America is now facing turmoil common in the classical world: an assassination attempt, the use of legal assaults to delegitimize or even remove political opponents, the overthrow of a sitting leader by his own supporters, wars raging or threatened at nearly every edge of our sphere of influence. All the while, words like “civil war” are creeping into political discourse.
Yet while comparisons of America to the ancient world — particularly the Roman Empire — abound, what’s most shocking is how differently ancient and modern systems and people have responded to the same types of crises.
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