Publius

by universal consent the greatest soldier and statesman of his day

The Federalist Papers were published anonymously. Hamilton, Maddison and Jay wrote under the pseudonym Publius. When they did this, they did it deliberately and they brought to mind the great Roman statesman about whom Livy wrote the comment I quoted above. What is significant is that that statesman- Publius Valerius- was a contemporary of Brutus and a founder of the Roman republic- yet he is often forgotten today, obscured by the fame of Lucius Junius Brutus and the splendour of the immediate resistance to Tarquin. But for Livy and for the authors of the Federalist Publius was equally if not more important: when Plutarch wrote his lives of the Romans and Greeks, he paired Publius with the famous Athenian constitutional lawgiver, Solon. The implication was obvious- Solon's fame remains to this day as the possibly fictional lawgiver of Athenian democracy- to place Publius beside him was to place him in a similar position within the history of the Roman republic. He not Brutus the regicide was the instigator for Plutarch of the successes of Rome.

What about Livy though? The quotation above demonstrates the high esteem with which Livy held Publius. And what I want to do in the rest of this essay is demonstrate that Publius for Livy was an archetype of what a Republican statesman looked like. Brutus was killed soon after Rome was converted from a monarchy. Valerius became sole consul and then served four further times in the supreme office of the Republic. Valerius was important both as a general and as a leglislator. As a leglislator he brought in measures which made it possible for any man to ascend to the consulship, which allowed the people to kill without judgement in court any man who desired to gain the crown and gave people the right of appeal against the magistrate. (II 8) Valerius was responsible for a number of Roman tactical victories when the city was invaded by the King of Clusium: he constructed an ambush in which several Etruscan soldiers died (II 10) and was responsible for driving away the first invasion of the Tarquins and the citizens of Veii (II 6). From Livy, we can derive the impression that Valerius was the most important citizen in Rome for a time: he was consul four out of the six years that he lived after the foundation of the Republic and in one of the years in which he was not consul, his brother Marcus held the honour. (II 15) It is significant as well that Rome created the office of dictator after the death of Valerius- the office was explicitly linked to the defence- and in previous years when under pressure, Rome, Livy tells us, elected Valerius to the consulship. (II 15)

Valerius faced one major crisis that Livy sees fit to explain in his rule of the Republic and this explains a recurrent theme in Roman history. After Brutus's death for a while Valerius was sole consul: Livy tells us that when he was sole consul suspision grew about his motives, people feared that he might desire the crown. 'Rumour' Livy tells us 'had it that he was aiming at the monarchy' (II 7) because he had constructed a great house on the hill at Velia and because he had failed to replace Brutus with another consul. Valerius addressed this by making a speech to the Roman population- tieing in usefully another great theme of Roman history, the importance of oratory- and

dwelt on the good fortune of his colleague who, having set Rome free, had held the highest office in the land and had died fighting for his country at the very peak of his fame, before the breath of envy could tarnish its brightness. 'While I,' he went on 'have outlived my good name. I have survived only to face your accusations and your hate. Once hailed as the liberator of my country, I have sunk in your eyes to the baseness of traitors like the Aquilii and Vitellii. Will you never find in any man merit so tried and tested as to be above suspision? How could I, the bitterest enemy of monarchy, ever have believed I should have faced the charge of covetting a throne? If I lived in the fortress of the capitol itself, could I ever have thought that my own fellow-citizens would be afraid of me? Can my reputation be blown away by so slight a breath? Are the foundations of my honour so insecure that you judge me more by where I live than what I am? No my friends, no house of mine shall threaten your liberties. The Velia shall hold no dangers. I'll build my house on the level- more I'll build it at the very base of the hill so that you can live above me and keep a wary eye on the fellow citizen you mistrust. Houses on the Velia must be reserved for men better to be trusted with Rome's liberty than I. (II 7)

This speech, crafted by Livy rather than Valerius, demonstrates in my opinion the historian's sagacity in that it shows the way that image not reality dominates politics. It is the house on the Velia that infuriates and the consul's destruction of that house led to the recovery of his reputation. But there is more to this than merely that. What Livy is also considering here is a set of problems at the heart of any republic- a set that Livy's own contemporaries had cause to consider deeply.

Valerius stood so high in the state that he overtook any other rival. Eminence and distinguished service made him the priniciple citizen- the title of course that Octavian took rather than King when he became Emperor (hence the fact that historians call the early empire, the Principate). The problem here is simple- that it is easy to make the transition from Valerius to Octavian. Eminence is the enemy of Republics. Something that Livy would have known from the many examples before him in more recent history- Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Octavian, even perhaps Cicero. That problem of eminence and too much power being attracted by it is one that dominates Roman history as we have it. But Roman history is dominated by another force- also given testament by Valerius's speech and that is the fickle mob (II 6) who had begun to distrust the consul. The problems of the Republic are compounded by the presence of the mob and the man of greatness- we have seen that the one can create tyrants, the second creates Kings and Kings lead inexorably to tyrants. So the history of the Republic was a search for an accomodation- for moderating the passions of the mob through institutional frameworks and accomodating the greatness of individuals within the legal forms of constitutionalism. Livy thus in his first account of Rome's formation offers us in Valerius Publius a model of the problem that politicians created in the Republic. It is interesting to reflect therefore on the choice of Publius by those great readers of Livy, Hamilton, Jay and Maddison as their pseudonym.

A last thing remains to be said about Publius- because of course he was able to diffuse that feeling of suspision and he did not create or seek to create a monarchy- though he did Livy tells us seek popularity (II 8). Publius became known as Publicola- the people's friend- and in a sense that was because he had, in Livy's terms, presented the perfect model of the way a man of eminence should behave. Giving up more than the population wanted in terms of recognition to avoid the fear that he might desire more than they were willing to give- serving and not subjugating the state so that even after his demise the legal forms of republicanism survived to another generation. Whether Livy also means this career as a warning is an interesting question- there is an element in Livy's story that implies Publicola was rare as a man of distinction and true Republican ethics- by Livy's time men of distinction were still available but few had the ethics to turn away from cementing a position of principal citizen into a position as Princeps and Emperor.

Fathers and Sons

Tyrannies for Livy were the regimes of families. When Tarquin was driven from Rome, he appealed to the Etruscan cities for aid on the basis of his children and their new found poverty (2.6), when the untrustworthy young rich Romans rebelled they rebelled to find a regime of friends instead of one of laws (2.2). Livy found that the early history of the republic demonstrated that this regime was different. The character in particular of two of the early consuls- Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Horatius Pulvillus demonstrated that Republican politicians had to separate their private and their public personas.

Let us take these two incidents in which Brutus and Horatius rejected claim of family for that of public duty. Both are interesting- one demonstrates the way that Republican politicians in Livy's view should act, the other the way that they have to act. In the first year of the Republic, as we have already seen, various young noblemen decided to plot against the new regime. They were swiftly found out. Amongst them were two of the sons of Brutus- they were both prosecuted, and then:

The Consuls [including Brutus] took their seats upon the tribunal; the lictors were ordered to carry out their sentence. The prisoners were stripped, flogged and beheaded. Throughout the pitiful scene all eyes were on the father's face where a father's anguish could be seen. (2.6)

Brutus's action in allowing his sons to fall victim to the law is one that we are supposed to admire- the actions of his sons, according to Livy, had 'betray[ed] the entire population of Rome, high and low alike, and all her Gods.' (2.6) Brutus performed the action and demonstrated through performing it that the law rose above his personal feelings, despite his anguish, he executed his sons.

Brutus's example was important in later history- in comparison the second incident I wish to narrate is almost forgotten. However it is almost as important in demonstrating the way that Livy wished to portray the change in Roman history. After Brutus died in battle (which I will deal with elsewhere), Marcus Horatius Pulvillus was appointed consul. Horatius was consul with Publius Valerius. When the two consuls first met, they drew lots as to which would conduct the continuing war against the Tarquins and which would dedicate the temple of Jupiter- Livy leaves us in no doubt that the more prestigous service was the latter. Valerius's family went and told Horatius that his son was dying, Horatius though preferred to continue consecrating the temple- rather than go to seek his son. Public duties came first in Roman republicanism- not merely in terms of ideology but in terms of politics too. The only use for private emotion was an attempt to deceive a consul into losing a prestigous post.

Both of these instances though demonstrate that peculiar Roman quality of stoicism in a particular context- that of family. I think what they really are about is the idea that the state for public officials comes first. In this sense Livy is endorsing an idea which would acheive its full expression centuries later in the work of Machiavelli that the moral world of the statesman and the moral world of the citizen are very different. The priorities of the statesmen are to support the law and carry out his duties- that of the citizen are to enact his private duties. What the case of Brutus demonstrates is that Livy thinks that the first state is morally preferable, what he demonstrates in the case of Horatius is that the magistrate is politically advantaged by adopting the first stance too. In this sense tyranny brings together the private and the public- a tyrant is a man who can afford private passion- whereas a republican has to put the state first whilst he is acting in a civic fashion. This argument is one that will reappear through Livy's history- and if I have not captured it well here- there will be plenty of occasions when we return to it in this commentary.

