President Donald Trump’s first time period noticed a record-high charge of turnover amongst his Cupboard contributors and leader advisers. Trump’s 2nd time period has, so far, observed a ways fewer Cupboard departures.
However some political commentators have seen that the president this time round has essentially appointed dependable advisers who is not going to problem him.
As Thomas Friedman identified in The New York Occasions 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 student of Greco-Roman antiquity, I’ve spent a few years finding out the death of truth-telling during periods of political upheaval. Spanning the length from 27 B.C.E. to 476 C.E., the Roman Empire nonetheless gives insights into what occurs to political leaders once they interpret most likely useful recommendation as dissent.
In particular telling is the case of Nero, Rome’s emperor from 54 to 68 C.E., who replied to a disastrous hearth in 64 with excessive cruelty and self-worship that did not anything to assist determined voters.
Suppressing truthful recommendation beneath Nero
Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, established a handpicked circle of advisers – referred to as the consilium principis in Latin, that means emperor’s council – to offer a republican glance to his autocratic regime. Augustus was the emperor of Rome in 27 B.C.E. and dominated over the empire, which stretched from Europe and North Africa to the Heart East at its top, till his demise in 14 C.E.
Augustus sought after to listen to what others concept in regards to the empire’s wishes and his insurance policies. No less than a few of Augustus’ advisers had been daring sufficient to claim themselves and chance incurring his displeasure. Some, equivalent to Cornelius Gallus, paid for his or her boldness with their very own lives, whilst others, equivalent to Cilnius Maecenas, controlled to push their political agendas in softer ways in which allowed them to deal with their affect.
However the Roman emperors who got here after Augustus had been both much less professional at keeping up a republican facade, or much less serious about doing so.
Nero was once the closing of the emperors from the noble Julio-Claudian dynasty in historic Rome at its top of energy. Historians who describe Nero’s upward push and fall from energy describe the primary 5 years of his reign, or the quinquennium neronis in Latin, as a length of relative calm and prosperity for the empire.
As a result of Nero was once simply 16 years outdated when he acceded to energy, he was once assigned advisers to steer his insurance policies. Their reviews carried important weight.
However 5 years into his reign, chafing at their persisted oversight, Nero started to purge those advisers from his existence, by means of execution, compelled suicide and exile.
Nero as an alternative accrued a small cadre of self-interested enablers who derived energy for themselves through encouraging their chief’s delusions, equivalent to his want to venture himself because the incarnation of the solar god, Apollo.
The only maximum unspeakably corrupt and nefarious of those most popular advisers was once Ofonius Tigellinus. Tigellinus had stuck Nero’s eye early in 62 through 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 once appointed the top of the emperor’s non-public military.
As praetorian prefect, Tigellinus was once charged no longer handiest with protective Nero from bodily hurt, but in addition with crafting and guarding the chief’s public symbol. Tigellinus instructed Nero to degree 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 hearth in 64 C.E.
Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures
Up in flames
It was once most probably at Tigellinus’ urging that, within the aftermath of the good hearth of 64 that raged for 6 days in Rome, Nero staged an exorbitant lawn celebration the place Christians had been soaked in flammable oils and lit as human torches to remove darkness from a decadent late-night banquet.
However, check out as he would possibly, Nero couldn’t outrun the fireplace and its aftermath through indulging in artful cruelties. Massive swathes of the town were razed through the fireplace. Hundreds of voters lacked clothes. They had been hungry, displaced and homeless.
For solutions, the fireplace’s numerous sufferers appeared to Nero, their earthly Apollo, for assist. However they didn’t come upon a sympathetic chief sweeping in to handle their wishes. As an alternative, they discovered a person determined to position blame on others – on this case, foreigners from the east.
With a view to squelch rumors that Nero had lit the fireplace, Tigellinus’ military unit rounded up Christians, falsely blamed them for beginning the fireplace and finished them.
However this transfer simply showcased Nero’s failure to concentrate on the dire wishes of the deficient, the very individuals who worshipped him. As an alternative, he sought to upward push above the ashes through doubling down on his divine pretensions.
As soon as the rubble left through the fireplace was once cleared away, Nero constructed an impressive new house for himself. This palace, referred to as the domus aurea in Latin, that means space of gold, coated greater than 120 acres within the middle of Rome. It featured impressive water fountains, elaborate artworks and, status tall within the entryway, a 120-foot bronze statue of Nero because the solar god, Apollo.
No truth-teller was once there to inform Nero that possibly he shouldn’t rub his folks’s noses of their struggling.
Nero’s delusional reaction to the fireplace didn’t put an finish to his occupation, but it surely did a lot to hasten its finish.
Lower than 4 years later, with armies bearing down at the town, Nero dedicated suicide. Rome tumbled into civil warfare.
President Donald Trump seems at an Independence Day match on the Mount Rushmore nationwide monument close to Keystone, S.D., in 2020.
Saul Loeb/AFP by means of Getty Pictures
Self-worship within the Trump technology
Trump has lengthy expressed a want to have his face carved on Mount Rushmore, a countrywide memorial in South Dakota that includes the likenesses of mythical American presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.
This dream was just a little nearer to fact when Tennessee Consultant Andy Ogles in July 2025 instructed the Division of the Inside to discover including Trump’s symbol to Mount Rushmore – even if such an addition is probably not imaginable on account of geological problems.Trump’s critics have lengthy famous the president’s propensity to concentrate on himself and his personal greatness and tool, reasonably than the desires of voters.
As a ways away because the Roman Empire would possibly appear, Nero’s upward push and fall gives a lesson in what can occur when truthful grievance of a political chief is sidelined in prefer of idolatry.
As an alternative of truthful answers to actual issues, what Romans were given was once a colossal statue that portrayed their chief as a god on Earth.
