Review: Are We Rome? by Cullen Murphy
A comparison of two imperial systems, where one went and where one is headed-maybe.
The question Cullen Murphy asks, and kind of answers, Are We Rome? Is often asked by historians and researchers, even if the form is different.
Relatively recently, Peter Turchin in Ages of Discord and William Strauss and Neil Howe of The Fourth Turning fame see upheavals as the cycles play out, but not absolute collapse.
Of the collapse genre, an easy and pleasant survey of empires that ran their course is Sir John Bagot Glubb's The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.
I became aware of Glubb when a college classmate's copy of A Soldier With the Arabs came to my attention. Sir John, taking over the Arab Legion in 1939, would build it into the best Arab army. He would also write extensively about the Arabs.
In 1978, the man would write his survey of imperial states and how they fared over time. Glubb saw them as being time limited, around ten generations, or about 250 years.
If we look at the American state as beginning on July 4, 1776, our rise to imperial power status has not long to go if we take the generals time frame seriously.
Glubb's analysis was in no way politically correct. As the book was published in 1978, he could get away with much. As it is, it is hard to find a copy on Amazon of this short, but to the point book.
As a little boy, I heard the words "Roman Empire" and asked at dinner what that was. My parents, not college grads, hardly had the erudition of a professor, but did have a store of knowledge on the subject that they shared to whet my appetite and learn more.
At our local branch, the two librarians were always happy to provide books to curious children and checked me out a volume that began with Romulus and Remus and ended with the last emperor in the west, Romulus Augustulus.
Though it was a bit above what a child in the lower grades might usually read, it gripped me and when done with it, I had become a history nerd, and would learn there was a continuation of Rome at Constantinople until 1453 A.D.
So, I was drawn to Cullen Murphy's Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America as a moth to the flame.
As a short study of the imperial states, it is engaging. Its conclusions can be debated.
One would expect no less than a well thought out book on any subject from Cullen Murphy. He has had a long career of literary accomplishment, and was for many years the editor of the Atlantic. Murphy has several books to his credit on subjects as diverse as the Spanish Inquisition and women in the Bible through time.
An interesting aspect of the author is that he is the son of the man who drew the Prince Valiant comic strips. This suggests an interest in history might run in his veins.
In the prologue section, Comparative Anatomy, Murphy mentions how "historians are skeptical of trying to draw explicit "lessons" from history" and then explores some examples. Are we Rome? came out in 2007, and though still timely, history never stops. It brought to your reviewer's mind January 6, 2021 compared with 387 BC.
The events of January 6 were high-lighted in the major media as the worst event ever to happen to "our democracy." There is a bit of a parallel with Rome that is interesting enough, but should not be taken too far.
In 387 BC, a Gallic tribe defeated the Romans and entered the city. While the able bodied went to the Capitol, the older senators stayed to meet their fate unarmed and were slaughtered.
Contrast that with the elected representatives who were beset by a mob in early 2021. Did our solons go out and confront the horde face to face?
No, they evacuated when they could. No one expected them to stick around. They are not an aristocratic class, but elected men. They will eventually be rewarded by a pension and maybe an easy job somewhere in DC. The Roman aristocracy might have thought themselves as the state, not just part of it.
To further digress, the party rancor in Congress continues, with fighting over a January 6th Commission proving whatever Clausewitz said, in Washington politics is war by other means.
The first chapter, The Capitals, is sub-titled Where Republic Meets Empire. That might be a little misleading, and it might not. Rome had an empire before Augustus received the title. The form of a republic might be followed, but by the time of Sulla, the game was up.
With around 800 overseas bases, this country cannot be anything but an empire.
We have elections, though there is now much controversy with the arguments regarding voting rights. One should hope that is resolved amicably, but in my lifetime, disagreement about who casts a ballot and how has never been worse.
On Page 128, Murphy cites the scene in the movie Spartacus where Crassus tells the slave of Rome's irresistible might. He then looks at a much-repeated remark made to reporter Ron Susskind by a Bush administration official: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously, as you will-we'll act again, creating other new realities which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
The Captals highlights the similarities of imperial metropolises. Murphy's exposition of all that is wonderfully done. Rome and that city on the Potomac were and are where everything ends up.
Granted, there is no annona, that is the huge levy of the ingredients for the free bread given to residents, but what taxes bring to D.C. can be at least somewhat analogous. The author's comparisons remind one that we have a bloated seat of government and to wonder how long this can go on?
The question will eventually answer itself, but the governing class seems to think it can go on forever.
Are we Rome? was published in 2007, but much has happened since then. The Afghanistan expedition was seen for what it was, a debacle and it was ended, maybe not in an Adrianople moment, but it was unpleasant to watch.