The establishment of the Roman Republic

My task from now on will be to trace the history in peace and of a free nation, governed by annually elected officers of state and subject not to the caprice of individual men, but to the overarching authority of law. (II.1)

Livy begins his second book with these words, marking the transition from a Kingdom to the Republic. Of course this transition is crucial to Livy's theme- he wants us to observe the Republic at work, its principle and eventually its fall. His enterprise changes its nature with the expulsion of Tarquin- and one can see that very clearly, before the events of 509BC, Livy describes the Roman state by reference to its rulers, afterwards he describes it by reference to the annual consuls. The form of the state changes and therefore the form of Livy's dating- the most essential part of any history- changes- the frame of the work becomes Republican.

Livy's description of this transition is not merely the description of a long awaited revolt. Indeed he tells us that all the Kings of Rome from Romulus to Servius Tullius might have considered themselves the founder of Rome (II.1) and it is Livy's opinion that 'it cannot be doubted that Brutus, who made for himself so great a name by the expulsion of Tarquin, would have done his country the greatest disservice, had he yielded too soon to his passion for liberty and forced the abdication of any of the previous Kings' (II.1). It is worth us asking why this is true- for what it establishes is the basic condition upon which a Republic can be established. Livy's argument is not that Republics are always better than Monarchies or Tyrannies, rather it is that they are better given a precise set of circumstances.

It is important that we understand Livy's meaning here. There are two elements I wish to draw attention to- and both are contained within the quotation I gave above, though Livy clarifies what he means below in the text. The first is that Livy beleived that there could be no republic without a free people. He argues that the 'rabble' that early Rome was composed of would have 'set sail upon the stormy sea of democracy' without the early Kings: and we should recall how close to a tyrant, Livy deems the Democratic leader. The people must be capable therefore of exercising their freedom with deliberation- and this aristocratic concern about republicanism casts a long shadow through Roman and later history. For Livy republicanism must rest on the sure foundation of a patriotism which 'comes slowly and springs from the heart... founded upon true respect for the family and love of the soil'. (II 1) Livy also argues that it took a while for Republicanism to develop fully in Rome- the first consuls for him 'exercised the full powers of Kings' (II 1).

When Livy describes a free people, he does not merely mean a people with the ability to deliberate. He also means that the people are free from domination by others. Brutus, by Livy's account, forced the people of Rome to swear an oath that they would never return the country to kingship (II 1), nobody therefore might fear the reimposition of royal authority. Furthermore the young Republic expelled Collatinus (Lucretia's husband) because he was related to the Tarquins- the entire family were driven out because of the danger of creating a reversionary interest (II 2). That as Brutus put it was an 'insuperable barrier' to liberty, mimicking the French and later Russian revolutionaries, Brutus argued that only the extermination of the royal house might preserve the revolutionary regime (II 2). It is in the opposition to this sentiment that we can descry its full features. The oppositiion to this movement was led, for Livy, by young aristocrats who reasoned that

'under a monarchy there was room for influence and favour; a King could be angry and forgive, he knew the difference between a friend and an enemy. Law, on the other hand, was impersonal and inexorable. Law had no ears. An excellent thing for paupers, it was worse than useless for the great, as it admitted no relaxation or indulgence to a man who ventured beyond the bounds of mediocrity.' (II 3)

These aristocrats were arguing against an equal republic- a republic in which favour and finance could not buy the relaxation of the law. The point about this Livyan construction is that popular freedom goes together with freedom from domination internally and the freedom to be equal. In a state without equality before the law- ie without the capacity to be sure that the rich man and poor man will be judged the same- there is no freedom. Livy beleived that such a state was analogous to tyranny.

This radical attitude towards the creation of a commonwealth through sentiment and towards freedom's identity with authority characterises Livy's commentary on the distinctions between the Roman Republic and the Roman monarchy. He digresses into this analysis in my view to make a point about the way that societies function. It is on the one hand their own fault if they decay into monarchy, but on the other when looking at a society the degree of its freedom can be assessed from the degree of the freedom of the poorest from relying on the favour of the richest both in terms of personal power and law. Livy was no socialist- this is not a socialist manifesto. Rather it is a small farmer's manifesto- calling everyone back to the family and to the soil- Livy is seeking to make an argument for an idyllic arcadian society that probably never existed, but from which Rome's decline can be inferred. There is one element though that we need to deal with in Livy's description of the Republic, and it is as Machiavelli saw much later, the element which makes for instability and that is the Republic's relationship with other Republics and Monarchies. That though takes us into a world Tacitus would have recognised- and the world that Gibbon was later to analyse.

The Rape of Lucretia

'What can be well with a woman who has lost her honour. In your bed, Collatinus, is the impress of another man. My body not only has been violated. My heart is innocent, and death will be my witness. Give me your solemn promise that the adulterer shall be punished- he is Sextus Tarquinius. He it is who last night came as my enemy disguised as my guest, and took his pleasure of me. That pleasure will be my death- and his too, if you are men. ' The promise was given. One after another they tried to console her. They told her she was helpless, and therefore innocent; that he alone was guilty. It was the mind they said that sinned, not the body: without intention there could never be guilt. 'What is due to him,' Lucretia said, 'is for you to decide. As for me I am innocent of fault, but I will take my punishment. Never shall Lucretia provide a precedent for unchaste women to escape what they deserve'. (I.58)

This is one of the most famous pieces of prose in Roman history- it became the centre point for Augustine's argument about virginity in the seige of Rome almost five centuries later. It is important though because Lucretia's suicide sanctifies the rebellion which sweeps away the monarchy in Rome and brings in the Republic. The story is easily told. One night at the seige of Ardea, a group of noblemen including Sextus Tarquin, were boasting of their wives. One of them proposed that they secretly visit their wives that night- all the other wives were found enjoying themselves- but Lucretia was found spinning and working. Sextus fell in love with her and a couple of days later returned to rape her. This is where it becomes interesting- because Lucretia's response to the rape was to summon her father, and her husband and their friend Brutus and deliver the speech I've quoted above. That speech became the model for the image of the virtuous classical and medieval woman in her reaction to rape- Augustine I have quoted citing it, Dante placed Lucretia in the circle of hell reserved for the virtuous pagans and Shakespeare used the text to form the basis of his Rape of Lucrece.

Analysing what Lucretia says reveals a lot about the way that women were viewed in Republican and Imperial Rome. Let us start with the simple point. Lucretia's language and Livy's for that matter during the whole episode of the rape is very visual- you can see the impress on the bed- we all know the sensation of getting into a bed that has been slept in. This vivid kind of language makes the rape more astonishing. But when it used it is used interestingly. I think there are three particular visual images to do with the rape that immediatly come to mind after reading Livy's story. The first is that Sextus puts his hand upon Lucretia's breast in order to wake her. The second is Lucretia's face when Sextus tells her that he is going to rape her- Livy gives a stage direction that her eyes widen in terror. The third is this impress on the bed. What I think is interesting is that none of them have anything to do with the actual rape- Livy is quite coy about the mechanisms of what happens. They are all though metaphors about the invasion of the household- something that Lucretia herself brings up here in the discussion of the guest and the enemy. Sextus has raped her- by invading the space reserved to Lucretia, her husband and her family. Indeed he does worse, because the way that he procures her consent is by threatening the dissolution of that unit- he tells her that he will kill her and leave her naked body next to that of a servant- something that he says and she beleives will destroy her household.

The images are interesting- but they are more interesting when combined with another aspect of what Lucretia and hence Livy is saying here. The problem that Lucretia faces at this point is that she needs to prove that the rape happened- that the household's unity and its hierarchy were fractured not from within but from without. Compare Lucretia to Helen- who it was often said was raped- the doubt remains about Helen because we never are certain that she didn't want to go off with Paris. At least ancient authors were never certain about that issue. Now Lucretia makes that issue absolutely clear. She says the punishment for lack of chastity is death- I have not been chaste- though it was not my own desire- and to prove that I will commit suicide. I will not live to benefit from the incident. By dying Lucretia creates another image which dominates over the image of the desicrated house and that is the image of the woman so intent on virtue that she would rather die than have her reputation stained.

This image of Lucretia is the image of a woman who cares more about her reputation, her household and her husband than herself. It is not neccessarily anything that any Roman woman actually ever said. Historians of the ancient world were fond of constructing the speeches that their characters should have said. Lucretia represents less a real woman than an ideal of how a woman should respond to the rape of a tyrant. For Livy, women ought to respond to that by prioritising their household and their household's possession in them- their honour- over themselves. The subjugation of women to these ideals was the way that patriachal society functioned in Rome: Roman authors mercilessly attacked women who did meet these ideals. Moving back to Lucretia- what we see is a complex exchange of shame going on through the speech. Lucretia's shame is expunged by her blood and as soon as commits suicide, she forces her menfolk through their shame to avenge her murder. Lucretia was prompted originally to succumb to Sextus by the fear of shame (the ultimate ignominy of being presumed an adultress with a slave) and then she prompts her brother, her father and her husband to kill Sextus through the shame of leaving her unavenged.

