America is the new Rome – and Europe must choose between freedom or servitude |
There are dark analogies to be drawn from ancient history when it comes to world events today, Neil Mackay warns
There's much talk currently that we’re heading back to the 19th century era of ‘Big Powers' and their spheres of influence. China controls the Pacific, Russia gets Eastern Europe, and America has the run of the western hemisphere from pole to pole and western Europe.
Perhaps, though, we aren’t delving far enough back in time when it comes to historical analogies. In the case of America, certainly, it’s becoming hard not to think of Imperial Rome.
What could be more Caesar-like than bringing the captive leader of a foreign nation back to your biggest city in chains?
Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro brought to mind Britain’s Celtic king Caratacus, paraded through the streets in a Roman Triumph by the Emperor Claudius in 50AD.
That’s how Emperors kept their vassals and victims in check: if any dared offend, then the mighty Imperial army would crush their nation and take them back to Rome for a spot of public humiliation and throat-slitting.
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Indeed, domestically, America feels rather analogous with Imperial Rome as well. Rome lost its democracy fast. The American Republic, like the Roman Republic, has experienced a rubicon moment.
The attempted insurrection at the US Capitol Building showed that Donald Trump, like Julius Caesar, has a mob which supports him. There’s something of Caesar’s crossing of the........