Beware the Ides of March: Manifest Lessons of Ancient History, Her-Storical Fiction, and Political Histrionics with a Comb-Over

The Death of Caesar by V. Camuccini, 1798.

The Ides of March have come, to which we reply—with a nod to legendary soothsayers and borderline passive-aggressive prophesies—aye, but not gone. Indeed, the changing season, the political season, and the books of the season have set us thinking about the manifest lessons of history, making connections between current political histrionics and the literature we’ve been reading. We reflect upon that fateful day in 44 BC Rome: a meeting gone terribly, horribly wrong, a day one might well refer to as—coining a phrase and with a nod to a  favorite picture book—Julius Caesar and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Speaking of coining and phrasing, take a look at this ancient Roman commemorative coin issued by legendary back-stabber Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger:

Here and now, 2016 Anno Domini, it’s business as usual and politics unusual. We ruminate, with a nod to King Solomon, nihil sub sole novum: there is nothing new under the sun—save, perhaps, a narcissistic reality television host slash real estate developer slash terrible, horrible, no good, very bad presidential candidate with an atomic tangerine-colored comb-over and a vulgar promise on the national debate stage that there is no problem with his caucus.  
Et tu, Brutish behavior?

The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks.

Viking, 2015. 302 pages.

Historical Fiction

We revel in this life of David, a newly-imagined incarnation of his oft-told story: a journey from shepherd to soldier to psalmist to king, narrated by courtier and visionary counselor Nathan. Brooks shadows the biblical narrative, illuminating it with historicity, enlivening it with humanity, and filling it with characters connected to David: Samuel, Saul, Goliath, Jonathan, Joab, wives Michal, Abigail, and Bathsheba, and his children—including ambitious, treacherous Absalom and something-new-under-the-son Solomon. Page after easily-turned page, the legend unwinds, revealing a panoply of human concerns... love and abhorrence, acquisition and loss, compassion and brutality, faith and treachery, desire and sacrifice, ambition and apathy... all woven together in historical fiction that feels at once ageless and immediately relevant.

Lesson Learned: The heart of a prophet is not his own to bestow.

God Knows by Joseph Heller.

Simon & Schuster, 2004 (1984). 368 pages.

Fiction Favorites

Here’s another variation on the life of David, a fictional memoir conceived and brilliantly executed by a beloved literary curmudgeon, a story that we devoured back-in-the-day after youthful discovery of Catch 22. In God Knows, Our Favorite Shepherd-Warrior-Poet-King lies on his death-bed, reminiscing and kvetching across the landscape of his tragio-comedic life. This King David delivers an impressive stream of wisecracking and witticism: Moses has the Ten Commandments, it’s true, but I’ve got much better lines. Insert rimshot here: bad dum dum tshh. This, however, is more than satirical geriatric shtick; it’s a heart-rending reckoning with mortality, a poignant, absurd, endearing meditation on Life and Death and God. It’s quite a story, full of timeline-tripping cultural references, shared in a voice as ancient as Methuselah and as fresh as a 24-hour news cycle.

Lesson Learned: Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

Picador, 2007 (1997). 321 pages.

Historical Fiction

Even though this is ancient book group history, we remember The Red Tent and carry the novel’s abiding message with us. Dinah, daughter of Jacob and sister of Joseph, makes but a fleeting appearance in Genesis. Here, Diamant amplifies the story in a first-person narrative and gives us the Red Tent, where women of Jacob’s tribe find community and draw emotional sustenance from other females on the family tree. Not infrequently and not surprisingly, seeking connection with the past, we climb into a figurative Red Tent and wonder what Mom would think and say about so many things.

Lesson Learned: If you want to understand any woman, you must first ask her about her mother and then listen carefully.

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff.

Little Brown, 2010. 368 pages.

