Roman Empire and such (from 300 thread)

[Jahled]

Thanks, I will check that.

 

I was just wondering because many teachers tell about Vergil's story as it was something huge. In school I was told 10 years ago, that this writing is one of the greatest epics ever told from the ancient times. After reading it with more experience, I'm pretty sure that the importance of this book is poorly historical, and it could survived with it's fame, mostly, because Rome, and the Roman Empire itself had always been something that Europeans were proud of. (like as I have learned last 7 years, it's art and architecture design (mostly got from the greeks of course) were used all over the past 1500 years. Even my university looks like a roman building (not greek, rather roman.)

So I think the Aeneid is so famous and beloved, because it is about the glory of the Roman Empire. Which was an all time favourite topic in the past centuries. But the story itself is quite forced and maybe a bit kitschy even. I don't know why people still are teaching that Vergil and Homer are somehow on the same level. Must be some strange habit here

 

To be proud of? The Romans were without doubt the most violent civilization of the classical era, and it's capacity for constant warfare matched only the Qin dynasty of ancient China. At one point a Roman couldn't hold public office until he had completed at least ten military campaigns. The Roman empire thrived on slavery. Caesar returned to Italy with a million slaves after his conquest of Gaul. As an Empire, it began to collapse when it's rich land owners refused to forward man-power to the Roman army, thus an over reliance on foreign Germanic or Hunnish troops. This more or less back fired during the great migrations of the fourth century, when Germanic migration overwhelmed what was left of any Roman Imperial military existence. Commerce had overwhelmed the Roman world, and it become complacent in it's internal affair.

 

Sure Rome's legacy looks great with it's grand buildings and such, but it's nothing to be proud of in so far as human achievement goes. It was a civilization built and lulled by military conquest. In the Arena, it slaughtered anyone at first, then Christians, then pagans, before it collapsed, without doubt because it could no longer finance what it had become.

 

Pride in that? Move on, nothing to see here...

[Paul]

Well Jahled my friend we have ourselves at an odds a bit here but no biggee. Though as I said I prefer the Ancient Egyptians to The Roman Empire, but I do find the Empire interesting. - Grand Moff Conway

[Eagle]

I do find the Empire interesting. - Grand Moff Conway

He he, who not?!http://www.world-of-smilies.com/wos_starwars/starwars010.gifhttp://www.world-of-smilies.com/wos_starwars/starwars008.gifhttp://www.world-of-smilies.com/wos_starwars/starwars010.gif

[SOCL]

I do believe Jahled hit on a very good point, though. Following their successes in conquest of the Second Punic War against the (in)famous Hannibal, the Roman military and political machine became completely inseparable. No longer could Rome function without exercising its power (Imperium Romanum: "Roman power") against other, weaker nations. By the time of the famous Julius Caesar, we see that the Republic has all but decayed into biding between the most powerful men in Rome supported by their individual factions. This is why, in move of true insight and intelligence, Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) realized that the Republic could no longer function as a government of senators and magistrates. Certainly, even whilst being princeps, Augustus maintained the look of a republican government, with himself in an "official" capacity as something a chief adviser to the government, while in truth he ran matters and told members of government how to behave and what to do, and this fact tells us Augustus knew better than anyone that had the Commonwealth attempted to return to Republic, it would have collapsed into civil war.

 

Look at the pattern. Caius Marius and L. Cornelius Sulla have two civil wars for power in Rome, one after another, the first in which Marius wins, and, following his death, the second in which Sulla succeeds against the Marian faction. Sulla takes command of the Republic as dictator for life under the auspices of being "dictator for the constitutional welfare" of the Republic. In this sense, he was supposed to reform the government for the sake of making sure the sort of chaos of the last few years did happen again, and to some measure, he succeeded. In the process, though, Sulla employed the use of a proscription, wherein lists were publicly published of all those who were to be executed because Sulla (now called "Sulla Felix", or "Sulla the Lucky") deemed them a threat to the welfare of the Republic. There's a funny, though sickening, anecdote, actually, wherein a fellow who had been in the countryside during the time of Sulla's takeover returned to Rome and, out of curiosity, started reading the list and suddenly, to his own surprise, finds his name on it. Thinking this a mistake, he mentions it to a passer-by, who promptly pounces on him and kills the man, meaning that the passer-by got a portion of the man's wealth, while the State received the rest.

