Is America Going Through a Late Roman Moment of Its Own?

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every citizen of every state for the last two thousand years has compared his nation to Rome at some point. Americans considered Geroge Washington their Cincinnatus for taking on supreme power and giving it up once his work was done. Inflation hawks call for a Diocletian to end the debasing of national currency. Upset citizens call their leader a Nero for ignoring a conflagration in favor of musical composition. Americans can’t help but do the same now, especially when 2024 gives so much reason for pessimism and feelings that we are experiencing a late Roman moment of our own.

To discuss this, we are joined by Jeremy Slate, a historian of the Roman Empire (and host of Create Your Life podcast). We delve into the parallels between ancient propaganda (think Virgil's book, The Aeneid, paid for by a Roman Emperor) and the modern echo chamber of 2024's media frenzy.

Drawing inspiration from Diocletian's reforms in Rome's third century, after which Rome lasted nearly 200 years, we discuss whether a contemporary reformer could reshape our tumultuous 2024 landscape and restore stability. In an era of rampant inflation, immigration, and crumbling power structures, the parallels are uncanny.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's going to hear with another episode of the History Unplugged podcast.
0:07.0	Since the Middle Ages, every intellectual has compared his government to Rome.
0:12.0	Rome has been the benchmark of what a good government has looked like,
0:16.0	at least when Rome was running well and not dealing with invasions or out-of-control inflation.
0:20.0	This has been the case in the United States since its beginning, and actually before its beginning,
0:24.0	when the founding fathers self-consciously modeled much of the American government on Rome,
0:28.0	using things like the Electoral College, the Republican model, basing a lot of early American architecture on Roman buildings.
0:34.6	But in the last few years political commentators have been comparing America to Rome like never
0:38.3	before.
0:39.3	More pessimistic takes think that America is in its own late stage Roman period, with some sort of catastrophic fall
0:45.7	or irreversible change on the horizon. People constantly mention crossing the Rubicon, and that's
0:50.1	about as deep as the analysis goes.
0:51.6	Well, in today's episode, we're going to go a lot further with our America to Rome analysis.
0:57.0	See where it lines up, where it doesn't line up, and get a sense about possible features that Rome can present us with.
1:02.0	We're joined by Jeremy Slate, who's research early Rome. about possible features that Rome can present us with.
1:02.8	We're joined by Jeremy Slate, who's researched early Roman imperial propaganda
1:06.1	and is the host of the Create Your Own Life Podcast.
1:08.4	He argues, for example, why 8031 is like 1913 in America, with the beginning of the income tax of Federal Reserve,
1:14.8	the direct election of senators and the changing of the American Republic.
1:18.8	Why FDR was like Caesar in the way that he was able to use the machinery of government to grow his own power.
1:24.0	Why he thinks we are in the tetraqui phase right now, the period in the late third century
1:28.0	when there were four emperors, and how inflation, immigration, propaganda,
	...

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