Downsides and upsides of the Vance selection
In the short run, Vance is a positive partner for Trump. The longer term consequences can not yet be known.
UPDATE: Subsequent to posting this article, an exceptionaly relevant piece on Vance’s backstory was published. Must reading. (See also.) Note that the piece mentions Tucker Carlson as one of Vance’s boosters. While good almost all the time, Carlson is seriously flawed in certain areas, including his vehement, instaneous opposition to aiding Israel after the Oct. 7 attack. A future piece will explore what drives Carlson and his foreign affairs deficits. He lacks understanding of how empires operate and why they can be a powerful force for peace and the accompanying prosperity.
While Trump’s selection of Vance will in the short run have no negative consequences, longer term downstream effects do not nescessarily bode well. Trump’s achilles heel has been the appointments he made which wound up going south, beginning with his previous VP pick. There is no need to run through the list of mistakes. It is unclear how much of a role Donald Trump Jr. played in the Vance selection, someone for whom Trump Jr. strongly advocated. If Trump Sr. has proven susceptible to bamboozling by negative actors, Trump Jr. is even more susceptible to being hoodwinked. He has associated with too many grifters whose agendas are not those of Trump’s base. The sorts of RINO leeches which are as responsible for the ongoing populist revolt as Democrats.
Vance’s negatives/positives revolve around, in no particular order:
His close relationship with Ramaswamy.
His relationship with billionaire Peter Thiel and the Silicon Valley set.
The actual nature of his populist orientation.
To be sure, Vance does have his positives, and as the running mate will be an asset to Trump’s re-election. It is what comes after a second Trump administration which is of greatest concern. The worst nightmare would be a Vance/Ramaswamy ticket in 2028. Much will unfold in the next four years, in ways impossible to now know.
The most immediate downside of the Vance selection is what this means for his pal Ramaswamy, a full-blown narcissist and bullshitter sophist. Vance’s second son is named Vivek, perhaps underscoring the closeness of the two men, friends since Yale Law School. We have previously outlined the many reasons Ramaswamy is political cancer should he ever acquire power. Vance’s selection increases the likelihood Ramaswamy will be offered a cabinet position. From there he would launch his pursuit of an elected position. Speculation has already begun regarding the Ohio Senate seat Vance would vacate, a position Ramaswamy covets. It is not at all beyond the realm of possibilities that RINO Ohio governor DeWine might appoint Ramaswamy to the vacant seat.
What might a RINO governor see in Ramaswamy? A fellow RINO. Ramaswamy only registered as a Republican well after entering the 2020 GOP presidential primary race. He is an elitist with a liberal slant, pretending to be a mini Trump. Ramaswamy was never a contender during the presidential primaries, polling around 5%. He needs to ride the coattails of others (Vance and Trump) to gain elected office.
Polling during the primaries revealed that the older the demographic, the less likely voters were susceptible to falling for Ramaswamy’s BS sophistry. The more voters saw of Ramasamy during the primaries, the more who saw through his act. By September 2023, more people had a negative than positive opinion of him. By the time he withdrew from the Republican primaries, he was polling at 4.5% — among Republicans. He has worked diligently since then to improve his standing, pretending to be a MAGA supporter, and hogging the limelight at every opportunity for self-promotion. If you caught his RNC convention speech, he did his normal routine of sucking up to younger voters, those most susceptible to falling for his act.
Our message to Gen Z is this: You’re going to be the generation that actually saves this country. You want to be a rebel? You want to be a hippie? You want to ‘stick it to the man’? Show up on your college campus and try calling yourself a conservative. Say you want to get married, have kids, teach them to believe in God and pledge allegiance to their country.
Young kids fall for this, as do grandmothers because he is promoting traditional values. He illustrates how through sheer perseverance, someone who craves political power can insert themself into office. Ramaswamy is not working to promote a specific agenda, only himself. Trump was the trailblazer who outlined an agenda. Ramaswamy is a copycat. During the primaries, he tried to be more Trump than Trump, saying Trump had not taken things far enough. RFK Jr. is to some extent also shoehorning himself into Trump’s act. One example was when he decided to make the border an issue, and after a visit down there returned to describe his astonishment at the rape trees he witnessed. Both have figured out what sells and what voters want to hear, by following Trump’s lead. The difference is that Trump’s appeal is based on his thinking what everyone else was, but was not afraid to state things out loud. Or to suffer wave after wave of assaults for doing so.
