Generation Z(oomer), aged roughly between 13 and 28, have expressed a desire to be ruled by a dictator. That term derives from the Latin dictator, which referred to an official given absolute power (i.e. he was above the law) for a fixed term to do whatever he thought necessary to deal with a clearly identified problem.
Take the famous example of Cincinnatus. A soldier of repute and a very able ex-consul, he had been left penniless by paying off a debt incurred by his son, and was living the life of a peasant ‘in a deserted hovel across the Tiber, like a banished man’. In 458 bc he was at his plough when he was asked to put on his toga and attend the Senate. There he was invited to become dictator for six months to do whatever was required to defeat an enemy that was threatening Rome’s very existence.
The historian Livy commented that the plebs were concerned about the amount of power theoretically placed in the hands of one man, because they were fighting a political battle against the ruling ‘patrician’ class to have some sort of say in the running of the state. In the event, they need not have worried. Cincinnatus fulfilled his remit in 15 days and promptly returned to his hovel.
Romans continued to appoint dictators (some 90 in all) to deal with a whole variety of problems, e.g. when the plebs, feeling they were being unfairly treated, refused to sign up for military service, and when one Spurius Maelius was accused of winning popularity among the plebs by selling grain at a low price during a serious famine, with a view to making himself king.
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