I was conflicted about whether to post this here or in Shit Reactionaries Say because this is a somewhat schizophrenic piece.
On the one hand it accurately describes the dysfunctional, corrupt oligarchy that Rome had become by the time that Julius Caesar came onto the scene, as well as giving a rough outline of how it got there. In doing so the author juxtaposes that historical reality with the idealized narrative which this BBC production is trying to portray of a well functioning democratic republic ruined by one nefarious populist.
The piece thus correctly exposes the propaganda and the historical myth-making surrounding this topic and the obvious parallels which the liberal media is trying to draw between the Roman republic and modern liberal democracies (in particular the US which for a long time has seen itself as a modern Rome).
For those who have not studied Roman history this is worth a read to realize how liberal propagandists employ historical revisionism to justify the present day status quo and demonize any person or party with a “populist” agenda.
On the other hand the author, being a reactionary, halfway through the piece suddenly starts to advocate for Great Man Theory*, not realizing that by doing so he is doing the same but in reverse as the liberals who scapegoat figures like Julius Caesar for developments which were really the result of the contradictions of the system itself (as the piece says: the crisis created Caesar, not vice versa).
Ultimately i decided to post this here because most of the piece is actually fairly informative, while the part where it advocates for the idolizing of “great men” is an illustration of the kind of nonsense that results when you do not understand or when you reject dialectical and historical materialism.
All that being said, if you are interested in reading about this period of history from a leftist and materialist perspective i would strongly suggest you read Michael Parenti’s “The Assassination of Julius Caesar” instead.
*[It has been pointed out to me that this particular passage is more ambiguous than i initially thought, and not everyone interprets it as actually advocating for GMT]
I also didn’t get the impression that the article is promoting Great Man theory. It’s just pointing out how libs fixate on people like Trump or Putin because they believe in this nonsense and are incapable of doing systemic analysis.
The text is ambiguous enough on this to allow some freedom of interpretation. I personally get the impression that the author likes the idea of great men who “move history along”, but i can also see how you can read it differently and not get that same impression. Either way, it’s one paragraph in an otherwise pretty good article about liberals doing historical revisionism to justify their bad politics today.
For sure, overall it’s an excellent find.