Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Join this interesting presentation as Michelle discusses what modern Americans can learn from the ancient Roman Republic’s collapse into autocracy. She argues that the foundations for Roman autocracy were laid over the course of more than a century—enormous wealth disparities, the normalization of emergency measures in response to crises, an increasingly mercenary military, the use of force against Roman citizens, and a Senate that ceded its power to individual men instead of grappling with the underlying problems. She demonstrates how Augustus, the man we call the first Roman emperor, used these and other factors to consolidate power and found a monarchy. She considers parallels in modern American politics and how we might avoid following in Rome's footsteps..