Those seeking a Ramaswamy refresher can reference our previous work in the realm of Ramaswamology, the science of sniffing out passionate bullshit sophistry.
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 1
Red flags abound, including
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 2
How to pump and dump stock for fun and profit. Have you ever wanted to be a billionaire? 11 easy steps to immense wealth.
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 2.1
When called out on his sketchy history, Ramaswamy responded.
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 2.2
We get into the weeds behind Ramaswamy’s stock funny business and he again responds to those who have called him on these details.
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 3
Interviews with Hannity and Levin revealed how full of
crapsophistry Ramaswamy is, how he holds no firm convictions but will say anything to get ahead, and how dangerous his foreign policy positions would be if ever implemented.Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 4
As a Harvard student, true to his brahman roots, Ramaswamy revealed he is no populist.
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 5
Guess who is Murdoch’s Trump hating Wall St. Journal’s favorite “Republican.”
Will the Real Vivek Please Stand Up? — Part 6
Yale professors, attuned to Ramaswamy’s act, dug into the alleged numbers behind his financial history.
Ramaswamy shares with Biden (and Kamala) the habit of resorting to a limited repertoire of stock political phrases. Chris Christie performed a public service during a GOP debate when he called out Ramamsway for stealing part of Obama’s act. Christie is right, Ramaswamy’s act is basically a Chat GPT sort of concoction. Connect a series of stock talking points with some filler. Biden and Ramawamy are both full-blown narcissists, although Ramswamy does not possess the malignant/sociopathic variant of the disease that Biden does. Regardless, no good ever comes from providing a megalomaniacal narcissist with the power that accompanies political office. History proves this time after time. Ramaswamy exudes the same sort of false sincerity and happy talk of a prosperity gospel preacher.
Illustrative of the problems accompanying the Silicon Valley liberals Vance brings with him, is this tweet, supporting a carbon tax, from Elon Musk on the day Trump announced Vance as his VP. Carbon taxation is nonsense. Some basic facts:
In the last 20,000 years, since Milwaukee was buried under two miles of glacial ice, sea levels rose over 400 feet without any human assistance.
The sun caused this melting due to the regular, long-term oscillations of cycles of the Earth’s orbit around its star.
These cycles reach extremes, then reverse. Which means another ice age is in the future. The most recent one was not the first, nor the last.
CO2 levels are now suboptimal for plant growth. Plants evolved during an era where the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was multiples of its current level. CO2 is essential for plant growth, the more they receive, the more they grow. It is a fertilizer and the reason the world is now awash in food is because CO2 levels have been rising.
Once the planetary cycles reverse, CO2 levels will go back down.
Musk thinks it's a good idea to move to Mars. Siberia provides about the same experience, the commute is shorter, and the cost is much cheaper. It also contains a healthy atmosphere so there is no need to live under domes.
For Musk’s millions in funding support to his campaign, Trump will gladly humor him. A carbon tax is just another way for lefties to feel good while creating economic destruction. Guess whose zero emissions electric vehicles become more competitive under a carbon tax regime? Musk did not become rich by handing out money without expecting a return. Obviously, anyone worried about indoor CO2 levels can open a window.
Oil billionaires were early supporters of Trump since 2016. Since then, he has added crypto investors to his followers. The Silicon Valley, hedge fund set has trickled in over the past few years, partly in response to the economic chaos unleashed by Biden. Energy behemoths, such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron, who support the Paris accord, have not made the transition into the Trump camp.
2023 marked a turning point is reversing such ecomonically suicidal trends as DEI and the Green New Deal. Both are rapidly receding in the rear view mirror. Economics provided the impetus. The faltering economy, struggling under the weight of inflation and stagnation (stagflation) could no longer support such dalliances with wishful thinking. When consumers struggle to purchase food and pay rent, politicians preaching the gospel of fantasy no longer attract parishoners. Those on the lower economic rungs began transitioning to Trump, as did those among the jet set.
