This day in history: Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon on this day in 49 B.C.
"The Rubicon is a small stream in northern Italy just south of the city of Ravenna. During the prime of the Roman Republic, roughly the last two centuries B.C., it served as a northern boundary protecting the heartland of Italy and the city of Rome from its own imperial armies. An ancient Roman law made it treason for any general to cross the Rubicon and enter Italy proper with a standing army. In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar, Rome’s most brilliant and successful general, stopped with his army at the Rubicon, contemplated what he was about to do, and then plunged south. The Republic exploded in civil war, Caesar became dictator and then in 44 B.C. was assassinated in the Roman Senate by politicians who saw themselves as ridding the Republic of a tyrant. However, Caesar’s death generated even more civil war, which ended only in 27 B.C. when his grand nephew, Octavian, took the title Augustus Caesar, abolished the Republic and established a military dictatorship with himself as 'emperor' for life. Thus ended the great Roman experiment with democracy. Ever since, the phrase 'to cross the Rubicon' has been a metaphor for starting on a course of action from which there is no turning back. It refers to the taking of an irrevocable step." Source
This Day in History: Romulus Augustulus, last Western Roman Emperor, abdicated after forces led by Odoacer invade Rome on this day in 476. So, today marks the traditional End of the Western Roman Empire.
However, Rome had been dying for a while before this.
From Lawrence W. Reed
More than 2,000 years before America’s bailouts and entitlement programs, the ancient Romans experimented with similar schemes. The Roman government rescued failing institutions, canceled personal debts, and spent huge sums on welfare programs. The result wasn’t pretty.
Roman politicians picked winners and losers, generally favoring the politically well connected — a practice that’s central to the welfare state of modern times, too. As numerous writers have noted, these expensive rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul efforts were major factors in bankrupting Roman society. They inevitably led to even more destructive interventions. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the old saying goes — and it took a while to tear it down as well. Eventually, when the republic faded into an imperial autocracy, the emperors attempted to control the entire economy.
Debt forgiveness in ancient Rome was a contentious issue that was enacted multiple times. One of the earliest Roman populist reformers, the tribune Licinius Stolo, passed a bill that was essentially a moratorium on debt around 367 BC, a time of economic uncertainty. The legislation enabled debtors to subtract the interest paid from the principal owed if the remainder was paid off within a three-year window. By 352 BC, the financial situation in Rome was still bleak, and the state treasury paid many defaulted private debts owed to the unfortunate lenders. It was assumed that the debtors would eventually repay the state, but if you think they did, then you probably think Greece is a good credit risk today.
In 357 BC, the maximum permissible interest rate on loans was roughly 8 percent. Ten years later, this was considered insufficient, so Roman administrators lowered the cap to 4 percent. By 342, the successive reductions apparently failed to mollify the debtors or satisfactorily ease economic tensions, so interest on loans was abolished altogether. To no one’s surprise, creditors began to refuse to loan money. The law banning interest became completely ignored in time.
By 133 BC, the up-and-coming politician Tiberius Gracchus decided that Licinius’s measures were not enough. Tiberius passed a bill granting free tracts of state-owned farmland to the poor. Additionally, the government funded the erection of their new homes and the purchase of their faming tools. It’s been estimated that 75,000 families received free land because of this legislation. This was a government program that provided complimentary land, housing, and even a small business, all likely charged to the taxpayers or plundered from newly conquered nations. However, as soon as it was permissible, many settlers thanklessly sold their farms and returned to the city. Tiberius didn’t live to see these beneficiaries reject Roman generosity, because a group of senators murdered him in 133 BC, but his younger brother Gaius Gracchus took up his populist mantle and furthered his reforms.
Gaius, incidentally, also passed Rome’s first subsidized food program, which provided discounted grain to many citizens. Initially, Romans dedicated to the ideal of self-reliance were shocked at the concept of mandated welfare, but before long, tens of thousands were receiving subsidized food, and not just the needy. Any Roman citizen who stood in the grain lines was entitled to assistance. One rich consul named Piso, who opposed the grain dole, was spotted waiting for the discounted food. He stated that if his wealth was going to be redistributed, then he intended on getting his share of grain.
By the third century AD, the food program had been amended multiple times. Discounted grain was replaced with entirely free grain, and at its peak, a third of Rome took advantage of the program. It became a hereditary privilege, passed down from parent to child. Other foodstuffs, including olive oil, pork, and salt, were regularly incorporated into the dole. The program ballooned until it was the second-largest expenditure in the imperial budget, behind the military.It failed to serve as a temporary safety net; like many government programs, it became perpetual assistance for a permanent constituency who felt entitled to its benefits.