No matter, we are "pivoting" aggressively toward China.
Since Mr. Murphy's book, the nation has seen the rise of a virus. For good or ill, the state came down with a heavy hand and divisions that arose during the Trump years have continued.
The national government continues to grow with the administration proposing a mammoth spending program that the president and spokespeople insist will pay for itself. Good luck with that.
Reckless spending and pandemics have happened before and eventually the pain of the consequences subsides.
Not having considered some retrenchment after Afghanistan and engaging with a nuclear adversary is not a great idea. Nuclear war is something Rome never had to consider.
The author looked at the problem of non-Romans in the armed forces and how that compares to our use of contractors. His examination is apt, and the inevitability of the practice leading to no good, should give us pause, but it probably won't.
As there are not enough underclass Americans to feed the imperial maw, it can only get worse under current conditions. Neocon warmonger and sinecurista Max Boot is all for foreign enlistments. It has never in history been a good idea, but it is inevitable in empires.
The spiral is downward.
Cullen Murphy sees decline, or at least change at best in a problematic way.
Mr. Murphy does have some suggestions. Actually, he has a plan. The Titus Livius plan named after the historian more commonly known as Livy.
One might say, he wishes to stop the rot and suggests we start by instilling "an appreciation of the wider world." The author is so glad for immigrants and foreign students to tutor us about the world they bugged out of.
Learning a foreign language will help "drive home the idea that "we are not alone"…" As someone in the hundred-year program to learn one of the Roman successor languages, I value the idea of knowing how to speak another tongue, but this part of the plan does not seem to be a profound answer.
What it does bring to mind, at least to this dow-market scrivener, is that the up market intellectual values the other over his proletarian countrymen. He does worry about outsourcing government functions, but the derelict factories that are along New England highways and the jobs that are gone does not seem to enter his consciousness. That class of his countrymen and women are not to be concerned about, but he might think of what has been lost. Chesterton wrote, "The strength of the aristocracy is not in the aristocracy at all; it is in the slums."
But who cares about them?
Next up, love Big Brother, "Second, stop treating government as a necessary evil. And instead rely on it proudly for the big things it can do." Don't overdo privatization, and don't forget the social security check that comes each month.
Should we forget that there is a looming crisis of SS funding as the system that began with collection at 65 and average age of death 63 is now unsustainable? The ship of state will sail through those waters if we all merrily row together.
As part of the plan, the author comes out for "national service." Many "progressives" claim to be for that, at least in the abstract. Most recently, with the ill-fated billionaire vanity campaign of Tom Steyer.
Mr. Murphy opines, "and yes should be the answer to a program of national service for all young people, which would revive the militia ethic of long ago. "We're all in it together" is a spirit that Rome lost. Nothing says "uan naishion, indivisibol" like national service."
It is not clear if by national service he means military service or some kind of "we are the world" do gooderism. It is hard to see that not becoming a joke with upper middle class and above getting the plumbs. One can hear the next generation Hunters and Ivankas saying "We give so much; you get the mop."
As an undergraduate during the Vietnam war, I remember how the draft ended due to reaction over an unfair system. I hope the author has really thought this out.
Our official think tank, The Long Hill Institute for a Military That Stays Out of Stupid Wars and Does Not Cause Needless Division Among Classes (TLHIfaMTSOoSWaDNCkNDAC for short), has, I daresay, given more thought to this than the author. We have seen our nation's trajectory go from the end of the draft and Vietnam to a state of permanent war.
As our intellectual class often looks to foreign examples to follow, so shall we, but first it is important to ask the question correctly, so we shall try.
What democracy has near complete involvement of the country in its defense (national service), but never goes to war?
That would be Switzerland.
Up in those Alps, everybody goes, no exceptions. Such a system does not produce a political or intellectual class hot to monger for war.
The Long Hill Institute sees the value in that, not because it is fair, though the Swiss system comes close.
More, it is because mass participation will do much to make war not so popular, A system where not only BillyBob, Miguel and Deshawn learn the pleasure of low crawling in the mud, but are joined by Brent, just out of prep school for a gap year, will do something for that desired "We're all in it together" thing.
But it has to be everybody, at least in the initial service. The kids of the elite can't just escape into ROTC.
Though Are We Rome? is a pleasure to read as it compares the mega states, there are a couple of aspects that are left out.
What came as close as anything to sinking the Roman Empire was the existential crisis of inflation. The coinage became so debased that Diocletian issued a "Decree of Commanded Cheapness." The people were required to accept the worthless money at fiat prices, yet even under penalty of death, it was ignored.
