Applies to our leaders as well.
Posted on 03/16/2014 3:58:13 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
North Korea 2014 meets Rome AD 65
In Kim Jong Un's accession to power and brutal purge of his uncle, parallels are evident between the two societies.
By James Romm
March 14, 2014
This week, as the Ides of March approaches — the March 15 anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar, a determined but ultimately fruitless attempt by Roman senators to stop their government from sliding toward dictatorship — the minds of some ancient historians may turn in a seemingly unlikely direction: toward modern North Korea.
The dark and menacing regime of Kim Jong Un seems a long way off from the Augustan "Golden Age" of ancient Rome, an era that produced art and literature still admired today. The differences between the two societies are, of course, vast, but the parallels are nonetheless striking. In the century or so following Caesar's assassination, his successors achieved a power so absolute that they were worshiped as gods on Earth, as the Kims are today. Yet they, again like the Kims, suffered chronic insecurity about their legitimacy, and that fear led to terrible abuses.
Hereditary rulers who are not kings — who have no long tradition or constitutional authority behind them — are somewhat exotic creatures in the annals of history. They often invent new titles to describe their role in the state: Princeps, or "first citizen," in the case of the Caesars, Supreme Leader (and variants of that term) in that of the Kims. They need to foster a cult of personality to take the place of scepters and crowns, and the loyalty of their military — the Praetorian Guard in Rome; the People's Army in Pyongyang — must be prominently displayed.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
P!
So they invent new words for their titles and ways of doing things, uneasy with the previous ones? Interestingly familiar...
That’s nøt the ønly parallel . . .
Applies to our leaders as well.
Bingo !
Fortunately, November will begin to straighten out our problem...
The author jumped into the deep end, over his head.
There is a picture to be drawn but Kim has no empire and no legions. His pond is so small, one wonders if he is really a duck
This is one of the lamest attempts to draw historical parallels that I have seen. The “parallel” is that you have one member of a family taking control of a dictatorship and then killing off the other family members. It happened over and over and over again through out history until monarchy was replaced with democracy.
The Julio Claudians rose to power on the corpse of the Roman Republic. The Kims were put in power after the conquest of Japan by Stalin. Nero was a step son. Jong-un, while he may not have been crown prince, is an hereditary heir to Il-sung.
The only similarity between Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and Kim Jong-un is that they were both little fat psychos. And anyone who thinks it would be a good thing if the Kim dynasty ended like the Julio Claudians should read a little further into the events of 69 AD and the rule of those fun loving Flavians.
Yeah, I think the Romans had more electricity than the Norks.
The other parallel is the scarcity of bark.
For the Romans, so scarce their buildings were made of stone.
For the Norks, so scarce because they eat it.
North Korea 2014 Meets the Herodias Family BC AD
Kim has his horse's ass.
Look at the intense focus of the young woman behind Rodman. I bet she is a secret service killing machine, just waiting for a wrong move.
Virtually anything written about North Korea is inherently speculative, and I would not want to read too much into a single still photo, but you may be right.
South Koreans do have female Special Operations personnel, trained very well in the normal military tactics but also in how to appear to be something they aren't — i.e., secretaries, nurses, translators — so they can do what they need to do without arousing suspicion until it's too late to stop them. One of the few things the North Korean military excels at which is not based on brute force is special operations, and following the South Korean model plus the North Korean leadership's penchant for “female companionship,” it would not surprise me if they have some very well-trained female Special Forces personnel guarding top leaders.
At least in South Korea, women in those roles don't look like soldiers and don't look dangerous ... and that's precisely the point.
Quite well put.
Except Rome had far more resources; this is a tempest in a pitiful teapot.
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