In 88 BC, Rome was reeling from the Social War, a debilitating conflict with its former allies in the Italian peninsula. One victorious commander was a man named Sulla, who that year became consul (the top political position in the days of the republic) and later ruled as a dictator. To ease the economic catastrophe, Sulla canceled portions of citizens’ private debt, perhaps up to 10 percent,leaving lenders in a difficult position. He also revived and enforced a maximum interest rate on loans, likely similar to the law of 357 BC. The crisis continually worsened, and to address the situation in 86 BC, a measure was passed that reduced private debts by another 75 percent under the consulships of Cinna and Marius.
Less than two decades after Sulla, Catiline, the infamous populist radical and foe of Cicero, campaigned for the consulship on a platform of total debt forgiveness. Somehow, he was defeated, likely with bankers and Romans who actually repaid their debts opposing his candidacy. His life ended shortly thereafter in a failed coup attempt.
In 60 BC, the rising patrician Julius Caesar was elected consul, and he continued the policies of many of his populist predecessors with a few innovations of his own. Once again, Rome was in the midst of a crisis. In this period, private contractors called tax farmers collected taxes owed to the state. These tax collectors would bid on tax-farming contracts and were permitted to keep any surplus over the contract price as payment. In 59 BC, the tax-farmer industry was on the brink of collapse. Caesar forgave as much as one-third of their debt to the state. The bailout of the tax-farming market must have greatly affected Roman budgets and perhaps even taxpayers, but the catalyst for the relief measure was that Caesar and his crony Crassus had heavily invested in the struggling sector.
In 33 AD, half a century after the collapse of the republic, Emperor Tiberius faced a panic in the banking industry. He responded by providing a massive bailout of interest-free loans to bankers in an attempt to stabilize the market. Over 80 years later, Emperor Hadrian unilaterally forgave 225 million denarii in back taxes for many Romans, fostering resentment among others who had painstakingly paid their tax burdens in full.
Emperor Trajan conquered Dacia (modern Romania) early in the second century AD, flooding state coffers with booty. With this treasure trove, he funded a social program, the alimenta, which competed with private banking institutions by providing low-interest loans to landowners while the interest benefited underprivileged children. Trajan’s successors continued this programuntil the devaluation of the denarius, the Roman currency, rendered the alimenta defunct.
By 301 AD, while Emperor Diocletian was restructuring the government, the military, and the economy, he issued the famous Edict of Maximum Prices. Rome had become a totalitarian state that blamed many of its economic woes on supposed greedy profiteers. The edict defined the maximum prices and wages for goods and services. Failure to obey was punishable by death. Again, to no one’s surprise, many vendors refused to sell their goods at the set prices, and within a few years, Romans were ignoring the edict.
Enormous entitlement programs also became the norm in old Rome. At its height, the largest state expenditure was an army of 300,000–600,000 legionaries. The soldiers realized their role and necessity in Roman politics, and consequently their demands increased. They required exorbitant retirement packages in the form of free tracts of farmland or large bonuses of gold equal to more than a decade’s worth of their salary. They also expected enormous and periodic bonuses in order to prevent uprisings.
The Roman experience teaches important lessons. As the 20th-century economist Howard Kershner put it, “When a self-governing people confer upon their government the power to take from some and give to others, the process will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare.” Putting one’s livelihood in the hands of vote-buying politicians compromises not just one’s personal independence, but the financial integrity of society as well. The welfare state, once begun, is difficult to reverse and never ends well.
Rome fell to invaders in 476 AD, but who the real barbarians were is an open question. The Roman people who supported the welfare state and the politicians who administered it so weakened society that the Western Roman Empire fell like a ripe plum that year. Maybe the real barbarians were those Romans who had effectively committed a slow-motion financial suicide.
You can read a Portuguese version of this article here.
You can read an Italian version of this article here.
This day in history: Roman Emperor Caligula was born on this day in the year 12, and he was without doubt, the worst emperor ever.
From Lawrence W. Reed:
During the question-and-answer period after a lecture on ancient Rome, an audience member asked me, “Who would you rank as the Empire’s worst Emperor?”
That was a tough one. I deplore concentrated power so I really don’t like any of them. Of the grand total of 178 emperors—81 in the Western Empire and 97 in the Eastern—dozens of them were loathsome tyrants with little redeeming value. The worst, as Hayek told us, really do find their way to the top.
Power does so much more than corrupt. It attracts the already-corrupted and gives them the wherewithal to administer their corruption. It feeds on arrogance, narcissism, and self-deception. It dements the mind until it embraces schemes that ruin the lives of others. It rots the soul. I can think of no more destructive motivation than the lust for it. Rare is the individual who emerges a better person for having possessed it. Roman history demonstrates these truths vividly.
An Embarrassment of Riches Despots
Could the most reprehensible of the emperors be Nero, who burned Christians as human torches, commenced the process of diluting the precious metal content of Roman money, and murdered his own mother? One Roman historian claims that Nero once rubbed his hands together as he proclaimed, “Let us tax and tax again. Let us tax until no one owns anything.”
