A little over 2,500 years ago, there lived a man named Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. If his name seems familiar, that’s because one of the United States’ great cities is named after him. Cincinnatus had served the Roman Republic in several capacities, including Consul of the Senate of Rome. But in 458 BC, the Roman Army was struggling to defeat the Aequi, an Italic tribe to the east of the city of Rome.
Cincinnatus had retired to a farm, but when Rome called, he answered. He was appointed Dictator by the Roman Senate, giving him absolute power over the city – and the army. He oversaw a quick victory over the Aequi; the Roman historian Livy puts the time at sixteen days. With that done, Cincinnatus surrendered the dictatorship and went back to his farm.
Livy and other Roman scribes of the time held Cincinnatus up as a model of civic virtue, an example for any who would serve the republic. I will not question their wisdom at this distance in time. I will note that the next time something like that happened was in the United States, when America’s first president, George Washington, left the presidency in March of 1797 and quietly returned to his farm, leaving John Adams in office.
We have no Cincinnatus among us today.
Earlier on Friday, my colleague Teri Christoph revealed to us a tale of corruption, of political malfeasance, maybe even treason, that one would think more Roman than American. But here we are. Teri writes:
Well, the Trump administration is getting in on the action with their own Friday afternoon document dump—and their dump also does not reflect well on Barack Obama and his administration. The documents in question are newly-declassified materials released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard showing how deeply involved Obama and members of his administration were in helping to devise and perpetuate the Russia collusion hoax against Donald Trump.
A clearly-irate Gabbard took to X Friday afternoon to detail what was found in the documents—i.e., Obama & co. made the whole thing up—and what she plans to do with the information.