We see in the death of Lucretia the expression of a sexist culture. As I have said, we cannot be sure that any of these events actually happened. If we dig further though into the sexism of this culture in which Livy wrote and Lucretia died- we find a deep admiration of honour and a deep fear of shame. For women this was connected to the idea that a pure woman maintained a good household: for a woman to be found in bed with a slave violated the idea of purity and also the natural hierarchy of the house, hence Lucretia's fear of that event. Livy wrote as Augustus began to launch a campaign for moral virtue in Roman society. Lucretia's worry that she might be seen as an example to the unchaste- and her unargued case that she might be doubted unless she died- was an example to call back Roman women to their duties to the household and to the state. Lucretia's death though does something else- because it reminds men of what Livy considers their natural duty to protect their womenfolk. Livy is making a final point about tyranny here too: remember why Lucretia was targetted by Sextus- it was because she alone was virtuous and spinning not partying like the wives of Tarquin's sons. The inference is obvious tyranny seeks out and destroys the family unit- it succeeded in Tarquin's sons through the destabilising form of luxury, in Lucretia's case it succeeded through rape and yet its success created in the latter case private tragedy and public civil war.

These attitudes are foreign to our experience. They are also in my view morally wrong. Yet they do tell us something interesting about the Roman world which is why I have seen fit to record them. What this demonstrates I think is a link between the political world and the private world in the mind of the Roman. The world of tyranny was a world in which the passions dominated honour, reputation became less important than desires. Tyranny is the reign of lust and pride. Republicanism rather is the reign of restraint. Tyranny furthermore is the reign of shame- Lucretia's rape is the last in a long line of insults. This is why when Brutus swears to avenge her, it is not on Sextus but upon Tarquin that he vows to take revenge- the issue goes beyond the sexual to the political. (I.58) Indeed one might argue that Lucretia's private tragedy- that of the rape- is not so important to Livy as the public tragedy, the violation of the family unit by a member of the royal family. Livy's attitude to rape is indisputedly sexist: Lucretia does not matter to him, her reputation does.

Tyranny and Poppies: Conjectural History

Accordingly he sent a confidential message to Rome, to ask his father what step he should next take, his power in Gabii, being by God's grace, by this time absolute. Tarquin, I suppose, was not sure of the messager's good faith: in any case, he said not a word to his question, but with a thoughtful air went out into the garden. The man followed him and Tarquin strolling up and down in silence, began knocking off the poppy heads with his stick. The messager at last wearied of putting his question and waiting for the reply, so he returned to Gabii supposing his mission to have failed. He told Sextus what he had said and what he had seen his father do: the king, he declared, whether from anger, or hatred, or natural arrogance, had not uttered a single word. Sextus realised that though his father had not spoken, he had by his action, indirectly expressed his meaning clearly enough; to he proceeded at once to act upon his murderous instructions. All the influential men of Gabii were got rid of (Livy I.54)

Sextus Tarquin might understand the message but do we. Well let us start with the situation. Sextus had arrived in Gabii pretending to be an fugitive from his father- actually he was working as his father's agent. Livy tells us that he had built up his position in Gabii and was slowly becoming their senior military commander not to mention an absolute ruler. Sextus was sending for instructions- and the instructions that he received were in the terms of an image- he was told to cut off the leading men in Gabii so they could not challenge him. As a message to Sextus it works- as a message to Livy's readers, that doesn't tell us much.

Historians have always cast doubt on this story- their main reason is that the same thing happens in a story from Herodotus- a historian writing five hundred years before Livy- who wrote of the tyrant Thrasybulus of Miletus sending a similar message to Periander of Corinth in the same fashion. Herodotus's story is important- because it is obviously the basis for what Livy writes here- and it reflects something very important about Livy and most ancient historian's practice as compared to modern historians. For a modern historian the fact that this story occurs in Livy and occurs in Herodotus makes it likely that one copied the story from the other (directly or indirectly) and suggests that the later story, in Livy, is untrue. For an ancient historian, the simularity suggested exactly the opposite.

We have come across the idea that Tarquin is a tyrant. The point about Herodotus's story is that it illustrated a general principle of how a tyrant governed- a tyrant had to chop the tall heads of his subjects if he were not to be destroyed. For Livy who may well have heard the story from another source (even from the gossip around Rome about Tarquin) the fact that the story was already in Herodotus would have reaffirmed its validity- this is how tyrants behave- rather than calling into question whether the story had been influenced by people reading Herodotus and borrowing from the tyrant of Miletus to describe the tyrant of Rome. Livy assessed his historical characters through a conjecture about the type of character that they were- the type of actions they might perform and made that plausibility his test- this is the type of thing that Tarquin might have done and the fact that other men in the same position had done the same thing in the past, does not call that judgement into question, but reinforces it.

We might deem this invention- it definitely does not meet the standards of historical practice today which is much more cautious about categorising the past in our terms- but in Livy's view it was merely the extension of a type backwards in time. Livy was making a conjecture, depending on the understanding of tyranny he had evolved from his reading, about the way that Tarquin might have behaved and hence presenting to us this story as one that, for him, fitted with the line of Tarquin's character and regime. The other thing that Livy was doing here was making a polemical point about the present day- describing Tarquin as an ideal tyrant and giving Romans a clear illustration about the attitude of the ideal tyrant to his coevals. The point of including the story is that it fits what Livy thinks about Tarquin: it also though provides a graphical illustration of how the Tarquins of the world behave, that Livy wants Romans to take from his history and learn from in the present day.

Reading ancient history, it is often as though the historian collapses time- the modern idea that historical time and attitudes are very different depending upon the period dissolves- and the argument of Livy or Tacitus or Thucydides is that a plausible course of action for a particular type in one era will be so in all others. History is concerned with examining these types. Thus whereas we might well doubt (rightly in my view) that this story has nothing to do with Tarquin and more to do with Romans borrowing from Herodotus: Livy sees the story from Herodotus not as a reason to doubt the tale, but as all the more reason to beleive it. All tyrants are the same and the fact that they do the same thing should not come as a surprise. This is a major and important difference between the way that a modern historian writes history and the way that an ancient historian writes history- and its important to understand when you assess the ancient's veracity, that their idea of historical plausibility may override our stricter notion of historical truth. Ultimately Tarquin for Livy might have done this because he was that type of man- whereas for a modern historian, we need to have a document which tells us that Tarquin did do this.

The two attitudes produce wildly different attitudes to the fact that Herodotus wrote the same story about someone else before hand- for Livy its a sign that tyrants really do behave like this- for us it is an indication to be sceptical- the Roman story could be an echo of Herodotus.

Tom Lehrer on Nuclear Destruction

Chris asks

The Large Hadron Collider didn’t cause the end of the world. But would the end of the world really be worse than one’s own individual death? I mean, one reason why we dread death - if we do at all - is that we leave others behind, we don’t’ find out what happens next. But if we were to perish at the end of the world, these motives would be absent. What I’m asking is: could it be that death is partly a positional bad?

The only thing I can think of to reply with is this video

Tarquin the Proud

Now began the reign of Tarquin Superbus, Tarquin the Proud. His conduct merited the name (Livy I.48)

Tarquin was of course the last king of Rome before the Principate- which was the immediate political context in which Livy wrote his history. Its worth pausing a moment therefore over the way that Livy introduces Tarquin. The sentence above performs a bridging function- between the fall and assassination of Servius Tullius and the introduction of Tarquin's reign. I think it is interesting because it explains what Livy does not like about Tarquin, one of his villains, and it links together two important themes in the history- two ideas that Livy wants us to take from the character of Tarquin. Curiously they are ideas which link the character of the demagogue with that of the tyrant- they link them through the concept of pride. Ultimately everything in Livy about Tarquin comes back to the fact that Tarquin is superbus, he is arrogant and proud.

When Servius Tullius falls, a King that Livy directly tells us had a good reign and with whom true Kingship in Rome came to an end (I. 48), he falls through a popular insurrection. What Livy describes in his fall is the way that Tarquin inspired the population of Rome or a segment of it with passionate hatred of Tullius and that segment then overthrew the old King, in confusion, we are told that Tarquin forced his way into the Senate House and proclaimed himself King, forcing the Romans to choose between their loyalty to their King and their fear of Tarquin. Servius arrived and Livy tells us that a mob battled the population to prevent him from speaking- Tarquin interrupted by seizing the old man and having him assassinated. Leaving Tarquin as the only monarch in Rome. (I.48)

This description of the way that Tarquin destroyed Servius may not be historical- who knows- but it is definitely in accord with the character of the demagogue in classical literature. Livy is telling us that Tarquin inspired irrational and temporary emotion to sweep away his predecessor and have him assassinated. Everything Tarquin does changes the emotional and not the rational situation in which the Roman people found themselves and Livy is keen to restate that what Tarquin did was aided by a mob. (I.48) Tarquin's inner motivation for this move is as irrational- a demagogue does not have reasonable arguments but he has emotional appeals. Tarquin's emotional appeal is based upon the fact that he is the son of the previous King but one (Lucius Tarquin) and that Servius was not. That is his argument in the senate- it is also his argument in his own breast. Tarquin is proud and irrational- and moves the assembly to being irrational. The demagogue is the seed of the tyrant.