Democrats’ economic chaos does not go away with Biden. He began his political career as a pro-business, pro-life, anti-crime conservative. Only when the party lurched Left under Obama did he make the transition. Biden only mirrored the party’s radicalism. Which he was glad to adopt to further his fortunes. Those who follow him, including Kamala Harris, are even more economically radical.
If you are reading this, there is probably no need to argue about the Silicon Valley/intelligence community nexis. For example, Google was a CIA initiative to create a vehicle for global surveillance. The role of billionaire Peter Thiel in this sector is significant because of his closeness with and support of Vance. Without elaboration, Thiel is a central player in the global surveillance state. This does not mean his motives are impure, only that he must be considered in this light. The intelligence community is not a uniform blob, it has its opposing factions the same as in the real world.
Vance is connected with a specific segment of the Silicon Valley ecosystem and the billionaires occupying it. These are younger, more entrepreneurial, and generally liberal actors. But not insane liberals. What might be referred to as reformed, or recovering, liberals. Vance is definitely opposed to the established, larger Silicon Valley players, including Microsoft/Bill Gates, Meta/Zuckerberg, Google, etc. The monopolist titans. (Zuckerberg has transitioned from spending hundreds of millions in 2020 to defeat Trump, to now calling him a badass.)
For the time being, during Trump’s second term, the fourth branch of government — the intelligence community — will probably back off wholesale efforts to sabotage Trump in the knowledge that they have positioned an asset (Vance) in the inner circle. (Others have reached the same conclusion.) Trump’s selection of Vance may primarily have been for this benefit, as well as the Silicon Valley cash that accompanies the Vance nomination. Elon Musk promptly committed to $45 million/month in funding upon the news of Vance’s selection. There is plenty of room in the big Trump tent for Democratic refugees of all affiliations. And the campaign funding that accompanies them.
China is the 800 lb. gorilla in this area. The establishment Silicon Valley barons are too often aligned with the CCP, the greatest threat to global stability. Musk, for all his virtues and commitment to freedom initiatives, is heavily dependent upon his Chinese revenues. But he is not our issue here, which is Vance. Vance is firmly anchored to the anti-China camp.
To his credit, Vance strongly opposed COVID “vaccine” mandates. This is a minor point, but in his Hannity interview at the RNC convention, Vance said he “might have said bad things about Trump 10 years ago, but . . .” 2017 was seven years ago and he did not fully embrace Trump until his 2020 Senate run when he needed Trump’s endorsement to win the GOP primary. Vance performed exceptionally well during the Hannity interview. The problem is not with Vance, but the people he brings along with him. Those seeking insights into where Vance is coming from might start here.
ADDRESSING THE OLIGARCH PROBLEM
Vance is complex and it may require years for us to fully understand where his true allegiances lie. For now he will suffice to assist in Trump’s re-election. He brings with him a contingent of Silicon Valley entrepreneurial billionaires, everyone from Elon Musk on down. Trump is our Augustus, the first emperor who vanquishes the oligarchs bleeding everyone else dry, then fashions a grand bargain which allows them a seat at the table. A single seat, not all the seats. Augustus and his advisors understood oligarchs are present in every system of government, the question is the amount of control they are allowed, how to best accommodate them without them being given too big a piece of the pie. Trump is rapidly creating a solution. (see below for insight in how Augustus addressed this issue)
This was an inevitable conclusion, but the fact that this is occurring prior to the election is rather remarkable, and fascinating to watch unfold. This can be attributed in large part to the chaos unleashed by the Obama/Biden forces in the past almost four years. It is now not so much about what Trump is doing to attract support, but about what Democrats are doing to destroy their base. Trump’s four years in the wilderness, slowly forcing out the RINOs and promoting MAGA candidates is also coming to fruition. Trading Liz Cheney for Harriet Hageman is a winning proposition.
The oligarchic puppeteers, having seen the chaos unleashed by Democrats’ most radical elements (i.e., their commie, nihilist wing), have increasingly concluded Trump represents the lesser of two evils. Biden began as a conservative, law and order, pro-life, pro-business Democrat, but did a 180 upon aligning with the Obama faction. The oligarchs have no need or desire to follow Democrats’ radical path leading to economic ruin. Democrats broke the covenant which granted oligarchs freedom to roam the globe in pursuit of profit, in exchange for a vote harvesting system perpetuating this alliance. Democrats have turned on their partners with tax-the-rich, Green New Deal, carbon tax, open borders, and other economically destructive schemes, all ultimately culminating in anarchy. The oligarchs have now stared into the abyss.
