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March 06, 2006
For these I set no limits, world or time,/ But make the gift of empire without end.
Nilotic pool at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, outside Rome [Benjamin Stevens/Rome 2005]
So Jupiter promised Venus as her favorites, the Trojans, were scattered and barred from entering Latium. We are reading Virgil's Aeneid in "Odysseus Across the Ages," and I could not help but, again, fixate on the universal tone of these great stories, especially as they relate to world events today. Virgil moves both forward and backward in his epic, claiming Trojan ancestry for Rome, and confidently projects, at the height of the Empire, a future of glory and domination.
These are among the roots of our modern concept of empire. We, too, write our future history. In my education, at home, in the classroom, and in the fields of Lazio, I have been continually reminded of imperial hubris. Rather than using the declarative, we employ the conditional to inspire vigilance and the unending quest for improvement. Each faction gives its own warning, and its own solution.
Two books found their way onto my desk this weekend (one by airmail, from my grandfather, and the other from the Harvard Bookstore). In Militant Islam Reaches America, Daniel Pipes articulates an unambiguous and (comparatively) sophistocated defense of the conservative foreign policy agenda as it relates to terrorism, the Muslim world, and the future of America. In The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs makes the case for responsible and sufficient international economic cooperation between rich, developed states and those in varying stages of growth and poverty. It is a case, primarily, for ensuring the prosperity of the poor through policies that will doubly benefit global powers like the United States.
Each in his own way, these contemporary commentators offer a vision of an empire without end.
I plan on expanding on these themes over the course of the week, and I would appreciate feedback. If you are intrigued by this or any other post I have made, please leave a comment with questions or suggestions. I'm still figuring out how to bring my ideas together on this page.
Posted by Henry Shepherd at March 6, 2006 11:13 AM
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Comments
I'd be fascinated to see a discussion of the American sense of identity. I'd argue that it's also worth taking a look at civil service; Rome had civil bureaucracy and England still does in some places. The Ottomans and the Chinese were renowned for it, but America has never had any similar, institutionalized, service.
Why should something so driven by the concept of manifest destiny in these other empires be comparatively absent from American culture?
Worth reviewing the On Point show (with Brown's own Gordon Wood) on empire and republic... and HBO
Posted by: Benjamin at March 6, 2006 11:08 PM
I am equally fascinated with Virgil's simultaneous movement "forward and backward in his epic." The turn to the past and the attempt to construct a national identity could be compared to modern collective attempts to establish a visible and coherent national narrative. I am thinking of two books that discuss this topic: Michael Hertzfeld's "Ours Once More," which follows the case of Greece, and Yael Zerubavel's "Recovered Roots," which follows the case of Israel. There is also Eric Davis' "The Museum and the Politics of Social Control in Iraq," that explores the "display" of the national narrative in Iraqi museums.
At the same time, Virgil's epic is also concerned with the projected domination of the Empire. Some students in "Odysseus Across the Centuries" brought up the concluding image of The Aeneid; in his violent rage Aeneas kills Turnus and the epic concludes with the lines:
"He rais'd his arm aloft, and, at the word,/
Deep in his bosom drove the shining sword./
The streaming blood distain'd his arms around,/
And the disdainful soul came rushing thro' the wound."
This Imperial genealogy, as students suggested, unavoidably ends in violence. The edifice of the Empire presupposes a symbolic sacrifice at its foundation.
(In a previous entry, Henry brought up the subject of performative violence in connection to Poseidon's punishment of the Phaeacians. It is interesting that, in this case too, it is the gods who decree the future outlook of the Empire: Jove and Zeus explain how this New Race of people will function.)
Posted by: Marinos Pourgouris at March 10, 2006 12:44 PM
