President Donald Trump’s first time period noticed a record-high fee of turnover amongst his Cupboard members and chief advisers. Trump’s second time period has, to this point, seen far fewer Cupboard departures.
However some political commentators have noticed that the president this time round has primarily appointed loyal advisers who won’t problem him.
As Thomas Friedman identified in The New York Instances on June 3, 2025, “In Trump I, the president surrounded himself with some people of weight who could act as buffers. In Trump II, he has surrounded himself only with sycophants who act like amplifiers.”
As a scholar of Greco-Roman antiquity, I’ve spent a few years finding out the demise of truth-telling in intervals of political upheaval. Spanning the interval from 27 B.C.E. to 476 C.E., the Roman Empire nonetheless gives insights into what occurs to political leaders once they interpret probably useful recommendation as dissent.
Significantly telling is the case of Nero, Rome’s emperor from 54 to 68 C.E., who responded to a disastrous fireplace in 64 with excessive cruelty and self-worship that did nothing to assist determined residents.
Suppressing trustworthy recommendation underneath Nero
Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, established a handpicked circle of advisers – known as the consilium principis in Latin, that means emperor’s council – to offer a republican look to his autocratic regime. Augustus turned the emperor of Rome in 27 B.C.E. and dominated over the empire, which stretched from Europe and North Africa to the Center East at its peak, till his loss of life in 14 C.E.
Augustus needed to listen to what others thought in regards to the empire’s wants and his insurance policies. At the least a few of Augustus’ advisers had been daring sufficient to claim themselves and danger incurring his displeasure. Some, equivalent to Cornelius Gallus, paid for his or her boldness with their very own lives, whereas others, equivalent to Cilnius Maecenas, managed to push their political agendas in softer ways in which allowed them to take care of their affect.
However the Roman emperors who got here after Augustus had been both much less expert at sustaining a republican facade, or much less excited by doing so.
Nero was the final of the emperors from the noble Julio-Claudian dynasty in historic Rome at its peak of energy. Historians who describe Nero’s rise and fall from energy describe the primary 5 years of his reign, or the quinquennium neronis in Latin, as a interval of relative calm and prosperity for the empire.
As a result of Nero was simply 16 years outdated when he acceded to energy, he was assigned advisers to information his insurance policies. Their opinions carried important weight.
However 5 years into his reign, chafing at their continued oversight, Nero started to purge these advisers from his life, through execution, compelled suicide and exile.
Nero as a substitute collected a small cadre of self-interested enablers who derived energy for themselves by encouraging their chief’s delusions, equivalent to his need to challenge himself because the incarnation of the solar god, Apollo.
The only most unspeakably corrupt and nefarious of those most popular advisers was Ofonius Tigellinus. Tigellinus had caught Nero’s eye early in 62 by urging the senate to convict a Roman Justice of the Peace of treason for having composed poems that he deemed insulting to the emperor. Later that 12 months, Tigellinus was appointed the top of the emperor’s private military.
As praetorian prefect, Tigellinus was charged not solely with defending Nero from bodily hurt, but additionally with crafting and guarding the chief’s public picture. Tigellinus urged Nero to stage an ongoing collection of public spectacles – like theatrical performances and athletic competitions – that featured him as a divine ruler and a god on Earth.
The Roman Emperor Nero surveys the town of Rome after the disastrous fireplace in 64 C.E.
Hulton Archive/Getty Photographs
Up in flames
It was seemingly at Tigellinus’ urging that, within the aftermath of the good fireplace of 64 that raged for six days in Rome, Nero staged an exorbitant backyard social gathering the place Christians had been soaked in flammable oils and lit as human torches to light up a decadent late-night feast.
However, strive as he would possibly, Nero couldn’t outrun the fireplace and its aftermath by indulging in intelligent cruelties. Large swathes of the town had been razed by the fireplace. 1000’s of residents lacked clothes. They had been hungry, displaced and homeless.
For solutions, the fireplace’s numerous victims seemed to Nero, their earthly Apollo, for assist. However they didn’t encounter a sympathetic chief sweeping in to deal with their wants. As an alternative, they discovered a person determined to put blame on others – on this case, foreigners from the east.
So as to squelch rumors that Nero had lit the fireplace, Tigellinus’ military unit rounded up Christians, falsely blamed them for beginning the fireplace and executed them.
However this transfer simply showcased Nero’s failure to concentrate on the dire wants of the poor, the very individuals who worshipped him. As an alternative, he sought to rise above the ashes by doubling down on his divine pretensions.
As soon as the rubble left by the fireplace was cleared away, Nero constructed a powerful new dwelling for himself. This palace, known as the domus aurea in Latin, that means home of gold, coated greater than 120 acres within the coronary heart of Rome. It featured spectacular water fountains, elaborate artworks and, standing tall within the entryway, a 120-foot bronze statue of Nero because the solar god, Apollo.
No truth-teller was there to inform Nero that perhaps he shouldn’t rub his folks’s noses of their struggling.
Nero’s delusional response to the fireplace didn’t put an finish to his profession, however it did a lot to hasten its finish.
Lower than 4 years later, with armies bearing down on the town, Nero dedicated suicide. Rome tumbled into civil struggle.
President Donald Trump seems at an Independence Day occasion on the Mount Rushmore nationwide monument close to Keystone, S.D., in 2020.
Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Photographs
Self-worship within the Trump period
Trump has lengthy expressed a need to have his face carved on Mount Rushmore, a nationwide memorial in South Dakota that options the likenesses of legendary American presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
This dream turned a bit nearer to actuality when Tennessee Consultant Andy Ogles in July 2025 urged the Division of the Inside to discover including Trump’s picture to Mount Rushmore – although such an addition won’t be doable due to geological points.Trump’s critics have lengthy famous the president’s propensity to concentrate on himself and his personal greatness and energy, reasonably than the wants of residents.
As far-off because the Roman Empire might sound, Nero’s rise and fall gives a lesson in what can occur when trustworthy criticism of a political chief is sidelined in favor of idolatry.
As an alternative of trustworthy options to actual issues, what Romans obtained was a colossal statue that portrayed their chief as a god on Earth.
