The Third Leader: Ancient history
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Which, of course, it will be nothing like. But we do seem to get rather a lot of Rome, don't we? When, for example, are we going to see something about a couple of star-crossed Vandals, a wrongly convicted Ostrogoth, or, indeed, anything to do with the most unjustly ignored tribe of all, the Alans, from whom, no doubt, the great gardener is descended?
Why this fascination? I know about the nostalgic nod from one lost empire to another, and the parallel achievements in organisational skills and subjugating technological inferiors, but has no one paused to ponder on our more concrete association, their invasion, conquest and occupation of us?
We don't come out of it well. There was no stout Captain, no Manneringia, Pike or even Asterix waiting, invincible, indefatigable. Instead, it is a sorry tale of cowardice and collaboration, of an indecently hasty rush to abandon the old ways and embrace soft-living in a nice villa while Boadicea and the Iceni could go hang and worse and the Druids could go to Anglesey. Even Caractacus opted to spend his retirement in Rome.
It was, though, an early and excellent opportunity to practise our remarkable talent for presenting disaster as triumph, which is probably the most important thing the Romans did for us, along with, of course, socks and leeks.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments