An Interesting Parallel

"The victory over the Senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye and every passion was directed to the supreme magistrate, who possessed the arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate, neither elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of a republic instensibly vanished, and made way for the more natural and substantial feelings of a monarchy. As the freedom and honours of Rome were successively communicated to the provinces, in which the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually obliterated...
In the reign of Severus, the senate was filled with polished and eloquent slaves from the eastern provinces, who justified personal flattery by speculative principles of servitude. These new advocates of prerogative were heard with pleasure by the court, and with patience by the people, when they inculcated the duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the "inevitable mischiefs" of freedom. The lawyers and the historians concurred in teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the delegated commission, but by the irrevocable resignations of the senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint of civil laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire as of his private patrimony. The most eminent of the civil lawyers flourished under the house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have attained full maturity and perfection."

So Gibbon writes in his book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Despite the fact that he is describing events almost two thousand years ago, some eerie parallels can be drawn between the reign of Septimius Severus and the current U.S. Administration.

1.) "As the freedom and honours of Rome were successively communicated to the provinces, in which the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually obliterated." This is Septimius Severus proclaiming universal citizenship to everyone inside Rome's borders. But President Obama is doing the same thing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/09/obama-reforms-immigration , and has been for some time.

2.) Septimius Severus' government had polished speechmakers lecturing about the "Inevitable mischiefs" of freedom. He filled the Senate with those loyal to him, and used these appointees to attack his critics. That sounds kind of familiar too...

There are others as well: using the treasury to suit his whims, distracting the media from real issues with charisma, and letting the lawyers run amok on the public dime. But the final paragraph in the chapter (immediately following the two quoted at this article's beginning), Gibbon really sums it up:

"The contemporaries of Severus, in the enjoyment of the peace and glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author of the decline of the Roman empire."