Main Points

History is Now

Southeastern Europe, including Greece and the Mediterranean islands, had been the heartland of civilization in Europe since the earliest times of the Formative Era. First, it's proximity to the Middle East gave it the benefit of Middle Eastern advances, and then the phenomenal curiosity and dynamism of the Greeks had propeled them to to international importance. During the Hellenic Age the Greeks had defied the Persian Empire and then the Macedonians built the first international empire taking Greek culture with them.

The emergence of Rome was therefore, one of the most important developments in the history of Europe, if only because it confirmed that the continent as a whole was maturing and making its own contributions. If Roman civilization never lived up to the sophistication of the Greeks, it was politically and militarily much more successful. The same stoicism and practicality which made the Romans less intellectual and limited their contributions to science, also enabled them to cooperate in ways that Greeks never mastered; this led the Romans across the Mediterranean becoming one of history's great powers.

Early Development of Rome

In 600 BC, the Romans were conquered by the Etruscans. Previously, just another semi-barbarian city in central Italy, the Etruscans inaugurated a hundred years of critical development in Rome. The Romans absorbed important parts of Etruscan culture and became more sophisticated, if still conservative, city dwellers. This continued until the Romans won their independence, reportedly in 509 BC. The Etruscans were overlords of the Roman kings; in 509 BC one of the princes of the Tarquin Dynasty raped a Roman noblewoman. In true Roman spirit, rather than live to shame her family she committed suicide, but not before revealing all to her close friends and relatives. Her kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, sparked riots that drove out the Tarquins and established the Roman Republic.

It should be noted however, that the Romans had a love / hate relationship with the Greeks even though they absorbed much of Greek culture. They were also an exceptionally proud nation that felt themselves inferior to no one, even though the Greeks clearly excelled the Romans in certain respects. Thus the reported founding of the Republic in 509 BC – two years before the Greeks established democracy at Athens – is highly suspicious; not least because there are no records from the Republic before 387 BC. Therefore, tradition aside, the Greeks almost certainly founded democracy before the birth of the Roman Republic.

Moreover, the Romans were essentially oligarchs at heart so the Republic was never as revolutionary as Athenian democracy. In Athens, slaves, women, and children were excluded, but every other citizen in the city was required to attend government meetings in the amphiteater, and the large and small councils were chosen by lot to manage government affairs. All the decisions of the city (and later empire) were made openly by discussion and vote; all points of view were acknowledged including power blocks openly bought and paid for by Athen's enemies advocating capitulation in debate. Nothing like it has ever been seen before or since.

The Roman Republic on the other hand was based on the formula – you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You can get a disturbingly accurate view of Roman politics by watching a well-made mafia film. Any Roman interested in making their way in politics, finding success in business, or needing representation in the courts, needed a patron who could help them make the connections they needed. Anyone in the middle or upper class was either under the protection of a patron or dangerously exposed; and everyone with a patron was expected to tow the line, vote for whom they were supposed to, and do what they were told... otherwise they would soon find themselves without a patron and without good prospects for finding another. All offices were elected, but Roman political campaigns were open-handedly about buying sufficient votes onto your side, and the wealthy openly dominated government.

Yet the Republic was captained by the Senate, a large body of admittedly rich relatively homogenous men; but one significantly larger than any other system of oligarchy. Also, each member of the Senate was entitled to speak. While less important members of the Senate frequently parroted the points of their higher ranking patrons, they spoke with their own voices, were allowed to disagree and discuss politics on the Senate floor. No less important was the fact that they seemed to share an unusual pride in their city and culture. It was clear that these two revolutionary forms of government gave their societies distinct advantages over less sophisticated governments and would make them the major players in European politics.

The Gallic Sack of Rome: 387 BC

It ended almost before it had begun. The most feared and war-like tribe of the Celts was known as the Gauls, and in 387 BC they would write the largest page in their fearsome history. They swept down over the Alps and into Italy where they destroyed the Etruscan civilization; they also marched on Rome, conquered the city and sacked it before moving north where they settled in the Po River valley of Northern Italy. It was a black period which haunted the still fledgling Romans, but they would rebuild their walls well; the city would not be seized again for 800 years.

Their defeat at the hands of the Gauls was also the cause of the Romans' most important of many military innovations. Stinging from their defeat, the Romans abandoned the Greek phalanx and developed ways for smaller units to work in concert. In battle this was more complicated and required additional training, but it was equally effective. However, it also allowed units to cover one another making it easier to keep or deploy units in reserve; this made the legion more flexible in formations and extended the stamina of the army for fighting longer battles.

