Recently, a colleague and I each published an article addressing the need for more congenial dialogue within our society, particularly amidst these turbulent times.

Irene May Pearce, as an archaeologist, provided an outstanding analogy of achieving this through the intricacies of digging into the past, piece by piece, examining form and investigating links to the present and ways to contemplate the future.

I presented my thoughts through the lens of ancient Rome’s greatest politician and memorable thinker and writer, Cicero, as an aid to grapple with antiquity’s lessons and apply them in our contemporary times.

Together we aimed to make our own small but unique contribution to Australia’s present malaise and particularly to the disunity and confusion occurring among people in the lead up to the August 31 march in the name of our nation, which appear to be ongoing with rivalries being laid bare.

As someone who sees the connection between the past and the present at every turn, I can’t help recalling the chaos and disunity that occurred at the final stages of the Fall of the Roman Republic.

Setting the Scene:

It is 44 BC and Julius Caesar has been taken out of the picture, stabbed 23 times on the Forum floor by the conspirators who sought to save Rome from being ruled by just one man.

Following that ghoulish act, Octavian, Lepidus and Antony form part of what is known in modern terms as the Second Triumvirate – a board of three appointed during a crisis and assuming emergency and supreme powers. They suspended normal judicial process and instigated a proscription list, akin to the one Sulla had enacted in 82 BC to eliminate his enemies. They are about to do the same.

As with any power sharing arrangement, tensions are high, disagreements ensue, and personal grievances are brought to bear, none more potent than the mutual hatred between Antony and Cicero. As a result, Cicero is put on top of the proscription list as per Antony’s demands. The rest, as the story goes, is history.

Back to the Future:

I use exemplars to link the past with the present, and inevitably to predict the future, because mankind’s behaviours do not change in essence, only by degrees and according to the civility of the day. Clearly these examples are often violent in nature, and it goes without saying that it is the underlying principle involved rather than the acts themselves that are worthy of attention.

As it relates to the issue of domestic unrest, there is so much to be learned from the unravelling of earlier time periods. There are “tells.” The Fall of the Roman Republic is the gold standard in lessons of what not to do and when not to engage in folly. It is literally littered with examples, many of which have been gifted to us via the hand of Cicero through his speeches, treatises, orations and personal correspondence.

Here are two potent reminders from the man himself about what is at stake in any attempt to reclaim one’s country, the first being for the nation’s leaders, and the second for the people:

“Freedom will bite back more fiercely when suspended than when she remains undisturbed.”

“For it is through our own faults, not by any accident, that we retain only the form of the commonwealth, but have long since lost its substance…”

Remember the past for how to act in the present, and the future will be transparent.