With the financial crisis upending the political scene, I turned for advice once again to the master of crisis management, Julius Caesar. As usual, his ghost was ready to talk.

I notice, dictator, that President Obama has not taken the blame for Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U. S. credit rating. In fact, his advisor, David Axelrod, went on television to blame it on the Tea Party. Likewise, Governor Romney recently declined to say that he had done anything wrong in bringing Romneycare to Massachusetts – a health plan similar to Obamacare, which most Republicans oppose. Wouldn’t it have been politically shrewder for these men to cop a plea and move on?

Have you left anything undone when it comes to demonstrating ignorance?

What?

Never confess; never obsess. That is the rule for leaders. Be as blameless as you are decisive. The public wants no less. We don’t want to absolve our leaders, we want to believe in them.

Could you give an example?

Caesar’s army suffered many evils at the siege of Dyrrachium in 48 B.C. Indeed, the enemy might have defeated us there – if Pompey knew how to win. He was too timid to press an advantage.

Afterwards, I called my men together and told them to take heart. Instead of being depressed by one defeat, they had to trust, instead, in the achievement of all our prior deeds.

Above all, they mustn’t blame Caesar. Who was responsible for the loss? “Anyone other than Caesar,” I said. Caesar had brought them to the edge of victory, but the men failed to follow through. And so they sustained a loss, but they could repair things now by exerting themselves in deeds of bravery.

Did it work?

Yes, but only because, having been driven from my prior plans, I judged it necessary to change my entire strategy. I left Dyrrachium and lured the enemy into fighting on terrain that favored my men. Then I won a great victory.

How might Obama turn his setback into a victory?

By making himself indispensable to the new congressional committee that will cut the federal budget. By brokering a grand deal to turn American finances around. By being a strong and decisive leader who resolves a crisis. He failed to dominate the debt crisis before but now he must change course.

Wasn’t it a mistake not to fire Secretary of the Treasury Geithner?

Far from it: if heads must roll, let them be of lower rank. After losing a battle I disciplined non-commissioned officers but not the senior staff. Firing a high-level official is like admitting that you made a mistake in hiring him in the first place.

Couldn’t the president change the subject? Wouldn’t that help?

There is no bigger subject in America than the economy. Still, a distraction might help. Caesar pursued one after Dyrrachium. Although he usually protected civilians in order to win their benevolence, after Dyrrachium he let the men sack a small city, in order that they enjoy the loot and mayhem. They felt better afterwards.

You are not seriously suggesting that our government do likewise, are you?

If I were president, I would throw open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to drilling. Just this once, I would drop my environmentalist objections. While boosting the economy it would distract the media and confound his opponents.

What about the caribou?

Let Standard & Poors downgrade them.

Look closely at this detail of a tower in Turkey. Most of it is brick and dates from the Byzantine period but the lower courses contain some marble blocks – they are ancient. The marble was reused from an earlier structure, maybe one that stood on the same site. I’d like to think that they come from a fortress that stood in these parts 2200 years ago – the very place where Hannibal made his last stand against Rome.

The site is the ancient city of Libyssa, a port on the Astacene Gulf – today, part of Gebze, an industrial city near Istanbul, on what is now the Gulf of Izmit. It’s hard to imagine the Carthaginian lion here, so far from his stomping grounds further west.

Hannibal was the most dangerous enemy the Roman Republic ever faced. In the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) he swept through Italy like a demon, where he won an immortal victory at Cannae. After years of struggle, the Romans forced him to North Africa, where they finally defeated him.

A few years later, they drove him into exile in Anatolia. Hannibal made new allies in the East, and sucked Rome into new wars, but eventually they cornered him. In 182 B.C. Hannibal took poison here in Libyssa rather than fall into Roman hands.

The story doesn’t end there. As my good friend Adrienne Mayor suggests in her terrific book, The Poison King, Hannibal left an anti-Roman poison in the Anatolia where he died. Hannibal may have inspired the war against Rome of the Anatolian King, Mithradates of Pontus – a kingdom not far from the tower in the photo. Like Hannibal, Mithradates subjected Rome to decades of war (88-63 B.C.) and humiliating losses before they finally defeated him. Mithradates too committed suicide rather than accept capture.

