António Loja presented his latest literary work that addresses the idiosyncrasies of the various powers of an empire and the dialectic between greed and dignity of a society, with the backdrop of the Roman world. It is also the confrontation between two real historical characters, the Emperor Tiberius, the "king" of Rome, with power centralized in his person and Junius Graco, the barrister, the republican, who advocated an empire that has to be governed by consensus and equity.
You said that this book is a mere fiction and should be treated as such. However, as history teacher you based work in real personalities, why chose this particular period of the Roman Empire?
António Loja: I thought the contrasts that existed in Roman society of the time were very similar. The temptation and the nerve was mine, but the difference between ideas and interests is something ails us at the present and also played a great part in the Roman society of the time.
What similarities you found?
AL: The same struggle to increase the estates, properties, this is one of the similarities with the present, with multinational companies, for example and I have nothing against them, they exist, but must comply with rules and overlapping their willingness to make money at all cost and do it with dignity, because it is possible. The temptation is so great that all this disappears and in the end there is only greed.
When you states that we ignore the past is to commit the present, we think at present but we are committed by ignorance of the past?
AL: I think much of our present life is committed to the ignorance of the past, yes. We are being governed by people who are woefully ignorant about the past of their country and particularly the Greco-Roman empire that was what gave rise to today's Europe.
But all this is the very dialectic of power, of empires.
AL: Of course, but we can do this synthesis in a different way and there are several ways to do so. What should not be done is through the domain on each other, but rather of cooperation between groups, comprehension and mutual respect of the people.
In short, today's society has failed?
AL: I would not say it failed, societies failed, had success, struggle, fall, get up and resumes to their walk. There is not an end of a civilization, there are only different aspects along that journey. It only exists the great human civilization, as a matter of methodology is divided by eras.
