What if an empire chose to fall? The last emperor of Rome tends his chickens while everything collapses. A satire about power and the fall of empires.
by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
What a beautiful utopia: great war leaders turning away from their empires to devote themselves instead to raising chickens.
Romulus the Great, the last emperor of the Roman Empire, is staying in his summer residence, completely uninterested in affairs of state. Only one thing captures his attention: his chicken farm. His ministers worry, bustle about, and plead with him to act against the Germanic tribes marching on Rome. But Romulus has no such intention. Nor is he willing to save his empire by selling it to the industrialist Caesar Rupf. On the contrary, Romulus has deliberately risen to the top of the Roman Empire in order to bring about its downfall. “It has become a world empire, and therefore an institution that openly practices murder, plunder, oppression, and devastation at the expense of other peoples.”
Romulus’s entourage flees. Alone, he confronts the Germanic tribes when they reach his villa. But this is without reckoning with the attitude of the Germanic ruler Odoacer, who has come to submit to Romulus out of fear of a future great Germanic empire.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt imagines powerful figures weary of power and, with biting irony, plays with those we consider the masters of the world.
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