Comparisons to the Galactic Empire and the Roman Empire

Now I'm going to pray that this is the right forum to be posting this topic in... oh how I fear the dreaded lock.

Anywho this year in my Ancient Civilizations to the 16th Century class, I eventually came to learn a great deal about empires, and most intriguingly, the Roman Empire. I couldn't help but notice an evident parallel between the galactic empire and the romans.

First thing I noticed, the name Dantius(?) Palpatine. It sure as hell looks to me like a Roman name, most similar to Constantine. Not having polished my latin, I have no idea what the prefix "palpa" or the suffix "tine" would mean. I'm sure it would probably have no significance, especially considering that these names are English-ized. I know this because my Ancient Civ teacher was named Kosta, after Constantine.

Now those of you who are history buffs would know that Constantine was the first Christian emperor of Rome. This was important considering that Christianity was not the state religion at the time -- with Roman society worshipping anthropomorphic pagan gods. This led me to the realization that Palpatine was the first leader of the galaxy to belong to a minority religion. The differences between the two lie in the fact that while Constantine forced society to convert to Christianity, Palpatine did not share his religious ideals with anyone(at least not of whom we are aware of) but Vader.

Again getting back to the religion thing, many historians agree that the advent of Christianity to Roman society was certainly a contributing factor to the fall of the Roman Empire; with Christian doctrines prohibiting hatred -- the basic mandate of the 10 Commandments. The irony here is that Anakin's introduction to the dark side caused him to embrace a violent lifestyle rather than a peaceful one, and in doing so ultimately led to the destruction of everything he cared about.

Another thing that I noticed about the fall of the Roman Empire was its direct relation to the Legend of Darth Plagueis. Understanding this relationship is difficult without first attaining a basic knowledge of ancient roman politics. Before Rome was an empire, it was ruled by 3 men: Caesar, Octavian, and Marc Antony(to the best of my recollection). To say the least, the government was corrupt; much like the galactic senate. Getting to the point, Octavian beat his competitor, Marcus Antonius(who chose rather to embrace a lustrous affair with Cleopatra) and declared himself Emperor of Rome, taking the name Augustus. Now this is similar to Palpatine's rise to emperorhood. The most direct comparison lies in the historical fact that to gain the title Emperor, you would first have to eliminate the previous emperor, much as with the legend of Darth Plagueis. As a result, the Roman government became corrupt with power-hungry senators, thus leading to the downfall of the Roman Empire. The Sith solved this problem by only allowing 2 Sith to be alive at any given point, and therefore eliminating any possiblity of betrayal--or so they thought anyway.

I hope you found this interesting, as I sure did. If anyone has other comparisons or would like to make the point that I'm absolutely nuts, please feel free to share your insights on the subject. Thanks for your time.


My apologies for the lock. This is indeed the right forum, but we have a thread in which we are discussing that same topic right now. Parallels Between World History and the SW Saga., please copy/paste your thoughts there.

 

Although I never seen this confirmed, I've read that the origin of the name Palpatine is from the Latin word "Palatine", which is one of the hills of Rome on which the Emperors' palaces were originally built. The word Palatine is also the origin for the word "palace". So, the name of Palpatine makes sense if it originated from Palatine in that both have imperial associations.