“Welcome as the death of Nero had been in the first burst of joy, yet it had not only roused various emotions in Rome, among the Senators, the people, or the soldiery of the capital, it had also excited all the legions and their generals; for now had been divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome.”

Thus the Roman historian Tacitus reflected on the events of 69 AD, the Year of Four Emperors, where first the Praetorian Guard, then the armies on the Rhine, and finally the armies in Judea foisted emperors on the Roman Senate and people. It was a year when the unthinkable became thinkable.

As Tacitus notes, there had been no physical force that could have stopped a Roman army from marching on Rome and installing its own emperor other than the actions of a different Roman army. But prior to 69 AD, it never occurred to the soldiers that they could dictate orders to Rome rather than the other way around, and generals sent to the frontiers saw it as exile from the center of political power rather than an opportunity.

From 69 AD onwards, however, every Roman general would view marching on Rome as a possible contingency, and every emperor would have to consider that possibility whenever appointing, removing, or managing military appointments. Once the “secret of empire,” as Tacitus termed it, was out, there was no going back. A psychological Rubicon — not a legal or geographical one — had been crossed, and the  actual balance of power within the Roman state had shifted forever.

On February 16, Donald Trump was found guilty of fraudulently inflating earnings by Judge Arthur Engoron, barred from doing business in the state of New York for three years, and ordered to pay $354 million. Because of a quirk of New York state law, which allows for the penalty to begin accruing interest from the time charges are brought rather than from conviction, the actual sum may be closer to $450 million.

Notably, Donald Trump was not found guilty by a jury of his peers. There was no jury, and the judge sat on his own. The charges themselves were not brought by wronged parties as is typical in a civil suit, but by the Attorney General of New York State, Letitia James, who had campaigned on a platform of explicitly targeting Donald Trump.

For many Americans, the politicalized nature of the proceedings is self-evident. For others, the trial represented a long-overdue act of justice and a recognition that ‘no one is above the law’. Whether that justice relates to the technical charges behind the case or a more cosmic desire to punish Donald Trump for winning in 2016, and everything they blame him for that followed, varies from person to person. The irony is that if there is one point almost everyone agrees upon, it is that the entire process of prosecuting Donald Trump is an inherently political act.

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