One should also recognise that this seeding goes further. In Livy's view what is constant about Tarquin is his refusal to take advice. He tries capital cases 'without consultation', he breaks 'the established tradition of consulting the senate', 'he was his own sole master' and he insults Rome's allies in Latium (I.48-50). The point of this condemnation is to get us to reflect on the fact that Tarquin has not changed. He is still the demagogue but now in control of the resources of the state. The mob he leads has become his private guard instead of just being a segment of the irrational populace. Livy wants us to understand this- because it is the key to understanding the type of character that cannot thrive in any political system. We shall see that Tarquin's lack of counsel precedes his fall- it makes him prioritise his scheming son, Sextus Tarquin, over the virtue of a Roman matron. Tarquin lacks the ability to govern as well as lacking the morality to govern well. His pride precedes his fall in a way that goes beyond a proverb.

The point about this analysis of Tarquin, bringing together the Demagogue and the Tyrant and arguing that both have the same root in the human character is one that is common within classical literature. Livy did not invent it: but the case of Tarquin enables our historian to demonstrate a classic instance of the way that demagogues proceed to tyrants. Though Thucydides might well have agreed with Livy- Cleon did not become a tyrant in Athens. The uncounselled King as a villain is something that endured long after the classical era had ended- Livy's work was still read- and you can find elements of this critique in the civil war arguments about Charles I and vague shadows even in the recent film Downfall about Hitler. The point about Livy's critique though is that it was written at a certain time- and it was written I'd suggest with the characters of Caesar (another populist who rose to the principate), Catiline and others in mind. The warning to Octavian is clear- demagogic tyranny may lead to the throne but it also leads to bad government which leads inevitably to the destruction of that government. Lastly what this passage does is provide a formidable classic account of the distinction between popular and constitional government- the one leads to the rise of the demagogue, the other leads to restraints on him.

Livy's history is about the creation of constitutional government- and that is ultimately why Tarquin is isolated from it, we are told that Servius might well have founded the republic and was the last good king. Tarquin's reign is thus in parenthesis- between the virtuous monarchy and the virtuous Republic.

Gone with the Wind

In an essay on Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell the great English essayist, defined a good bad book. What he meant by that was a book which had manifest flaws- flaws which in any other book or author would drive you to deem it bad- but that the sheer vitality of the work, the bravado of its execution not to mention the virtues of its story telling made you wish to read it again and again and again. There is something of this about the classic American film, Gone with the Wind. Made self consciously by David Selznick, in a formula he would try to repeat for the rest of his career, as a blockbuster- it is over the top, extravagant, probably too long, struggles to maintain a consistant line and yet it is fantastic. It is one of the greatest films ever made- and has as its centre a performance- by Vivian Leigh- of a character both lovable and despicable- that will be and should be remembered so long as film retains its fascination. Put simply her magnetism and ability drives this film on- aided by her two male protagonists- Leslie Howard, doing what Leslie Howard does best- and Clark Gable in a career defining role.

The point of the four hours of Gone with the Wind is simple. We have three main characters, dancing through the civil war, a minuet which reflects the changes in the south. Ashley (played by Howard) is a retiring aristocrat of the South- an intelligent and virtuous representative of the class that had run particularly Virginian politics since the 1700s, and had provided America with her first Presidents (in Washington, Jefferson, Maddison and Monroe- four out of the first five Presidents, the other Adams only had a single term). Rhett Butler is the roue who represents the new South- the South that will recover from the civil war- like Ashley he is intelligent, unlike Ashley he is vicious. And the centre of the cast is Scarlett O'Hara- tied to the land of the South by her family- desperately in love with Ashley despite the fact that he loves his cousin, Melanie Hamilton- and the counterpart in every sense to Butler. She might represent the choice that the south has to make- looking back to Ashley, looking forward to Rhett. By the end of the film, she has made her decision- to leave Ashley, the man she wished to marry but couldn't- and to reconcile herself to her love of Rhett. Its an appealing allegorical interpretation- but there are deeper layers to this particular cinematic onion.

There is something deeper here than the simple allegory that we have just described. Another way of seeing the story is to see it as a less specifically American story- but one about the way that societies in general cope with war. As an account of that subject- you have three reactions to the war. One is that of Ashley. Ashley tells those who think that they will beat the Yankees easily that they will fail but he is content to go down with his civilisation. He knows why that civilisation should go down- because of slavery and beleives that the slaves should be liberated. But he is not cut out for the world of struggle. Second strategy is that of Rhett. Rhett has no roots in the south- and his strategy is to exploit any situation to his own benefit. Canny enough to realise that the south must lose, he does feel the odd pang of conscience and wants to establish roots within the old south. There is an anxiety about where he fits visible in Rhett, but there is also a survival instinct. Neither of those things are shared by him and Ashley. Thirdly there is Scarlett- she is rooted in the south but reaching out to survive as well. She is as unscrupulous as Rhett but as solidly southern as Ashley.

This is a story about survival. The Civil War here is represented, as it was, the first modern war of devastation. It gets just right the fact that to inhabitants of the south the war changed society forever. In the thirties, when the film came out, the war was still within living memory. The children of the characters of the film would have been in the cinemas- one of the children of the war (John Nance Garner) was in the White House when the film came out. This is a film about the impact of the civil war and the way it uprooted people- sent them to madness (Scarlett's father), death (her first husband) and destroyed their lives (Ashley). At this point, as the men left to die in the war, it was women who took over society and provided it with stability- they were left behind and as Scarlett does in this film provided the economic backbone of continuity. Scarlett here sets up a business- is unscrupulous enough to marry new money at various points in order to raise her family from the ground- is a good friend and a bad enemy. She is vicious to those who work for her, fiercely protective of those she loves and singleminded to a fault.

There are blindnesses in this film- race is the major one. I can't think of a single black character who does not buy into the philosophy of their masters and mistresses and who isn't obnoxious. This is a lament about the world that went with the wind- its sympathies are with Ashley like Scarlett's despite the fact that the world is changing and that change is not merely neccessary, it is moral. The South was based on a repulsive institution and you cannot get away from that. I suspect one of the interesting points about the film is that this is the view of the Civil war from the 1930s- it is a film that could not have been made after the civil rights movement. It reminds us though of something worth remembering- in a sense it reminds me of the Woman of Berlin- the costs of even a just war are terrible and often inflicted on the innocent.

Ultimately this film comes back to a simple truth. It is an emotional truth rather than a great philosophical one- which is that a struggle impresses. Scarlett keeps going, keeps struggling and ultimately the film is about her success. From the very bottom of her despair, she never stops, never ceases to work, you cannot but fail to admire that story. Sometimes the characters overact- but that merely strengthens the central point. Vivian Leigh acts here- like in Streetcar named Desire- on the brink of madness and that merely strengthens the character. The point is not subtle- nor is its handling and it works!

Telling Tales?

What are we to make of Livy's stories about the Roman past? The historian was fond of sprinkling his history with tales of what Romans had done. In the first chapters of his work, discussing the invasion by Rome of its ancestral city Alba Longa, Livy discusses a famous episode involving two sets of brothers. The Romans and Albans were about to plunge into war when the leader of the Albans, Mettius, proposed that they both elect three champions to fight for each city and against each other- victory in the fight would give that city the spoils. The three brothers Horatii volunteered for Rome, whereas it was the Curatii brothers who fought for Alba. Two of the Horatii were killed, but the last managed to slay the Curatii and thus Rome conquered Alba. On his return with the army from the field, Horatius came across his sister outside Rome- she had been engaged to one of the Curatii and seeing her fiance's bloodstained cloak on the shoulder of her brother, she burst into tears. Horatius drew his sword and plunged it into her chest- killing her instantly. He was put on trial immediatly and the King, Tullius Hostilius, gave the right of deciding his punishment to the citizens who voted that he be symbolically punished with performing a ritual observance (that Livy tells us his family had been performing down to Livy's day) but he be let off the horendous punishment for treason that awaited him.

So much the story that Livy tells. It is piquant if nothing else and most readers would find it exciting. But there is more going on here than meets the eye. Firstly its right for us as modern readers to ask whether this could have happened and whether it happened the way that Livy says it did. Its worth stating to begin with that we must be cautious- Livy presumably did not have written records that this had happened. What he did have was the family recollection- and my guess is that this was a family story. Whether it links to the events in the civic history of Rome- the conquest of Alba, the right of the people to decide the punishment in cases of treason- is a separate matter and my guess is that the fabulous story became attached to these events- rather than that it actually happened as Livy tells us. But there probably is something here at the root of this story- possibly quite different from described in Livy's account. Families in clan based societies tend to preserve memories of family dishonour and blood feud down the generations- they tend to keep these stories particularly if they are tied to a peculiar family religious ritual. This particular story involves both the honour of the Horatii (the sister weeping for a non-Roman, the brother committing sorricide) and a religious ritual that was peculiar to them: it seems like just the thing that they might have passed down, exaggerated and transferred to great public events though it might be, my guess is that there is a kernel of truth here.

That ultimately tells us something about the value of Livy's history to us as historians looking back on ancient Rome. His history is the end of a game of Chinese whispers- he tells us the records of early Rome were destroyed- and his historical sources go back scarcely a couple of centuries. But family traditions, stories and fables- even songs that we do not know about- often preserve things where histories are not written. If we say that Livy is not completely accurate- and we can never guarentee that everything described in the early parts of his history happened- we cannot say that his history was a work of fiction (he obviously researched) nor can we say more importantly that it had no connection to the times it described. Livy's history is a limited but useful source- and in stories like that about the Horatii we may be getting a glimpse of primitive Roman society- and just as importantly we are getting a glimpse of what a Roman family wanted to remember about that society. That tells us something about the family and its concerns. It demonstrates their desire to fix private history to public history- and also the fact that they remembered this story demonstrates their piety and an interesting sexual and civic politics- which saw the tears of a young woman for her dead fiance as a threat to the masculine state and civic order.

