Authoritarianism is not just a relic of the ancient world; it’s a force that’s making headlines and stirring debate in the United States and beyond. In April 2025, NPR reported on a striking survey: more than 500 political scientists agreed the U.S. was shifting away from its liberal democratic roots, edging closer to authoritarianism. That was before the summer’s dramatic events, when more than 5 million Americans flooded the streets on June 14 for the “No Kings” marches, protesting Donald Trump’s policies and a $45 million military parade planned for his birthday. The numbers were staggering, and the message was clear: Americans are worried about creeping authoritarianism, and they’re looking to history for answers.
But what can the past really teach us about the present? A new book, How Republics Die: Creeping Authoritarianism in Ancient Rome and Beyond (De Gruyter, 2025), edited by Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, David Rafferty, and Christopher J. Dart, argues that the lessons of Ancient Rome are not just relevant—they’re essential. According to Hyperallergic, the editors insist, “Before now, no long-established democracy has fallen to internal causes except Rome. Several of the old, consolidated democracies around the world are in trouble, and political science has only recently started to confront that as a problem; they are used to thinking of consolidated democracies as pretty safe.”
The book zeroes in on Rome’s transformation from an electoral republic into a military monarchy—a period stretching from 133 BCE to 14 CE. It’s a story of institutions eroding, political norms breaking down, and ambitious figures using every tool at their disposal to tilt the balance of power. The editors told Hyperallergic that while Rome and America differ in their scope of policing, healthcare, or inflation controls, the core issue is about “interactions of political institutions, about the relative power of the different parts of the state.”
Of course, comparing modern America to ancient Rome isn’t a new idea. But what makes How Republics Die stand out is its focus on the arts—and how art, architecture, and symbolism become weapons in the hands of autocrats. Over the last century, dictators from Benito Mussolini to Adolf Hitler have borrowed the aesthetics and semiotics of Ancient Rome to legitimize their own rule. Mussolini, for instance, seized on the imagery of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, adopting the fasces and the SPQR symbol as visual shorthand for his fascist regime from 1922 to 1945.
Fast forward to 2025, and the echoes are hard to ignore. Donald Trump has praised both Fascist Italy and Ancient Rome for their supposed contributions “to civilization and human progress.” In January, he revived an executive order encouraging the use of Ancient Greek and Roman architecture for federal buildings. According to Hyperallergic, neoclassicism is back in vogue, “used to once again signal the supremacy of Western ideals.” The editors argue that Trump is “extremely attuned to the importance of the arts and visual culture as instruments for public relations and vehicles for opinion making.” They draw a direct line from Trump’s maneuvers—like taking over the Kennedy Center board and influencing its honorees—to the strategies of ancient Roman power brokers.
Take Pompey the Great, for example. In the 50s BCE, he built a grand theater in the heart of Rome, complete with a Senate House and a statue of himself looming over the assembly. It wasn’t about public appreciation for the arts; it was about projecting his own magnificence and crafting a legacy. Julius Caesar, another master of optics, became the first living Roman to have his portrait appear on coins—a move modeled after the absolutist Hellenistic kings. Before his assassination outside Pompey’s Senate House in 44 BCE, Caesar had already begun to revamp the symbols of everyday life, from money to public spaces, to reflect his own power.
The parallels don’t stop there. In March 2025, Texas Republican Congressman Brandon Gill introduced the so-called “Golden Age Act of 2025,” which would put Donald Trump’s face on the $100 bill. Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert threw her support behind the bill, but as the editors point out, U.S. law prohibits living individuals from appearing on currency notes. Still, the symbolism is hard to miss: Money, and who appears on it, still talks.
Trump’s efforts to control the nation’s cultural institutions have also drawn comparisons to ancient practices. He fired the director of the National Portrait Gallery and launched probes into the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowments for the Humanities and the Arts, public broadcasting, and even the Library of Congress. This strategy, the editors argue, mirrors the actions of Octavian Augustus, who “masterminded a comprehensive program to restore and aggrandize the traditional public institutions (res publica) and mores of the Roman people and the monumental and literary dignity of their shaken city.” Augustus restored 82 temples, built the Diribitorium (the largest building under a single roof in Rome at the time), and commissioned epic writers like Vergil and Horace to help shape the narrative of a “golden age.”
It’s not just about architecture or coinage. It’s about controlling the narrative—about using art, literature, and public monuments to reinforce the idea of a strong, almost predestined leader. As the editors put it, “Augustus engaged writers of epic and poetry (Vergil and Horace) and took control of the available means of mass communication and propaganda, controlling the imagery and political messaging on Roman coinage and commissioning striking works of public utility and visual arts.” The result? A society where the executive grows ever stronger, cloaked in the language of tradition and renewal.
Yet, the book doesn’t stop at drawing parallels. It also offers hope—and a warning. By reconstructing not only the choices that historical figures made but also the ones they could have made, the authors challenge the fatalist view that the slide into authoritarianism is inevitable. Scholar Cristina Rosillo López reminds readers that “nothing is inevitable,” whether it’s the fall of the Roman Republic, the French Revolution, or the rise of fascism in the 1930s. “Apathy will always be to the advantage of the autocrat,” she notes. The same, the editors argue, goes for the present moment: “Studies of authoritarianism in the Roman Republic help us see where we are now on different political trajectories, and where those trajectories are likely to go—unless we take action.”
Meanwhile, the fascination with ancient leaders isn’t confined to historians or political scientists. As Michael Natale, a seasoned news editor with over fifteen years of experience covering historical topics, points out in a recent Hearst Enthusiast Group article, the enduring influence of figures like Alexander the Great, Confucius, and Marcus Aurelius continues to shape our world. Whether admired as inspirations or studied as cautionary tales, these leaders’ legacies extend far beyond their own eras. Their stories, and those of Rome’s emperors, remind us that history doesn’t just repeat itself—it offers a mirror, and sometimes a warning, for those willing to look.
In the end, the rise of authoritarianism—whether in ancient Rome or modern America—remains a story of power, culture, and the choices societies make. The lesson from history is clear: nothing is inevitable, and the future is still up for grabs.
