Of what worth can it be for us at the dawn of the 21st century to spend our precious time in the study of ancient days? There’s enough to study all about us, enough to fill a thousand books, and hundreds of libraries at least. And yet, sometimes from the hoary mists of history come moments of crystal clarity, which reveal to us all, better than a window pane, the events of our day. They reveal to us the underlying forces that still ripple through our present, often explaining why things are as they are.
The recent book on ancient Rome, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome, by scholar Michael Parenti, is surely a well written and accessible work on a subject that is quite complex, but it is more. It examines and uncovers the politics and classes at work in ancient Rome and of empires that have followed Rome to explain why we have been taught what we think we know about the fountainhead of much of Western civilization. In short, Parenti draws into sharp question the politics, not just of the Roman historians who have recorded much of what we know about Rome, but at least as important how modern day historians, whom he calls ‘gentlemen historians’, have used their own privileged positions to project classist and anti-popular histories of the Roman era.
According to Parenti, the commonly held view of Julius Caesar as a tyrant and of his murder as a tyranticide is badly misplaced. He argues that Caesar, as well as several of his predecessors and contemporaries, belong to a tradition that he calls the ‘populares’, or those who sought to liberalize and expand the opportunities offered by the state. He cites the case of Tiberius Gracchus, an elected Tribune, who sought to pass the lex agraria, or ‘land law’, which would have opened up large land holdings to the poor, among them the impoverished soldiers of Rome. Upon presentation of this proposed law to the people, the Tribune was opposed by powerful senators who hated him for his popular appeal.
His words still move us after over two thousand years, “Hearthless and homeless, they must take their wives and families and tramp the roads like beggars. They fight and fall to serve no other end but to multiply the possessions and comforts of the rich. They are called masters of the world, but they possess not a clod of Earth that is truly their own.” When one scans the faces of thousands of homeless veterans in the cities of the US Empire, one can only be struck by this echo from history. The Roman Senate, composed of wildly wealthy men did not take kindly to the measure and rewarded Tiberius by killing him. His younger brother Gaius would suffer a similar fate, as did several thousand of their supporters.
The Senate, full of men who were among the large landowners, squeezed the people dry, driving many off of their ancestral holdings to make more loot. They were a republic in name only. It was a state organized by wealth, of wealth, and for wealth, period. When we look at those who sit in today’s Senate, this “Millionaires Club”, how much of a difference does two thousand years make? It is a democracy in name or even a democratic republic, yet who dares question that the rich still rule? From death row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.
These commentaries are released by Noelle Hanrahan for Prison Radio.