By Raf Priest
Art by Oli Wiencke
Anyone who's been strolling around campus recently will no doubt have seen the numerous posters for the upcoming edition of the Trotsky-ite drum circle. Our campus’ favourite vanguards of the revolution feel that ‘Liberalism can’t defeat the far right but the left can’. I read this poster as I sat on the slowly regrowing Kambri lawns before class, sipping my favourite brew, and got to pondering. I then had a thought, a thought that every man has every day: the answer is the Roman Republic. Only the aggregate of the Senate and the People, the “Senatus Populusque [Romanus]”, can defeat the extremist fringes of our modern day.
For those not versed in the entire history of the State of Rome, the Republic was the incarnation of the Roman state that existed between 509 BCE - 27 BCE. It followed the demise of Monarchy in Rome and was succeeded by the Roman Empire. The politics of the Republic was fundamentally characterised by the elite political class, initially Patrician (aristocratic) but then also wealthy Plebeians, controlling the social, political and military organs. The primary organ of governmental power was the Senate, which oversaw the various Magistracies of the Republic. Roman political hopefuls spent years being trained through different positions of state through the process of Cursus Honorum, or the ‘Course of Honors’ – a structured path of public offices which individuals had to hold in order to progress up the ladder of Magistracies. The Magistracies trained Roman statesmen in government and politics and created an elite political class that directed the advancement of the Republic for over 400 years. However, the fall of the Republic into the imperial era saw the power of the Senate decline and the autonomy of the magistracies hampered by the Emperors. The decline of the Republic was catalysed by individuals, such as Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, breaking the traditional route up the ladder and gaining power by leveraging their wealth with the Roman public. They amassed devoted followings and popularity with their ‘bread and circus’ politics. The public stopped engaging with meaningful politics, instead started blindly following these populists and their simple solutions. These mens’ cults of personality gave them the power to intimidate their way to the top and force their personal wills on the political institutions. But the populism of the strong men ultimately plunged the Republic into civil war and resulted in societal reorganisation; from a republic into a new Roman Empire under the rule of a dynastic autocrat, the ‘Caesars’.
We can see parallels of this decline of the Republican virtues in our modern world. As the institutions and virtues of a liberal world order come under attack by the populist demagoguery from the extremes of all sides of politics, we slowly slide further and further onto the worn tracks of the Republic’s decline. Our politics are on track to become infected with radical populists who have not been trained according to the traditions of government, resulting in a breakdown of these institutions of government. Instead of reasoned and moderate policy governing for all, we end up with slogans devised by those not seeking to govern for all members of society, but seeking to create divisions in society for their own political gain.
We must learn from the decline of the Roman Republic and not be tempted by the simple slogans that divide us into factions or groups. In order to save ourselves from a decline into autocratic dynasties we need to tack back to the centre of politics and bring back the centrist political class who govern for the many, not just create slogans for the extremes. The idea that the populism of the extreme far right can be defeated by the populism of the extreme far left is as fanciful as the idea that the populism of Mark Antony could be defeated by the Populism of Augustus. It merely ends in the dissolution of the institutions of power and re-concentration of this power in the hands of the few.
So contrary to what you might have seen posted on flyers across campus, the antidote to the current political malaise of Western Democracy is not found in the ramblings of the Socialist Alternative but in the lessons taken from the rise and fall of the Roman Republic.
Take CLAS1005 then write this article again.