Echoes of Rome in an empire that must, eventually, = pass away - smh.com.au

From: Subject: Echoes of Rome in an empire that must, eventually, pass away - smh.com.au - World Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:41:53 +1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0327_01C1445F.6A055200"; type="text/html" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0327_01C1445F.6A055200 Content-Type: text/html; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/13/world2/world7.html Echoes of Rome in an empire that must, eventually, = pass away - smh.com.au - World

Thursday, September 13, 2001

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-	U.S.=20 = ATTACK

Echoes of Rome in an empire that must, = eventually,=20 pass away

By best-selling novelist = Robert=20 Harris

In an essay published last year, the author Tom Wolfe, = with=20 characteristic humility, summed up how he thought a future = historian=20 would one day write about America as it approached the year = 2000:=20 "American superiority in all matters of science, economics,=20 industry, politics, business, medicine, engineering, social = life,=20 social justice and, of course, the military was total and=20 indisputable. Even Europeans suffering the pangs of wounded=20 chauvinism looked on with awe at the brilliant example the = United=20 States had set for the world as the third millennium = began."

This is fine, and mostly true, but, even as I read it a = year ago,=20 I couldn't help feeling that a Roman could have written = almost=20 exactly the same at the start of the first millennium.

It would surely have seemed equally inconceivable to a = wealthy=20 homo novus - let us call him Lupus - lounging in his villa = on the=20 Bay of Naples, that the Roman imperium would falter. After = all,=20 Latin was the universal language. The great military threat = from the=20 east - the Parthian empire - had faded. Rome controlled the = global=20 economy. Roman society, to the extent that it was possible = for an=20 ambitious slave to see his children become full citizens, = was open=20 to talented outsiders. Where was there a cloud on the = horizon? Lupus=20 could have had absolute confidence that history had come to = an=20 end.

Well, if Wolfe's words seemed slightly hubristic even = back in=20 2000, how much more so do they now, in the aftermath of the = nemesis=20 that has been visited on Washington and New York? We have = been=20 reminded, in the most horrible and graphic way, that no = civilisation=20 is ever safe, that history doesn't end, that claims of = "superiority=20 in all matters" are illusory, and that all empires - perhaps = even=20 this one - must eventually pass away.

Of course, thank God, America is not going to collapse = overnight,=20 simply because two buildings, however symbolic, have been = attacked.=20 The Americans, like the Romans, are the world's most = ingenious,=20 resourceful and - when the chips are down - most disciplined = people.=20 They will still, I hope, be the dominant power on earth when = I=20 die.

Who knows: the American imperium may even see out my = children's=20 lifetimes as well. But for the first time since the end of = the Cold=20 War, one has the uneasy feeling that the future is not as = settled=20 and monolithic as it once appeared, that the American empire = may one=20 day go the way of the Roman.

It is, for a start, very hard for rational men and women, = be they=20 Romans or Americans, to combat the irrational. And the = Romans in the=20 first century, for all their superstitions, could be every = bit as=20 rational as we like to think we are.

Pliny the Elder, for example, admiral of the Roman fleet = and the=20 empire's greatest encyclopaedist, dismissed the notion of an = afterlife: "Neither body nor mind has any more sensation = after death=20 than it had before birth." His theological position was = almost=20 humanistic: "God," he said, "is man helping man."

He did not realise, even as he was writing (this was 40 = years=20 after the death of Christ) that a cult religion from the = east was=20 beginning to take hold among the poor, which explicitly = stated that=20 there was an afterlife - one so glorious that martyrdom was = a fate=20 to be welcomed. Yet it was the spread of Christianity, more = than=20 anything else, that began to undermine the foundations of = the Roman=20 state.

How odd it is that America, of all countries - a nation = that=20 believes overwhelmingly in a supreme being, and which, to a=20 sceptical European, often seems terrifyingly literal in its=20 Christianity - should be surprised to find itself rocked by = a=20 handful of men who regard martyrdom as a sublime = consummation.

The Romans' eventual solution - in the end, as we know, = it was to=20 prove no solution - was to adopt Christianity themselves. = The=20 Americans are hardly likely to do that with Islamic=20 fundamentalism.

Instead, they will try to defeat the irrational by = rational means=20 - rationality, in the third millennium, finding its natural=20 expression via the Tomahawk cruise missile, the B1 stealth = bomber=20 and the Apache attack helicopter. But whether these will = prove any=20 more successful than the mass crucifixions and pogroms of = ancient=20 Rome is doubtful.

In military terms, America, like Rome, certainly enjoys a = massive=20 technological superiority over its enemies - but with one = crucial=20 difference. Unlike the Romans, America - being a far more = civilised=20 society - is reluctant to take casualties.

Thus we live in an age in which an American pilot who = gets lost=20 over his target - as one did in Bosnia, when Nato finally = took=20 action - who ditches his plane and has to be rescued at = great risk=20 to his comrades, is regarded not as an embarrassing fool to = be=20 quietly cashiered, but as a national hero to be greeted by = the=20 president. How is such a military mindset going to cope with = an=20 enemy who is not only ready and willing but eager to = die?

America has famously met and overcome such fanatics = before. But=20 the Japanese kamikaze pilots in 1945 were tools of a = conventional=20 military machine, controlled by a state: eventually, when = ordered to=20 do so, Japanese soldiers surrendered.

The nightmare that the West now faces is far more = insidious and=20 multi-headed. Every ton of bombs dropped on the = fundamentalists'=20 bases, and on the people of the states that harbour them, is = likely=20 to create only more martyrs, more fanatics, more terrorist=20 atrocities.

In the end, it is the vast global success of the American = imperium - its all-pervasiveness - that, like its Roman = predecessor,=20 renders it so vulnerable. Can it really hope to be = everywhere at=20 once?

Can it really prop up Israel, contain Iraq, appease Iran, = intimidate Libya, bomb the Taliban back into the Stone Age=20 (admittedly, by the look of them, not too great a distance), = police=20 the Balkans, deter the Chinese from invading Taiwan, build a = space=20 shield to ward off rogue Russian missiles, meet its = obligations to=20 South Korea, keep India and Pakistan from brawling with = atomic=20 bombs, cut off the drug traffic from Latin America, create=20 fortress-like borders to prevent a repeat of Tuesday's = horrors - can=20 it do all this, and at the same time ward off recession and = remain=20 the motor of the world economy? As Enoch Powell used to say: = one has=20 only to pose the question to know the answer.

If this sounds anti-American, it isn't meant to be. I = sincerely=20 hope that America can manage it all. I don't want to see it = retreat.=20 I feel like the ancient Briton in the famous painting of the = last=20 Roman galley leaving England: I lie on the shore and stretch = out my=20 hand to a country that, for all its faults, remains the = great=20 protector of civilisation.

But the dust-covered streets of Manhattan, and the images = of men=20 and women, coated in ash, groping and gasping in the = darkness,=20 created an irresistible reminder of that other great symbol = of=20 Rome's eventual destruction: Pompeii.

President Bush said on Tuesday night that America = wouldn't=20 topple, even if its skyscrapers did. In the short term, = thankfully,=20 that is true. But the collapse of the World Trade Centre = surely=20 marks the end of the Antonine Age of American hegemony and = the start=20 of darker and more uncertain times.

Pliny (who died in the eruption that wiped out Pompeii) = was=20 perhaps a wiser man than Wolfe, when he observed in his = Natural=20 History that "this alone is certain, namely that there is no = such=20 thing as certainty, and that nothing is more wretched and = conceited=20 than man".

The Telegraph, London

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