Little Emperors

Most novels about the Fall of Rome don't interest me, because their authors favor the Empire. I have always rooted for the barbarians, because in my view Rome was a deeply sick society after the "reforms" of Diocletian. But one can always count on Alfred Duggan for an unusual take on familiar history. There are no barbarian hordes or savage battles in this book. Instead it tells the story of the Roman collapse in Britain from the viewpoint of a fictional senior civilian bureaucrat named C. Sempronius Felix, Praeses of Britannia Prima. A Preases is a very busy man. In the morning, Felix and his staff fix all prices, ration all food, approve all marriages, punish anyone who attempts to change jobs or marry out of her class, and ruthlessly collect punishing taxes to support a huge incompetent army that never fights. In the afternoon, Felix acts as judge in politically fixed trials. On weekends he orders emigrants burned at the stake. Felix's Rome is a rigid totalitarian nightmare where citizens have become slaves and slaves have become pieces of furniture. But like a typical Duggan character, Felix is oblivious to reality and thinks he is upholding "civilization" instead of wrecking it. After ten years in London, he hasn't even bothered to find out who the local secret police chief is. He is easily manipulated by his wife and father-in-law into supporting a series of usurpers who predictably turn in megalomaniacs. You want to kick Felix but you can't stop reading. Evelyn Waugh wrote of Alfred Duggan that "he surveyed contemporary history with nothing but calm despair", and there are usually no detectable commentaries on current events in his writing. But I see this book as a warning to the British ruling class of 1950 who were rapidly heading toward Diocletianism (despite their classical educations). When his proto-Thatcherite wife suggests returning to a free-market economy, Felix responds with all the classic XXth-century arguments for government planning.