Non Fiction and Biographies

Our Ides of March celebration would not be complete without a nod to the fallen Roman general’s mythic, much-maligned paramour and partner-in-political intrigue, Cleopatra VII Philopator, aka the last queen of Ptolemic Egypt, aka a plum film role for Theda Bara, Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, and Elizabeth Taylor. Cleopatra was in Rome on that fateful day, 44 BC, precariously ensconced in Caesar’s garden villa with her son by Caesar. Way back when in Rome… to coin a phrase. Speaking of coining and phrasing, here’s a coin bearing the striking likeness of Cleopatra:

This stylish biography reconstructs the short, eventful life of Cleopatra, and really, it’s the stuff of hieroglyphic tabloids: An intrigue-filled childhood at the palace in Alexandria! Married twice! Each time to a brother! Literally waged war against the first husband/brother! Literally poisoned the second husband/brother! Exiled an overly ambitious sister! Enter Julius Caesar! Enter Mark Anthony! Her modus operandi? A peculiar mix of sexual acumen and shrewd politicking, an amalgamation of feminine charm and callous gamesmanship, all rolled into a smuggled rug and unfurled with dramatic flair at the feet of a colossus of the ancient world. After her death, a legendary pain in the asp by most accounts, bad dum dum tshh, Egypt would be subsumed by the Roman Empire and Cleopatra’s star would begin its uninterrupted ascent. And while Schiff does her admirable best to separate fact from fiction, to present us with the historical queen distilled from the icon of popular Western culture, Cleopatra remains exotic and elusive, a goddess incarnate in our mind’s eye, swathed in silk, shimmering with agate and amethyst and gold.

Lesson Learned: As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland.

Anchor Books, 2005 (2003).  408 pages.

History and Travel

Forget the Ides, the Idioms of March are indeed upon us, and all roads lead to Rome. And so we revisit this apporachable narrative that travels through the sunset of the Roman Republic to the blood-red dawn of the Roman Empire. In 49 BC, Julius Caesar and his army crossed a shallow border river called the Rubicon—considered an act of insurrection and treason—plunging Rome into catastrophic civil war and adding several useful idioms to the vernacular. Alea iacta est! The die is cast! We've reached the point of no return!

Lesson Learned: More people worship the rising than the setting sun.

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar by Tom Holland.

Doubleday, 2015. 482 pages.

History and Travel

We have great expectations for this substantial teal-toned-blood-splattered tome, high hopes that are only partially realized. Maybe it is the sheer scope of the material. Perhaps it’s because a singular, sensational Julius Caesar in Rubicon is, in our humble opinion, more compelling than five-count’em-five collected Caesars in Dynasty: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.

Granted, there is no lack of ambition, bitterness, cruelty, debauchery, decadence, depravity, gluttony, greed, lust, posturing, turpitude, and wickedness on these pages—jaw-dropping iniquities that speak to us across the ages as we gape with incredulity and increasing alarm at a narcissistic reality television host slash real estate developer slash terrible, horrible, no good, very bad presidential candidate with an atomic tangerine-colored comb-over and a vulgar promise on the national debate stage that there is no problem with his caucus. 

Are we not better than this? The question mark—and it seems to be an atomic tangerine one with a comb-over—discomfits us, hovering rhetorically over every kitchen table, water cooler, and polling place in America. By the way, if Nero was making music during the Great Fire of 64, it wasn’t fiddling… but plucking a lyre while Rome burns does not trip off the tongue. Not as idiomatically pleasing, to coin a few phrases. Speaking of coining and phrasing, here's one for Nero:

Lesson Learned: Harmony enables small things to flourish—while the lack of it destroys the great.

Augustus: A Novel by John Edward Williams.

Vintage Books, 2004. 317 pages.

Historical Fiction

This is historical fiction at its finest: grounded in fact, confidently crafted, richly imagined. Through letters, journal entries, dispatches, and memoirs, Williams draws Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, from the shadows of the past and illuminates him, giving him life and heart and a deeply resonating voice that inspires moral contemplation, our long-standing standard of worthy fiction. English Literature majors among us will note that the epistolary dynamic lends both historical gravitas and intimate humanity to the narrative.

Lesson Learned: There is much that cannot go into books, and that is the loss with which I become increasingly concerned.

As we consider how to wrap this up, we type the phrase DONALD TRUMP COINS into a Google search—and there they are, 140,000 results in less than half-a-second. We ask again: Are we not better than this? An ancient Latin voice assures us, transit umbra, lux permanet. Shadow passes, light remains. And so we walk toward the light, hoping that soon we'll abandon in the shadows one narcissistic reality television host slash real estate developer slash terrible, horrible, no good, very bad presidential candidate with an atomic tangerine-colored comb-over and a vulgar promise on the national debate stage that there is no problem with his caucus. 
Just soothsayin’.