The Foreign Service Journal, June 2007

tion’s military reaction to 9/11 and the alleged concomitant loss of American personal rights with Pompey the Younger’s campaign against Mediter- ranean pirates (who had attacked the Roman homeland) and the willing- ness of Romans to “compromise their centuries-old rights in return for promises of security.” That interpretation of history is so outrageously phony it is hard to know where to begin. First, would Romans who had seen their lands ravaged by Hannibal and the Gauls a few genera- tions before have been so shaken by a pirate attack on one city? Hardly. Second, the Romans who enjoyed those “centuries-old rights” were basi- cally a narrow oligarchy. Finally, the Roman senators — the “Conscript Fathers” at the acme of that oligarchy — had fully compro- mised their rights at least generations before Pompey the Younger strutted upon the scene. Marius was five times consul (contrary to law) before Pompey was born, and both Marius and his successor, Sulla, caused laws to be passed that enabled the whole- sale confiscation of the property of their Roman citizen enemies, as well as their “proscription” — which is to say, their legalized murder. In fact, Roman law was in tatters long before the pirates attacked Ostia in 68 B.C. The real “cautionary tale” here is that authors and editors, at both the New York Times and the Foreign Service Journal , are entitled to their own opinions — not their own facts. Those interested in accurate history and greater literary flair in their fiction should read Colleen McCollough’s trilogy about the end of the Roman Republic: The First Man in Rome (1990), The Grass Crown (1991) and Fortune’s Favorites (1993). Thomas D. Boyatt Ambassador, retired McLean, Va. Democracy, Diplomacy and Conservatism Dale Herspring’s article, “Under- standing Vladimir Putin” (April FSJ ) reinforces an observation my father made, based on his six years as an Austrian prisoner of war in Russia, mostly Siberia, from 1914 to 1920. He reported: “Under the czars, it was said you could do anything you want- ed as long as you stayed out of politics. Under the communists, everything was political.” This would seem to reinforce Herspring’s analysis of Put- in’s politics as an outgrowth of the 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 7 L E T T E R S