Moreover, the Romans survived and with the Etruscans removed from the picture, Rome was able to dominate the local city-states and begin their own civilization in central Italy. Here is where the Romans first began to truly distinguish themselves. Most cultures used victory as a tool for humiliating their enemies or at least robbing them blind; this was taken for granted even in Greek circles and was in some ways the root cause for the collapse of the Athenian Empire. However, the Romans used their conquests as a way to enforce mutually beneficial treaties upon their defeated foes. Thus, their conquests added to their power while requiring the army to do comparatively little effort in occupation. While allies were taxed and had to fulfill annual obligations of military service, important Roman rights were extended to them and their obligations were set down in writing. While allies could not object to the terms, on occasions they could and did sue in Roman courts for violations of the terms of their treaties.

Once the Romans had secured the coastal plains by defeating the city-states of Latium, their local area, they pressed on looking for more territory. The Romans turned their eyes inland to the formidable Apennine Mountains and their local allies joined them in launching a critical but enormously difficult war against the Samnites. The Samnite Wars lasted from 340 - 290 BC; the Romans and their allies fought a combination of traditional and guerrilla battles against the Samnites who were entrenched in the high valleys of central Italy. Despite the Samnite's superior defensive position, they were eventually defeated. Rome also began sending out colonies of Roman settlers across its new domains and beyond. By planting Roman cities throughout Italy, the Romans were able to "romanize" all of Italy and spread their power throughout the Italian peninsula, just as Alexander had used Greek cities to spread Greek culture.

The Roman Republic

While the Hellenistic monarchs were settling down to their feuding, the Romans were running into problems of their own. In 264 BC, war exploded in Sicily between Rome and the dominant power in the Western Mediterranean, Carthage. A one time Phoenician outpust, the Carthaginians had used the wealth of their trading connections and their comparatively advanced Phoenician civilization to dominate the less advanced peoples of Western Europe. Sicily was an important source of grain for Rome whose continued expansion desperately required wheat imports to feed the swelling populations that could no longer be grown locally. Defeat in the first Punic War (Punic was the Latin word for Phoenician) would have spelled the end for Rome, and with the sophisticated and brilliant Phoenician navy facing the highly disciplined soldiers of Rome at sea where they had no experience, things looked grim.

The first eight fleets sent out by Rome were destroyed, with Roman admirals using unconventional strategies in an attempt to turn sea battles into more familiar "land" engagements. The Roman Senate discussed seriously the possibility of surrender, but a powerful block still opposed peace. The Senate approved a special tax upon themselves (all other sources of taxation having been exhausted) and without the help of their allies (who had fulfilled all their military obligations under treaty) they built a ninth fleet of traditional warships with the hope that they had learned enough through the two decades of fighting to go toe to toe with the Carthaginians. In 241 BC, the Roman navy triumphed and secured Sicily as a Roman province.

By 222 BC, the Romans had unified Italy under their control, and this more than any other reason prompted the Carthaginians to declare war in 218 BC, beginning the most storied conflict in Roman history, the Second Punic War. The Carthaginian general Hannibal proved brilliant. He marched his army complete with war elephants across Africa, through Spain, over the Pyrenees and the Alps and descended upon Italy where he never lost a major engagement. Yet, he was no engineer and had no method for beseiging the walled city successfully. In battle after battle, he conquered Roman armies and burned their crops only to be snubbed by the proud Romans who would not submit to his peace terms. In 206 BC, the Romans were able to stir up enough trouble in North Africa that Hannibal had to return home to secure his rear. A new Roman general, Scipio, led a Roman expeditionary force to Africa and secretly negotiated a treaty with Carthage's African allies. When Hannibal met the Romans on the battlefield of Zama, he called for his allies to charge at the critical moment, and charge they did, crushing the Carthaginian army from the rear. By 201 BC, the Romans successfully forced the city to surrender and this time there was no quarter. After the years of devastation and war crimes, the Romans sacked Carthage and humiliated the city. They would never again rise as a major power; Rome on the other hand was just emerging.

197 BC was the beginning of the end of the Hellenistic Period, when Rome defeated the Antigonid dynasty and "freed" the Greeks. No one was under the illusion that they would exert any less influence over the area than the Macedonians. Thanks to the fractured politics and infighting throughout Greece, the Romans did not need to rule, but only "settle disputes" to achieve effective control of Greece. This lasted until Corinth, outraged over a Roman ruling against it, revolted against Roman authority; the response was swift. In 146 BC, the Romans sacked the city and seized direct control of Greece, dividing the region into Roman provinces.