 

What followed a time of without civil wars, but still a time of much turbulence with all the signs of decaying power. This seems to happen, though, to most governments which do not reform after four hundred years or so, which is about how long the Republic had existed without significant reform of the government. In any event, within a short time, and the constant voting of more and more pompous and ridiculous titles and honours to victorious generals by the Senate in hopes that by doing so they had appeased any appetite for civil war and total power. Even the famous Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") was among these men appeased, who was granted the title Magnus ("the Great") by Sulla and ratified by the rather weak-willed Senate. Pompey, because of his power, was granted the sole consulship, something that had never happened before. To give a quick background, the Roman government was run by two consuls who had veto power over one another in all matters of government in ruled, essentially, by consensus and, to some extent at the will of the tribunes of the people, but now, Pompey was so powerful and the Senate and Tribunes so weak, they feared he'd take his army and conquer Rome in the same way Sulla had (indeed, even Sulla feared that at one point!). They granted him the extraordinary magistracy of sole consul rather that all-out dictator because, in the words of Cato the Younger, "any form of government is better than no government at all!"

 

And, of course, we all know the famous story about Caesar's bid for power against Pompey and his victory at Pharsalus. We then see the Romans take over Egypt and, due in part to Pompey's earlier conquests in the Near and Middle East, complete annexation of the eastern lands, making the lands further East client kingdoms (such as Armenia) with only Parthia as a rival in present-day Iran and western Iraq. Then Caesar is assassinated, leading to another string of civil wars, first between Antony and Octavian for power in Rome, then they reconcile their differences to make battle against Brutus, Cassius, and "Liberators" who'd assassinated Caesar. They defeat the "Liberator" army at Phillipi and divide the Empire in half, but it has become apparent that the Roman Empire (now blatantly called so despite still being nominally run as a Republic) cannot be ruled by a single person. Octavian and Antony go to war again, culminating in Octavian's takeover following Antony and Cleopatra's defeat at the Battle of Actium. Following that, Octavian runs the empire under the auspices of consul with tribunician power under the princeps administration, which eventually leads to his role as "senior adviser to government", or more simply "emperor".

 

The point of all that being that had Octavian/Augustus not taken power as he did, the Roman Empire would have fallen apart into just one chaotic civil war after another. Indeed, the civil wars from the time of Marius and Sulla to the final one between Octavian and Antony were each closer and closer together (proportionally speaking), which is evidence enough at how matters would have continued. Indeed, the Year of the Four Emperors (69 CE) wherein the Empire went into civil war following the emperor Nero's death is evidence enough that the Roman Empire would never be run again without complete and total autocratic rule, all as Jahled had described: the Empire could not live without constant conquest, constant war, or, the alternative, autocratic rule by a single person. Not even the oligarchical rule by a bunch of old, upper-class men (i.e. the Senate) could sustain the Empire's needs by the time of Sulla's take over in 82 BCE!

 

Even so, the Empire was also one of the best organized forms of government in the primitive world before the advent of the modern nation-state. It's problems and weaknesses only attest to the fact that it was too advanced for its time, trying to unite so many peoples and groups who otherwise had nothing in common. Indeed, nothing has come close to a peaceful rule (and by this I mean without or minimal civil war) until the modern-day European Union, and it would be far-fetched to even compare the two.

