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Judging from news accounts and interviews, numerous people in and around the Trump administration are beguiled by imperial Rome. They see themselves as interpreters of its lessons—beware immigration; uphold masculinity; make babies—and inheritors of its majesty. A banner at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, in Washington, D.C., depicted Donald Trump in Augustan profile, his brow garlanded with laurel leaves. Elon Musk styles himself “Imperator of Mars” and has named one of his many children Romulus. Steve Bannon keeps a bust of Julius Caesar in his Capitol Hill office.
Two decades ago, when maga was just a Latin word for “enchantress,” I wrote a book about ancient Rome and modern America. The book didn’t touch on masculinity or the birth rate, and it didn’t try to explain the fall of Rome; the idea was just to sift through the story of a past society for clues to the one we live in now. Researching a bygone empire brought me into contact with prominent scholars who generously gave me their time. One man I think about often is the late Ramsay MacMullen, a historian at Yale and the author of the classic 1988 study Corruption and the Decline of Rome—a book whose lessons retain their grip.
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