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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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The USA is not a hive mind, and it is possible to question election results without descending into anarchy. Who is 'we' in this "Should we"? Who is the final judge as to whether an election has "cleared the threshold to being authentic"?

These are not nitpicks. In ancient Rome, the person who decided whether elections were legitimate were the outgoing consuls for that year (consuls are like co-presidents who serve for one year terms, Rome had two). Pompey and Crassus were the consuls overseeing the elections for 55 BCE. When it looked like one of Pompey's enemies would win his election, Pompey would suddenly discover bad omens and cancel the vote. Then his men would go around the voting pens having 'discussions' with people, and when the vote resumed the outcome would be the way Pompey wanted it to be. This wasn't technically illegal. Consuls did have the right to cancel public events when the omens were bad. A partisan in ancient Rome could argue that there was nothing fraudulent about the outcomes of those elections.

A few years later, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched an army into Rome.

Not long after that, Pompey was beheaded in Egypt.

Not long after that, Julius Caesar was assassinated on the floor of the Senate.

Not long after that, a special election was called. A centurion stood at the gate of Rome and said, "If the Senate will not make Octavian* a consul, this will," resting a hand on the hilt of his sword.**

A few years after that Octavian became Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. So it goes.

Octavian wasn't legally old enough to run for consul, but that didn't mean anything anymore. The laws that were supposed to guarantee fair elections had been destroyed in spirit. Elections weren't fair. Given that, who can blame the centurion for demanding his own brand of fairness? Julius Caesar was, to the thousands of men who served him, their man in Rome. He was the only person they could trust to stand up for their interests. The Senate tried to put him on trial for treason, rewrote laws to stop him from running for office, and ultimately assassinated him. Who can blame the centurion for doing with the sword what the Senate had already been doing for years with paper-thin legal justifications, and ignoring Republican tradition to put his picked man into office?

Thus the Roman Republic was destroyed and the Roman Empire created in its place.

*By this point Gaius Octavius had legally changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar, but we call him Octavian to avoid confusing him with his more famous uncle. We could just as easily call him Caesar II, though. It does highlight the fact that, after the Senate assassinated Caesar, Caesar's army returned to Rome with another Caesar to replace him.

**This exchange probably didn't actually happen. Ancient historians tended to make up speeches and conversations to highlight important events.