The Tale of the Historian and the Burning Scrolls

The old walls of the Senate House still hold the echoes of suppressed truth. This tale reminds us that when a state slides from republic to tyranny, the Tyranny of the Narrative begins not with the jailing of men, but with the burning of books.

The Tale of the Historian and the Burning Scrolls

The event takes place in the year A.D. 25, during the suffocating, paranoid reign of Emperor Tiberius. The Roman state had officially transitioned from a system where deeds were prosecuted to one where words were lethal.

The man was Aulus Cremutius Cordus, an esteemed historian. He was not a revolutionary, but a man clinging to the ghost of the old Republic. In his historical chronicles, he committed what became, under the Empire, the ultimate crime: he praised Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius—the assassins of Julius Caesar—calling them the “last of the Romans.”

This was not a call to violence; it was merely a statement of historical admiration for men who had violently sought to preserve the Republic. But in a system where the Emperor’s word was the measure of all things, praising the Republic’s heroes was treason against the Principate.

The Charge and the Eradication

Cremutius was brought before the Senate, accused under the terrifying Lex Majestatis (the law of treason), which Tiberius had weaponized to crush any verbal dissent. The real mover behind the prosecution was Sejanus, the ruthless Praetorian Prefect and Tiberius's power broker, who sought to silence any voice that might suggest an alternative to the current authoritarian structure.

Facing certain condemnation and a brutal execution, Cremutius made his final, heroic defense, as recorded by the later historian Tacitus. He pointed out the absurdity: if the great Roman historian Livy could praise Brutus and Cassius, why could he not? He argued that history itself would judge the regime, stating:

> "Conscript Fathers, my words are brought to judgement—so guiltless am I of deeds! You may sentence me to death, but then not only Brutus and Cassius will be remembered. I, too, shall not be forgotten."

> 

Cremutius then walked out of the Senate chamber and committed suicide by starvation, preempting the Emperor’s verdict and denying the state the spectacle of his execution.

But the Tyranny of the Narrative was not satisfied with his death. The Senate, by decree, ordered the Aediles (magistrates) to search Rome and gather every copy of Cremutius’s work. His historical accounts were publicly burned in the Forum—a violent act of historical revisionism and a stark example of Damnatio Memoriae applied to the written word.

The Parallel: The War on History and Expertise

The destruction of Cremutius’s scrolls finds its echo in the modern American regime’s systematic campaign against expertise, facts, and institutional memory—a war fought not with fire, but with digital erasure and high-volume denial.

 * The Attack on Institutions: Cremutius’s crime was placing the Republic above the person of the Emperor. The modern equivalent is the pervasive attack on any institution—science, journalism, intelligence agencies, or even the electoral process—that produces verifiable data contradicting the leader’s narrative. The institutions themselves are declared "corrupt" or "fake," just as the Emperor declared Cremutius’s history "seditious."

 * The Scrutiny of Thought: The modern political regime, particularly in the orbit of Donald Trump, demands not just loyalty, but credulity. Anyone who retains the capacity for critical historical analysis or who points out the constitutional heroes (the "Brutus and Cassius") of a more virtuous past is exiled or subjected to a digital Damnatio Memoriae. They become RINOs or traitors—their words immediately dismissed as lies, their memory purged from the loyalist dialogue.

 * The Ultimate Lesson: As Tacitus observed, the effort ultimately failed: “The persecution of genius fosters its influence; foreign tyrants, and all who have imitated their oppression, have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory for their victims.” Though officially burned, Cremutius’s books were secretly saved by his daughter Marcia and others, eventually republished when the regime relaxed its grip. This is the weary hope—that despite the loudest voices in the modern media circus (the digital Aediles), the truth is often squirreled away, saved in digital archives and private accounts, waiting for a less tyrannical age to be read again.

The history of the Republic, whether Roman or American, is not defined by the strongman, but by those few who refuse to let the truth perish in the flames.

Source:

Tacitus, The Annals, Book IV, Chapters 34-35.

A discussion and translation of this historical event can be found via the following source: Brill: Historiography and Freedom of Speech: The Case of Cremutius Cordus