Antifa, BLM, etc. were merely shock troops, brown shirts, employed by the existing power structure to retain power. Dingbat big-city mayors and prosecutors, defunding police, open borders, and sanctuary city policies, were part of that effort. Components of Democrats’ nihilist wing. But that has now backfired on them. Them being Democrats, not the oligarchs rapidly beginning to flee. Individuals such as Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, the Silicon Valley crew Vance is allied with, etc. Peter Thiel was an early refugee. Again, these people came too close to the edge of the abyss and did not like what they saw. Including on their Ivy League campuses. Most of these individuals consider themselves liberals. Liberal social influencers, such as Joe Rogan or Dave Rubin left years ago. The Blexit movement is another symptom of this evolution. It is now acceptable for many celebrities to align with Trump, something which was not possible only a few years ago. Yes, there are still many Democratic big money donors who are busy engineering Biden’s departure and who remain wedded to the party. But the balance of power is now shifting decidedly toward the MAGA camp.
To summarize: Democrats’ alliance with oligarchs has fractured due to their increasing insanity. Democrats are now hell bent on cannibalizing their oligarchic partners and creating economic chaos.
Think back to 2015 and 2016. Who were about the only billionaires willing to publicly support Trump? Phil Ruffin, Sheldon Adleson, and Tom Barrack come to mind. Larry Ellison, initially in the Trump camp, was part of the effort of Republican-aligned oligarchs who attempted to undermine Trump with Desantis. It was the Republicans oligarchs, beginning with a trickle, who first enlisted in the MAGA coalition. What has been happening in recent months is the liberal oligarchs are beginning to wake up and realize they are the frogs in the pot nearing the boiling point. Vance has assisted in introducing them to Trump.
Vance’s Silicon Valley crew has slowly been awakening to reality and moving toward Trump. The budding courtship between Jamie Dimon, head of America’s largest bank, and Trump provides clues. A major clue, the significance of which cannot be overstated, is unfolding right now. In January, Dimon flirted by praising Trump. Playing hard to get for six months, Trump reciprocated by dangling the Treasury Secretary position, having rehabilitated Dimon from “a highly overrated globalist.” A great romance is afoot. They need each other. Now that Dimon has signaled to his faction that it is safe to ally with Trump, an oligarchic stampede will ensue. A grand bargain is coalescing which will see a compromise destined to endure decades. We may again grow tired of winning.
After, or simultaneously with, Trump engineering this domestic compromise, his great historical task will be to craft a global compromise and bring a couple of centuries of continuous warfare to a close. The Abraham Accords were merely the first iteration of this. If not for the theft of the 2020 election, there would be no Ukrainian or Gaza conflict and Iran would be, in Trump’s words, broke. The global yearning for peace, ever since the start of the Napoleonic wars, WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and the War on Terror, is now intense, and left alone this problem will resolve on its own. Only because the U.S. war merchants have engineered funding of Ukraine, Iran, the Taliban, etc.are most current conflicts occurring. Shut off the dollars, and the wars cease. Above all, the global economy is now too tenuous to permit warfare. This will become especially true in the next few years as global trade substantially contracts. When national leaders are confronted with the choice between feeding restive populations or engaging in belligerence, it is an easy decision.
New Gingrich:
What Washington elites don’t understand is that Trumpism is much bigger than former President Trump. Trumpism is a broad and growing repudiation of oligarchical billionaires, giant companies censoring our lives, international companies selling out American values to make a buck in a Communist Chinese dictatorship. Trumpism is a rejection of radical social values being imposed on our children as early as 5 or 6 years of age. It is recognition that American bureaucracy, so incompetent a Nigerian cyber criminal gang stole $600 million from Washington State – and the incompetent official that presided over the fraud, Suzi Levine, has now been nominated by Biden for a major job at the Department of Labor overseeing $9 billion a year. (This is cronyism at its worst. She and her husband gave the Biden campaign and Democrat organizations $400,000.)
Nothing the left can say will shake the tens of millions of Americans’ belief that the elites despise them, the bureaucrats bully and cheat them, and the news media lies to them. This is why when the mock trial of President Trump is finished in the U.S. Senate, President Trump will have been acquitted.
