Lets look at Julius Ceasars life and times, and pehaps compare and contrast to our own.
60 BCE First Triumvirate of Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar
A Marriage of conveneance, the three joined each other more for political expediancy, than
any values, customs or, ideallogy they shared. Crassus, having a victory snatched away, by
Pompey, over Asia Minor, feared the popular general, Pompey, by imperium, would claim Dictatorship. Due to Crassus's unpopularity, amongst the Senate and Assembly, he choose the help of Julius Caesar (being popular with the populous), to lobby Pompey of his need for the
Triumvirate (three men) to solidify their control over not only the masses, but the Senate, and assembly as well. The Republic, as it was known up to that period, was dealt a death blow. It would never be quite the same as it was. It started to frey at the seam, like a quilt stretched beyond it's capacity for far too long.
I'm representing a lot of simple history here, very basic, but let us start going into detail, and looking for comparisions, and contrasts.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)
Reconciliation was the first goal set by President Richard M. Nixon. The Nation was painfully divided, with turbulence in the cities and war overseas. During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation.
His accomplishments while in office included revenue sharing, the end of the draft, new anticrime laws, and a broad environmental program. As he had promised, he appointed Justices of conservative philosophy to the Supreme Court. One of the most dramatic events of his first term occurred in 1969, when American astronauts made the first moon landing.
Some of his most acclaimed achievements came in his quest for world stability. During visits in 1972 to Beijing and Moscow, he reduced tensions with China and the U.S.S.R. His summit meetings with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. In January 1973, he announced an accord with North Viet Nam to end American involvement in Indochina. In 1974, his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents, Egypt and Syria.
source http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rn37.html
Julius Caeser (102/100 BC-44BC)
The victorious and now unchallenged Caesar arrived back in Rome and celebrated four splendid triumphs (over the Gauls, Egyptians, Pharnaces, and Juba); he sent for Cleopatra and the year-old Caesarion and established them in a luxurious villa across the Tiber from Rome. In a letter at this time he listed his political aims as “tranquility for Italy, peace for the provinces, and security for the Empire.” His program for accomplishing these goals—both what he actually achieved and what he planned but did not have time to complete—was sound and farsighted (e.g., resolution of the worst of the debt crisis, resettlement of veterans abroad without dispossessing others, reform of the Roman calendar, regulation of the grain dole, strengthening of the middle class, enlargement of the Senate to 900), but his methods alienated many of the nobles. Holding the position of dictator, Caesar governed autocratically, more in the manner of a general than a politician. Although he nominally used the political structure, he often simply announced his decisions to the Senate and had them entered on the record as senatorial decrees without debate or vote.
Caesar was named dictator perpetuus. On February 15, at the feast of Lupercalia, Caesar wore his purple garb for the first time in public. At the public festival, Antony offered him a diadem (symbol of the Hellenistic monarchs), but Caesar refused it, saying Jupiter alone is king of the Romans (possibly because he saw the people did not want him to accept the diadem, or possibly because he wanted to end once and for all the speculation that he was trying to become a king). Caesar was preparing to lead a military campaign against the Parthians, who had treacherously killed Crassus and taken the legionary eagles; he was due to leave on March 18. Although Caesar was apparently warned of some personal danger, he nevertheless refused a bodyguard.
March 15, 44 BCE: Caesar attended the last meeting of the Senate before his departure, held at its temporary quarters in the portico of the theater built by Pompey the Great (the Curia, located in the Forum and the regular meeting house of the Senate, had been badly burned and was being rebuilt). The sixty conspirators, led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Brutus Albinus, and Gaius Trebonius, came to the meeting with daggers concealed in their togas and struck Caesar at least 23 times as he stood at the base of Pompey's statue. Legend has it that Caesar said in Greek to Brutus, “You, too, my child?” After his death, all the senators fled, and three slaves carried his body home to Calpurnia several hours later. For several days there was a political vacuum, for the conspirators apparently had no long-range plan and, in a major blunder, did not immediately kill Mark Antony (apparently by the decision of Brutus). The conspirators had only a band of gladiators to back them up, while Antony had a whole legion, the keys to Caesar's money boxes, and Caesar's will.
source http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/caesar.html
Both Historical figures accomplished things of some note. Admireable goals, political stability, wrapping up wars overseas, etc. Both Caesar, and Nixon, fell on their swords however(one literally, one figertively, respectively) Though Nixon of course, was no general, you kind of have to look for what they looked to accomplish. Intentionally or not. Both would sow seeds in their respective Republics, that would have long reaching yet unforseen effects. As has both George W. Bush, and as Barak H. Obama likely will. The "law of unintended consequences", is always at play, as is "the road to Hell is paved with the best intentions".
Bruc
lets hear what ya think
