As Americans head to the polls, the threat of voter intimidation and violence is greater than at any time in recent memory.  Not since the Jim Crow South have voters and the political system faced such threats.  The potential damage this could do to our political system should not be underestimated.  Here again, the Romans provide us an ominous example.

By the 50s BCE, the Roman Republic had been marred by political violence for decades, but something had inherently changed.  Violence, rather than being a shocking aberration, had become the political process.  It was normal.  Moreover, it was not simply directed at or carried out by political elites and generals.  Unlike the murder of Tiberius Gracchus by a senatorial mob or the civil war of Marius and Sulla with organized armies, Roman citizens were now clashing with Roman citizens in the streets of Rome.

Violence in Rome became normalized through organized political gangs.  The Roman people had long been members of various organizations called collegia.  Some collegia were based on geography, some were for workers of certain guilds or trades, and others seem to have been simply social clubs; they frequently had a religious cult associated with them.  As Rome became more volatile politically, many collegia became vehicles for organizing political gangs.  For this reason they were all abolished in 64 BCE, save the most respectable and venerable, but in 58 BCE, the radical tribune Publius Clodius repealed the law of 64 BCE thereby allowing the collegia to operate as political gangs once more.  This of course was self-serving legislation, since Clodius promptly organized collegia that he would use to intimidate voters, threaten political enemies, and rough up the opposition.

The opposition would not tolerate this for long.  They had their own money and political connections that could be used to form political gangs of their own.  Pompey, who had become an object of Clodius’ venom, saw to the creation of a rival gang, led by Titus Annius Milo, who was as ruthless as Clodius even if of a different political persuasion.  In the forum and assemblies, the rival gangs of Clodius and Milo would go at each other or target those suspected of aiding the other side.  Since Rome had no officially recognized police force, there was little that could be done to restrain these gangs once they had been legalized, short of bringing soldiers into the city to restore order, a prospect few wanted.  The result was that for the better part of the 50s BCE Rome would be at the mercy of violent political gangs.

The violence in 53 BCE was so bloody that it blocked the elections, so Rome entered 52 BCE without any magistrates in office, an interregnum as the Romans called it, an irregular period after the term of the previous year’s magistrates had ended but without their replacements in office.  This was in the shadow of Crassus’ military defeat at Carrhae and unrest in Caesar’s Gaul.  By chance in January of 52 BCE, Clodius and Milo, accompanied by their gangs, met on the Appian Way south of Rome.  In the ensuing fight Clodius received the worst of it and was wounded.  His supporters took him to a nearby inn with Milo in pursuit; besieging the inn, his men dragged Clodius outside and killed him. 

When Clodius’ dead body was brought back to Rome, the city erupted in rioting.  Clodius’ supporters took his body to the senate house in the forum and set it ablaze to serve as Clodius’ funeral pyre.   The senate declared martial law and called upon Pompey to restore order.  The answer to all this violence was to make Pompey sole consul for 52 BCE, an eventuality at odds with Rome’s traditional constitution, which was established to prevent one person rule.  He promptly passed several laws against electoral bribery and public violence.  Milo, defended by Cicero, was put on trial; Clodius’ rabid supporters threatened the proceedings, and Pompey was compelled to station troops in the forum.  Milo was found guilty, as he surely was, and was forced to endure a comfortable exile in Massilia (Marseilles). 

The violence of the political gangs profoundly impacted Rome.  Ordinary Roman citizens were intimidated from participating in the political process, elections were delayed, a sole consul had been put into power, and martial law declared.  This is to say little of those who suffered the direct effects of violent mobs.  A republican society cannot endure such things for long, and Rome was no exception.  Within the decade the republican constitution would be no more, and Rome was well on its way to autocracy. 

The United States has fortunately not yet seen its political system disrupted by vicious gangs as the Romans did.  Elections have not been physically disrupted and political violence has been sporadic.  But for how long?  The capacity for political violence to erupt in the United States is immense.  In fact, we are already beginning to see it.  Ever since Columbine in 1999, mass shootings have scarred the American landscape on a frequent and bloody scale.  Some of these shootings have overt political or social objectives, such as the mass shootings at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.  Yet just as troubling many do not; they are simply citizens killing fellow citizens: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas.  To the rest of the world, there is clearly something amiss in American society, but by the reactions from American politicians, one would hardly suspect there is a problem.  Politicians have done little to prevent such shootings or abate the violence.  Weapons have only become more readily available and publicly displayed with increasing frequency and belligerency.  Witness the gun-rights protest on January 20, 2020 when heavily armed and masked protesters gathered outside the Virginia State Capitol where legislators were debating gun reform.  Or the gun-rights rally held about ten days later in the Kentucky State House where heavily armed and masked protesters were allowed to bypass metal detectors and brandish semi-automatic weapons.  Across the country armed militias have operated with virtual impunity, which was most vividly on display in the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016.  For all those under the illusion that the violent language surrounding gun rights is merely metaphorical, the White Nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 should have stripped away such naiveté.  The weaponry on display and the bellicosity in the air were more than a warning. 

One might have expected our elected representatives to respond in some way to such dangerous provocations and violence.  Sure, there was some outrage following Charlottesville, but what will be remembered by all was the president’s enabling language asserting that there were “some very fine people on both sides,” although one side was responsible for Heather Heyer’s death and espoused an ideology of hatred and bigotry.  Since the violence in Charlottesville, the president has only emboldened right-wing militias.  In the nationally televised, first presidential debate of 2020, Trump refused to disavow white supremacists and their violence.  Even more, he said to the Proud Boys, “Stand back, and stand by,” which was taken by right-wing militias as a rallying cry.  Violence has been plotted against Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Ohio governor Mike DeWine (R) in the name of citizen arrests.    As early voting has begun, voter intimidation has been reported, and police forces are preparing for public disorder. 

What happens when U.S. citizens, who have become accustomed to and trained in violence, organize that violence along political lines?  What forces are at work to defuse such an outcome?  If our politicians are unwilling to prevent such violence from breaking out on a wider scale, we, the citizens of the United States, will need to undertake the work.  How will we do that before it is too late? 

Resources

Appian, The Civil Wars.

Cassius Dio, Roman History, especially books 37-47.