Donald Trump and Elon Musk irritate and shock. Searches for their actions to ancient times. In fact, you will find it with Julius Caesar, says old philologist Markus Schauer.
The world now looks at the USA under Donald Trump anxiously, and announcements from the White House trigger excitement and uncertainty almost every day. What is Trump? And what does he want to achieve with Elon Musk? When answering these questions, the comparison with legendary and notorious Roman rulers like Julius Caesar is often drawn.
Is there something there? Markus Schauer, old philologist and author of the book “Triumvirat. The struggle for the Roman Imperium” sees reason to worry.
T-online: Professor Schauer, Donald Trump shakes the USA and the rest of the world. Roman rulers such as Caesar, Caligula or Nero are also used to interpret Trump’s action. What do you think of it?
Markus Schauer: There are troubling parallels between the crisis of the late Roman Republic and the developments in our present. Even mighty men fight for even more power, the rest of the world is affected. The world even threatens to become different. That should seem familiar to us: In Rome, men like the Triumpirn Caesar, Pompeius and Crassus were at work at the time, today it is Donald Trump, Elon Musk and others.
To what extent can history be repeated at all?
The Greek historian of Thukydides dealt with this question years ago. For Thukydides, human nature always remains the same, so we would again have to deal with an archaic that was believed to be overcome in our modern and globalized world. There will always be rulers and hunters when we believe Thukydides. Because in this point of view they are an anthropological constant.
Markus SchauerBorn in 1967, teaches classical philology with a focus on Latinistics at the University of Bamberg. Schauer’s work was released in 2016 “The Gallic War: History and Deception in Caesar’s masterpiece“In 2023 the philologist published his current book”Triumvirate. The fight for the Roman Empire. Caesar, Crassus, Pompeius“(both in the publisher ch Beck).
In their book “Triumpen: The fight for the Roman Imperium” they describe Caesar, Pompeius and Crassus as creatures of their time. That should also apply to Trump and Musk.
Indeed. At the moment, a deep division runs through the United States Society, in the late Roman Republic it was no different. On the one hand, there was “the best” in German, the optimities, which were extremely conservative and saw the Senate as the center of political will formation within the nobility, the Roman leadership. On the other hand, the popular, the “people -friendly” that the People’s Assembly used as an instrument stood. Later the conflict was completely escalated and led to the civil war between Caesar and Pompeius in 49 BC. Crassus fell against the Parthians four years earlier.
Which parallels do you see between Trump and Caesar?
There are some. Gaius Julius Caesar came from a time -honored Roman patrician family who attributed her origin to the goddess Aphrodite. Nevertheless, Caesar later joined the popular. Why? He calculated better career opportunities. Let’s take Donald Trump, a heavy entrepreneur who pretends to represent the “simple” American. This connection to the “people” and what it wants to be all right for Caesar as well as for Trump was a central means of legitimation and power.
Caesar crossed the Rubikon in 49 BC and thus opened the civil war, because otherwise the optimities in the Senate would have threatened with the disposal and exile. Today, Donald Trump also favors a third term in the constitution because he fears the prison.
For a Roman politician, the loss of “Dignitas”, that is, dignity and prestige, was a disaster. Even worse weighed the exile, into which Caesar had been sent without any doubt if he had had the instructions of the Senate without protection through his legions. A typical place for such an exile was Massilia, today’s Marseille. Even worse, this political punishment would not only have been for Caesar, but his entire family. It was worse for him than death. Trump is also about everything, because if no office protects him, he could be held accountable for his actions in the future.
