De:
"Two centuries is what I've heard." Please explain? If you are stating an estimate, I don't know of it. If you are making a clever joke, it escapes me?
As you may know, the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) had a provision for a dictator during periods of war/ extreme threats. During most of this period that power was used but not, apparently, abused. At the end of a period of emergency the dictatorship would revert back to a Republic. There was, effectively, a trial at that point, and the person who had acted as dictator needed to defend their actions.
The US founders modelled the US considerably on Polybius and his explanations of how the Republic worked, during its height. You can see the parallels in the US, as the corruption fights with the Rule of Law. And you can also see, how the "immigrants" of different cultures and religions ate out the Republic ultimately. That is the stupidity of "diversity is strength". History made it abundantly clear the US culture, language, and basic religion needed to be preserved in order for the Constitutional Republic to be preserved.
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Oh, here we go:
"A Roman dictator was an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman Republic endowed with full authority to resolve some specific problem to which he had been assigned. He received the full powers of the state, subordinating the other magistrates, consuls included, for the specific purpose of resolving that issue, and that issue only, and then dispensing with those powers immediately.
A dictator was still controlled and accountable during his term in office: the Senate still exercised some oversight authority, and the rights of plebeian tribunes to veto his actions or of the people to appeal them were retained. The extent of a dictator's mandate strictly controlled the ends to which his powers could be directed. Dictators were also liable to prosecution after their terms completed.
Dictators were frequently appointed from the earliest period of the Republic down to the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), but the magistracy then went into abeyance for over a century. It was later revived in a significantly modified form, first by Sulla between 82 and 79 BC and then by Julius Caesar between 49 and 44 BC, who became dictator perpetuo just before his death."
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