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Special officials had prepared his journey. It reminded Murphy of ‘a Roman emperor traveling around his empire. In that book, Murphy described the arrival of George W. Meijer quoted Cullen Murphy’s Are we Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.

#Gaius julius caesar mussolini tv#

And the soccer club AC Milan (and games on Berlusconi’s TV stations, one might add) in Berlusconi’s case.Īfter this Berlusconi comparison, Meijer continued his lecture with the United States and its foreign and military policy, especially under George W. Also, before becoming the most powerful politicians, both tried to become popular by organizing games. While Berlusconi had an operation, though he officially denied that. Caesar tried to hide that with his way of combing his hair. Caesar, though he was not yet an emperor, is widely seen as the dictatorial gravedigger of the Roman republic which preceded the empire. Here, in his lecture (not in the printed version in his book De oudheid is nog niet voorbij), Meijer gave as an example Silvio Berlusconi. So, post 1945 politicians were usually less open about modeling themselves on Romans. Examples of this are “neo classicist” nazi architecture and the standards with eagles of Hitler’s SA and SS paramilitary forces, modeled on Roman legion standards. Here, I might add something: that Hitler’s Third Reich also modeled itself partly on the Roman empire, for lack of a Germanic empire in antiquity.

That defeat made it a lot more difficult for politicians to openly model themselves on ancient Roman emperors. However, the second world war brought Mussolini (like his ally Hitler) defeat, not victory. Mussolini’s favourite statue was the Prima Porta statue, showing Augustus as victorious military commander. Mussolini glorified war, which was also a tendency in ancient Roman state ideology. After the defeat of Mussolini’s ‘new Roman empire’ in 1945, the name of the road changed to Via dei Fori Imperiali, Emperors’ forums’ road. Mussolini had a big road built, Via del Impero, Empire Road. Augustus’ saying: “I found Rome as a city of bricks and I left it as a city of marble”, was the inspiration here. Like Augustus, Mussolini ordered a lot of building activity in the city of Rome as propaganda for the new ruler. Like Augustus, Mussolini claimed to bring order after chaos, and to restore moral values. To Mussolini, an emperor like Augustus, the first ‘Princeps’ of the Roman empire, was not just an inspiration, but an identification. The clearest example, Meijer said, of a twentieth century politician modeling himself on an emperor of two thousand years earlier, was the fascist dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini. Yet, politicians modeling themselves on Roman emperors or compared by others to those emperors, and their good and bad sides. It was about politicians, long after the fall of the Roman empire in 476 AD. Finally, he had decided that the title would be De nieuwe Romeinen The new Romans. Some of Meijer’s books have been translated into other languages, like English and Turkish.įik Meijer started the lecture, which included slides, saying that he had been asking himself for a long time which would be the theme of this his last lecture at the university. And history of very long ago is often said to be not as ‘sexy’ in attracting attention as, eg, Paris Hilton. Which is many, considering that on a world scale, not that many people read Dutch. Over 85,000 copies of his books have been sold. The big hall was crowded, showing the public interest in this lecture.įik Meijer is the best known author about ancient history in the Netherlands.

The lecture was at the big lecture hall of the university, formerly the Lutheran church of Amsterdam. Yesterday was the farewell lecture of Fik Meijer as professor in the history of the ancient world at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The senate, the people, Rome, the caesarian section, the Julian calendar and our old friend Pompey all make appearances, but NOT the Caesar Salad, as Julius had nothing to do with it. Well, Rome’s expansion took hundreds of years, he just explains it in under 12 minutes. John covers Rome’s transition from city-state to dominant force in the Mediterranean in less than 12 minutes. Find out how Caesar came to rule the empire, what led to him getting stabbed 23 times on the floor of the senate, and what happened in the scramble for power after his assassination. Here’s a hint: it had something to do with Julius Caesar, but maybe less than you think.

In which John Green explores exactly when Rome went from being the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. Or…Which Was It?: Crash Course World History #10