A threat that had to be met with violence and ultimately murder- murder that the state acquiesced in whilst sacrafices expiated the wrath of the furies.

Of Kings and Constitutions

So far the journey Livy has taken us upon has seen a perfection of Kingship emerge- on the one hand the King as a charismatic ruler, on the other the King as religious and moral leader, on the one hand the King as general, on the other the King as priest. We now need to come to another aspect of Kingship- the King as the creator of constitutions. Livy describes in fine detail the way that Servius Tullius, the King after Lucius Tarquin and the penultimate King of Rome, created the Senate and the concept of the popular vote. Popular votes were used before- Livy describes them being used for judicial reasons by Tullius Hostilius (I.26). But before he can describe the revolution that will bring down the Republic- he needs to provide an account of how the senate and the Roman people developed an appetite for politics and an awareness that they might be involved in it. So how did that happen? And what did the King, Servius Tullius, gain that he gave up his sole hold upon political power?

Livy provides an explanation and an answer. From the earliest days, Rome was involved in warfare. Whether in the age of Romulus, where he implies personal charisma would win the Romans battles, to the age of Ancus, war had been a way of life for the Romans. In the reign of Lucius Tarquin- he had proposed the extension of Rome's cavalry forces and had partially succeeded in expanding the armies of the new city (I. 36). His successor obviously thought that this small progress needed reinforicing. Rome needed an army. Unsurprisingly, Servius turned immediatly to his own citizens in order to provide that force. He organised them into tribes- 12 at the beggining- and compelled those tribes to produce both resources and military forces for him- indeed Livy suggests that the name tribe derives from the Latin for tribute. The Roman census which began at this point was for Livy a compulsary activity.

But Servius had to give up something in order to gain this, he gave up to the population and the senate the power to vote on proposals. We can already see a theme of Roman history about to develop- in that Servius deliberately set up the electoral system so that the richest would decide for the poorest- the tribes voted in order of wealth and the highest classes could thus decide the fate of the poorest. Livy imagines that there was a sort of manhood suffrage before this (I. 43), a kind of primitive democracy- but what this did was establish the organisation of the Republic- an organisation which endured down to Livy's day- and thus established a permanent basis for power outside the royal house. Livy is offering us here a model of transition- from a dictatorship of plebiscite to a monarchy of legal form. The first sees a kind of primitive equality, the second raises the aristocracy above the rest of the population. But he also more interestingly provides us the mechanism that explains the change- the exchange between the King and his new complicated society is that for his willingness to entertain the wishes of his subjects, they allow him to regulate their complicated society. By placing property institutionally inside the law, he acquires the right to both regulate and tax it. By placing men's wishes at the heart of political debate, he acquires the ability to dispose them upon the battlefields of Italy. His successor accused him of using the census to tax and to find men for war: Tarquin Superbus argued that Servius was motivated not by an unusual royal generosity but by the creation of new powers for the King through the creation of new rights for others. The Senate were joined thus by a people- and by a people disposed according to property.

We do not know if this was the actual sequence by which a republic was slowly created. What we can know is that this is a plausible way that such republics are created. The great representative institutions being formed and strengthened because they fortified the power of the King. The other side of the coin is the argument that citizenship is linked to being a soldier- an argument found in Livy's greatest interpreter, Machiavelli, for example. That argument dominated thinking about Republicanism right up until the Scots formulated the notion of commercial citizenship- something which marks our world as modern is that we are fellow citizens of David Hume and Adam Smith, not of Titus Livius and Nicollo Machiavelli.

The Establishment of the Priesthood of Jupiter

He [Numa, Rome's second King] foresaw that in a martial community like Rome future Kings were likely to resemble Romulus rather than himself and to be often, in consequence, away from home on active service, and for that reason he appointed a priest of Jupiter on a permanent basis, marking the importance of the office by the grant of special robes and the use of the royal cural chair. This step ensured that the religious duties attached to the royal office should never be allowed to lapse (Livy I.20)

This passage from Livy's first volume- slightly before the discussion of Ancus Martius that occupied my last post- refines it. Livy describes one of the key reforms of Numa- the institution of a priesthood of Jupiter- and in doing so what he brings up is the notion of what in his eyes early Roman Kingship actually was. Part of the role of the King for Livy is the 'religious duties' that attach to the person of the King. A priest might maintain their authority through the use of a royal chair- a King needed a deputy in religious matters for when he was away from the throne. It is an interesting reflection- because what it reminds us of is a feature of the Roman state right up until the time of Livy and beyond. Religious and political power have been split in Europe since the days of the early medieval papacy- but in the Roman state they were not. The priest was another magistrate- this goes back through the Republic where the Pontifex maximus (chief priest) was a political officer as well and aristocrats held priestly roles and kept rituals going- Livy later discusses one such ritual that reminded Romans of the patriotism of the Horatii (I.26) and such rituals emphasized the continuity of the Roman state and the important role that various families had played in it. (We shall think about the Horatian tradition later because it is interesting in its own right.)

Was Livy right- could the origins of this priestly power lie with Numa? One suspects that religion and politics have been married for a long time- but we cannot prove it. Rather I would see this account as less an account of the way that things actually happened- than an account of the way things might have happened. To say such and such began with Numa allows Livy to do two things- he can bring forwards a reason for it happening like that- the absense of the King from Rome justifies the creation of a Royal Priestly office which would continue through the consulate. It also allows him to project that office back into a past so ancient as to be beyond political- it establishes the priesthood as a norm in Roman politics- tied to no one regime (it is not Republican but Royal) and thus to be continued under the Principate- and as something that cannot be questioned. Like 17th Century English lawyers who projected laws about feudal tenure back into the time of King Arthur, the Roman historian was taking a position about the present in projecting the religious arrangements of Rome back into the far past. They may, who knows have been founded much later, but by crediting them to Numa what Livy was doing, even if he was not recounting the facts, was demonstrating that these religious practices should be respected.

They had survived Tarquin and Brutus- they should survive Caesar and Brutus- and even Octavian.

Ancus Martius

Many may have heard of Romulus, fewer of Numa his successor, and some of Tarquin the proud the last King of Rome- but there were four lesser known Kings who deserve rescue from oblivion: Tullius Hostilius, Ancus Martius, Tarquin the elder and Servius Tullius are all interesting characters in the history of Rome, even if the likelihood is that none of them ever existed. The stories told about them are significant because they indicate the way that Romans thought that characteristics of the Republic had evolved- they also give us indications of what the Romans thought was essential about various societal practices and the ways in which Livy, whose history I am of course relying on, thought about the origins of civility and society. We have already seen that the origins of society might lie with the reign of Romulus- the origins of civility lie in the later reigns and run into the Republic. Numa, Livy tells us, gave Rome a 'second beggining' (1.19) based on laws instead of wars. I want to concentrate though for a specific reason upon a later King- Numa's nephew and successor but one- Ancus Martius.

Martius is interesting because he is so little covered. The myth of Martius's rule is evidently not as strong as that of Romulus's or Numa's or Tullius's let alone Lucius Tarquin's. In my translation of Livy it occupies barely four pages- and two of those are given to an interesting subject which is the topic of this post. Martius, according to Livy, brought international law to Rome. The form that this took for Livy was the creation of a rite of war- an envoy performed certain ritual acts at the border, in front of a foreign witness, in a foreign city and if they were not heeded, the Romans then declared again through a ritual act, a spear thrown across the border between the foreign city and Rome. The system of performing these rights is convoluted- and the words used are no doubt crucial to what Livy wants us to see. Livy wants us to see that whereas Numa had provided peace with religious ceremony, Martius provided war with an 'equivalent solemn ceremonial' (1.32). Of course that is what he does- but by doing it he reveals something of the nature of his understanding of international law and thus of the ancient world's understanding of international law.

Livy tells us that now this ceremony is in the hands of the Fetials. The Fetials were a college of priests- significantly revived by Octavian (no accident then that here the King of Rome is given a role as their founder and a religious reformer)- whose responsibility was declaring war. If enemy territory was too far away to throw the spear, in later times they would hurl it into the temple of Bellona, goddess of war. What this demonstrates though is the close tie between international law and religion. Whilst reading Livy's account of Ancus Martius, I couldn't hold myself back from an anachronistic reflection on Locke. In chapter 14 of the Two Treatises, Locke characterises a state of war as a state in which the only appeal is one to heaven- there are no judges but God (or in Livy's case, the Gods). Of course what Livy is pointing out is the origins of the international law of his own time- and this is the fascinating thing- like Locke, he sees the origins of international law as lying in that appeal to heaven. Because the Roman state went to war by appealing precisely to heaven- the Fetial priests would invoke Jupiter and Janus as they declared that Rome was aggrieved and wished to fight. Ancus Martius therefore stands at the beggining for Livy of the concept of international law- and international law begins with an appeal from a King to the King of the Gods.

