The Reactionary Utopian
                      March 5, 2007


FAMILY VALUES, ROMAN AND REPUBLICAN
by Joe Sobran

     It was around this time of year over two millennia 
ago -- in Lent, just before St. Patrick's Day -- that 
Julius Caesar was struck down. Of course Rome was not yet 
a Catholic city, let alone Irish, but it had a powerful 
criminal element, its senate.

     Thanks to Shakespeare, the official version of the 
story is still familiar and easily accessible on the 
Internet. But the Bard's play deals only with the last 
few days of Caesar's life (plus the aftermath). It has 
nothing to say about what would now be the most 
scandalous fact of that life: Like George Washington and 
Thomas Jefferson, Julius Caesar owned slaves.

     True, they were probably white slaves, so Al 
Sharpton's ancestors presumably weren't among them, which 
may be why the civil rights leader's name isn't Al 
Caesar. Caesar, muttering his scathing contempt for 
cowards, showed up for work that day despite the 
misgivings of his bitch Calpurnia (in colloquial Latin, 
his "ho") and her astrologers, as well as a homeless 
Soothsayer.

     It was then that the conspirators -- led by Caesar's 
friend Brutus (who may also have been his bastard son, 
being the child of Servilia, one of Caesar's old 
squeezes, as Plutarch reports, though of course the 
media, including Shakespeare, play down such eye-popping 
details), Cassius, and Casca -- struck. After the others 
had stabbed Caesar, he stopped struggling when Brutus let 
him have it right in the groin (another fact the media 
have skipped over).

     Rome was shocked. Caesar had just come home in 
triumph after vanquishing the once-popular Pompey. He'd 
seemed to have a promising future as dictator.

     Now Brutus faced a delicate problem, challenging all 
his great gifts as an orator. How to placate the angry 
mob, which had adored Caesar?

     At Caesar's funeral he explained that he and his 
fellow conspirators had felt they'd had no choice if 
Roman liberty was to survive. Sounded reasonable.

     But then it was the turn of Mark ("Born to Raise 
Hell," his tattooed biceps proclaimed) Antony to do the 
talking. When the terms of Caesar's will were revealed, 
the inebriated crowd went nuts and tore the city apart. 
It was the wildest St. Patrick's Day Rome has seen to 
this day. He'd left every Roman citizen seventy-five -- 
count 'em! -- drachmas. And a drachma in those days, 
before the Federal Reserve System, was worth something.

     If anything happened to George W. Bush today (oh, 
heaven forfend!), how much do you think each of us would 
get? Not being stupid, the Romans didn't have paper 
money, and their coins are still a lot more valuable than 
ours. So much for modern progress.

     By the time of his death, Caesar had already had two 
children with Egypt's Cleopatra, the alleged "serpent of 
the Nile." As Shakespeare put it, in his typically lewd 
way, "Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to 
bed: He ploughed her, and she cropped."

     Then Antony too went to Egypt and did some ploughing 
of his own. Two more kids. Not that Cleopatra was 
actually such a femme fatale, but to quote Shakespeare 
again, "Our courteous Antony, Whom ne'er the word of 'No' 
woman heard speak ..." I used to have a buddy like that. 
"I never turned any down," he'd say. If he were here 
today he'd make a good Republican presidential candidate.

     I doubt that John Edwards is a faggot, as Ann 
Coulter says, but the GOP might be in better shape if 
Rudy Giuliani were one. Giuliani, who is not on speaking 
terms with his offspring, seems determined to revive 
ancient Roman family values, perhaps including 
infanticide.

     In the heydays of the Kennedys and Bill Clinton, not 
so long ago, satyriasis was thought to be the Democrats' 
affliction. How times do change. These days the only 
Republican who turns any down is that human paradox Mitt 
Romney, a/k/a Mitt the monogamous Massachusetts Mormon. 
He is still, after 38 years, in the embrace of the first 
and, so far, the only Mrs. Romney. Well, at least 
Giuliani doesn't own any slaves, unless they are sex 
slaves.

     In the Harry Truman era the GOP asked the voters a 
simple question: "Had enough?" Well, the voters have had 
enough -- enough, with over measure -- of George W. Bush. 
Now the party has a new slogan: "Gettin' any?"

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