This didn't mean that Greek influence would ever go away. Its success and its legacy would live on in the civilizations that came after it, Rome not least of all. However, where the Greek were scholars and philosopohers who loved to argue, the Romans loved martial virtues: doing your duty unquestioningly, maintaining peak physical condition (both important skills for all soliders), and accepting the dictates of fate – after all, fate had dictated that Rome rule the known world, and no Roman found any reason to argue with that. The Romans were greatly divided over the importance of Greece. Many Roman families embraced Greek culture until Greek slaves were highly sought after as tutors and artists in Rome. In the end they copied many Greek innovations – drama, law and the Greek court system based on adversarial lawyers, popular education, and poetry. Roman religion became so bound up with Greek mythology that the stories are virtually identical except for the Roman names.

However, the Romans were not creative or inquisitive in the way that the Greeks were. The Roman temperment was the defining factor in this reality. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle's love of dialogue as a technique for arguing your way to truth never caught on in Rome. Stoicism remained the dominant Roman philosophy, admiring heroic indifference to the world. When the world threw a massive problem in front of the Greeks, they argued over it and picked it apart which gave them techniques to learn about it. When it threw a massive problem in front of the Romans, if it was military they sent the army out to crush it, and if it was not they sat back and shrugged their shoulders at it. It's easy to see why the Romans took readily to Christianity which declared that nothing in this world mattered. While the Romans learned, grew, and borrowed heavily from the Greeks, Stoicism remained closer to the Roman heart throughout the Republic and the Empire than the Greek love of learning. This became more and more pronounced through the years of the Empire.

The Roman view of education was also profoundly different. For the Greeks education was about developing and pursuing a liberal arts education for the betterment of the individual; education was necessary to be a "man" in Greek culture. In Rome, being a man meant physical prowess and success in business, politics, or in battle. Education was important in Rome, but only in so far as it contributed to one's success in these areas. They saw the Greek goal of personal development as effeminate and impractical. So it is ironic that the Romans adopted most of their curriculum from the Greeks, even as they looked down their noses at the goals of a Greek education.

146 BC, was also the year a Roman expedition was sent to Carthage in what the Romans euphemistically called the Third Punic War. A prominent senator had traveled to the city and seen that the Carthaginians had rebuilt a thriving city. By raising horrifying specters of Hannibal, he convinced the Senate to send an army to sack the city and raze it to the ground, reportedly even sowing salt in the earth to prevent crops from growing. Over the next hundred years, Rome expanded from Anatolia to Egypt, turning the Mediterranean into a Roman Sea; while the Romans never unified all of Europe, no other power in history ever controlled the entire coastline of the Mediterranean. No one had been able to stand against the Romans, so it was to be expected that the only threat to Rome could come from inside. The increasingly arrogant Romans finally pushed their allies too far.

Italy revolted in 91 BC because of what they felt was unfair treatment by the Romans. In a flash of that old Roman practicality, the Romans conceded to the grievances of their allies and responded by granting full Roman citizenship to everyone living in Italy. The end of the "Social War" in 88 BC unified Italy; if Rome had continued this policy throughout its provinces, it would have been stronger. However, Roman citizenship included freedom from taxation. The services which the Romans enjoyed were paid for by the citizens of the provinces, so there was never a serious chance that the Romans could expand central government beyond the Italian peninsula. There was nowhere else to obtain funds without taxing themselves, and this was never seriously considered. Politically, the Social War would be the high point of Roman civilization because corruption and ambition were tearing Rome apart from the inside.

With ever more power at stake, the factions at Rome became more and more ruthless in their pusuit of control over the Republic. By this time, several generals had seized control of the city and imposed dictatorship only to die or relinquish power back to the Senate. Political violence was common and political assassination an accepted fact of life. Sadly, this was merely prelude to what was to come. In 46 BC, an internal dispute between power blocks exploded into the Roman Civil War. Julius Caesar had won widespread acclaim for his stunning conquest of Gaul (modern France), but the Senate was suspicious (rightly as it turned out) that he wanted to seize control of the Republic like other military strong men before him. It therefore sent orders for him to return to Rome. He obeyed... after a fashion. He crossed the Rubicon River which separated his assigned province from Italy where he was not allowed to command troops, and he came at the head of his army. While there was intense fighting, Julius Caesar emerged as the victor and established de facto dictatorship in the city even though he clothed himself in the trappings of respect for the Senate.

