Democracy, that ever-so-fleeting fancy, has a tendency to tumble into a bit of a tizz before it topples over, panting and gasping like a winded walrus.
John Adams, ever the prophet of doom, once quipped, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself”—a sentiment echoing through the corridors of time.
And sounding much like the belch of a senator post-banquet in ancient Rome, where democracy was more a concept for philosophical banter than a practice.
Indeed, Rome, with all its pomp and voracious appetite for self-indulgence, serves as a cautionary tale. It’s a well-trodden path.
Once upon a time in Rome, there was Juvenal. Not your garden-variety naysayer, but a man whose tongue was so sharp, he could slice the moral fabric of society with a mere quip.
And so, Rome bloated, not just in the midriff but in its sense of self, as leisure became the national pastime.
Back then, over 200,000 souls, their fingers sticky from pastry, found the concept of lifting a finger (unless it was to signal for another helping) utterly foreign.
Rome was transformed into a grand stage, where almost every day was a festival, and the citizens were either performers, spectators, or busy in the vomitorium making room for the next course.
Naval skirmishes in makeshift lakes, chariot races that put the fast and furious to shame, and theatre so risqué it could make a statue of Venus look prudish, were all funded by the very people it was designed to distract.
Ninety-three days of sheer, unadulterated spectacle each year, turning Rome from a republic into an extravagant production, where democracy was but a whisper drowned out by the roar of the crowd.
Sound familiar?
Hellbound and Down 