The Tiber and the Potomac: Rome, America, and Empires of Trust

by Thomas F. Madden

Esteemed university professor and best-selling author Thomas F. Madden presents an intriguing series of lectures based on a fascinating premise: that the United States has more in common with the rising Roman Republic than with the declining Roman Empire.

The Tiber and the Potomac explores the amazing parallels between history's two most unusual superpowers. Both nations built empires based on trust, skillfully making friends of enemies. During the course of these lectures, Madden not only reveals these often surprising similarities, but also extracts useful principles from history, including vital lessons from Rome's 100-year struggle with terrorism.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Audiobook

7 pages, Audio CD

First published October 3, 2008

About the author

Thomas F. Madden is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. As an author and historical consultant he appears in such venues as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and The History Channel.

Dr. Madden's latest book is The Fall of Republics: A History from Ancient Carthage to the American Constitution. His previous books include Venice: A New History, The Concise History of the Crusades, Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World, Empires of Trust, and Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice. He has also written and lectured extensively on the ancient and medieval Mediterranean as well as the history of Christianity and Islam.

Awards for his scholarship include the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award, the Medieval Academy of America's Haskins Medal, and the Medieval Institute's Otto Grundler Prize. He is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Medieval Academy of America.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazingly great course. Madden's thesis that the American empire resembles the Roman empire is of course, not new, but the way he characterizes the two entities as a separate kind of empire (different from a (merely) commercial empire or an empire of conquest), and the specific instances and themes he draws out to illuminate the parallel issues that both alliances had and have to face help the listener better understand both the Romans and the Americans.

In the first lecture, Madden correctly identifies the enduring mystery of the American empire, which is that while it exists, the population at large doesn't seem to really know about it or ever discuss it. We have an unexamined empire, and Madden goes on to explain why that is.

He then goes on to explain the history of the Roman republic, from the overthrow of the Etruscan kings to the alliance of the Italian peninsula. What was fascinating about this was how he was able to explain the Roman point of view and what they were really trying to achieve, and also why an alliance with Rome was perceived as so valuable. I've taken many classes on Rome and read a lot of books about the rise of the republic and fall of the empire, but this was the first that made any sense (to me) of the relationship of Rome to the Greeks, of Rome's reaction to the first sack in 387BC, and of the driving forces to empire that made it almost inevitable.

What is also fascinating is Madden's assertion that the writers of the Constitution not only knew Roman history well, but that they purposely set out to create America as the new Rome, with a governmental system that was even more difficult to wield than Rome's. I had my doubts that those men in the 18th century really were so steeped in Roman history and civic mythology, until I learned this week that Harrison's lengthy inauguration address in 1841, which is generally regarded as having contributed to his quick demise in office, primarily concerned Roman proconsuls. Amazing that this history is no longer taught, alluded to, or known by many in this country.

I could go on and on about how insightful this course was. Madden talks about how each empire has dealt with religious extremism, paxes both Roman and American and how they have led to fierce internal fighting, and has even highlighted why we may see British citizens voting in American elections before too many more decades go by. A brilliant piece of work.

[Tom Axworthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Madden, a medieval specialist ,delivers 14 lectures on themes articulated in Empires of Trust his 2009 book on the subject.Madden is an entertaining lecturer and The Tiber and the Potomac has many insights about Rome which Madden uses to assess(and defend ) contemporary American foreign policy.This is a book that lauds Rome and America and is at least refreshing in that regard as most literature is highly critical.But I found his thesis unpersuasive and it begins with his definition of Empires of Trust( of which there are only 2, the US and Rome) compared to empires of conquest like Napoleon.Empires of Conquest take lands away and incorporate or exploit them, Empires of Trust build alliances held together by the restrained use of military power.But Madden can only put the US in such an exalted status by ignoring the first 300 years of American history in which first the British colonies then the United States after 1789 systematically stole and conquered the territories of a host of Indian nations( the 1830 Indian Removal Act of Andrew Jackson being one example).The US also invaded Canada twice, took the vast lands of Mexico in the 1846 war and fought Spain in 1898 taking Puerto Rico.In the 19th century the United States was the Empire of Conquest par excellance. Students of Roman history will also wonder at Madden' s benign interpretation of Roman imperialism with Rome conquering Britain in 43 AD for no security reason whatsoever .Led by Roosevelt, Truman, Acheson and Eisenhower , the US did show inspired international leadership after the Second World War creating Nato and the UN and building an alliance of allies and partners which, for a time, could be called an Empire of Trust.But that trust has certainly eroded, most notably ever since the 2003 Iraq War when the US invaded the Iraq on false pretences with very little support from its allies.And most recently Donald Trump spent most of his term as President attacking his democratic allies and lauding dangerous dictators.Madden rejects the decline thesis about the United States with the oft made popular analogy to Rome's decline and fall and wrote this book to refute it. But events in the last decade have not been kind to his thesis.

[Rodney Harvill · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Professor Madden notes, America’s founding fathers were heavily influenced by the writings of the Romans. They were founding a republic and didn’t want it to experience Rome’s failures. Consequently, they added design features to avoid Rome’s pitfalls. Interestingly enough, the nation they built would go on to become, like Rome before, an empire of trust. Given this similarity, Professor Madden draws lessons from Roman history and applies them to current events and America’s experiences in the world.