Constantine solved the problem and instituted one of history's most successful currencies, the Solidus. It was a pillar the Eastern Empire would rest on.
And how did that emperor work this miracle? The emperor looted the pagan temples and institutions of their gold.
I learned of this in Western Civ class after being assigned Constantine and the Conversion of Europe by A.H.M. Jones. Jones' book starts with the accession of Diocletian to the throne and proceeds through the rise of Constantine and his sponsoring of the new faith.
Jones' account of Constantine's affection for Christianity is that it was sincere, but on Page 186, he writes of the emperor's monetary reform; "his success was mainly due to his confiscation of the temple treasures, which enabled him and his sons to keep up an abundant and pure issue."
Does this have any relevance to us today? On Long Hill, we believe so.
In 1971 President Nixon closed the "Gold Window." This meant the US would no longer redeem the dollar in gold. Over the next few years inflation started to rage. It was stanched by the activities of a Federal Reserve Chairman, but never ended.
The dollar has declined in slow motion, but debasement has continued. The house my father bought for $12,000 in a working-class neighborhood in 1954 would fetch several hundred thousand dollars now.
The impact that has had on home ownership is unpleasant, but we have to live with it.
Currently, it feels like the inflation of the 70s has returned. Many policy people and experts refer to it as transitory. Maybe so, but if it can't be controlled, we have no temples to loot.
There are some measures we can take and they are involved with larger issues.
Rome, as she expanded had land borders with other nations and could not just escape. There were only three possibilities: expand, retreat, or stabilize the border. Circumstances determined the course of action.
The United States has a choice Rome did not have, sail home. Jean-Jules Jusserand, the long-serving French Ambassador to the US in the first quarter of the 20th Century, observed of our country, "On the north, she has a weak neighbor; on the south, another weak neighbor, on the east, fish, and on the west, more fish."
One can hear think tankers and others of the chattering class screaming that horrible things will happen in the world. An exemplar of the class, Robert Kagan of Brookings published an article in the March/April Foreign Affairs, "A Superpower, Like It or Not: Why Americans Must Accept Their Global Role." Like all such screed, it is more assertion than argument.
Indeed, can anything be more insane than risking nuclear war with China over Taiwan. The U.S. recognizes Taiwan as part of China, yet, the Blinken State Department calls for it to be admitted to the UN.
To paraphrase Mr. Dickens' words, "If this is the way we treat our foreign policy, we don't deserve to have one."
Unlike Rome, we can sail away from our mistakes. The world can be a mess without us.
Constantine had another great success and it was named after him, Constaniople.* The main aspects of the story, the empire is too big for one empire and Diocletian instituted the system of Co-Augusti and Constantine would build the city of his name at one of geography's most strategic points. The decaying city on the Tiber would end its imperial pretensions, and that would be that more or less.
So what has that to do with our imperial capital?
Not so glad you didn't ask. Let's be creative, and abandon Potomacville. If one thinks about it, it is an imposition on the rest of the country as the anonna feeds an army of bureaucrats who enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow countrymen and women, even if they are all performing their tasks superlatively, which only those who have taken of leave of their senses believe.
Whether or not Mr. Murphy agrees, he made the case that DC is a bloated imperial behemoth. What to do?
This is a question that we have been pondering on Long Hill for near a decade and have come up with the neo-Constantinople plan.
We can and should move the seat of government to a place that is not as comfortable as the well air-conditioned beltway complex. A hard climate is what the ruling class needs. This question was a subject that we wrote about in the November, 2012 Sturbridge Times Magazine and republished on Substack.
In it was referenced a cross-country excursion wherein a camping stop was made in Wyoming. It was June and it was one of the coldest nights I've ever spent. I wouldn't wish such a climate on my worst enemy. The solons, justices of the Supreme Court, the president and all the rest of the apparatchiks and nomenklatura are a different story.
One might say that it is callous not to care about the real estate values of that class and the losses they will suffer in either becoming redundant or having to move. Our answer on Long Hill is that we are as solicitous of their net worth as they are of ours.
There you have both Mr. Murphy's suggestions to save the polity and ours. Of one eventuality both of us can be confident, neither the suggestions of the author or the reviewer will be taken up. Either a geopolitical apocalypse will occur or inertia will see us drift into a safe harbor despite all the problems.
If that happens, both of us can just say never mind.
Mr. Murphy appeared on Bloggingheads.tv for a discussion of the book the year it was published. It’s interesting to watch and linked here.
*If you are interested in learning just how successful an entity Constantine’s, you could do worse than read the thoughts of Sean Gabb.