Historical context for clipping the wings of the oligarchs
The excerpt below is from Will Durant’s Caesar and Christ and relates the conditions encountered by Octavian upon his return to Rome in 29 BC, after his victory over Antony and Cleopatra, ending the Roman civil war which began 15 years earlier when Octavian's great-uncle Julius Caesar [historically analogous to Reagan] was murdered in the Senate. In another couple of years the Senate would bestow the title of Augustus on Octavian and cede to him the powers necessary to become the first of the Roman emperors.
The Roman experience was different, yet in many ways the same, as ours. First a period of chaos and lawlessness occurred. It was followed by an innovative leader who neutered the legislature, the root of the endemic corruption.
We possess more complete details of how this process played out in Rome than in any other civilization. But the overall process is the same in every civilization. Centuries of monarchy are followed by a couple of centuries of democracy. That era concludes in widespread chaos, corruption and demoralization as the levers of power eventually come under oligarchic rule. The oligarchs then go too far, allowing their greed and thirst for power to take control. Things need to get bad before they can get better. Then a great leader emerges to confront the oligarchic class, successfully engage them in a battle for control, and then transform the legislature into a rubber stamp for his policies which are designed to competently administer the empire, internally in the heartland and externally in the provinces.
DURANT:
From Alexandria, Octavian passed to Asia and continued the reallotment of kingdoms and provinces. Not till the summer of 29 did he reach Italy. There almost all classes welcomed and feted him as a savior and joined in a triumph that lasted three days. The Temple of Janus was closed as a sign that for a moment Mars had had his fill. The lusty peninsula was worn out with twenty years of civil war. Its farms had been neglected, its towns had been sacked or besieged, much of its wealth had been stolen or destroyed. Administration and protection had broken down; robbers made every street unsafe at night; highwaymen roamed the roads, kidnaped travelers, and sold them into slavery. Trade diminished, investment stood still, interest rates soared, property values fell. Morals, which had been loosened by riches and luxury, had not been improved by destitution and chaos, for few conditions are more demoralizing than poverty that comes after wealth. Rome was full of men who had lost their economic footing and then their moral stability: soldiers who had tasted adventure and had learned to kill; citizens who had seen their savings consumed in the taxes and inflation of war and waited vacuously for some returning tide to lift them back to affluence; women dizzy with freedom, multiplying divorces, abortions, and adulteries. Childlessness was spreading as the ideal of a declining vitality; and a shallow sophistication prided itself upon its pessimism and cynicism.
This was not a full picture of Rome, but a dangerous disease burning in its blood. On the sea piracy had returned, rejoicing in the suicide of states. Cities and provinces licked their wounds after the successive exactions of Sulla, Lucullus, Pompey, Gabinius, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Antony, and Octavian. Greece [Ukraine], which had been the battlefield, was ruined; Egypt was despoiled; the Near East [Ukraine and the Middle East] had fed a hundred armies and bribed a thousand generals; their peoples hated Rome as a master who had destroyed their freedom without giving them security or peace. What if some leader should arise among them, discover the exhaustion of Italy, and unite them in another war of liberation against Rome?
Once a virile Senate would have faced these dangers, raised sturdy legions, found for them able captains, and guided them with far-seeing statesmanship. But the Senate was now only a name. The great families that had been its strength had died out in conflict or sterility, and the traditions of statecraft had not been transmitted to the businessmen, soldiers, and provincials who had succeeded them. The new Senate gratefully yielded its major powers to one who would plan, take responsibility, and lead.
Octavian hesitated before abolishing the old constitution, and [the historian] Dio Cassius represents him as discussing the matter at great length with Maecenas and Agrippa.
Since in their judgment all governments were oligarchies, the problem could not present itself to them as a choice among monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; they had to decide whether, under the given conditions of space and time, oligarchy was to be preferred in a monarchical form based upon an army, or an aristocratic form rooted in heredity, or a democratic form resting on the wealth of the business class.Octavian combined them all in a "principate" that mingled the theories of Cicero, the precedents of Pompey, and the policies of Caesar.The people accepted his solution philosophically. They were no longer enamored of freedom, but wearily wished for security and order; any man might rule them who guaranteed them games and bread. Vaguely they understood that their clumsy comitia [analogous to the House of Representatives, the lower house of the legislature], clogged with corruption and racked with violence, could not govern the Empire, could not restore health to Italy, could not even administer Rome. The difficulties of freedom multiply with the area it embraces. When Rome ceased to be a city-state, empire drove it inexorably toward the imitation of Egypt, Persia, and Macedon.
