Rome -- the greatest empire the world has ever known. And one heck of a business. That is the premise behind Rome, Inc, Stanley Bing's comic take on the multi-national, acquisition-minded glory that was Rome, a terrific brand with the kind of CEOs you just don't get anymore, willing to pile up a few bodies if that's what it takes to boost company morale.
Bing is the alter ego of Gil Schwartz, a public relations executive with CBS Television. He has dissected, with a fine scalpel, the absurdities of corporate culture in books like Crazy Bosses and Throwing the Elephant. In Rome, Inc he simply reverses a common metaphor, the business as an empire, and looks at the Roman empire as a multinational corporation, with a business model, a coherent management structure and greedy executives.
This approach yields fresh insights. It is stimulating to think of the Roman conquest of the Sabines as history's first hostile takeover. Bing is also quite persuasive when he praises the Roman business strategy as a canny blend of aggression and conciliation. Newly acquired companies, after suffering the usual round of pillage and plunder, were welcomed warmly as new members of the team and offered all manner of incentives and bonuses. Why did Rome defeat Carthage? Because Rome relied on citizen soldiers (that is, fully-vested employees) to carry out its expansion, while Carthage depended on mercenaries (per diem employees and consultants). Of course.
Bing starts with Romulus and Remus, and moves at warp speed through the centuries to the decline and fall. As he races along, he pulls in, with illuminating effect, a wide range of modern-day business examples to explain, for example, Hannibal's failure to conquer Rome, despite his daring and
brilliance. "TWA did fine with Howard Hughes when it was a start-up that needed energy and inspir-ation," he writes. "Later, when it was a true business, it required guys in suits, not some crazy nutbag with six-inch [15.2cm] fingernails."
The greatest of all Roman exec-utives was none other than Julius Caesar, who got off to a less than promising start as a priest, the equivalent, Bing writes, of serving time in the corporate communications department. Quickly, he rises to become "the ultimate business machine." Bold, devious, ruthless and narcissistic, he possessed all the qualities that distinguish the successful modern executive, inspiring love and fear in equal measure. And he invented the comb-over. Bing, in his sharp-eyed researching of the written record, finds a reference in Suetonius to Caesar's "scanty locks," which he combed forward to conceal his bald dome.
He comes to praise Marc Antony, too, part of the unbeatable management team bequeathed by Caesar. A total party animal, true, and unable to keep his hands off the interns, but a great leader. One day, after a night of carousing, he arrived at the Senate, stumbled around the room and threw up in his toga, "which was held for him for that purpose by a friend who noticed he was about to hurl." Bing sees significance in this. "It takes some kind of executive to generate in others the desire to hold a toga in that situation," he writes. "That's management at its best."
Bing, on occasion, plays fast and loose with facts. It is highly doubtful that the Romans, at their corporate gatherings, nibbled on pigs in a blanket and "teeny quesadillas." Caius Marius did not banish his former boss, Metellus, to "the field office in Petaluma." There were no ancient people known as the Troglodytes.
But on the main questions, Bing proves to be a keen analyst. Rome Inc flourished because it had a sense of mission, a well-marketed brand and highly effective management, especially in the middle ranks. It could survive and prosper even when led by some very dicey executives, the kind who regarded themselves as gods, choked on their own greed and gave decadent parties with carved-ice figures that urinated vodka. Wait. That's Dennis Kozlowski. But the point remains the same.
Bing offers up quite a few yucks on the way to the Forum, but the conceit is hard to sustain. It's a little like a Saturday Night Live sketch that has been turned into a feature film. There are islands of hilarity surrounded by large pools of still water. It's funny, at first, to imagine the Romans grousing about their bosses around the water cooler, but the schtick grows stale. And by the end, it's hard to come up with more than a wan smile at Bing's description of Catiline as "a midlevel pischer" who "didn't have the juice to get the big job done."
The funny parts, though, are very funny. Bing takes off on some inspired flights. And his chronicle of Rome's decline is undeniably poignant. "All that was left of the great Rome Inc in the west was a small stand that sold Italian ices on the steps of the Parthenon," he writes. "It is still there."
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