by Jim Rickards, Daily Reckoning:
Is Donald Trump an emperor? Of course not. Still, the more interesting question is whether Trump personally rules like an emperor, at least the “good emperors” of Roman history. That question requires some in-depth analysis. The answer may surprise most readers. At the same time, the answer offers some valuable clues as to Trump’s policy choices over the coming years. That’s an invaluable aid to investors.
To be clear, we’re not referring to the “No Kings” protests against Trump staged recently with support from George Soros, the American Federation of Teachers, The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and far-left dark money groups like Arabella and Tides.
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Trump is not a king, and the No Kings protestors just embarrassed themselves with their failed political theatre. In fact, the Trump administration has been highly transparent and has stuck closely to legally permissible approaches, even if they have creative lawyers who are breaking new ground in terms of legal precedents.
No King… But An Emperor?
The emperor analogy is far more interesting. Most students have at least a broad working knowledge of the outlines of the history of the Roman Empire. They’ve heard of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Nero, and perhaps Marcus Aurelius. Some are familiar with the mad Emperor Caligula. He preferred to be called Gaius by friends. Far fewer know his full name was Gaius Caesar Augustus Gemanicus. None of those long family names mattered for any of the emperors. They were all called Caesar. The title Caesar lived on through the twentieth century in variations such as Czar and Kaiser.
That said, surprisingly little is known about the day-to-day lives of the Caesars; what they ate, how they dressed and the like. A lot of what students believe they know is either false or salacious gossip by an emperor’s enemies rather than actual events. Historian Mary Beard has done an excellent job of discarding the myths and getting to the reality of being an emperor in her recent book Emperor of Rome (2023).
Historian Mary Beard discards the myths and shows the “job description” of being an emperor in her 2023 book.
Beard relies largely on two primary sources. The first is a speech given by Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Younger) in 100 AD in praise of the Emperor Trajan, known as the Speech of Praise.
Since Pliny repeated the speech for friends on various occasions, it was eventually written down and survives today. The second source was an essay by Emperor Augustus known as What I Did, which is a long list of his own accomplishments. What I Did was publicly displayed throughout the Roman Empire etched in bronze and copies have also survived and are readily available.
Many historians dismiss the Speech of Praise because it is fully of flattery for Trajan and casts Pliny in a very favorable light. They also dismiss What I Did for the same reason. Obviously, Augustus was bragging about his achievements and glossing over any failures or shortcomings. But Beard says it’s a mistake to dismiss these sources.
The Emperor Handbook
The two sources may be obsequious and self-congratulatory, but they contain invaluable information. In the course of praising emperors, the Speech of Praise and What I Did constitute a handbook on how to be a good emperor. If these sources focus on the successes of Trajan and Augustus, it follows that those successes were widely considered benchmarks by which emperors were measured by Roman citizens. Mary Beard calls it a “job description” for being emperor.
There’s a lot in these two sources, but they can be boiled down to a few key points. The successful emperor did the following:
- Win military victories
- Being a benefactor to everyday citizens and worthy causes
- Provide spectacles and entertainments (the famous “bread and circuses”)
- Sponsor new buildings and restore those in disrepair
Not every emperor lived up to this job description, but the best ones did. In truth, the Empire did not expand much after 100 AD, although some military victories could be won by fighting barbarians on the frontiers. The Roman dole was expected to be grain, and other staples were routinely distributed in the cities.
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