On Patriots Day, The Natale di Roma, and the Birth and Death of Republics

Wow, are the stars ever crazily aligned today. Massachusetts and a few other states celebrate Patriots Day today, a holiday that commemorates what would be called the Birth of America if we didn’t have a Fourth of July. Patriots Day marks, in a loose way, the same events at Lexington and Concord and Boston we have been posting about here over the last few days. The fighting on those days were the beginning of the Revolution, but the colonies had not yet resolved to declare themselves independent of Britain. Thus, it is more like the Birth of the Birth of America. Anyway, this year, Patriots Days falls on another resonant day, however: for many centuries, April 21 has been the traditional day to celebrate Natale di Roma, the Birth of Rome. (And on top of it all, Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome died today. Sparking no doubt, quips about The Conclave around a million water coolers this morning. Not that he chose it, as he’d been unwell for many days, but if he had, he couldn’t have chosen a more symbolic day to leave us. Once again, history is rhyming and resonating like crazy.) The culture of holidays is an entire content stream on Travalanche, since spectacle and ritual performance are so often a key part are so often a part of these annual affairs. Since All Roads Lead to Rome, today seemed a good day to unpack its traditional birthday.

When did Rome come into being? The lore tells us April 21, 753 B.C. And, yes, that is insane, a complete fantasy, but it’s hardly unique. For example, as we all know, neither was Jesus Christ born on December 25, year 0. These are merely conventions, but there are very good reasons for their existence, though the reasons are rooted in factors at odds with fact. The year, while less arbitrary and not half bad, was calculated by ancient historians working backwards from such written history as they knew, with a little bit of myth woven in with regards to the earliest years. According to tradition, the first Roman King was Romulus, who murdered his twin brother Remus after he violated the border he’d surveyed surrounding the Palatine Hill, which would mark his new city. The brothers were sons of Mars, and descended on their mother’s side from Aeneas. The process for calculating back to Romulus us not at all unlike the famous calculation of the earth’s creation done by Archbishop Ussher using the Bible as a guide: 4004 B.C. There are similar chronicles of kings in other cultures (the Celtic world, e.g.) that have been calculated the same way. The results are accurately called “legendary”. It is scholarship divorced from empiricism, but there is a logic to it. Sources are brought to bear, but the sources are akin to fairy tales.

How the day was arrived at is more telling, however. Basically Julius Caesar received the news of his army’s victory at Munda (Southern Spain) at the time of a pre-existing, very different holiday which took place on April 21: The Parilia, or Palilia (both are used). This was an ancient Pagan holiday in honor of the deity Pales (not to be confused with Pallas), whose purview was the welfare of sheep and shepherds. The ceremony consisted of the ritual purification of the sheep, the shepherds themselves, and their pens. All would be decked out in finery. There were sacrifices and other ritual elements. These ceremonies were conducted throughout the countryside, but also in the city, where priests did the honors, and there was more symbolism involved. In 45 B.C. Caesar celebrated the victory at Munda by adding games to the proceedings (much as we have the Boston Marathon on Patriots’ Day). The holiday became as much about celebrating Caesar as it was a celebration of pastoralism. This tradition continued under Caesar’s successors. By the time of Caligula it was just about celebrating the Emperor, and of course the Emperor was the embodiment of the State, so it was the national day. There were ceremonial parades and processions, in addition to the games. In 121 A.D. Hadrian renamed the holiday the Romaea, making the transformation complete.

When Rome fell and Emperors gave way to Popes, the holiday went with it. Then, in 1924 it was revived by Mussolini, who was obsessed with restoring the glory of Rome. “Make Rome Great Again”, if you will. The national birthday has been celebrated ever since, though the original Fascist movement died at the end of World War Two. Or, so it was widely believed.

America’s Founding Fathers were inspired in large part by the Roman Republic, which distributed power between the Senate, and a system of executive magistrates, headed by two Consuls. It was oligarchical, but it was elective, and the plebians were represented by their own official, the tribune. It was a good system, and Rome’s eventual transformation into an Empire has been generally mourned from that day to this. Rome continued to grow in power and territorial extent of course, but the traditional virtues that brought its people success during the Republic gradually gave way to decadence that eventually made the Empire vulnerable to the forces that overthrew it. This is the traditional narrative, anyway. Thus, though the western Roman Empire didn’t technically fall until 476 A.D., I find myself accustomed to regarding the catastrophe as the moment the laurel wreath was placed on Caesar’s head five centuries earlier.

You perceive the relevance here, I hope? In America we started out with Washington, compared from that day to this to Cincinnatus, the Roman leader who returned to his simple life as a farmer after ruling the nation. The present occupant of the White House has declared his wish for an expensive miliary parade to celebrate his own birthday on June 14. Man, when history rhymes, it rhymes.