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Abstract

The political landscape of ancient Rome, especially during its transition from a Republic to an Empire, presents a complex interplay of power, rhetoric, and an undeniable opportunity for leaders previously limited in the democratic system to reorganize Rome and seize power. To them, it is no secret that military strength and populist support are the most potent methods of seizing power: Augustus had the people’s support on his side and lasted over 40 years, while the other Claudians and Nero, whom the people hated, lasted only a few years.

A close examination of the social dynamics of the Late Republic reveals that a center of the rhetorical speeches made by the political leaders surrounds the continuation of the Republic. While the people of Rome may disagree with many subjects, everyone believes that this Republic is something unique to Rome and part of their identity. With a successful history of over 400 years, it is something that everyone in Rome wants to relate to and keep. Understanding that the republic is part of the Roman identity, the leaders can’t help but pretend to maintain the Republic. With this in mind, it is the quest of the dictators/generals during a time of tumultuous change and opportunity to try to justify that the power is still in the hands of the people and create an illusion of a Republic when, in fact, it is just a facade.

Using the lens of rhetorical speeches from leaders such as Marius, Caesar, and Cicero, this paper aims to examine how the political leaders of Rome used rhetoric to create an illusion of a continuation of the Republic when the underlying dynamics of most of them point towards an authoritarian state. This paper will then use the conclusions made to examine the current polarization in the United States.

Introduction

Even after clearly transitioning into an authoritarian state, the leaders still manage to create a feeling that the people are in the Republic and that they have a false sense of power. This differs greatly from the other dictators that are more well known throughout contemporary history, such as those of the 20th century - Hitler, Stalin, etc. It is important to compare the leaders of the two ages as the circumstances of both are increasingly similar and political climates share many similarities. Referenced by ___ as spin dictators, these leaders often gain power not in the traditional method of ideology and terror in the 20th century but instead with a way of the manipulation of truth and reality. Leaders like Marius, Caesar, and later Augustus, can be seen as demagogues in the truest sense. They embodied the characteristics of dictators who spoke to the people, garnering support through persuasive rhetoric and populist measures. This was a period where language and actions were carefully orchestrated to maintain the illusion of democracy and republican governance, even as the reality shifted towards authoritarian rule. This is what draws such a clear similarity between the two eras of the world: the current polarization of the United States and the Roman time of dictators. Both times involve leaders trying to gain power in a democratic time.

To understand how these leaders managed to create and maintain this illusion, we will examine the methods and rhetoric of key figures such as Augustus, Marius, Caesar, and Cicero. Their stories offer a window into the complex interplay of power, perception, and identity in a society grappling with profound change. Through this exploration, we aim to unravel the enduring question of how leaders manipulate and mold political realities to fit their ambitions, a question that remains as relevant in contemporary political discourse as it was in the days of the Roman Republic.

A thorough analysis of the different leaders and speeches of these tyrants suggests that the two main steps to their analysis are defining the Republic in a way that is fitting to themselves and then connecting to how he or she is preserving the Republic in some sense.

Analysis

The Romans leaders of the late Republic and the early empire are very good at using rhetoric to consolidate their power not only through military strength but also the shaping of views of the people under them. Even after clearly transitioning into an authoritarian state, the leaders still manage to create a feeling that the people are in the Republic and that they have a false sense of power. This differs greatly from the other dictators that are more well known throughout contemporary history, such as those of the 20th century - Hitler, Stalin, etc. It is important to compare the leaders of the two ages as the circumstances of both are increasingly similar and political climates share many similarities. So the question to ask is how did they do it?

It is no secret that the will of the people during the time after the tumultuous years is to go back to the peaceful framework of the Republic. Though many may differ in their views of how the Republic should be structured, the general consensus among the citizens is that the Republic, something that is truly embedded in their identity - is something that should stay. Therefore, at this point, the role of the dictator has changed to not only trying to convince the people of their necessity but also to justify themselves in the framework of the republic and to convince others that they are still serving the republic and that it is a system that they are willing to revert back to. Something that seems easy enough from the start to analyze, as one would believe that there would not be lots of room for change if one wants to align with a set of values that the republic gives - or even more straight forwards the laws of the republic - it turns out to be a lot more difficult.

