Q&A
In a nutshell, what is this book about?
The comparison of modern America and the ancient Roman Empire is so familiar that you almost can’t help yourself: it comes to mind the way the behavior of chimps reminds you of the behavior of people. Is it really ourselves we see? Everyone “gets it” whenever a comparison of Rome and America is drawn—for instance, in offhand references to welfare and televised sports as “bread and circuses,” or to illegal immigrants as “barbarian hordes.” When a reference is made to an “imperial presidency,” or to the deployment abroad of “American legions,” no one wonders what you could possibly be talking about.
The big question is: does this comparison really make any sense? And if it does, in what ways? Is there anything we can learn from Rome’s example? Are we destined to “fall” the way Rome did?
So, what’s the answer? Does the comparison hold up?
Yes. In many ways, some of them surprising, the comparison holds up powerfully. Sure, Rome and America are vastly different places. But I argue that they have some crucial traits in common—though maybe not the ones that people point to first. Think less about decadence, less about military might, and more about how our two societies view the outside world, more about the slow decay of homegrown institutions. Think less about threats from unwelcome barbarians, and more about the healthy functioning of a multi-ethnic society. Think less about the ability of a superpower to influence everything on earth, and more about how everything on earth affects a superpower.
Just a minute. Decadence isn’t an issue?
Not really, if by decadence you mean moral and materialistic excess. Rome was at its most decadent before it was at its most powerful, and at its least decadent when it fell. By the way, the vomitorium that gets mentioned all the time—a special room where people went to get sick, so they could get back to the orgy—didn’t really exist. The word refers to something else. It was just a passageway that “disgorged” people from an arena or theater.
Is America is destined to “fall,” the way Rome did?
Absolutely. A big lesson of Rome is that the status quo can’t be flash-frozen. A millennium hence America will be hard to recognize. It may not exist as a nation-state in the form it does now—or even exist at all. Will the transitions ahead be gradual and peaceful or abrupt and catastrophic? Will our descendants be living productive lives in a society better than the one we inhabit now? Whatever happens, will valuable aspects of America’s legacy weave through the fabric of civilizations to come?
Of course, a big part of the question lies in the phrase “the way Rome did.”
What do you mean?
Popular images to the contrary, the fall of Rome wasn’t a sudden cataclysm, like the fall of Carthage or of the Aztecs or of Berlin. There wasn’t a social implosion, or the destruction of a civilization. Historians may put a date on the “fall”—and they do, 476 A.D.—but the fall actually took centuries. The strange thing is, people who lived through it probably didn’t know it was happening. Even today historians ask themselves if Rome really fell. Maybe what it did was melt—which could be what America will do.
What are some of the similarities you see between America and Rome?
One of them is the way we both view ourselves as the center of the world—the place the entire planet revolves around. This leaves us blind to what’s going on beyond our borders, and makes us think we’re more powerful than we are—makes us think we can always act alone. Another similarity is the strange nature of our capital cities. Washington and Rome are both economically pointless, engorged on vast revenues, detached from the nation at large, and obsessed with image and status. Washington even looks like Rome, and in August it feels like Rome. A third similarity is the way more and more of the things that government is supposed to do are being put into private hands—in the end, government stops being able to function, and things get done only when money changes hands. This is happening right before our eyes. We’re selling off highways, airports, and naming rights in national parks. Hired guards far outnumber police. Money secures public office, and public office secures money. A Roman would have felt right at home.
What about immigrants? Are they the modern version of “barbarian hordes”?
Actually, no. The whole Rome-and-the-barbarians story is misunderstood. Rome, like America, was very, very good at assimilating outsiders—these are the two most successful multi-ethnic states in history. Most of the barbarian influx was peaceful, and the barbarians came into the empire not to destroy it but to be part of it. This went on for century after century. The story of Rome, America, and immigrants is a positive similarity, not a negative one.
Who, then, are the barbarians? These days, I’d argue, Conan the Barbarian would be Conan the Contractor. One of the big problems Rome eventually faced was that it couldn’t get enough people to fill out the military, and so it began hiring outsiders—whole barbarian armies. Of course, these hired guns—well, hired swords—had their own interests to consider. America is doing the same thing, for the same reason. We’re hiring corporations like Halliburton to do our military work, and we’re also taking on mercenaries by the tens of thousands. This will come back to haunt us.
