“Wouldn’t have played it that way in the old days,” Tain reflects. In spite (and, indeed, because) of his urge to get back in the saddle, Tain has grown comfortable and complacent. Then again, that’s the great tragedy of it all Tain was so convinced of his success that he was blinded. “Oh, there are a number of people I intend to look up when we get back.” Given how a traitor lurks right under Tain’s nose, one imagines that their time would be better spent on the task at hand. Reflecting on a past victim of Garak’s torture, Tain suggests, “When we get back, you should look him up.” Garak has already invested some thought in the matter. The duo are already planning how best to capitalise on their success before the mission is even complete. Tain has been blinded by the potential to lead one last great battle, and Garak is swept up in the romance of it. Indeed, the episode allows Garak and Tain to celebrate their victory with champagne flutes of Romulan Ale – illustrating just how over-confident and self-congratulatory they are. Although he claims to be a patriot and rationalises his action with concern about Cardassia, Tain is clearly acting for his own ego. Tain is an old man who clearly desires the chance to ride to glory one more time. Even historian Francis Titchner’s observation that “for a Roman patrician like Julius Caesar there is no life without military service there is no life without service to the state” seems to apply to the mindset of Enabran Tain. So the heavy use of symbolism and imagery associated with the Roman Empire in The Die is Cast feels appropriate – right down to the wormhole serving as a metaphorical Rubicon, and Sisko subsequently replacing the runabout Mekong (featured here) with one named Rubicon. (A comparison that seemed to have influenced Bread and Circuses and arguably even Paul Schneider’s vision of the Romulans in Balance of Terror – particularly as developed by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood in The Romulan Way.) It makes a great deal of sense to anchor alien cultures in the familiar, and the Roman Empire ranks as one of the most recognisable classic cultures to Western audiences – a fact evidenced by the abundance of “America as a modern Rome” arguments that tend to pop up in foreign policy debates. The city-planet Trantor is, of course, Rome. Just as he made sense of robots in the Robot sequence, in the Foundation and Empire sequence Asimov cast a similarly rational eye upon the tradition world of American space opera, taming its ray-gun, Ruritanian excesses through a sustained and sober use of historical analogy: specifically, he based his long description of the fall of a sclerotic galactic empire as a rewriting of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. John Clute’s essay on Asimov in A Companion to Science Fiction suggests that Asimov codified the idea of future counterparts to the Roman Empire: It has long been argued that Isaac Asimov was a massive influence on Star Trek, as with a significant portion of contemporary American science-fiction. In particular, modelling alien or futuristic cultures on the Roman Empire is a bit of a stock science-fiction trope. The juxtaposition of the Garak and Tain reunion with the Odo and Lovok conversation is a wonderfully subtle production touch… (And gave us the Federation as “a 24th century Rome” in Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.) Moore has repeated stressed an interest in military history. Writer and producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe has compared both the Founders and the Terran Empire to the Romans, while Ronald D. Within the context of Deep Space Nine, it’s worth noting that several of the writers are fascinated with Roman and military history.
Kirk and company even visited a planet of modern-day Romans in Bread and Circuses. The Romulans have been around as a space-age Rome since Balance of Terror. Of course, references to Rome are nothing new on Star Trek, or in science-fiction in general. The Order should probably have been able to source those itself.) (Actually, per Visionary, we’re told they brought the map and the cloaking devices, but the Romulans do feel a bit surplus to requirement. Indeed, it seems like the only reason that Tain brought the Romulans along would be so he could actually have space!Romans along while he can play space!Caesar. Between the title of the episode, the two-parter’s book-ending references to Julius Caesar and even the presence of the Romulans, The Die is Cast is packed with classical references. If it weren’t so carefully constructed, The Die is Cast could seem pretentious.
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