Out of the collapse of freedom into individualism and chaos a new government had to be created to forge a new order for a widened realm. All the Mediterranean world lay in disorder at Octavian's feet, waiting for statesmanship. He succeeded where Caesar [historically analogous to Reagan] had failed, because he was more patient and devious, because he understood the strategy of words and forms, because he was willing to move cautiously and slowly where his great-uncle had been forced by the brevity of time to wound living traditions and crowd a generation of changes into half a year of life. Moreover, Octavian had money. When he brought the treasury of Egypt to Rome, says Suetonius, "money became so abundant that the interest rate fell" from twelve to four per cent, and "the value of real estate rose enormously." As soon as Octavian made it clear that property rights were again sacred, that he was through with proscriptions and confiscations, money came out of hiding, investment took courage, trade expanded, wealth resumed its accumulation, and some of it trickled down to the workers and the slaves. All ranks in Italy were pleased to learn that Italy was to remain the beneficiary, and Rome the capital, of the Empire; that the threat of a resurrected East had for a time been laid; and that Caesar's dream of a commonwealth with equal rights had been replaced by a quiet return to the privileges of the master race.
A patient, devious Trump has waited out his enemies and now prepares to prevail, finishing the revolution Reagan began 44 years ago. This things take time. As Trump stated on election night in 2016, “Sorry to to keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated.” It has been over nine years since he descended the escalator.
The reign of Augustus ushered in the Pax Romana, two centuries of peace and prosperity across the Roman empire, the greatest such era the world has yet known. Many of the public works he commissioned survive to the present.
Below is the account of the same general era, by the Roman imperial historian Tacitus. The opposition to Trump is slowly beginning to melt away. It will eventually turn into resignation on the part of his oligarchic and political opposition. The coming reforms may not be accomplished in a single presidential term. That may require two or three additional terms for the necessary reforms to reach their conclusion. The universal longing then, as now, is for someone to clean up the mess and take charge.
Cassius Dio::
Augustus . . . found the whole state exhausted by internal dissensions, and established over it a personal regime known as the Principate. . . . He seduced the army with bonuses and his cheap food policy was successful bait for civilians. Indeed, he attracted everybody's goodwill by the enjoyable gift of peace. Then he gradually pushed ahead and absorbed the functions of the Senate, the officials, and even the law. Opposition did not exist. War or judicial murder had disposed of all men of spirit. Upper class survivors found that slavish obedience was the way to succeed, both politically and financially. They had profited from the revolution and so now they liked the security of the existing arrangement better than the dangerous uncertainties of the old regime. Besides, the new order was popular in the provinces. There, government by the Senate and People [the two houses of the Roman legislature ] was looked upon skeptically as a matter of sparring dignitaries and extortionate officials. The legal system had provided no remedy against these since it was wholly incapacitated by violence, favoritism, and — most of all — bribery. . . .
Practically no one had ever seen truly Republican government. The country had been transformed, and there was nothing left of the fine old Roman character. Political equality was a thing of the past; all eyes watched for imperial commands.
Two millennia before the Supreme Court clarified that a president can not be prosecuted for official acts, the Roman Senate granted immunity to Augustus.
Cassius Dio:
Augustus now became consul for the tenth time, with Gaius Norbanus as colleague, and on the first day of the year the senate confirmed his acts by taking oaths. And when the word was brought that he was already drawing near the city (for his illness had delayed his return), and he promised to give the people four hundred sesterces each, though he forbade the posting of the edict concerning the donatives until the senate should give its approval, they freed him from all compulsion of the laws, in order, as I have stated, that he might be in reality independent, supreme both over himself and the laws and so might do everything he wished and refrain from doing anything he did not wish. This right was voted to him while he was yet absent; and upon his arrival in Rome various other privileges were accorded him in honor of his recovery and return.