The second half of the first century B.C. is one of the turning points in history, as well as one of the most well-documented periods of the ancient world. With Gaius Julius Caesar and especially with Octavian Augustus, the Republic was replaced by a new political system: the Empire. Although the official date marking the beginning of the Roman Empire is 27 B.C. — the year when Octavian was officially named Augustus by the Senate — the transition began much earlier, when, after the civil wars, Julius Caesar, though he never accepted the title of emperor, effectively acted as one. On the other hand, the transition to empire, which after Augustus became permanent until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, was more substantial than formal: the old institutions — the two Consuls, the Senate, and all the previous offices — formally remained unchanged, even though real power was in the hands of a single person, thanks also to direct control of the army.
Today, we might say, we have the chance to witness a very similar event in real time: the transformation of American democracy into an imperial system, with a president who concentrates all final decisions in himself, while maintaining (at least for now) the former institutional bodies in place: the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, the Judiciary, etc. It should be noted that since the end of World War II, the USA has in any case played the role of an imperial power, first alongside the former Soviet Union and now alongside China, while internally maintaining a democratic political system characterized by the separation of powers and free elections every four years. What is happening today is simply the internal mutation of the system of government of a single country.
Of course, history never repeats itself in exactly the same way, and in fact today the transition seems to be led not by a Julius Caesar or an Augustus, but by a Nero or a Caligula. In any case, we as citizens of a foreign country can do nothing but watch events unfold as mere spectators, hoping that in the near future the next leader is not acclaimed by the army, as used to happen in ancient times.
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