THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Rome is a city first built on 7 low hills by the Tiber in Italy. Legend says the first settlement was built on the Palatine Hill by the wolf-raised twins, Romulus and Remus about 753BC.
The region was inhabited by Latini tribes, thought to have migrated from Asia Minor. By the 7th century BC an Etruscan culture had become dominant, headed by the tyrant- kings, the Tarquins.

THE REPUBLIC

The last of these, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was expelled in 510BC, Rome becoming a Republic lasting 400 years under the aristocratic Patricians. Electing 2 consuls accountable to a Senate, below the patricians were the citizens, or plebeians who struggled to widen the franchise, gaining the right to sit on the Senate in 367BC.
This represented the rise of a significant middleclass. Below the citizenry was, of course, a large slave class. History records this in the 73BC slave revolt by the Thracian slave Spartacus raising a slave army, finally crushed in 71BC by Crassus.
The Romans always dreamt of expansion, going on to dominate Italy and expanding its trade in the Mediterranean. This brought them into conflict with the Carthaginians from the North African city of Carthage, colonised in the 9th century BC by Phoenicians from Tyre.

PUNIC WARS AND EXPANSION

This clash was known as the Punic Wars, the first war commencing in 264BC with Rome taking control of Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. A naval war, the Carthaginians were defeated in 3 years.
The second war began in 218BC with Hannibal leading a force north from Spain, across the Alps, and taking the Romans by surprise. The Roman general Fabius began attacking the enemy’s supply lines, weakening Hannibal so that in 207BC, Scipio was able to expel him from Italy.
By 203BC, Rome was threatening Carthage, the city forced into humiliating peace terms. A third war from 149-146BC led to the Roman destruction of Carthage itself, Spain and Africa being taken by the Romans.
Conflict then began with the Hellenic world, Rome adding the eastern Mediterranean lands in l90BC, Macedonia in 146BC and Egypt in 30BC. In 89BC all Italy was granted Roman citizenship and Julius Caesar soon began his conquest of Trans-Alpine Gaul, southern Gaul already being added by 120BC.
Finally, in 43AD, Claudius added Britain to the empire. But due to the successes of the generals, the process weakened the Republic, the generals seen as greater than the statesmen.

JULIUS CAESAR

A shock was coming, heralded by Sulla who, becoming a consul in 88BC, had his power curtailed by the Senate. In answer, he temporarily occupied Rome with his army. In 65BC, the Cataline Conspiracy, where Catalina attempted to organise young nobles to sack the city, was only just discovered in time.
The Republic finally fell in 63BC, and the First Triumvirate, Caesar, Pompey and Crassus becoming dictators. By 52BC Pompey was made sole consul, but Caesar was determined to rule himself.
Following a campaign, he refused to relinquish command of his armies and he took Rome in 49BC. The following year he and Pompey fought each other at Pharsalus, Pompey being defeated.
Caesar went off to Asia Minor and Egypt, returning in 45BC, instituting the Julian Calendar and declaring himself dictator for life. The republican Brutus didn’t like this and organised Caesar’s murder in March 44BC. Caesar’s designated heir, Octavian took over, but Mark Antony felt he should rule.

THE DICTATORS

Eventually a Second Triumvirate was formed between Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus. Together, they defeated Brutus and declared Republicanism dead. Mark Antony went off to Egypt, having an affair with Cleopatra, who had a son.
In 34BC Mark Antony declared this child to be Caesar’s, with whom she had also had an affair. Octavian led an army against Mark Antony, defeating him in 31BC. In 27BC he declared himself Augustus, or absolute dictator, of the newly named Roman Empire. Although the Senate was restored as an administrative body to run the empire, dictators ruled until the empire’s collapse in 476AD.
The nature of these dictators varied from those who allowed the empire to run itself, to others who were tyrants. Typical of the latter was the quite mad Nero, emperor from 54-68AD.
A sadist and megalomaniac, he was the first ‘persecutor’ of Christians, and is thought to have set fire to Rome in 64AD so he could rebuild it in absolute splendour. Following a revolt in Palestine, he committed suicide, his general Vespasian taking over.
The first of the Flavians, he began building the Colosseum, finished by his son, Titus, who also razed Jerusalem in 70AD, ending the Palestinian revolt. He is also remembered for his civil emergency measures when Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, destroying Pompeii and other towns.

