Currently, and as far as politics is concerned, the term dictator It has a pejorative nuance, when referring to that ruler who is distinguished by imposing his will, disregarding the rights and freedoms of his subjects, frequently using violence and murder. Names such as Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini come to mind. The Dictionary of the RAE ratifies this concept (1. In modern times, a person who assumes or receives all political powers and, supported by force, exercises them without legal limitation.) This has meant that the word has spread to all areas and generalized, as reflected in the second meaning given by the RAE (2. m. and f. Person who abuses their authority or treats others harshly).
However, originally the term dictator had a very different meaning. It is an institution created in the times of the Republic in Rome. The purpose of this entry is not to delve into the history of Rome; suffice it to say that, when the Romans decided to put an end to the monarchy as the ruling institution of the city, one of the first measures they took was to divide power between different people and institutions in order to avoid the situation of tyranny that the monarchy had become at the time. concentrate power in the person of the king of Rome.
But, far-sighted, the Romans understood that there could be extraordinary situations that threatened the Republic and in which the dispersion of institutions could constitute a brake on the rapid and unquestioned seizure of decisions that could help save Rome. And they chose to create a figure that, in extreme cases and by designation of the Senate, could concentrate all powers. The appointment would be for the time strictly necessary to put an end to the emergency and, once it ended, the person appointed had to renounce all his powers and redeposit them in their usual holders. In ancient Rome this extraordinary and exceptional institution was called dictator (dictator) and did not have the pejorative profile that it acquired later when in the last years of the Republic it was used by powerful politicians to perpetuate themselves in power.
When the figure of the dictator was explained in History and Roman Law classes, the example of the dictator was always used par excellence, an old Roman general who lived in retirement cultivating his orchard and who, faced with a serious crisis in the Republic, was called by the Senate and appointed dictator. The general accepted his appointment, faced the dangers that threatened Rome and, the emergency resolved, relinquished his powers and returned to his orchard. The old general's name was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.
And here comes the question that gives title to the entry:how did a Roman dictator of the 5th century B.C. to name a city in the US state of Ohio?
To answer this question we have to place ourselves in the times of the US War of Independence. One of the essential ideological principles of the rebellion of the English colonies in North America against the British colonial power was the concept of equality among all men, contained in the famous Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, whose article 1 reads:«all men are by nature equally free and independent, and they have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter a state of society, they cannot be deprived or postponed.”
This general principle clashed head-on with the structure of the English monarchy and nobility, in which birth was a clearly differentiating element. However, since the first years of the North American country's existence, a belief spread in some circles (which lasts to this day), that although it rejected the existence of an aristocracy by birth, it was and is firmly in favor of what could be call an «aristocracy of merit», a kind of distinction of those citizens who have been successful in their public and private life and who form a kind of elite.
This principle was adopted as early in American history as 1783 by a group of American officers who, because of their participation in the war against England, considered themselves part of this aristocracy and who decided to form an association in the style of the old European knightly orders such as the English Garter Order. When they had to give their brotherhood a name, they remembered the story of the old Roman who, like them, took up arms when the Republic needed it and who later, also like them, returned to civil life. Considering themselves heirs of Cincinnatus, they decided to take his name and constituted the Order of the Cincinnati (plural of Cincinnatus in Latin).
When in 1790 the president of the Order of the Cincinnati Arthur St.Clair was appointed governor of the Northwest Territory, he decided to honor his brotherhood and rename one of the towns that They were under his control. He chose the town of Losantville and renamed it with the name that he still bears today:Cincinnati, in the state of Ohio. In it you can admire a statue of the man who gave it its name, which is the one in the image that accompanies this entry.
Over time, the Order of the Cincinnati developed an important role in the history of their country and several US presidents have belonged to it, … but that's another history.