There are three types of empires:

• An empire of conquest involves conquering and ruling one’s neighbors. It is the most common form of empire but also the most fragile, held together only by military strength and not by loyalty. A few defeats on the battlefield may be sufficient to topple such an empire.
• An empire of commerce involves developing a trade empire. A good example of this might be the Venetian empire prior to the age of exploration. Such an empire is vulnerable to changes in economic conditions. Such changes will not necessarily destroy the empire, but they will weaken it substantially. For example, after the age of exploration yielded trade routes to the Indies bypassing the Venetian trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the Venetians lost much of their influence.
• An empire of trust involves cultivating alliances. It features the rule of law rather than the arbitrary and capricious rule by decree. Because of an ingrained system of law, allies and neighbors trust that the terms of the alliances binding them will be followed. This is the rarest form of empire, achieved only by the Roman Republic and the United States.

The popular view of Rome is that of an empire that grew by conquering and subjecting its neighbors. While the Roman Empire sometimes did this, its predecessor, the Roman Republic, grew by cultivating alliances to secure the horizon. As counterintuitive as it sounds, Rome’s secret to growth was its isolationism and desire for security. Having been crushed and sacked by Gallic invaders, it secured alliances out of a desire for security and a preference to fight “over there” and not in its own back yard. Of course, once it had secured allies out to the horizon, its most distant allies had their own enemies that Rome then had to fight. Each horizon had its own horizon. Once enemies were defeated, Rome proceeded to turn them into friends by putting more favorable leadership in place.

At first, Rome’s final horizon was the coastline of the Italian peninsula. This changed when Rome decided to intervene in a war in Sicily that threatened to spill over into the mainland, provoking a response from Carthage that is now known as the First Punic War. Later, Saguntum, a town on the Iberian Coast in the Carthaginian zone of influence, sought and obtained an alliance with Rome. When Carthage attacked Saguntum, the town requested Rome’s aid, prompting a fierce debate regarding whether this was Rome’s fight. While the debate still raged, Saguntum fell and was sacked, prompting feelings of shame, recriminations and fears that Rome’s new-found unreliability would undermine its alliance system. Rome’s subsequent intervention in the Iberian peninsula turned into the Second Punic War, which threatened the very existence of Rome. This war ended only after Rome went out on a limb and launched an amphibious assault on North Africa and threatened Carthage.

No sooner had the Second Punic War ended that Philip of Macedon, not the father of Alexander, threatened the city-states of Greece with invasion. The Greeks were not Roman allies. However, feeling an obligation to their elder culture and believing that Philip’s next target after Greece would be Rome, the Roman’s decided to intervene in Greece and handily crushed Philip. To the pleasant surprise of the Greeks, Rome, on its own initiative, granted the Greek city-states their autonomy. Later, Rome saved the Greeks from an attack by the Seleucid empire in Asia Minor and again granted the Greeks their autonomy. Interestingly enough, the Greeks took Roman protection for granted and resented their imperialistic interference in their foreign affairs. The Greek city-states habitually fought against each other, and Rome discouraged these conflicts because of the resultant threats to peace. Finally, the Greeks gave Rome a provocation the Romans couldn’t ignore, and Rome leveled Corinth. This got the attention of the Greeks, and they finally settled down. For all their animosity toward Rome, their descendants would carry the legacy of Rome and consider themselves Romans for a millennium after the western half of the empire fell.

Given that many of the natural allies of Rome’s allies were each other and Rome discouraged such conflicts, the whole basis for the military expenditures of these allies essentially went away. They knew that Rome would honor its commitments to fight to protect them and trusted Rome not to use its overwhelming military strength against them without provocation. As a result, they underinvested in their own military strength.

Like Rome, the U.S. started out with an isolationist desire to be left alone until the outside world intruded on it. Its first intervention in Europe, in World War I, ended in disillusionment with Europeans. When the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor transformed isolationism into a sense of offended justice, the U.S. crush Japan and Germany and turned them into allies. Once the Soviet Union adopted a more aggressive foreign policy, the U.S. built up an alliance system. Of course, the European allies, reliant on the American defense umbrella and trusting the U.S. not to use its overwhelming strength against them while simultaneously criticizing American imperialism.

Given the similarities between Rome and the U.S., it is tempting to speculate that the U.S. will fall in the same way as Rome. Rome actually experienced three falls:

1. The fall of the Republic that produced the Empire
2. The fall of the western half of the Empire
3. The fall of the eastern half of the Empire in 1453, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople

Professor Madden focused on the fall of the Republic, but he also noted that Rome’s fall was uniquely Roman and reflected weaknesses in the Roman system. America’s fall will be uniquely American and will reflect weaknesses in the American system.

I have listened to several lecture series by Professor Madden, and this one is the best one yet. It is thought-provoking and insightful.

[Melissa Reagan Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating lecture series

[Dwain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book based on the truism that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Madden says there are three kinds of empires in history, empires of conquest (which include 99% of empires, like the Assyrian Empire and Napoleon's Empire), empires of commerce (such as the Venetian Empire) and empires of trust. I won't try to explain here what constitutes an empire of trust, but he says there have only been two, Rome and the United States. He then goes through Roman history and compares it with American history and draws lessons about how the US can maintain its power and avoid the problems that led to the fall of Rome. Only a few points that I disagreed with--on the whole a good book.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting comparison of the Roman Empire to America. He classifies them each as "empires of trust" (as opposed to empires of conquest or empires of commerce) and then lists the characteristics of such an empire, showing how Rome and America qualify as such. In general the comparisons work, though occasionally they feel stretched. Of course, I'm no expert.

[James Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Madden never Fails to Satisfy! This was an amazing book that really does an excellent job cutting through eons of time to deliver a well researched proposition. His conclusion are all backed by historical data and documentation. I love the way he effortlessly delivers so much history in a clear and intreaging narrative.

[Ma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Madden's work and this is no exception. I learned a lot. Madden is very cautious in his predictions about the future of the American Republic, as he should be. It's impossible to make valid predictions based on a sample size of 2.