But there is something more to this which I think is interesting. This is a myth. Livy could not have known that this was true- indeed he has already told us that Numa began another ceremony to describe war and peace religiously, by opening and closing the temple of Janus's doors depending on the belligerent status of Rome. Livy though thought it interesting to tell us about both Numa and Martius- and he informs us that both of them died peacefully. I think it is no accident that this is so. What Livy is offering here- and I go back to Octavian's reign to substantiate my point- is a point about social stability in monarchy. Augustus had sought in his reign to reinforce religion- I think what Livy offers in his account of Ancus Martius and Numa is an account of the stability that that might bring. If his account of Romulus is a warning to Augustus, then his account of the two later king is an offer of hope. He is suggesting that to remain in power kings must become servants to ritual- that these customs can solidify and stabilise rule. Its significant that amongst Martius's other acts- Livy says that he founded the first Roman Prison (1.33) - in a sense what Livy is doing is endorsing a program of moral reformation in the 1st century B.C. by describing its effects in the 7th Century B.C.

Livy's career was built on the foundation of civil war- he lived through the wild times when Roman slew Roman. He rejected the Octavianist argument that tyranny could create peace- we have already seen his scepticism about Romulus's ability to do that (another Caesar perhaps!) What we find in Livy's description of Ancus Martius though and of Numa Pompilius is not merely an account of how Roman religious practice began, but an account of the real reason for Roman instability. Pious Kingship succeeded in maintaining stability in a way that violent kingship failed- it was not so much the nature of the government as the nature of its moral reform that mattered. Living at the beggining of the Principate, Livy could agree that the Republic and early Principate were part of a 'process of moral decline'(1.1)- he argued that the society of the Principate was 'in love with death both individually and collectively' but could not prove its trajectory (1.1).

Roman history awaited Tacitus and Suetonius to describe that issue.

Livy's Romulus

Livy's portrait of Romulus raises some interesting questions about the generation of Kingdoms. Livy was writing here about myth- he himself acknowledges the limits of his knowledge at several points- but what it demonstrates is the way that Livy thinks about leadership. Livy's history was written in the years immediatly after the battle of Actium- to which he refers- and the foundation of the Principate by Augustus. The previous hundred years of Roman history were dominated by a series of charismatic generals- Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Antony and finally Octavian. What Livy does with his account of Romulus is really give us the account of a personal ability to inspire loyalty. He notes several times the ways in which Romulus was able to inspire loyalty- through for instance the use of augury and ceremony, through the creation of allies- new senators- and the unscrupulous creation of conflict (the mass rape of the Sabine women is one of the most horrifying stories in the ancient world- the Romans raped them according to Livy and then faced them with a dilemma either they could be subject to an honour killing or they could marry their rapists). The point of these stories is that they offer a commentary on what political strategies worked in the creation of a government- unscrupulous charisma sounds like the model followed by the politicians of the late Republican era- the attempt to fortify that system created by violence with law.

Livy though in detailing Romulus's end- where he mentions both the story that he was elevated to heaven in a cloud and the account in which he was torn to pieces by the senate- demonstrates the way in which tyranny's methods can be turned on the tyrant. The senate manufactured- he implies heavily- an account to justify their assacination of the King. They made him a God in order to avoid him as a tyrant- the warning to Augustus in the first book of Livy's history could not be more explicit and the commentary on the Principate more acute. For what Livy demonstrates is that Romulus created peace but also the aspiration to replace and destroy him- the ambition to create legal frameworks to turn tyrants to Kings, or Kings to Republics, is always immediately vulnerable because they must be set up through unscrupulousness- and that unscrupulousness teaches a nation not merely the arts of law, but the arts of treachery and war.

General Idi Amin Dada

A film made in the early seventies followed Idi Amin. The journalist responsible allowed Amin complete control over the message, she added references to Amin's atrocities- but there are only two really. Apart from that this is the film that Amin wanted to make- the way that Amin wanted to present himself to the world. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about it is that this is the way that Amin wanted the world to see him- and that tells you enough about the man- his wounds are visible all the way through the film, his sense of greivance against the British and his complete ignorance of economics and of war. This is a character study- it is not about politics for it is directed by a man who did not understand that he was a vicious tyrant- politics as we have already noted stops at the edge of tyranny. Each tyranny though is governed by the whim and personality of its ruler- the depression of a Tiberius or a Domitian no less than the exuberance of a Nero or Commodus creates a political regime and a particular type of terror.

Amin overrated his own importance in the world- 'the whole worlds are looking at the future of Uganda and General Amin' he says at first- of course the fact is that the world paid attention to Amin as a curiosity but not as a factor within international politics of any significance nor as an ideological bellweather. His third way between Communism and Capitalism was a disaster. But then so much of what Amin says in this film is a fantasy- he tells us that he always speaks the truth to the people which is why he cannot tell us the strength of his army. He rose to power on the back of a military career, influenced by the fact that after the British left, he was lucky enough to be one of the few African commissioned officers in Uganda. He has charisma- he has the ability to make you like him- despite the fact that what he says is bizarre and often unpleasant. That does not make him unique amongst human beings (a quick stroll around the blogging world will show many people whose rancour exceeds their wisdom by a considerable factor)- what made him unique was the power he had to effect his beliefs.

We see a cabinet meeting which lays bare the extent to which Amin had no idea of how to run a country- he sits at the head of a meeting and berates his cabinet ministers for not ensuring that there are more than four female hotel managers and for not controlling the minutiae of the administration. He attacks the foreign minister- significantly the foreign minister was found two weeks later in a river, dead. Amin governs through anger- through noticing something he doesn't like and shouting at the person responsible- assuming that the system is irrelevant to how it is performing. Amin believed that his own fiat could create and destroy. Not merely that, but he believed that when he came across obstacles they must be the result of global conspiracy- the Jews, the Bilderberg, the New World Order- all the paraphenalia of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. All bizarre, all wrong, all used in this case to justify genocide and excuse Hitler, not to mention to drive out the Ugandan Asians. The truly terrifying thing is not that Amin is crazy- several people in the world are crazy- but that noone could stop him in Uganda and no-one could tell him that he was crazy without ending up in a river, naked with a hole through the head.

Ultimately the fact about Amin was that he was driven by resentment and a confused idea that if the world did not work, it must be because of the nefarious conspiracies abroad and incompetence at home. You can see him visibly struggling with the reality of a confusing, complex world and trying to reduce it into his categories of conspiracy and calumny. This psyche became the psyche of a whole country though- Amin immitated the attack he hoped to launch on Isreal, using real tanks and planes. He ranted at cabinet ministers, not friends down a pub, or readers of a blog. He sent insulting joky letters not to insignificant friends but to the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere. Amin was mad- but he was in government. Politics in this case became personality and throughout the film one can see that for Amin those two entities are not distinct. That all the science and art applied to politics over the centuries became as nothing in the hands of a man with a gun.

Amin emerges from his own film as the classic tyrant. He is incapable of understanding the virtue of meekness and kindness- incapable of understanding the world as a place of confusion and complication not conspiracy- incapable of acting without cruelty and brutality. What is so interesting is of course he presents us this picture- whilst beleiving it is entirely to his own credit- what that exposes is that tyranny not merely creates great suffering, it destroys the tyrant. The tyrant becomes unable to see what is true and what is false- he makes his own reality and that reality does not map to the reality of the world. The darkness gathers and the shrouds of suspicion haunt the head that wears the crown- the throne is a dangerous place- and as Roman Emperors found the illusions created by power are the first step from the throne to the place of execution. Amin was overthrown within five years- after inflicting great damage upon Uganda, historically one of the richest countries in Africa, after Amin it was one of the poorest.

This is a fascinating film- a fascinating insight into the brutality of tyranny and into the mind of the tyrant. It made me think of that classic British TV drama I Claudius- as directed by Caligula!

Sammy Davis Jr and Mr Bojangles

One of the great performers- one of the great songs- I admit that I love Nina Simone's version too and one day will post that- but this is still amazing. Its such a moving story- the fact that it is true is another matter- and the way that Davis sings it makes it even more moving.

Confession of a Murderer

On the banks of the seine, a group of Russian emigres meet. Amongst them is a German who speaks Russian- our narrator. The rest of them sit around in the loneliness of exile with their small glasses of liquor. The cafe we learn later is transplanted directly from its original abode in Odessa- everyone in the room has a past- these are not aristocrats but the servants of the Tsarist state. Alone amongst them is the object of the fascination of our visiting German, a Russian with a queer smile and a grim face- who we later learn is called Golubchik and considers himself both a murderer and a good man. The novel plays with our beliefs about the truth- for which you need to read to the end- and also with our notion of morality. I do not want to discuss the problems of truth here- I don't think I could without giving away the plot- but there is something said here about the nature of what it is to be good that is important. Something that we need to understand about this 'good' murderer, this paragon of the bloody- and his haunted imagination.

This is the story of a haunted imagination, a character that might easily be described as a haunted imagination. Golubchik is an illegitimate son- the son of a Russian Prince, the Prince Krapotkin, who has harboured since his youth anger and ambition fused together in a poisonous passion to reintroduce him to his natural father. We know that Prince Krapatkin hardly recognises the stripling lad- granting him a snuff box- whereas he does recognise his own legitimate son- the young Prince. The young Prince and Golubchik go through life in a curious parallel trajectory. Golubchik becomes a secret policeman- a member of the Okhrana. The young Prince consorts with revolutionaries- but everything that Golubchik so supposedly the member of the most feared caste in Tsarist Russia does rebounds against the formidable reputation and power of Krapotkin, a prince with the ear of the Tsar and powers boundless in the land of Russia. Both are stalked by a sinister charming Hungarian called Lakatos.

