Comment on A name more fitting

• Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Didn’t they actually have dictators back then? Like when in real need they’d elect a dictator for one or two years, and during that time he had absolute power and everyone had to obey. A sort of extreme crisis tool.

  Also drump is more Caligula than Cesar IMO.

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  • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Julius Caesar was one of those dictators. He actually made a point of telling people “Non sum Rex, sed Caesar”. Caesar later became the title used for emperor in many languages.

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    • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Tsar/czar and kaiser are derived from caesar.

      I’m going to assume that ‘king’ probably does in some tortuous way.

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      • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Not according to Wikipedia

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    • Zombie@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      For the curious:

      The second incident occurred in 44 BC. One day in January, the tribunes Gaius Epidius Marullus and Lucius Caesetius Flavus discovered a diadem on the head of the statue of Caesar on the Rostra in the Roman Forum.[5] According to Suetonius, the tribunes ordered the wreath be removed as it was a symbol of Jupiter and royalty.[7] Nobody knew who had placed the diadem, but Caesar suspected that the tribunes had arranged for it to appear so that they could have the honour of removing it.[5] Matters escalated shortly after on the 26th, when Caesar was riding on horseback to Rome on the Appian Way.[8] A few members of the crowd greeted him as rex (“king”), to which Caesar replied, “I am not Rex, but Caesar” (“Non sum Rex, sed Caesar”).[9] This was wordplay; Rex was a Latin title meaning ‘king’. Marullus and Flavus, the aforementioned tribunes, were not amused, and ordered the man who first cried “rex” arrested. In a later Senate meeting, Caesar accused the tribunes of attempting to create opposition to him, and had them removed from office and membership in the Senate.[8] The Roman plebs took their tribunes seriously as the representatives of the common people; Caesar’s actions against the tribunes put him on the wrong side of public opinion.[10]

      en.wikipedia.org/…/Assassination_of_Julius_Caesar

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  • Zombie@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yes and no. They were tasked with fixing a particular problem or threat, and had absolute authority only in the scope of fixing that problem. They were then meant to step down once the problem was fixed.

    The full extent of the dictatorial power was considerable, but not unlimited. It was circumscribed by the conditions of a dictator’s appointment, as well as by the evolving traditions of Roman law, and to a considerable degree depended on the dictator’s ability to work together with other magistrates. The precise limitations of this power were not sharply defined, but subject to debate, contention, and speculation throughout Roman history.[46]

    In the pursuit of his causa, the dictator’s authority was nearly absolute; however, as a rule he could not exceed the mandate for which he was appointed; a dictator nominated to hold the comitia could not then take up a military command against the wishes of the Senate.[f][g] Dictators could carry out functions which fell outside the scope of their initial appointments, but only at the direction of the Senate; this included the drawing of funds from the public treasury, which a dictator could only do with the Senate’s authorisation.[29]

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator

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    • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Well yes that’s why the “one or two years”

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