 

On another note, I'd also like to point out that we think of as slavery and what was viewed as slavery in ancient antiquity was quite different. Slaves at the time were something akin to "body servants" or "indentured servants" of the modern era and not the same sort of slavery Americans commonly think of picking cotton in fields or whipped. Indeed, the "less valued" slaves could be beaten, but this was avoided and generally slaves were freed after a certain time, if not by their masters then by their own hand, usually in the form of purchasing their freedom (as slaves, interestingly, could make money). I'm not defending slavery in antiquity--not at all!--but it was vastly different to what we think of as slavery today. I could go into more detail about Roman slaves, but my hands hurt from typing and I have to get to class.

[Jahled]

I could go into more detail about Roman slaves, but my hands hurt from typing and I have to get to class.

 

My eyes hurt SOCL!

 

One interesting conclusion in Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, is his astonishment that it lasted as long as it did.

 

And having just said that, I now can't find my copy of the book.

[Lord_La_forge]

 

Pride in that? Move on, nothing to see here...

 

Yes, I see what you mean, and your oppinion fits quite well in our humanistic, modern society, I rather ment the past of Europe. Rome was always like a stable point in history. Great rulers, kings really loved to get some linkage with the Roman Empire somehow, as it represented an idea of power, and total reign. Just think of the Holy Roman Empire. It was actually a german empire, still they named it "roman".

 

"Before the Renaissance, Western Christians regarded the German kings who ruled the Holy Roman Empire as legitimate heirs of the ancient Roman Empire through a transfer of rule (translatio imperii) to Charlemagne. The Greek Byzantine Empire and Eastern Christians always rejected this claim. For centuries historians have treated the Holy Roman Empire as completely distinct from the Roman Empire of classical times."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

 

And so on... we could come up with lot of examples. That was my point. And it's legacy doesn't only come with grand buildings. Just think of the thingy we call "roman law"

[Jahled]

 

Pride in that? Move on, nothing to see here...

 

Yes, I see what you mean, and your oppinion fits quite well in our humanistic, modern society, I rather ment the past of Europe. Rome was always like a stable point in history. Great rulers, kings really loved to get some linkage with the Roman Empire somehow, as it represented an idea of power, and total reign. Just think of the Holy Roman Empire. It was actually a german empire, still they named it "roman".

 

"Before the Renaissance, Western Christians regarded the German kings who ruled the Holy Roman Empire as legitimate heirs of the ancient Roman Empire through a transfer of rule (translatio imperii) to Charlemagne. The Greek Byzantine Empire and Eastern Christians always rejected this claim. For centuries historians have treated the Holy Roman Empire as completely distinct from the Roman Empire of classical times."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

 

And so on... we could come up with lot of examples. That was my point. And it's legacy doesn't only come with grand buildings. Just think of the thingy we call "roman law"

 

Actually, upon further investigation into the subject, I think I may have been wrong...

[Mad78]

Sorry guys but i can't resist.

 

The fall of the Roman Empire

 

http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0YgCnDgEepNDu3*ScXbJfY2J!lq0JKwONNSlJxvKnR0aKkjkOnkvXqwUrrC8OwE2zaYVmV3fl7novjcMX01VS9acBGGlx3zQFoSMqynOPJ150SvOkBYnGU6Shqowe55QNeTRcNATTT6JowvfDGrY8RA/the%20fall%20of%20the%20roman%20empire.gif

[Jahled]

Sorry guys but i can't resist.

 

The fall of the Roman Empire

 

http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0YgCnDgEepNDu3*ScXbJfY2J!lq0JKwONNSlJxvKnR0aKkjkOnkvXqwUrrC8OwE2zaYVmV3fl7novjcMX01VS9acBGGlx3zQFoSMqynOPJ150SvOkBYnGU6Shqowe55QNeTRcNATTT6JowvfDGrY8RA/the%20fall%20of%20the%20roman%20empire.gif

 

[SOCL]

Going to split this where the conversation turned Roman. Classic scene, Jahled!

[Lord_La_forge]

Actually, upon further investigation into the subject, I think I may have been wrong...

 

Totally forgot about this part, I have to watch the movie again! :D:D