And so we go through this fearful dance- feudal right versus totalitarian secrecy. In a sense this is a commentary upon the Russian Tsarist state- its a commentary upon the curious land where the Holy Father ruled his subjects through the apparatus of a secret state, the discipline of a state church and the awe of a divine monarchy. But it goes further than this- for it goes to the roots of morality. Golubchik says that he is a good man- what he means is that he has taken no action that was not neccessitated. He did what he did because he had to do it. That 'goodness' means that he can escape the way that he has used his power. If he had been born in a higher station, if he had been born to a greater destiny, or even if he had not had the luck to join the security services, he would have been fine. He transfers his evil deeds to the Mephistocles of the tale- the Hungarian- but the tale undercuts this brutally and dramatically.

Start with his conversations with Lakatos- he converses with Golubchik but Roth is keen to demonstrate to us that though he influences and proffers options to Golubchik, he never forces him to do anything. The moment I remember is that Lakatos gets arrested as Golubchik gets onto a train- and rather than stay on the train- Golubchik gets off it. Every time he gets off the train. Every time he chooses to perform an immoral act. So he falls in love with his half brother's model-girlfriend- he chooses to impersonate a Prince Krapotkin. He chooses all the way through and his actions are the product of his moral decisions. Furthermore he himself is the product of his decisions. There is no way to separate his situation from his person- he is a Russian of a certain class- he is his dreams, his haunted thoughts. To claim that he can be exonnerated because his circumstances would be fine if you could separate the person from the personal history- but you cannot. He is his history- and he and his history are judged and found in this tale wanting.

This tale is written beautifully, translated impeccably, and the atmosphere it produces is akin as many recognise to that produced by Dosteovsky or Kafka- the simularity is because of the similar theme. Like Dosteovsky we are dealing with the struggles of the individual soul- the moral person in modern society. Like Kafka we are dealing with those struggles within a system- not the system of the Trial's bureacratic nightmare- but the system of a self created hell. What Roth proffers is a Protestant novel in a world without God. A novel about guilt and sin in a world where there is no escape- where the mutilated corpse of the victim knocks at the door of the bar in which you are sitting- a world in a which all roads lead back to the conception of your own guilt.

A Foolish Post on Germans in St Louis and American History: An undisciplined thought

The Republican party fascinates me. One of the things that Oliver Stone in his film about Nixon captured very well was the fact that the Republican Party is ultimately the party of Lincoln. As much as Reagen, the gaunt figure of the sixteenth President of the United States and his legacy dominates what the Republican party is today and what the history of the United States has looked like since the civil war. It strikes me that from European and American perspectives the civil war is too often played down as a factor in what America looks like today- just as for instance the great struggles of 19th Century Liberalism are played down in Britain. Superficially there may not be much to link the America of 1868 to the America of 2008- the first a war torn, battered country, whose borders did not yet extend to the Pacific and who faced racial strife, anarchy and civil war- the second a confident, innovative, prosperous and (despite the current election campaign) content superpower which functions as a beacon not a backwater, a protector not a petitioner to the rest of the world. But Lincoln's America endures- and particularly through the constellation of the partys today. I mean to take an undiscipline ramble around American history now- forgive me for my errors but I think there is a thought here- because in my view we can explain some of what happened over the last century by reference to events in the late 1860s involving German immigrants, elections and St Louis, Missouri.

St Louis is an interesting place because its a place in which there were lots of German Americans. German Americans historically were in the 1860s a Republican constituency. They voted Republican more than any other candidate and more than any other ethnic group. They voted Republican because in large part they opposed slavery. And slavery was the defining issue of American politics running up to the civil war- and the second issue (behind the issue of sovereignty) during the civil war. Germans in St Louis though hold a unique place in the history of Republicanism in the United States- not because they were important- but because they drifted away. By examining why they drifted away, we can see how some of the choices made by Republicans in the era of reconstruction have influenced the constitutions of the parties in the states ever since- particularly in the north where within a generation the issue of slavery was settled. If we live in the shadow of the Civil War, we live in it because we live in the shadow of three great movements in American politics- the first Republican moment from 1860 to 1912, the second Democratic moment from 1912 to 1968 and the third that we live in now- the conservative moment.

So what happened in St Louis? (I draw here upon Kristina Anderson's article about the history of St Louis in the American Journal of Ethnic History). Well the German population became disenchanted with the Republican politicians who they found in power. They became disenchanted for two reasons- both of which were tied to the issue of slavery and both of which provide indications of the choices that Republican politicians made in the generations after the war. In 1872, Horace Greeley the Democratic Candidate captured the German wards that had voted both for Lincoln and for his successor Ulysses Grant in 1868. What had happened was that the German citizens of those wards had revolted, they had revolted both on religious and economic grounds. On religious grounds, they feared the emergance of religious language in the Republican party manifesto and in the Missouri constitution. The Republican antipathy to slavery was built on solid evangelical foundations- but the Germans found the intrusion of an alien religion into the form of the state a threat. Particularly they saw that the imposition of an oath that would require clergymen to assert their gratitude to almighty God was the thin end of a very intolerant wedge. Catholics, Freethinkers and Baptists all protested against this measure. They feared that the arrival of black voters, in their view inclined to the majority confessions, would strengthen the Republican Party's nativist tendencies- hence by 1868 the German population of St Louis voted ambivalently about black suffrage.

But there is something else. The something else is that as blacks moved north, they threatened the position of working class whites. They provided a source of cheap labour. Whereas some German Democrats beleived that there was no way a black man could work as well as a white man, most German Republicans, having opposed slavery, beleived that of course he could. Given that they were terrified that black workers would come to St Louis and undercut their wages. Furthermore they saw this in the light of the efforts of the main businesses of the town to deal with trade unionism. When the local newspaper for instance hired a black worker to replace a striking white printer in December 1864, the news spread and became an emblem of what might happen. By April 1865, disappointed with Republicans, radical German workers had set up their own Worker's Party in St Louis to contest town elections. There is plenty of evidence of growing support for this party and growing hostility between German unions and radicals and the Republican establishment. What we see here is that the German commitment to racial equality was real, but that they began to see the Republican party as undermining other radical causes and African Americans as part of that problem. They saw African Americans as being willing to support both nativist Republican religious policy and also undercutting the rights of Missourian and German workers.

What is interesting is what this teaches us- the first thing it teaches us is that conventional wisdom is often wrong- I'm not so sure that the Germans were right in either of their beliefs about black Americans- and given the history of the US, in the long run they proved very very wrong. Ultimately some of their concerns in 1868 were to be very similar to the social concerns of Martin Luther King in 1968.

But it does teach us that the way two separate things which are worth learning if we are to understand the impact of abolition and the way that political argument works. Firstly it teaches us that the world is much more complex than we often give it credit for. The German workers of St Louis were amongst the most loyal Republican voters of all- they marched, fought and died for abolition in the civil war. But after the civil war, the reasons which had inspired Republican mainstream thinking- religious commitment and a liberal antipathy to restraints on freedom- did not convince the Germans. Religious commitment led to the development of the Missouri constitutional religious clauses. A liberal antipathy to restraints on freedom led to the ability of businessmen to use black workers to undercut the white working classes. This created and here is my second point, a new opportunity. The opportunity was for a party that was neither religious nor racist nor free market- and that is the opportunity that the Democratic party was able to grab hold of. What St Louis provides us with in microcosm is a history of the United States until Roosevelt- it explains both the success of the Republicans- the way that the nature of their party leads directly on from the successes of the civil war- and also the revitalisation of the Democratic party and the trajectory of that party.

This is an ambitious thesis- and I'm drawing too much from one example (there are plenty of reasons why I shouldn't be so keen on this example- but its late and I am being foolish)- but perhaps in a way you can see the fracturing of the Republican coalition around worker's rights and religion which happened in the late 1920s- and you can also see the facturing of the Democratic coalition in the 1960s- when these Germans supported civil rights and white southerners didn't. In that sense as the politics of today is about the Democratic fracture and the world of Nixon- the politics of today are the consequence of the civil war.

Where were you when you heard about...

Dave Cole has just tagged me with a meme- and as I think its an ok one- and furthermore I hadn't got any better ideas of anything to write about this evening here goes,

The Death of Princess Diana- I was half asleep. To be fair I remember being half asleep and my brother coming into my room and saying Diana's dead and we went down and watched it on TV. I can't remember anything else about it- apart from the fact that all the TV networks were showing Diana non stop for weeks afterwards.

Margerate Thatcher's resignation 22nd November 1990- actually this is an interesting one because it is my first significant political memory (before that I'd been far more into Arthur Ransome and history). I was coming home from Sainsburys and school with my mother- we got out of the car and a neighbour shouted across, 'She's gone', no need to know who 'She' was. My next political memory interestingly is a chat about John Major with my dad.

