Comparing US Presidents and Roman Emperors

Comparisons between American presidents and Roman emperors are seldom flattering. American presidents, after all, aren't supposed to act like emperors. It's only when they overstep the bounds of their office that observers tend to be reminded of Roman-style autocracy. Any comparison between presidents and emperors has to overlook the vast political differences between ancient Rome and modern America. In theory, and to a certain extent in practice, the power of a Roman emperor was unlimited. "The will of the emperor," said the jurist Ulpian, "has the force of law. " Although Augustus and his successors presented their authority as a continuation of the dignities and offices of the old republic, it was an open secret that imperial power was backstopped by the legions. The American president, by contrast, is dependent on the democratic process. Although the presidency has accrued authority over the past century, it remains, unless given free rein by congressional truckling, basically what the founders designed it to be. Powerful, but not all-powerful. The president is elected, his tenure is limited, and he can be impeached. He is not above the law. Like emperors, however, American presidents have the power to remake the government and, to some extent, the country in their own image. Their personalities matter, and in that sense, they can be compared with their Roman counterparts. I thought about trying to find an emperor similar to each of the 45 presidents. I agonized over whether William Henry Harrison was more like Gordian the first or Gordian the second. I discovered that Calvin Coolidge and Theodosius the second would have been best friends. But ultimately, in the interests of sanity, I decided to focus on a quartet of prominent presidents and emperors. If you find that there are other presidents you would have liked me to mention, feel free to make your own comparisons in the comments.

Let's start with Thomas Jefferson. The third president was a man of many talents. Besides the Declaration of Independence, he authored a monograph on the state of Virginia, a revised version of the Gospels, and pamphlets on a wide range of topics. He was a gifted architect, responsible for both the Virginia State Capitol and the campus of the University of Virginia. Trained as a lawyer and a planter by profession, he was an amateur archaeologist, meteorologist, ethnographer, and inventor. He enjoyed travel, as attested by the extensive notes he took during a tour of France and northern Italy. But he was most at home in his estate at Monticello, which he had designed himself. Like Jefferson, the Roman emperor Hadrian had an omnivorous intellect. An accomplished poet in both Greek and Latin, he enjoyed debating the finer points of grammar and literature with eminent scholars. Again, like Jefferson, he was a gifted architect. He designed the Temple of Venus and Roma by the Colosseum. And deeply curious about the natural world, once climbing Mount Etna to watch the sunrise through volcanic vapor. Hadrian traveled compulsively, spending more than half his reign outside Italy. Between journeys, he returned to his sprawling villa in Tivoli, larger than a city of Pompeii. There, in an artificial grotto beside the villa's reflecting pool, he hosted dinners on summer nights. If Jefferson had been a guest at one of those soirees, I think that he and the emperor would have had a fantastic conversation. They could have spoken Greek to one another. It was both men's favorite language.

language. Explorer, Rough Rider, big game hunter, and amateur boxer, Theodore Roosevelt was a steampunk action figure disguised as a president. Though a prolific writer and talented naturalist, Roosevelt always saw himself as a man of action. The greatest day of his life, he said, was the one in which he led the charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War. Like TR, Valentinian I, who reigned over the Western Roman Empire from 364 to 375, came from a prosperous family. From boyhood, however, he was drawn to the strenuous life of a soldier. He rose rapidly through the ranks, both on account of his bravery and from his skill as a tactician, which extended to inventing new kinds of weapons. Though noted, like Roosevelt, for his physical strength and inexhaustible energy, he, too, had an artistic side. In his free time, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, he was a talented painter and sculptor. Theodore Roosevelt became the namesake of the teddy bear after refusing to shoot a captive black bear. Emperor Valentinian also had a soft spot for bruins. He kept two of them, named Goldflake and Innocence, as pets. Wherever he went, Goldflake and Innocence accompanied him. Periodically, it was said, the emperor fed his political enemies to them. More than one US president, one suspects, would have liked to imitate that trick.

John F. Kennedy is the martyr of 20th century American politics. Although most of his legislative goals were actually achieved by successor Lyndon Johnson, Johnson's disastrous escalation of the Vietnam War left many Americans wondering whether Kennedy would have handled things differently. That unanswerable question, along with a series of well-written hagiographies, has lent the Kennedy presidency an almost mythical aura in the popular imagination. In that, JFK is most similar to Germanicus Caesar. Though never emperor himself, Germanicus was the father of Caligula, brother of Claudius, and grandfather of Nero. He would have reigned in his own right had he not been cut down in his prime. Like Kennedy, Germanicus was handsome, charming, and a noted closely associated with his beautiful wife and young family. The parallel is closest, however, in the way both Germanicus and Kennedy were lionized after their deaths. When a sudden fever claimed his life, many Romans suspected that Germanicus had been poisoned. He swiftly became an emblem of all that was right and Roman. He had, it was said, even considered restoring the republic. Nothing in Roman history was closer to the Camelot mythos of the Kennedy White House.

House. Despite a long record of effective service and inspired diplomacy, Richard Nixon will always be remembered as one of the greatest failures in American political history. Reelected by a landslide in 1972, he was forced to resign only 2 years later by a scandal that had revealed him to be prejudiced, paranoid, and profoundly unscrupulous. Like Nixon, the Roman emperor Tiberius was an extremely competent public figure undone by the flaws of his character. As Nixon had emerged in the shadow of the wildly popular Eisenhower, so Tiberius had spent much of his adulthood as the neglected stepson of Augustus. Thanks in part, doubtless, to such experiences, both Nixon and Tiberius were almost morbidly suspicious. Tiberius conducted a series of murderous treason trials. Nixon had to be content with an enemies list. In the end, Tiberius withdrew to Capri, effectively exiling himself from Rome. Nixon resigned before he could be impeached. Both men dealt themselves the fatal blows that ended their political careers. I wonder whether Nixon, an avid reader of history, ever likened himself to Tiberius. If so, he must have known that the parallel was not complimentary. This November, I'll be visiting Tiberius's villa as part of my Bay of Naples tour. Find out more by following the link in the description. You'll also find a link there for the Toldstone Patreon, home of my Roman review series, which explores movies and shows set in the classical world. The good times keep rolling on my other two channels. I just released an interview with Eric Klein on Toldstone Footnotes, and I'm approaching the grand finale of my Sites of Greece series on Scenic Routes to the Past. Please check them out, and as always, thanks for watching.