What if I told you that to learn a little bit of ancient Roman history, you can start by watching the saga of Star Wars?✨

Good afternoon, everyone! 🥰 Today is the day dedicated to Star Wars, or "La Guerra de las Galaxias" (as we know it here), and I want to bring you some of the connections the saga has with the history of Rome. There are many, since George Lucas (the director) was deeply influenced by the mythologist Joseph Campbell when depicting in his films "the hero's journey" through the figure of Anakin Skywalker. In addition, he also managed to capture orientalism and references to more contemporary wars, but if you want, I'll tell you about that another time.

A first reference is the crossing of the Rubicon River by Julius Caesar in 49 BCE as the starting point of an irreversible civil war. This point of no return is perfectly replicated when Lord Sidious deploys the droid army on Naboo (our beloved Seville) as a catalyst that forces a Galactic Republic, already weakened by its own bureaucracy, to transform in order to survive, just as it happened to Rome, which went from being a city-state to an imperial power without the adequate administrative tools to manage itself.

In this context, the figure of Palpatine is revealed as a replica of Octavian Augustus. Both use their own republican institutions to drain power from within. While Palpatine appointed himself Supreme Chancellor and accumulated emergency powers to the applause of the Senate, Augustus did the same under the titles of princeps or the tribunicia potestas, maintaining the appearance of legality while establishing a unipersonal power. This ascent was possible thanks to the control of the army, a determining factor in both history and fiction. In Rome, the loyalty of the troops shifted from the Senate to the generals who paid them their stipend, in the same way that in Star Wars the appearance of a professional clone army ends up giving absolute control to whoever holds command, displacing the Jedi, who functioned as an elite of officers who were soon overwhelmed by the new war machine.

Even the systematic elimination of political opposition in the saga has historical roots. Before Caesar, General Lucius Cornelius Sulla instated the "proscriptions", public lists of enemies of the state who could be killed for a reward. This mechanism is the most direct antecedent of Order 66, where the Jedi go from being protectors to being priority targets to get rid of them in one fell swoop. In this way, Palpatine creates his own red-robed Royal Guard, a galactic version of the Roman Praetorian Guard, those unique individuals authorized to carry weapons within the sacred city limits and whose loyalty was the sole pillar supporting the imperial throne (like the emperor's security guards).

But classical influence goes beyond politics and permeates the very ethics of the Jedi, whose code deeply resonates with the Stoic philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. Yoda's insistence on emotional control and that attachment leads to suffering is a purely Stoic lesson that philosophers like Epictetus or Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who advocated that inner peace resided in not being dominated by passions. Even the concept of the Force as something that surrounds and unites all living beings has its echo in the Pneuma Stoic, that vital essence that permeates the universe.

The social structure of this galaxy also breathes the air of Antiquity, especially in its onomastics. The way individuals are named defines their status: while the aristocracy and the senators bear complex names that resemble the tria nomina of Roman citizens (like Bail Organa or Padmé Amidala), the lower strata or slaves usually appear with a nomen unicum like Anakin or Watto. This hierarchy reaches its extreme with droids, who function as the servile class of Rome, dehumanized under alphanumeric codes that, just like in the inscriptions of the servi Romani, reduce their identity to their function or the property of their owner.

Also through spectacle and knowledge we can see the historical references. The pod races on Tatooine are a frame-by-frame recreation of the chariot races in the Circus Maximus, where the charioteers were mass stars and factions moved very high stakes, serving as that "bread and circuses" necessary to distract the population from political intrigues. Meanwhile, in the core of the galaxy, the monumentality of Coruscant and its architecture of massive domes seek to generate that feeling of imperium eternal, an ecumenopolis that exaggerates what any ancient felt upon arriving at the unfathomable Rome of the 2nd century CE. Even the arrogance of the Jedi Archives, which claim that what is not there does not exist, resonates with the ambition of the Great Library of Alexandria to centralize all knowledge in the world, whose loss would plunge history into a dark age.

On the fringes of this empire, resistance and marginality also draw from classical sources. The Rebel Alliance inherits the DNA of guerrilla warfare from leaders like Viriathus, who, with few resources, wore down the Roman legions in Hispania through knowledge of the terrain and lightning attacks. In those same territories, Han Solo faces a underworld of pirates and smugglers that reminds us of the Cilician pirates who once challenged Mediterranean trade and kidnapped Caesar himself, while the Nightsisters of Dathomir evoke the Greek myths of the Amazons, those warriors from the fringes of the known world who combined military prowess with a legendary aura.

And finally, the cultural uniformity that allows the entire galaxy to understand each other under the language of Galactic Basic is nothing more than "Romanization" through Latin as an administrative language.

Phew, I hope I haven't missed anything 🤪 as I've already told you, the saga is full of references. Oh! If I missed anything, I'd be delighted to read your comments. What do you prefer? Studying the history of Rome this way or the traditional way? 😉

May the Force, or rather the Pneuma, be with you, dear historical padawans! ▬▬ι═══════