Attack on the Twin Towers 11th September 2001- this actually came at an odd time in my life when every time I was abroad there was a national disaster. It all started with a trip that me and Vino and some others took to Europe- immediatly there was the fuel crisis. The next year again I set off with Vino and the same group to Ireland, and we were on a bus in Ireland, got off the bus went into a neighbouring cafe to wait for another bus to take us to our youth hostel- and this must have been in the late afternoon- they had footage of what had happened on the screen behind us. Cue, as you would expect, political argument ad nauseum...

England vs Germany World Cup Semi-Final 1990- this seems to be a good exercise in picking firsts- this was the first football match I properly and consciously watched, being aware of how it went, aware of what the tactics were etc. I still remember the desperation of the last half hour and the terrible bad luck of the German goal...

President Kennedy's assassination 22nd November 1963: strange to think that this was 27 years before Margerate Thatcher's resignation! But I wasn't alive at that point- it is one of the many events- from the Potsdam and Yalta conferences forward that my generation lives in the direct shadow of. I suspect with Ted Kennedy's speech at the Democratic convention we are moving yet another step further away from JFK- if that is indeed his brother's last contribution to politics- and one of the perilous insights of historians is that all these events will one day, however dramatic they seem now, pass out of story and song into forgetfulness. It is happening with Diana's death- it is happening with that semi-final, will happen to Thatcher and to September 11th. Kennedy's death was so important at the time- but now it is fading and I suspect for my grandchildren will be as important as President McKinlay's is today.

I suppose I have to tag someone incidentally- I'm going to go for James Hamilton, the Organic Viking, Ian Appleby, Chris Dillow and Matt Sinclair.

Liberty

A girl comes onto the stage and proclaims herself- liberty- a man carries her off to have sex with her. Liberty is a harlot coming to the magistrate of the republic- an image which carries us away from the idealised images of La France at the height of her revolution and into the darkness of the career of Robespierre, the error of the terror to come. Liberty is a play about that process- the process where the word changes from a thing of beauty to a harlot to tyranny, from an instrument of enlightenment into an instrument of torture. All of its characters go through the historical experience of revolution, destruction and disaster. In different ways they tell the story of the French Revolution- a Revolution whose consequences we are still two hundred years later struggling to understand and whose course still we are struggling to chart.

Let us open the scene then, a muse of fire would bring forward now in you in a meadow in the French countryside- but I hope to awake for you a wooden O, with actors and actresses sitting upon it as though they were at a picnic. We have our characters- there are basically six. Three men, three women- two younger of each sex and two older. We have the young French reformer, the girl whose frivolity he loves, whereas she loves his seriousness- we have the artist and the actress, the aristocrat and the lady who believes that connections can tame the beast of terror. The year is 1791 just before the terror, just before the axe of the guillotine. After the events of 1789- after Mirabeau and moderation have quitted the French stage- the one literally, the other metaphorically. We see the rise of our young French idealist to power- elevated by the lady he becomes a judge, takes as his wife the girl, Elodie, who loves him. Across Paris, the terror stalks pursuing the rest of the characters- guilty of innocent it lashes them. Even Elodie, as she becomes an object of suspicion for her lover- who loves the incorruptible heart of revolution Robespierre and the friend of the People, Murat more than he loves a perishable and sinning piece of flesh and blood- becomes a victim. Artless to the end, she is driven from her wits- whilst others have a more literal severing from their brains to contend with.

For us to care though- these characters have to matter. I've only named one of them- and that is because thanks to a good performance from Ellie Piercy, she did matter to me. Elodie because of the vitality of Piercy's performance comes across in the first half as a real live girl- someone that you could imagine falling in love with- and the fact that our young revolutionary is no surprise. Her evolution though does not work so well- we do not see enough to show us how this vital and strong young woman is destroyed, ground down by a revolution she does not care for. She slowly vanishes and the tale of her evolution is dealt with perfunctorily. Our young revolutionary does well too- but conversely he is more beleivable as the play finishes- at the beggining he is just irritating. By the end, he has become terrifying- the servant of a passion that goes beyond human love- to craft a world perfect enough for a supreme being to want to inhabit. He asks at one point about the world that Christ might live in- and his world is one suited to Gods not to human beings- so perfect that it becomes immoral. The acheivement of this play is that there are two halves- one whose masterspirit is Elodie- and whose spirit is of youthful exuberance and a morality centered on people not principles, the second is the world of revoluiton- whose master spirit is our young revolution- centered as one of the characters says upon 'the people' and not upon people, upon principles and perfections. Its not a hard decision to choose between them.

But equally nor is the transition between them managed well. The play is an adaptation of a novel by Anatole France- the canvass would suit a novel. The mould of personal and political would work in the longer format. But a play has to choose and this falls between being a story and a tract. There are fine performances here- Maurice an old friend to our revolutionary and an aristocrat is played touchingly. But there are also very stagy performances- voices which are too nasal to work in any format. Some characters- Louise our Lady- are managed without a hint of nuance. The writer in my view loses control of his story because he wants to experiment with the form- too busy constructing iambic pentameters he forgets the virtue of telling a tale. I wanted to like this play and I liked features of it- its message is right- but somehow it lectures where it should be quieter, its lessons are not profound enough and its soul is split. Good performances cannot save what is more important a good script.

Lolita

My copy of Lolita has on its cover a blonde girl, reclining in a park, her eyes seductively pointing at the reader. That image of Lolita has persisted down the years- seductive, available, think Britney Spears playing the schoolgirl in her first pop video. That image of Lolita is completely and utterly wrong- it puts the reader into the position of Humphrey Humbert- makes us see him as the tragedy and her as the tempting siren. That image is entirely wrong- this is a book about Lolita, but Lolita as mediated by the gaze of Humphrey Humbert- this is a book about a girl written by a pedophile. Humbert confesses several times throughout the novel that he does not feel sexual excitement about women- that of Lolita's friends, the more physically mature are for him the less sexually attractive- it is the snub nosed, unmade up, chestnut haired, dirty Lolita that he loves and that he eventually rapes (as she says). The novel's artistry is that it presents this picture through Humbert's voice- if you do not read it carefully you can be seduced into being Humbert- and if you do that, you will fall victim to two massive mistakes.

The first of those mistakes concerns Humbert himself. Humbert thinks that he is an artist, he groups himself with Dante, Petrarch and Edgar Allen Poe. He thinks that paedophilia is the prerogative of the poet- the marker of a true distinction of taste. He says that the subtle beauty of what he calls nymphets- girls between the ages of 9 and 14- are available only to those who see the true artistic beauty of the universe. Of course in this he is a satire, a brutal satire and culmination of that romantic tendency to see the existence of art as the construction of an excuse. For Humbert cannot achieve and has not achieved anything- his wealth is a matter of happenstance, an accident of inheritance- he has alternated between the positions of a drone and a madman, running betwixt asylum and attic- and producing nothing in either. He has no books of original ideas out- a couple of translations- poor return for someone who considers himself a poet- only in small town America would he be taken as a cultured individual, with his overt use of French tags and his feckless past, present and future.

The second concerns Lolita. Nabokov allows us to hear once in a while Lolita's own voice- at one point she writes a letter to Humbert and her Mother- and addresses it, as any twelve year old might, to 'Hummy and Mummy'. She is a kid. She is aware of her sexuality- but as a teenager might be- she has kissed another girl, had an experience with a boy and sat on a man's lap and felt excited. But she cannot be a woman- and Humbert wants her to be a woman- he wants her to be a wife. The reason that Humbert is so blind about Lolita is that he completely ignores her. He ignores what she wants, ignores what she is interested in, despises her desires- for films and celebrity magazines- this is not a solid basis for a relationship. Humbert even speculates on the prospect of eventually marrying Lolita, his step daughter, impregnating her and then ten years later molesting his new daughter! Indeed it adds to the idea that whatever emotion Humbert has for Lolita, it cannot be called love- obsession, fascination maybe- but not love for he does not care for Lolita, only for her nymphet (or childish) form. The novel is explicit from Humbert's view- but this is not an erotic novel- rather it is a warning, a fearsome warning.

It is a warning against self absorption. Humbert is phenomenally self absorbed- he desires Lolita because he can control her. Because he can twist her into being the girl he lost when he was thirteen- one of the interesting things about the novel is that Humbert represents all elder women as being not merely unattractive but threatening- their talk threatens his autonomy, his self sovereignty. They threaten with equality! As others have said it is also a formidable warning against tyranny. The tyrant here is the paedophile- forcing the girl to have sex with him for little treats. The tyrant though also writes a history in order to prove that he was what the girl needed- that she was asking for it. It is a worrying sign of the times that we do not read Lolita for what it is- a ferocious counter attack on the tyranny of personal relations and powerful states- but for an account of how Lolita is the guilty party. That pouting girl on the front cover of my volume symbolises the way that we have got this story wrong- the way that we have misunderstood the fact that this dark and brilliant novel is filled with irony, that Humbert here is the great villain and Lolita is the harmless victim. A harmless victim that Nabokov implies can survive- but survives damaged and ultimately of course survives barely longer than her tormentor.

Read this novel, but read it not to be erotically excited, read it to explore the dark sides of the human mind- the ways that paedophilia represents an analogy for the evils of tyranny that Nabokov fled to escape in the West- read it as a terrible warning of how humanity is perverted by power and how our innermost desires can turn into a warped message of self assertion and obsession.