Conducting a close analysis of the speeches of only the top 5 leaders reveals a stunning truth of how they manage to swing and deceive so many voters to think that they are still working within the democratic framework when they have long deviated from it. Their manipulation, though prevalent throughout their entire speeches, centered around a few words, known as ‘key words,’ that are prevalent throughout all speeches. These ‘key words’ are words that often refer to ambiguous concepts that have no clear definition and therefore can be easily manipulated to suit their own needs. These words, such as virtue, dignitas, or even res republica, are extremely prevalent in Rome due to their value based society and foundation. Doing a quick analysis from the top 100 speeches of Roman leaders in the late republic from speakers such as Marius, Sulla, Cicero, Caesar, or Cato reveals a stunning solution:

It is truly interesting and apparent to see that these words are used by leaders of the republic to shape voters' views. Now we will examine to what extent have they been applied and how did the leaders of Rome manage to change the meaning of the word so much to suit their needs and, a better question, how did they align these new concepts with their own strengths? To do this, I will look into two main case studies, one between the speeches of Marius and Sulla, who engaged in a civil conflict in the year ___, and the Roman Late Civil War in two stages, first with the original leaders, that is, J. Caesar, Cicero, Pompeii, and Cat, and then during the late Civil War and the early empire, that is, Marc Antony and Augustus Caesar.

What's more interesting is the party formation rates of the Roman world juxtaposed with the frequency graph. As it can be seen here, a stunning revelation reveals that they are in many ways overlapping - showing that there is a correlation between and a possibility that the increased usage of the key words are dividing Rome as these key words are dividing the meaning and lens to which the very foundation of politics and life is viewed by the average Roman citizen. This type of damage to politics and the causes it has to political polarization can not only be seen in past Roman worlds - but also in contemporary politics. What else can be seen as more interesting is that by generalizing the words and averaging them out between the speeches of their time reveals this stunning graph that shows the frequency of these averaged out key words vs time. As it can be seen, as Rome progressed more and more into chaos during the late 100 BC, the usage of these abstract concepts spiked up, often between opposing parties.

The United States

The US today: While I will not dive too deep into the nature of the state of politics that the US is in today, as it is still a very debated topic, it is no secret that the US has certain political problems that need to be addressed. The political polarization of the US has now created two parties that view the nature of government itself in two very different ways. Although it can be argued, the lack of a definitive enemy of the United States following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 puts the US in a position that allows for the perfect situation for its leaders to begin to turn inwards. All of this describes a vast republic that is in a similar state to that of the Roman Republic during its late stages. This leads to a question of whether the same techniques used by the Roman Republic are still used today. But first, before I dive into the analysis of the states of the speeches and republic, I will first address some key differences between the two states.

First of all, the most major and important distinction between the two is the audience and dissemination method. While the Republic primarily uses speeches in the forum to swing voters, they have to engage with a volume of voters a lot less than contemporary US as only the citizens of Rome, a very exclusionary status, are allowed to vote. This, however, can be matched with an equally powerful method of the dissemination of information in the US - the radio at first, TV, and now social media - which allows contemporary politicians to reach their vast number of possible voters in equal ease as Roman politicians can.

With this addressed, I will conduct a similar analysis into the politics of the US following the collapse of the soviet union after 2016, when the US had enough time to settle in after the cold war, the subprime crisis, and the afghanistan and iraq wars. To do this, we will focus on a few key elections - Obama, Trump Hillary, and Trump Biden.

Conclusion - Impact and Future

While these findings do reveal an interesting and fun thing to watch up for in contemporary political debates and posts - such things also reveal a terrifying future. While Rome’s political discussions started off relatively friendly with political debates on values of the Republic, it quickly escalated as interests of both the people and that of the leaders began to be mixed into the equation(talk about this earlier on as well). Alignment to the Republic quickly evolved into justifications. [And with ever increasing capabilities of social media and even the divided platforms of social media - even blocking of news of people and receiving their own set of biased news - polarization is at an ever increasing rate]

It is not long after the peaceful debates when Caesar stood in front of the Rubicon river contemplating on his decision to cross. The ultimatum sent to him forced him to try to gain his immunity back, while his followers - mainly his soldiers - deprived of the benefits of the republic and needing the money necessary to sustain themselves, stood across the river ready to cross. While the exact details of the two worlds are different in many respects, it is nevertheless undeniable that people like Trump have the possibility of going through the same problem(give a little bit more context of course).