Lend Me Your Earmarks

When the Democrats assumed control of Congress this year, one of their first promises was to shine some sunlight on the shadowy process of approving "earmarks" -- the discrete appropriations for pet projects that legislators piggyback by the thousands onto pending legislation. Earmarks can, of course, be designated for legitimate projects. But mainly they're a sop to special interests, and they figure prominently in the annals of pocket-lining and influence-peddling. Two weeks ago, in an investigation stemming from a series of budgetary earmarks, FBI agents raided the Alaska home of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, an acknowledged master of the earmarking arts.

As Congress goes off on its summer recess, eight months after the Democratic takeover, the promise of greater openness has been partly kept: We at least have more information about pending earmarks than we used to. But one unanticipated consequence of reform, as observers have noted, may have been to make earmarks all the more alluring. Now that every member of Congress -- and his or her constituents -- can see what every other member of Congress is asking for, the competition to be seen as "effective" has become only more intense. It's as if you'd set out to suppress the impulse to "keep up with the Joneses" by publishing an inventory of the Joneses' possessions.

It's probably wise to be skeptical about ironclad rules of history, but it does seem that human nature generally proves more than a match for high-minded reform. The Founding Fathers were ever mindful of the lessons of ancient Rome. Look back at Rome, in the days when it was still a republic, and you'll see that attempts to clean up the electoral system always came to naught. To discourage vote-buying, laws were enacted to limit how much money politicians could spend on entertainment or how many guests they could have to dinner -- but loopholes were discovered faster than you can say "Via K."

And when it came to what we would call earmarks, the Romans worked the system with assurance and skill. Rome ran on patronage even more than Washington does; like a lattice, patronage networks formed a support structure for all of society. In our own time, no one has been more adept at securing imperial largess for his province than Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who likes to cast himself as a noble Roman. In fact, Byrd's model could well be Pliny the Younger (c. 63-113 A.D.), a member of the very Senate that gave its name to ours and a patronus in the grand manner. Pliny enjoyed an illustrious public career and left behind a collection of letters, hundreds in all. Many are addressed to the Emperor Trajan (whose replies also survive).

Pliny looked out for his district with the solicitude of an appropriations chairman. As the emperor's special envoy to a distant province, Bithynia-Pontus, Pliny importunes Trajan ceaselessly to support local projects of every variety. On one occasion he writes: "While I was making a progress in a different part of the province, a most extensive fire broke out at Nicomedia, which not only consumed several private houses, but also two public buildings: the town-house and the temple of Isis." What Pliny wants is permission to establish a 150-man fire department, a request to which Trajan gives his blessing.

Meanwhile, another city needs an aqueduct. Pliny writes to the emperor: "The inhabitants of Sinope are ill supplied, Sir, with water, which, however, may be brought thither from about sixteen miles' distance in great plenty and perfection." Trajan opens his purse for this project, too.

On behalf of yet a third municipality, Pliny makes the case for covering a pestiferous open drainage system: "The elegant and beautiful city of Amastris, Sir, has, among other principal constructions, a very fine street and of considerable length, on one entire side of which runs what is called indeed a river, but in fact is no other than a vile common sewer, extremely offensive to the eye, and at the same time very pestilential on account of its noxious smell." Pliny's wish is Trajan's command.

The requests go on and on -- for canals, for theaters and for public baths, though never, as far as I can see, for a pons ad nusquam, a bridge to nowhere. The indulgent tone of Trajan's replies begins to betray hints of weariness and impatience. He had dispatched a special envoy named Pliny. Why is he now getting letters from John Murtha?

Pliny's interests go far beyond pork. When he is not pushing infrastructure, he is looking out for the interests of friends and acquaintances. Legislators today introduce what are known as "private bills" for this same purpose. Pliny took his private concerns directly to the emperor. He requests a praetorship (a public office) for a man named Attius Sura, "now that there is a vacancy." He urges a military promotion for the son of an army friend. He asks that Roman citizenship be granted to a "resident alien" physician "whose care and attentiveness I cannot adequately reward."

The letters of Pliny the Younger are written in a style that glides easily across the centuries. They touch on many subjects besides patronage: his gardens and his villa; the careers of friends and family; the delights of reading poetry aloud. Combine the tastes of a Montaigne, the connections of an Averell Harriman and the fussiness of a Felix Unger, and you'll have some sense of their extraordinary flavor. Reading the letters today, you may also conclude that nothing much has changed -- or ever will -- when it comes to money and power.

But they do prompt one question: How good are the letters of Ted Stevens?

cullen_murphy@condenast.com

Cullen Murphy is Vanity Fair's editor-at-large. His most recent book is "Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America."