This survey of over sixteen centuries of Roman imperial history from the Second Punic War to the Ottoman capture of Constantinople, as well as of subsequent exploitation of Rome's reputation, was prompted by a particular type of rhetoric in the United States. It opens with Donald Trump's ‘Make America Great Again’ inaugural speech of 20 January 2017. Trump did not refer to Rome, but other right-wing speakers, for example Ronald Reagan and Phyllis Schlafly, have used the fall of Rome to warn contemporaries about a particular social problem that is alleged to be sapping American strength: this might be promiscuity, immigration or lack of patriotic spirit, but failure to implement the speaker's preferences will presage a decline and fall to match Rome's. W.'s primary audience is American, but readers in the UK will formulate their own contexts from Brexit rhetoric about taking back control, putting the ‘Great’ back into Britain, removing European red tape, liberating millions of pounds from Brussels for British priorities and checking unrestricted immigration.
Roman history is covered within 200 pages: two chapters on the late Republic, two on the high empire, six on the later empire from the Third-Century crisis to Justinian, three on middle Byzantium, two on late Byzantium and the fall of Constantinople, and two on subsequent uses and investigations of the theme of ‘fall’. The scholarly apparatus is limited: endnotes rather than footnotes, an index, in which the two useful entries are ‘attributed cause of decline’ and ‘rhetoric’, and no consolidated bibliography. On occasion narrative overshadows analysis, especially in the late antique chapters. Within such a broad sweep, coverage is inevitably patchy, and readers should not expect a complete synopsis of Roman and Byzantine history. Gaius Sempronius Gracchus is mentioned, mostly in connection with his elder brother, but with no sense of his attempts at far-reaching reform. Huns are mentioned for causing Gothic moves into the empire in the 370s ce, but there is no reference to Attila or the critical role Huns played in the fifth century. W.'s focus is the exploitation of decline-and-renewal rhetoric and its harmful consequences, so that omission of material not directly relevant to this linkage is not important. W. praises an alternative strategy of constructive, non-judgemental change, which he credits to the good emperors of the second century and to a lesser extent to those of the tenth-century Macedonian renaissance. Although W. rejects the Gibbonian notion of the Antonine age as the happiest moment in history, for him the ‘five good emperors’ of the second century represent political behaviour that he advocates.
W. would, ideally, like to prevent the misuse of Roman history for political ends, but is unlikely to succeed. As he notes, Joan Collins cited the fall of Rome in the context of the AIDS epidemic without knowing anything about Rome other than that it fell; she will not be the last to exploit the knowledge that Rome once had an empire but now no longer does, a loss for which a variety of explanations can be offered, depending upon current need. Professional writers who provide speeches for presidents might read the book, but the same distortions that are inherent in popular perceptions of Roman decline will probably lead them to disregard its message.
Chronological presentation is a necessary starting point, but it would have been interesting for this to be supplemented by a thematic analysis that distributed incidents of renewal rhetoric into cultural, economic, military, political and religious factors, and then, more subjectively, distinguished them as genuine or constructed decline. There would be overlaps between such categories, but this would have clarified the exploitation of particular issues. Religion, which is not an entry in the index (though ‘impiety’ is a sub-heading under ‘attributed causes’), in particular would have benefited from such an analysis. Correct religious behaviour appears to emerge as an element in decline rhetoric in the third century ce with Christianity, first persecuted but then dominant with an imperative to define and enforce orthodox belief. Christian thinking has to be considered within established traditions of religious explanations for misfortune: Romans explained defeats at Drepana and Lake Trasimene through commanders’ sacrilegious behaviour, while Jewish writers pointed to disregard for Yahweh as leading to Babylonian captivity or Roman destruction of the Temple; new ceremonies and divinities, for example the Magna Mater, might be introduced to counteract protracted failures, as during the Second Punic War. Such ex-post-facto explanations might seem irrelevant to the unfortunate effects of decline rhetoric, but Elijah's slaying of the prophets of Baal or the burial alive of Vestal Virgins in 113 bce demonstrates that there were victims of religious hysteria long before Christian persecution.
Modern politics can stimulate fresh perceptions of Rome for ancient historians. Cato the Elder straddled the worlds of business and politics, attacked intellectuals and foreigners, and exploited elected office to settle private scores while attacking new learning and trumpeting moral rearmament: Trump might have approved! Tiberius Gracchus used an evocative story about migrant labour to campaign for economic benefits for citizens, but when his inflammatory rhetoric led to violence, he maintained plausible deniability; there is no need for scholars to reconcile his picture of slave gangs in the fields with archaeological evidence for Settefinestre-type villas. A monstrous image of Domitian was fabricated by orators who owed their early careers to him but now had to justify Trajan's regime, just as presidential acolytes rewrite history and their CVs. Hadrian would have understood ‘Build the Wall’ chanting, as also Procopius with his assertion of the impregnability of Justinian's reconstructed defences along the Danube.
Opportunities are missed, for example Justin II's reversal of Justinian's treatment of foreigners: Avar ambassadors were rudely dispatched without accustomed gifts, while Justin opportunistically broke the 50-year peace that his uncle had negotiated at a reasonable cost with Persia in 561/2. Justin thought it unbecoming for Romans to give money to foreigners, promising to ‘Make Rome Great Again’ until news of the Persian capture of Dara sent him mad: war in the East dragged on for two decades, while in Europe Justin can be held responsible for the Lombard invasion of Italy and the establishment of Avar dominance along the Danube. For Justin delusions of isolationist grandeur had trumped the safeguards of Justinian's international agreements.
There are bound to be glitches to trouble experts on particular periods. For example, with regard to Emperor Heraclius (pp. 136–9) Strategius does not blame Jerusalem's capture on Justinian's massacre of Nika rioters or Heraclius’ incestuous marriage, while Theodore Syncellus is incorrectly cited both for the day of the Slav naval attack on Constantinople in 626 and for Heraclius being endowed with the true faith of Solomon (Theodore's reference to piety and orthodoxy specifically says that Solomon was not to be imitated in this). Such details do not affect the overall argument, but are a warning that caution is needed on specifics. Some of W.'s interpretations will be questioned: Justinian is one of his bêtes noires, and while some may accept that the bloody re-conquest of Italy was the true end of the western empire, many will regard his legal initiatives not as the destruction of traditions of Roman Law, but as overdue reform of an overly complex system that ensured its influence persists to the present.
What effect the book will have on its target audience is difficult to say. Advocates of renewal might admit the probable costs of their actions, but will still argue that inaction would be even worse, citing the achievements of Augustus, Diocletian or Constantine V in establishing stability after periods of chaos that, if allowed to persist, would have incurred even greater losses. At least proponents of gradualism, sceptical about the need for radical change and its promised benefits, will have a handy primer to challenge the misuse of Roman precedents.