But the larger point is the mystique of rebellion, that echoes down the years to today’s rebels against the West. How many modern Hannibals and Mithradates are still with us!

“Pivot” is the buzzword of the season among political journalists. They report, for instance, that President Obama is “pivoting” to the issue of jobs after the federal debt ceiling debate. Earlier this year they said that Governor Romney was trying to “pivot” from playing defense about his healthcare law in Massachusetts to going on the attack on Obamacare. And we heard about “pivoting” in 2008 too, when, for example, Senator McCain was urged by supporters to “pivot” from foreign policy – his strong suit – to his less-favored subject, domestic policy.

Hail, Great Caesar’s Ghost! Could you enlighten us on how a politician pivots from one subject to the next – from war to domestic politics, for instance.

Nothing could be further from Caesar than dissembling.

But, Caesar, didn’t you sometimes present a different face to different people?

That is not pivoting but leadership.

All right, then: you knew how to lead…flexibly. I’m thinking, for instance, of your letters to Cicero.

Indeed. After crossing the Rubicon with my soldiers in 49 B.C. I made war on Pompey in southern Italy. At the same time, I sent honeyed words to Cicero. I “begged” Cicero to see me when I eventually came “toward Rome.” Note the “toward” instead of “to” – it was impolite for a general to speak of entering the city with an armed force. I told him that I was desperate to see him, and that I counted on his good will and good counsel.

But you addressed the Roman people differently. You didn’t woo them – you wowed them. Take Caesar’s Gallic War, the best campaign autobiography in history.

Caesar doesn’t “wow.” He merely states the truth.

I’m thinking of your description of the Battle of the Savis in 57 B.C., when a Gallic army caught the legions by surprise. The unprepared Romans struggled to defend themselves until you picked up a shield and strode to the front lines. The way you tell it, the mere sight of the commander – the conspectus imperatoris – gave the men hope and restored their courage.

I was so stirred by what people said afterwards that I could not omit writing about it. For in the end, what is more suitable to a man of rank and virtue than to recount his great deeds?

But there is a huge gap between your solicitude toward Cicero in a private letter and your self-promotion in a book written for the public. Isn’t this a case of pivoting?

You will find nothing better or safer than this course of action: When you court one of the “best men,” as some elites style themselves, your message should be: EVERYTHING IS ABOUT HIM. But when you court the people, make your message: EVERYTHING IS ABOUT ME. The great need flattery but the people are drawn to strength. So, in political campaigns as in war, nice guys finish last.

That’s a very depressing thought for the day.

Fire is not for children.

During the recent backing and forthing over the Federal debt, did you ever wish that somebody would walk into the room and turn off the sound system?

Well, two thousand years ago, Hannibal turned that wish into reality. The year was 202 B.C.E. and the great Carthaginian general had just lost the last major battle of his country’s long war with Rome. On his advice, the Carthaginian government sued for peace. Rome’s terms were harsh but they could have been worse – they let Carthage survive. Rome did not always extend that courtesy.

Imagine Hannibal’s surprise, then, when he went to a meeting of the Carthaginian Senate and heard a speaker denounce the proposed treaty. Hannibal was shocked. Nobody knew better than he that the country had no choice but to accept defeat. And he had to say so.

Hannibal had spent his whole life since the age of nine – nearly 40 years – in military camps. He didn’t know about the niceties of parliamentary procedure and he didn’t care. So, he walked up to the podium and hauled the speaker off.

It was an outrage. The Senators protested. Hannibal apologized but he made his point. The treaty passed.

Now, to come back to the present day and that wish I started this piece off with: Hannibal is no role model. Hands off our politicians, even if they steer for the rocks. But I wouldn’t mind having the sound system turned off now and then.

I don’t understand the debt crisis in Washington. I’m not an economist. But I do understand the election of 2012. And I know that whoever wins this week’s debate in D.C. will forge ahead in next year’s races.

To put events in perspective I turned to my usual source of wisdom on this matter, Julius Caesar’s ghost.

Hail, Caesar! What is your wisdom about elections?

