Reflections On A New Imperium

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday March 21, 2008

Reviewed by Paul Sheehan. Paul Sheehan is a senior writer for the Herald and the author, most recently, of the book Girls Like You..

The New Rome?

By Cullen Murphy

Scribe, 262pp, $27.95

WHEN America was young and its leaders were creating symbols for their republic, they turned several times to imperial Rome. One symbol appropriated was the fasces - a tightly bound bundle of wooden rods strapped around an axe. The fasces can be seen in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the Capitol and is prominent in Abraham Lincoln's carving in the Lincoln Memorial.

In Roman times, the fasces was the symbol of the emperor. Over time it also came to symbolise "strength in unity". That's what encouraged the Americans to take the symbol for themselves. But what was the fasces to begin with? When the rods were unbundled, they were used to flog offenders. The axe was then used to decapitate them. It was carried ahead of the emperor because of its aura of implied violence. The Americans had appropriated a portable torture machine.

This is one of the numerous tasty morsels to be consumed in The New Rome? by Cullen Murphy. Ever since the Americans chose another symbol from the Roman empire, the war eagle, as their emblem of national power - and then rose to become the greatest power on earth - comparisons have been made between these two imperiums. Inevitably, the cover of The New Rome? is adorned with an eagle.

The comparisons have been so commonplace that they have become a cliche and a cliche is, by definition, lazy thought. Cullen Murphy, for 20 years the managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly, decided to take a hard look at the parallels, comparisons and metaphors to see if they have substance or melt under scrutiny.

He comes to, perhaps, a surprising conclusion. He finds parallels in abundance: the military is paramount, militarism is commonplace and the armed forces, though highly disciplined, trained and well-equipped, suffer from imperial overstretch.

The empire is global, yet Rome's culture is insular. The nation state is messianic, with a belief in its singularity. It is logistically dazzling. It is profoundly privatised, with a system of private patronage undertaking many of the functions of the state.

It is immense in scale. It suffers imperial blowback. It spawns a large, conflicting bureaucracy. It absorbs massive immigration by "barbarians". It is uncomprehending, for all the above reasons, of threats evolving beyond the borders of its realm. Decadence did replace hardiness in core elements of the culture.

But the question mark in the book's title is crucial. This is neither a polemic, nor a defence of American virtue. Murphy may be measured and thoughtful but he is a journalist and he thus needs to be lively and make the comparison come alive before he can judge it.

When he does judge, he concludes that the analogy between late Rome and the Pax Americana of today is flawed in several strategic ways. First, American democracy may be imperfect but it is light years ahead of Rome's democracy. Second, the Americans shed the stain of slavery - the Romans depended on it from the beginning to the end of empire.

Third, the economy and technology of ancient Rome barely moved after the empire first took shape. America, by contrast, has absorbed three profound economic and social evolutions, from agrarian to industrial to digital.

So much modern thought about Rome is seen through the magnificent, defining filter of Edward Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. But did Rome fall, Murphy asks.

By the time the barbarians took control of the empire, they had been largely Romanised. After more than 2000 years, Rome remains an imperial capital, the main centre of the world's largest belief system. It is the headquarters of a global empire, of sorts, which carries within itself many of the traditions of ancient Rome - the Catholic Church.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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