Carthago delenda est.

 

Apologies for the misleading title and photo. This is not a post about Carthage or really Rome for that matter. Nor does Caesar have anything really to do with Carthage historically.

I'm inspired today by the book I'm currently reading: Stacy Schiff's amazing "Cleopatra: A Life" and a news article I read today about Tunisia (modern-day Carthage). Today's article describes how the military leader Gen. Rachid Ammar stood in a square near his office with a bullhorn and gave a speech to reassure protesters.

It reminded me of a scene from Schiff's book where Caesar, after having interjected himself into the Egyptian civil war of 47 B.C., essentially overthrowing a king and facing a rebellion from the Greek-Alexandrians, stood on a palace balcony and gave a speech, to reassure the protesters. Besides the obvious analogy between two Mediterranean military leaders attempting to calm raucous African crowds, Schiff's book provides many more present-day analogies.

I envision Caesar as a modern-day private equity buccaneer type. He took gambles and exploited weaknesses to gain money and power. Schiff describes him as a tireless worker, dictating letters while watching athletic events, constantly moving from battle to battle.

For example, let's look at the years 50 to 47 B.C. In these years Caesar, after returning from conquering Gaul (modern-day France), initiated and won a Roman civil war against Pompey and his supporters. After the initial victory in the civil war, he headed to Spain to fight supporters of Pompey there, leaving a regent in charge of Rome. After winning in Spain, he went to Greece to face Pompey again, defeating the last remnants of his army. He returned to Rome, was appointed dictator then resigned before accepting a one-year term, chased Pompey to Egypt where Pompey was killed by supporters of Ptolemy XIII who was engaged in a civil war with his sister and wife Cleopatra. Caesar interjected on the side of Cleopatra who was in exile but sneaked into the royal palace to visit him. By spring of 47 B.C. Caesar had won the Egyptian civil war for Cleopatra and placed her on a throne and fathered a child.

Even in today's modern world of blackberrys, email, airplanes and ships, such activity seems mind boggling. For me, it is actually somewhat helpful to imagine Caesar as a modern-day business leader, moving from continent to continent completing acquisitions. It's the only way I can conceptualize the frenetic pace of his life, which to be honest doesn't do it justice because Caesar didn't have airplanes or email or telephones.

He was notorious for often arriving in places before the messengers or troops that were supposed to announce his arrival and make preparations. He was married three times without children (none of his marriages appeared to be for love) before seemingly settling down (for six months) with an exotic mistress much younger than him. He was balding with an obvious comb over. And he ended up jeopardizing his entire career, country (and life) with reckless personal behavior and by spending an incredible amount of time and money colonizing the most wealthiest kingdom in the ancient world.

The ultimate mid-life crisis.

So much of what we think is novel or new to our world, our sociology, our psychology, is actually very old. I've enjoyed listening to the BBC's "A History of the World" series but they get some of it wrong. It points to the mechanical galleon from the 16th century to signify the coming of the mechanical period and people's understanding of machinery. But the Egyptians had been using machines to wow for over a thousand years by the 16th century AD. We think the cut throat mid-life Western businessman ethos is relevant only within our society but Caesar shows us this personality type was known to the ancients.

So the crowds seemingly still scream "Carthago delenda est" and military leaders still climb balconies to calm crowds. As it says in Ecclesiastes 1, chapter 9: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

Interesting reading:

China Grooming Deft Politician as Next Leader, Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield, NYTimes.

Reinventing Tunisia at Record Speed, Mathieu von Rohr and Volkhard Windfuhr, Der Spiegel.