Women and children watch a procession commemorating George Washington’s death along Philadelphia’s High Street
New York Public Library

Hero on a Pedestal

Upon his death, the encomiums for George Washington rolled in, many comparing him to classical figures

The news of George Washington’s death at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799, spread quickly. The nation reacted with shock and grief. Washington, father of his country, was no more.

In the winter of 1799–1800, the news hit Americans especially hard. The nation was at the brink of another war with the British, whose navy continued to attack U.S. merchant ships, seize their cargoes, and impress their sailors for the war against Napoleon. In addition, political strife between the Jeffersonians and Federalists before the 1800 presidential election threatened to fracture
the nation. Americans had taken solace in the idea that, if needed, Washington would again emerge from retirement to safeguard the republic. Now that comfort was gone. Only Washington’s memory and legacy remained to guide the new nation.

In the three months after his death, Americans from Natchez, Mississippi, to Hallowell, Maine, held more than 400 funeral ceremonies in his honor, with more than 200 of them on the national day of mourning, Washington’s birthday, February 22. The climax of every ceremony was the funeral oration, in which eulogists interpreted Washington’s legacy for their audiences and justified such declamations as a republican tradition inherited from the Greeks and Romans. As Reverend Joseph Strong explained in Norwich, Connecticut, “In republican governments especially, the funeral oration has been rarely omitted….The Grecian States, early commenced the usage: Rome followed their example.” According to Strong, a eulogy should “[Do] justice to the memory of departed worth” so that “the grateful heart” would imitate “what they so much delight to extol.” Imitation was the highest form of flattery, and eulogists depicted Washington as a classical hero who would inspire the next generation of American patriots.

In artwork, popular literature, and scholarly studies, the most common classical image of Washington is as an American Cincinnatus. The original Cincinnatus was a fifth-century B.C. Roman patrician who left his fields, was appointed dictator by the Roman Senate, saved Rome from its enemies in a mere 15 days, and then voluntarily relinquished absolute power to return to his farm. The comparisons to Washington were obvious and immediate. Shortly after Washington resigned his commission as head of the Continental Army in 1783, his close friend and subordinate officer Francois-Jean de Beauvoir, the Marquis de Chastellux, wrote of his desire to travel “to Virginy [sic], where I am told, your excellency is retired like an other Cincinnatus.”

Eulogists in 1799–1800 continued to compare Washington to Cincinnatus. Orator William Frazer recounted how at the start of the Revolution, Washington was “like Cincinnatus … firmly resolved and determined to maintain his country’s freedom.” Another
eulogist, Francis Kinloch, noted that Washington had “scarcely … re-assumed the peaceful avocations of rural life, and returned
to his farm like another Cincinnatus” when he was called away again to preside over the Constitutional Convention. Eulogist John
Mycall envisioned the deceased Washington as “our beloved American Cincinnatus” abiding in heaven and “enjoying the fruits of his labour.”

However, comparisons to Cincinnatus were not as prevalent in the funeral ceremonies of 1799–1800 as the traditional literature and preceding examples would suggest. In a sample of approximately 230 eulogies, only 13 percent contain references to Cincinnatus by name or by unmistakable description (“the virtuous Roman farmer who left his plow”). Furthermore, most Cincinnatus references occurred in a series of references alongside other ancient heroes. For example, eulogist Elijah Parish proclaimed Washington “Equal in stratagem to Hannibal, as modest as Cincinnatus, as disinterested as Regulus, as daring as Leonidas, as cautious as Fabius, as valiant as Caesar.” This same set of eulogists made more than 120 different references to Greco-Roman history and mythology, most of which were comparisons between Washington and ancient heroes. Washington was simultaneously the mythic heroes Achilles and Agamemnon, the Grecian statesmen Aristides and Demosthenes, and the generals of the Punic Wars Fabius and Hannibal. The quantity and variety of these references suggest that classical images of Washington were more fluid and diverse than scholars have previously acknowledged.

The most common references contrasted Washington with Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. Eulogists John Davis and Isaac Parker described Alexander the Great, respectively, as “Macedonia’s Madman” and “the inebriated incendiary of Persepolis.” Josiah Dunham derided Julius Caesar for “enslav[ing] an empire.” At the New York State Society of the Cincinnati, Reverend
William Linn explained that Washington’s fame was superior to Alexander’s or Caesar’s because “They fought for the sake of conquest, and to enslave mankind; he in defence [sic] of their just rights and to make them happy.” In total, references to Alexander the Great occurred twice as often as those to Cinncinatus, and references to Julius Caesar almost three times as often.

The numerous allusions to Greco-Roman heroes illuminated Washington’s classical, republican virtues and made him the personification of American national character. However, their remarkable diversity and often contradictory qualities indicate that Americans in 1800 could not agree on what characteristics the ideal American should possess. Instead, they more frequently
agreed on what Washington, and therefore, what the ideal American, was not: an avaricious, self-ambitious imperial conqueror like Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. This negative definition meant that subsequent presidents could nevertheless claim to be heirs of Washington, so long as they preserved the nation he had helped create.