A traitor to one man is a hero to another. So debate rages around the role of David Cameron’s old friend and adviser Steve Hilton — is he a noble Brutus who saved parliamentary democracy by throwing in his lot with Leave, or the traitor who destroyed Cameron’s European dream?
A foundational story of Rome was the expulsion in 509 BC of the last king, the tyrant Tarquinius Superbus (‘the arrogant’), and birth of the free republic. Well before Caesar met his end on the Ides of March 44 BC, Romans were remembering that story and relating it to Caesar’s growing power and ambition. ‘Absolute power vested in one man easily and quickly degenerates into a tyranny,’ said Cicero, who hated Caesar’s assault on old Roman values. When Caesar made himself dictator for life, freedom-loving Romans, led by Brutus and Cassius, made their move.
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