INFRA-STRUCTURE

These and future emperors ran a different form of empire. Caesar, Pompey and Octavian ruled an expanding empire, the others ran a static entity. As such, the emperor had little to do but indulge himself whilst the Senate ran things.
In 117AD Hadrian became emperor and travelled throughout it trying to decide what it was. He recognised its static nature and that it would never change. Hence, he began the construction of defensive walls, creating a massive fortified civilisation. This spread from Hadrian’s Wall in Britain, stretched along the Rhine and Danube, through Syria and south into North Africa.
Roman cities were built throughout the occupied lands, connected by Roman roads, allowing a co-ordinated transport and communication system for Legions positioned throughout the empire; and also to fascilitate a massive trading system, where specific regions produced specific goods for transportation to all four corners of the Roman world.
In the Mediterranean a large navy protected merchant fleets and Latin became the universal language of trade and administration. In 2l2AD Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all inhabitants and a rich class rose, luxuriating in their baths and villas. Roman Law also came into being to solve disputes, Justinian I bringing it together in his 6th century AD ‘Corpus Juris Civillis’, laying the foundations of European law. But although the empire was mighty, it was lacking in many areas.

CULTURE

This is seen in Roman religion. The Roman supernatural world was indistinguishable from the Greek other than names. For instance, Zeus was renamed Jupiter, Poseidon became Neptune, etc.
This was because religion was used politically, taking vanquished people’s gods to pacify them. If religion was taken seriously it was to increase a cult of the emperor, or revolved around personal gods and shrines known as the ‘spirits of the household.’
This is because the Romans were essentially pragmatists. Building had civil purposes rather than to venerate gods, their only intellectual interests being to solve problems. Hence, their building skills never advanced past Greek styles, and although they had great poets such as Virgil, Ovid and Horace, they never made inspired advances in style. Perhaps the only inspired mind was Plutarch, but he was Greek.
This lack of inspiration continued in commerce and social status. Outside Rome, only the landed aristocracy were wealthy. Poor farmers provided most wealth in the empire, but no measures were taken to radically increase production.
Trade should have provided most wealth through a strong merchant middleclass, but they were never allowed to flower, production remaining a craft industry and the aristocrats squandering what profits were made.
Hence, below a great frontage of empire, the nature of the Roman world guaranteed its slow decline, for once expansion was complete, there was nothing for it to do in terms of advancement.

DECLINE

Psychologically, the empire was a static, insular monolith. By 235AD the civilian administration collapsed as armies set up their own commanders as emperor. In 284AD Diocletian brought temporary stability in his Tetrarchy.
Declaring himself Augustus of the eastern part of the empire, Maximian ruled the western, the empire split into 4 prefectura and 12 dioceses. Christians were rising as a source of influence so he persecuted them and declared himself a god.
But he failed to hold back decline. In 324 Constantine declared himself emperor in Eboracum (York) and fought his way to Rome. He split the empire into East and West, taking the West, with Licinius taking the East.
In 314AD they fought, Constantine being the victor, creating a new capital at Byzantium, renamed Constantinople. Determined to bring stability back to the empire, he realised how powerful Christians had become so in his Edict of Milan he granted toleration to Christians, being baptised on his deathbed.
This could, possibly, have saved the empire, but by now Germanic migrations were battering at the walls. In 410AD the Visigoths sacked Rome. In 455AD Carthage fell to the Vandals.
In 476AD the last emperor of the Western Empire, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed and an Ostrogothic kingdom created in Italy in 493AD. The Eastern Empire was saved by Justinian and it survived right up to 1453. But for the west, the might and splendour of Rome was gone, an empire in ruins.

© Anthony North, June 2007

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