the ghost of Crassus

Our “new Rome” has an enemy in common with the old one -- Persia. M. Licinius Crassus died in battle against the Persians at Carrhae 54 B .C. The Parthian King, Orodes II, was in such a strong position that he issued coinage with the title "King of Kings," a deliberate evocation of the great earlier Persian King Xerxes [to whom the Parthian kings, ruling over the same land, traced their genealogy. Then, C. Julius Caesar was planning to lead an expedition against them when he was killed in the Senate a decade later in March 44 B. C.. His adoptive son, Augustus, was only able to reach a diplomatic solution with the help of a succession crisis in the Persian royal family. And now we have named Persia -- Iran -- as the latest non-democratic country we don’t trust. Just as Rome started many of her wars on the basis of a preemptive strike in self-defense, so too our leaders have considered the same strategy.