For sure, put Nero on the short list.
Picking a really bad despot out of 178 despots is like shooting fish in a barrel. You’ll get one no matter where you aim.
How about Commodus, a megalomaniac if there ever was one? He ordered the months of the year renamed in his honor because he thought he was a god. He maintained a harem of 300 female concubines and 300 young boys—many of them kidnapped and all of them, effectively, enslaved. He allowed corruption in the government to reign supreme while he indulged his depravities.
Don’t forget Diocletian, who tried in vain to stem the effects of his predecessors’ currency debasement by imposing draconian price controls. Death was the penalty for charging more than the Emperor deemed appropriate. It was not history’s only successful experiment with price controls because there just isn’t one. It failed.
Then there’s the absolute nutcase whose name, Elagabalus, sounds like the sound you’d make if you tried to say “elderberries” with a mouthful of marbles. British historian Edward Gibbon wrote that Elagabalus “abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury.” The German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr asserted that “The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” on account of his “unspeakably disgusting life.”
This being a family-friendly website, I won’t even begin to describe what he did but I can tell you this much: He did it all in the space of four years as emperor before his unlamented assassination at the tender age of 18.
Picking a really bad despot out of 178 despots is like shooting fish in a barrel. You’ll get one no matter where you aim.
And the “Winner” Is...
So, it’s with a healthy dose of caprice that I commend to you the name of Caligula as my personal choice for Worst Roman Emperor Ever. His story was even made into a bad movie in 1979. It remains a cult classic among sadists and those with poor taste in film.
It wasn’t always so. Very early in his reign, Caligula was apparently a decent chap.
He was only the third of the 178 emperors, ruling for three years and ten months, from March of 37 A.D. to January of 41 A.D. He was 28 when his rule came to an end by assassination. Some might say that because he held high office, Caligula was a “public servant.” Though contemporary sources are sparse, I believe large swaths of the Roman public might have had good reasons to differ in their opinion of him.
It wasn’t always so. Very early in his reign, Caligula was apparently a decent chap. But whether it was epilepsy as some allege or some other ailment, or simply the unwholesome effects of his power-lust, it didn’t take long for him to evolve into a beastly monster of epic proportions. He reminds me of another political figure of nearly 18 centuries later—Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of “The Terror” of the French Revolution, who only a few years before had opposed the death penalty. I think power went to his head, as it likely did with Caligula, too.
He butchered people mercilessly, often for trivial offenses. When there was a shortage of cattle to feed the beasts in public arenas, he ordered humans to be fed to them. Of his own citizens, he famously declared, “I wish the Roman people had but a single neck” so he could hang them all at once.
He couldn’t get along with the Senate and made sure senators were killed because of it. In fact, he apparently couldn’t get along with anybody, not even with his many wives, relatives, and lovers of both sexes.
Late in his tenure, Caligula convinced himself (but likely few others) that he was divine.
His economic policies weren’t much better. When a financial crisis gripped the Empire in 38, his administration responded with a massive issuance of zero-interest credit. That introduced distortions from which the economy never fully recovered. He spent lavishly on “public works” including many intended to simply glorify himself, all of which added to a growing burden of taxation and debt. Ancient historians such as Suetonius and Cassius Dio report that when his taxes were insufficient to cover his spending, “he began falsely accusing, fining and even killing individuals for the purpose of seizing their estates.” This was 1,800 years before Karl Marx turned that into a philosophy.
As if there weren’t enough problems at home, Caligula expanded the empire by annexing the kingdom of Mauretania (in Africa) after inviting its ruler to Rome, only to have him executed for accepting the invitation.
Late in his tenure, Caligula convinced himself (but likely few others) that he was divine. Historian Chris Scarre reports that he “built a temple to himself on the Palatine, and forced leading citizens to pay enormous sums for the honour of becoming his priests.”
Caligula attracted many would-be-but-unsuccessful assassins before three of them finally got the job done. They stabbed him 30 times in January of 41.
The Intoxicant Known as Power
The Senate briefly debated the idea of restoring the old Republic, then folded under pressure from the military and the mob of citizens who preferred handouts from the Emperor over responsibility and freedom for themselves. It was the last time that debate ever happened. Rome would suffer 78 more emperors before succumbing to the crushing burdens of a welfare/warfare tyranny and foreign invasion in 476. (For more on Roman history and its lessons, see here.)
The intoxicant known as power knows no equal. It is malevolent by its very nature. It has enslaved, tortured, and murdered more people than any other poisonous impulse in history. Perhaps the philosopher Eric Hoffer put it best when he wrote,
The corruption inherent in absolute power derives from the fact that such power is never free from the tendency to turn man into a thing, and press him back into the matrix of nature from which he has risen. For the impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
