Now that we are in possession of an honest-to-God demagogue on the classical model, old portents of doom seem pertinent.
Credit: Stefano Dal Pozzolo/contrasto/Redux

The Roman Forum is—along with the Parthenon and the Egyptian pyramids—one of the mandatory sites for reflection on the passing of great powers, the impotence of architectural grandeur, and, these days, on the windfall profiteering of cold soda in places that attract mass tourism. Having come to spend a few days in Rome—for a book festival, the modern author’s equivalent of those pilgrimages that set ancient authors travelling from one marvel to the next—I found myself wandering through the nicely cleaned-up archeological site and brooding. It remains one of the most powerfully empathetic activities a New Yorker can engage in. It’s so exactly like walking through the future ruins of the corner of Fiftieth and Fifth: instead of the Basilica of Maxentius, the Temple of Saturn, and the […]