Bad dictator, bad

So we don’t like dictators.  Pushing everybody around. Bragging. Puffing his chest out, say, with a scowl.  Say the scowl is copper for shits ‘n’ giggles. Calling to, I don’t know, annex this here land. Green land.   Call that up there to the north our 51^st state. 

Bad. 

Monarchial. 

Despotic. 

Not who we are.

God damn it, he’s not a king!       

Hmm. 

Marcus Aurelius is a tired and wizened old piece by the time we meet him in the movie Gladiator.  Slow in speech if not slurry.  He’s furry too, and dying, and of course benevolent.  He’s known as perhaps as the most benevolent dictator in all of history. The kind we just want to curl up to, or whose lap we want to sit on, to hear one last story, one final Meditation.  Knowing him, he would probably keep it family-rated.  The way he does when he’s lamenting before his general, Maximus, all the havoc he wrought during his Caesar-hood.  We just want to curl up next to him and make his passing as swift and sweet as possible. This man with how much blood on his hands again? 

How many annexations? 

How many 51^st states? 

And weren’t these, like, violent campaigns?    

“Get me a blanket,” he asks his general at one point.  Old bloody bastard’s so cuddly I want to go and fetch the blanket myself. Bad timing, though. All I’m left with– all any of us are left with—are his Meditations.  I think I’ve seen tattoos of these.  Or were they Psalms? Proverbs?       

What exactly constitutes a benevolent Caesar, I guess is my question.  Or even just a good Caesar.  

You see Shogun when they boil the dude to death? Son of a bitch! Surely Aurelius the Benevolent didn’t do that. He used burning his enemies to death only as a last resort and instead cut them down with razor edges so as not to feel a thing. I mean, right? Ain’t that what benevolent monarchs do? They don’t massacre and gloat about it afterwards, either. Or throw parades. They return home in great humility and write Meditations that resonate to this day.

Geez, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’re all in agreement Aurelius was a fine dictator, blood and all. 

What? 

A good monarch? 

Yes.  Aurelius was just that. At least according to just about everyone. He kicked a lot of ass. He was unashamed of his empire, rather he was proud. I mean, at least I think he was. He sought to expand it after all. Geographically. Hegemonically. It was Rome’s hour in history. And nobody to this day seems to have minded it. Oh, and an American pope just got elected for the first time in 266 popes. It’s our hour, looks like.

Might it be fading?

In sharp contrast to Aurelius in the movie Gladiator was his son, Commodus.  Commodus definitely has some head issues.  Feelings of inadequacy, call them. In a way he reminds me of the dudes who are constantly on Facebook seeking regular affirmations.  Blue thumbs and hearts. Gotta get their fix of thumbs and hearts. I’m not a shrink so I can’t say with any certainty where and if this stems from insecurity or something else, but it’s definitely something. Commodus is that guy.  Needs the applause. Needs to be noticed.  Needs to threaten out loud to the press he’s going to overwhelm the enemy. Bomb the shit out of them.  It’s like, I don’t know, everything’s a damn pageant with this guy.  Lions?  Boring.  This guy needs tigers springing out the dugouts at the Colosseum. And that’s partially why he’s not benevolent. Benevolence would require humility. The other part is, well, he’s kind of a dick and he cheats in the end by puncturing Russel Crowe’s lung before the two get it on. Commodus also as a way of gathering a slavering clique of slavering senators who don’t dare challenge him lest they be excommunicated from the clique and have to go and get a real fucking job.  Term limits anyone? 

I digress.     

Aurelius and Commodus were dictators.  Both didn’t mind kicking ass and taking names.  Their grandeur and their influence and their empires were unapologetic.  One I guess was nicer or more openly reflective or reticent or restrained or wrote real humble thoughts after all the killing he did versus the other, for what that’s worth. Since dominance is, shit, well, dominance. There’s blood in dominance.  A ton of it.

Mr. President, be unapologetic. But be like Marcus. Whatever that looks like today exactly.

-tmc