This proved merely a lull in the war, however. He was assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15th) 44 BC leading to a new round of battles. The faction of the assassins was defeated in Greece by Caesar's heir, Octavian, and his best friend, Marc Antony. However, their alliance did not outlast their "final" victory. Octavian had secured his father's place as leader of Rome, while Marc Antony, like any good friend, refused to let Caesar's mistress, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra grow cold in her bed. Antony and Cleopatra therefore made Alexandria their capital and waged the last battle of the Civil War against Octavian at sea; their defeat at the Battle of Actium secured Roman hegemony over Egypt and ended the war. With the suicide of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt in 30 BC, the last Hellenistic monarch died leaving Rome in direct possession of all lands bordering the Mediterranean.

Octavian, triumphant and now unchallenged, returned to Rome where he restored the Republic, guaranteed the Senate its privileges, blah, blah, blah. The Romans were exhausted after years of civil war, and in typical Roman fashion, the Senate craved not freedom but order. They were desperate not to alienate him the way they had alienated Julius Caesar in 49 BC; they did not want another 20 years of civil wars. Octavian would make much in his propaganda of closing the doors to the temple of peace three times during his reign; this was a religious ceremony to celebrate the end of war which had only occured a few times in Roman history. However, it reassured his people that the "Republic" was back on solid ground, which was Augustus's most important ammunition against his detractors in the Senate who wanted to limit his power.

This is how he was able to get the Senate to accept his "modest demands", including lavishing him with praise and titles including his more familiar name, Caesar Augustus. 31 BC marks the end of the Roman Republic; Augustus effectively seized control and ruled Rome as a monarch. One of the new titles bestowed upon him was Imperator, effectively head of the armed forces; this word is the origin of the title, Emperor and the death of the Republic marks the beginning of Imperial Rome. The Senate knew they were destroying the Republic, but if that was the price of ending two decades of civil wars they were willing to pay it. It worked in a way; they guaranteed Rome not two decades but two centuries of almost constant civil war, political violence, and assassination. Good long-lived emperors became the rare exception to the constant string of assassination and coups. At it's most depressing, 69 AD was the year of the 4 emperors, a depth of futility that was extreme even for the Empire, but sadly indicative of the instability that was now a fundamental part of Roman society.

The Roman Empire

The collapse of the Republic inaugurated approximately three hundred years of monarchical rule which was defined by a few rare dynasties lost in a sea of civil wars. The Julio-Claudian dynasty of Augustus was one of these rare bright spots; but even Augustus's own reign was far from quiet. Rome suffered several notable defeats; these merely highlighted the expectation among the Romans and all others that they were virtually undefeatable. The constant barrage of civil disorder at the death of each emperor is what really destroyed the Empire from the inside; however, as their international defeats mounted, they captured the Roman imagination and those of their enemies until the Roman aura of invincibility was gone.

In AD 9, Augustus was supposedly driven mad on learning that the three legions sent across the Danube to begin subduing the Germanic barbarians had been annihilated. His successor, Tiberius, won great fame punishing the Germans, but the Germans were barbarians with no cities to conquer and no culture to hold them together. Tiberius's victories accomplished little except to raise his profile in Rome while other Germanic tribes who knew nothing of their predecessor's defeats moved into the vaccuum left by Tiberius's conquests.

The Romans conquered Britian in 43 AD under the emperor Claudius. In 60 AD, one of the princes of Britain died leaving his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman emperor. The Romans ignored his will and raped his daughters to demonstrate graphically that they were now in complete control. The dead king's queen, Boaedica, refused to take the insult with the quiet terror the Roman governor had intended. Britain immediately fell apart when Boaedica revolted and began her campaigns murdering more than 50,000 Romans in ways so horrific that it haunted Roman nightmares for decades. The frightened and outnumbered Roman army was finally able to pull enough morale together to face and defeat her in battle.

In Europe, Germanic invasions began to breach the Roman frontiers from time to time, forcing Rome to create uneasy alliances with the successful invaders. The Germanic armies became a massive fraction of the Roman military. These important treaties would last til the end of the Empire, though race relations between Romans and Germans were usually strained. This was the period of the rise of Christianity as a major religion. While Christianity was not encouraged, and at times actively persecuted by the Romans, it was important because it further complicated race relations. Many Romans and Germans converted to Christianity but they gravitated to rival sects that developed in the early Church; thus many of the religious wars among Christians had a strong racial component as well.

In 117 AD, one of the rare capable emperors, Trajan, conquered the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon, which secured Mesopotamia for Rome. However, when he died of natural causes the same year, his successor Hadrian felt that Mesopotamia could not be held. Thus Hadrian withdrew and Mesopotamia in the East and the Danube in Europe became a wall that Rome defended against the barbarians and outside empires, but never again crossed except to conduct raids. Hadrian's reign marks the height of Rome's expansion. The empire would contract and expand in Europe until 476 AD and its Asian successor, the East Roman Empire, would last a thousand years after that, but Rome would never again control so much territory. Its weaknesses were already glaringly obvious to all, and its indestructibility clearly a myth.

