31 October 2009

Gibbon on Augustus

In Petro Georgiou on the anti-terror laws I noted the concerns of the Member for Kooyong that the Government has introduced legislation, in the form of the National Security Monitor Bill, which purports to provide for independent review of the 49 anti-terror laws which have been passed by Federal Parliament since 9 September 2001, but which fundamentally negates every principle of statutory independence.


Perhaps someone in government has been making a close study of Sir Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and drawn inspiration from his observations about Augustus:


... the system of the Imperial government as it was instituted by Augustus ... may be defined an absolute monarchy concealed as a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world ... concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.

...


... He wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil government ...

...


Caesar had provoked his fate ... The title of king had armed the Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion ...


If we, the enervated people of Australia, acquiesce in the pleasing illusion that the National Security Monitor Bill provides some sort of protection for our civil liberties, we will have no-one to blame but ourselves.


Source: Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Folio Society, London, 1983, vol. 1, pp 85-87.

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