Are we stretched too thin?
Yes, without question, and Rome was, too. But this is a phenomenon without a solution, as Rome would discover. The great irony of expanding power—the irony of any empire—is that it eventually generates counterforces greater than the original force. There’s no way to grow your way out of this problem.
Leaving “lessons” aside, how alike are Romans and Americans?
We’d recognize one another in a lot ways. There’s the obvious empire dimension—the military might, the melting pot, the cultural power. Beyond that, Romans and Americans see themselves as a chosen people. They see the future in terms of Manifest Destiny. Both believe deeply in private property. Both relish the ritual humiliation of public figures. Both accept enormous disparities of wealth, and allow the gap to widen. One historian remarks that the last few centuries of Rome can be reduced to the words “fewer have more.” Both Rome and America revel in engineering prowess. Whenever I see the space shuttle, standing upright and inching slowly on its crawler toward the launching pad, I think back to the Rome of Hadrian’s day, and the gargantuan statue of the Sun-God, as tall as the shuttle, being dragged into place by twenty-four elephants.
And the differences?
They’re huge—and we should never forget them. Rome was economically static, America is economically transformative. Rome was always a slave-holding state, with all the moral and social retardation this implies; America started out as a slave-holding state, and decisively cast slavery aside. Rome was never a democracy, and it had no middle class as we understand the term; whereas for Americans the middle class is the core social fact—our ballast, our gyroscope, our compass.
What’s the biggest difference, do you think?
Rome’s elites were completely satisfied with their lot—their motto might have been, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” Americans would glare in disbelief at Rome’s self-satisfaction. Striving to make life “better than this” is part of our social compact. Americans see America as a work in progress, in a state of constant reinvention. We’ve changed far more in the past hundred years—even in the last fifty—than the Roman world changed in the centuries before and after Rome’s fall. You could almost say we’ve built the fall of Rome into our political system. Are we Rome? Yes, again and again and again.
Is there a smart way ahead? Can we avoid decline?
We can’t control every variable, shouldn’t even try. The future is a mysterious place. Instead, it makes sense to focus on a handful of big factors that are within our control—and that will contribute to social strength no matter what the future brings. What are some of those things?
For starters, instill an appreciation of the wider world. To drive home the idea that “we are not alone” there is no substitute for fluency in another language. Every educated person in the Roman Empire spoke two languages. So did the strivers among the immigrants. In a globalizing world, Americans need to be like the Romans—and, frankly, like the barbarians.
Second, stop treating government as a necessary evil, and stop selling it off to private interests. Government can be held accountable in ways that the private sector can’t, and government programs—Social Security, student loans, safe food and drugs—promote a sense of common alliance and mutual obligation. Lose these things, and you’ll never get them back.
Third, fortify the institutions that promote assimilation: free schools, free clinics, and a program of national service. We can’t change the way the world works, can’t stop people from wanting to come to America. Our powerfully absorptive domestic culture will turn them into Americans soon enough, if we let it. But we have to bolster the engines of assimilation, not undermine them.
Finally, take some weight off the military. Like Rome, America is caught in a vise: the military is too big to sustain and too small to do everything we ask. Adopting a long-range energy policy—something we ought to do anyway—would at least let America pull away from military oversight of the Middle East. This may be a hundred year project, but a society with pretensions to staying power thinks in those terms. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
But you’re saying this won’t prevent “decline”?
One person’s “decline” is another’s “rise.” America as we know it will melt into history no matter what we do. The important question is: will the world that ensues be better? Whatever comes to pass, the sheer fact of America will weigh on the world for millennia. Like Rome, America is in some ways indistinguishable. The whole planet may someday speak Chinese, but people will probably still be saying “OK.” What we can’t know is which characteristics will be extinguished and which ones won’t. I hope it will be our egalitarianism, our entrepreneurship, and our exuberant impulse to associate in civic groups—and not our hyper-individualism and our moralizing messianic streak.
Here’s the point: the outcome is partly in our own hands. The outcome depends on how we act today.
