they would not have seen it as we do, and xenophobia was not an issue for a country which could conquer and integrate the conquered. The main issues Sallust was (actively) ignoring were those associated with the class structure, which were recognized and written about at the time. These class issues are also factors in the collapse of the Republic, which is why most histories of the era begin with at least some mention of the Gracchi brothers’ efforts to redistribute land being illegally held by upper classes to the very poor in and around Rome. I’ll be covering that an more in the next few weeks as we continue this series.

[1] He entered the Senate in 55 BCE.

[2] The Roman office of Dictator was not what we think of in the modern sense: a dictator was elected by the Senate during a time of emergency for a limited period (usually six months) after which he would have to step down. The era in which Caesar was given the title certainly qualified as one of emergency, but he was given the office indefinitely.