The Emperor Hadrian's lasting legacy was the Parthians; instead of being vanquished and their territory under Roman control, they continued to be a bitter thorn in the East. Septimus Severus sacked Ctesiphon in 197 AD, but did not even pretend to establish Roman control there. However, this final invasion weakened the Parthians and in 226 AD they succumbed to the Sassanian Dynasty which would prove much stronger. In 260 AD, the Emperor Valerian fighting in the East was captured by the Sassanians. It was normal for civil war to erupt with the death of each Emperor, not being settled until rival claimants had killed each other on the field of battle. With Valerian's fall however, the empire actually fragmented. France, Spain, and Britain were ruled by a Roman who proclaimed himself Gallic Emperor, while Egypt, Syria, and East Anatolia were seized by Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra in Syria. Rome was now stripped of 2/3 of its territory and sandwiched by two powerful Roman kingdoms; Rome looked ready to collapse. This was the state of Europe in 270 AD when Aurelian became Roman Emperor. After fighting off the almost annual barbarian invasions of Italy, he conquered Palmyra and the Gallic Empire from 270 - 274 AD, proving that Rome had some fight left in it. Nevertheless, it was the political instability inherent in the imperial succession that caused these problems in the first place.

In 286 AD, the Emperor Diocletian made two major changes to correct this. It should be noted that restoring the Republic, the institution that Rome most desperately needed, was never discussed. On the contrary, he was the first emperor to openly dispense with the formal subordination of the Emperor to the Senate. While the Senate continued as an advisory body – after all that was the only purpose it had served for 300 years – Diocletian and the emperors who followed him abandoned the pretense created by Caesar Augustus and ruled openly as monarchs. He also declared a co-emperor. While it was not uncommon for emperors to raise their heirs while alive in the hopes that their deaths would not cause civil war, Diocletian was the first to take a co-emperor and assign spheres of influence. Both changes increased the civil disorder in the empire, and while ruling co-emperors would end in 476 AD (with the collapse of Western Europe), Roman emperors never again raised the importance of the old Republican values or institutions. Thus 286 AD marks the formal end of the Ancient Era experiments in popular government. Not until the Industrial Era would forms of monarchy and oligarchy be challenged by governments that encouraged broader participation.

Diocletian assigned his partner to rule in the West to fight off the barbarian invasions, while he ruled in the East battling the Sassanians. Diocletian is also known for his intense hatred of the Christians and the persecutions of his reign are remembered as some of the worst ever. However, when the empire disintegrated into yet another civil war on his death, his ultimate successor was Constantine the Great. Before the last battle of the civil war, Constantine declared to his troops that he had a dream; he converted to Christianity and had his troops paint the cross on their shields. Constantine, like Alexander of Macedon, was mentally unstable and gradually fed his ego into a full blown God complex. Constantine's rule made it abundantly clear that by the end of his life, he considered his life to be second in importance only to Christ himself. Despite having ridden at Diocletian's side during the persecutions, Constantine positioned himself as the head of the Christian church and used Christianity as a way to extend his control. This is why he issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD ensuring tolerance for all Christians. Never again would Christianity be seriously persecuted... except by other Christians. Thus, 313 AD was the first time a European ruler used "true" religion to develop and control his state which marks it as the beginning of the Medieval Era in Europe.

The Roman Republic had been one of the revolutionary innovations of the Ancient Era. So long as the Romans had used their intense streak of practicality to define their relationships with each other, it proved sufficient to outfight or outlast their mightiest foes, from the Carthaginians to the Hellenistic monarchs. However, Roman success also drove the destruction of the Republic. As Rome conquered more and more territory, its generals wanted a larger and larger role in the government. Caesar Augustus was hardly the first general to demand or receive special concessions from the Senate, but following his "success" the institutional changes which he demanded effectively ended the Republic. Politically, Rome was now just another kingdom fighting against its foes.

It did not die overnight. The size of the Empire gave it distinct advantages, and its history discouraged its breakup. Potential conquerors like Mark Antony, Aurelian, and Constantine were unwilling to be satisfied with a piece of the pie and risked everything to be the undisputed ruler of the Roman world. So the territory stayed together even as civil wars raged across it year after year.

Religion was an important new concept that Constantine would use to control his state. In the East, it was even somewhat successful; however, it soon became clear that there was nothing that could save the Roman Empire in Western Europe. The decision to embrace a Formative Era style government was too big an obstacle to overcome.