Where Have You Gone, Gaius Julius?

Despising Gaius Julius Caesar is sort of a prerequisite for polite American company. Certainly anyone aspiring to political office must distance him or herself from the notion that Caesar was anything other than the prototypical tyrant.

It also doesn't help that we spent 3/4 of the last century with either the Germans or the Russians as our mortal foe, and that they plenty of kaisers and czars in their sordid histories.

There are two viable forms of government. One is democracy. Real democracy. Direct democracy. Greek democracy. The other is dictatorship. The problem with those who condemn Caesar is that they are so blinded by the "principle" that they ignore the facts and still misapply the principle, to boot.

The principle is that no man should be able to overthrow a democracy; that the rule of the people is preferable to dictatorship. I heartily agree. But that does NOT mean that Rome was a democracy before Caesar became dictator. Rather, it was an oligarchy, the worst of all possible worlds.

Oligarchy, or rule by a small elite, is perhaps the inevitable transitory phase between dictatorship and democracy. It's the acne-ridden awkwardness of government's maturing process. But it is the worst form of government imaginable. And it's what Rome had before Caesar.

The Senate did not represent "the people" of Rome. It was comprised of wealthy landowners and slaveholders of noble birth who would scoff at the idea that they even inhabited the same moral universe as "the plebs". Instead of one dictator, Rome had several dozen. And they called themselves the Senate. And too many chefs spoiled the stew.

Since the Senate was not remotely democratic or representative, the question becomes: was the oligarchy of the Senate preferable to dictatorship? In my mind, No.

Caesar's ultimate insult to the Senate was to ignore them and go directly to the plebs, the people. And this the oligarchs could not abide.

But Caesar and his successor, Augustus Octavian, accomplished more than the oligarchy of the Senate ever could have, and several of their actions benefited the plebs more than the Senate's ever had. Whether this was cynical demagoguery on the part of the Caesars was surely entirely irrelevant to the plebs.

Consider our current attempt to reform heath care. The people know what they want. The president knows what he wants. So, if this were a direct democracy or a dictatorship, we would have our reforms. But since this is an oligarchy, we will not.