Two things win elections: money and trust. Without money you can’t compete but without trust you can’t win. In Latin the words are pecuniae and fides. Pecuniae, money, comes from the word for cattle but fides, trust, points to higher things. In Rome Fides was a goddess with her own temple. Fides points to foedus, the word for a solemn pact of friendship. No Roman would ever rank pecuniae over fides.

What about scientia, the Latin for “skill”? Don’t you need that too to win elections?
You can buy skill. But you do need to have good judgment – prudentia.

Does President Obama have the prudentia, the pecuniae and the fides he needs to get re-elected?

If he wins in 2012 he will have the prudentia. Now he is raising all the money he needs for his campaign but the state of the economy is spinning his gold into dross. The public – now they don’t have pecuniae. And they are looking for someone to blame. If Obama wins the debate in Washington this week, they will blame the Republicans and the Tea Party in Congress. If Obama loses, he risks losing the trust of the nation.

Isn’t that a bit overheated? Surely you don’t think that Boehner’s dullness is prevailing.
Dull is cool and, when it comes to politics, cool beats hot. The president is struggling. You could see it in the anger in his speech this week. Obama may be right to feel anger – Caesar makes no judgment – but he is wrong to show it. I refer to the words that my friend, Gaius Sallust, put in my mouth in his Catiline’s War: “Men with great power have no privacy: the higher the office, the less the freedom of action. For others, it is called rage, for those in power it’s named arrogance and cruelty.”

Is it too late for President Obama to turn things around?

Certainly not. The President is the guardian of the nation. The people want to trust him; he must show them how. A talented leader can reverse his fortune. Caesar, in fact, once stopped a mutiny with a single word. “Quirites,” he called the soldiers – “citizens,” instead of the word he normally used – “Commilites” or “fellow soldiers.” In other words, he fired them. That was enough to make lambs of lions and end the mutiny.

What word should the president use?
Only Caesar can win with a single word.

And with that, the conqueror turned and strode back to Hades.

The news that negotiations were held again last night at the White House between President Obama, Speaker of the House Boehner, and other congressmen, that the negotiations failed, and that they will resume again on Monday morning – but only after the President holds a news conference – well, that was enough for me. There was, I knew, only one man to consult: Julius Caesar.

Past crises have allowed me to summon his spirit up from the deep and, this time again, he answered the call.

“Hail Caesar,” I said. “Have you been following the negotiations in Washington?”

“No. They bore me.”

“Why is that?”

“The negotiators lack authority. Real power lies in the hands of those who manipulate the congressmen behind the scenes. Then their creatures do their dirty work and the weak are terrified, the wavering are confirmed, and the majority see their right to make decisions snatched away.”

“Whoa!” I said, “that’s quite a scenario. What do you propose instead?”

I thought I saw Caesar grin. “Power belongs to those few men who are willing to put the public good first – even before their own life.”

“And who would those be?” I asked.

“Listen,” said Caesar.” “In the fifth year of my command in Gaul, I called a meeting with two of the greatest men in Rome, Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. We met in the city of Luca in my province of Cisalpine Gaul [modern Lucca in Italy]. Before we met, the republic was roiled by bribery and violence. Then, Pompey, Crassus, and I agreed to give it peace and good government. We settled everything.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “At that conference at Luca in 56 B.C., the three of you renewed the First Triumvirate. It was a conspiracy to carve up the Roman state among three men and their followers.”

“No, it was the act of three Romans who were willing to stoop to anything for the cause of the republic.”

“You sacrificed public liberty for private power,” I said. “And in the end you lost both. The Triumvirate eventually collapsed and you crossed the Rubicon and started a Civil War.”

“They wanted it,” said Caesar simply. “I kept to my end of the bargain. It was my enemies who reneged and stirred up war.”

I paused. Then I asked: “Do you really think Obama and Boehner should divide the American state between the two of them?”

“They could win the war with a handshake,” said Caesar, “if they were real generals.”

At that point, the American political process, with all its obstacles and inefficiencies, began to look better and better. Let the members of Congress squabble and disagree, let the President speak, let the lobbyists pounce, let the public thunder, let the whole democratic mess take as much time as it needs to strike a deal – or to fail to do so. It beats what happened at Luca long ago.