The Evolution of Emperor Worship

As you may have read a few weeks ago, Augustus Caesar was the first Emperor, whose authority was more of a subtle, de facto kind of rule, rather than the flamboyance of his descendants. He was also the first person to introduce the concept of a living divine leader into Roman politics, which had for almost five hundred years avoided deifying their leaders, unlike the Greeks and Egyptians. When Julius Caesar was deified post mortem by a guilty Senate, Augustus wasted no time in adding “son of god” to his list of many titles. As such, people were much more hesitant to go against him, for fear that their anger at his naked power grabbing might be perceived as impiety by the masses who adored him.

This is not to say that the Romans were all Agnostic pragmatists before Augustus Caesar, far from it. Many a popular assembly was disrupted or canceled because some appointed Pontifex claimed ill omens, signs which only seemed to appear when the assembly favored policies which the Senate opposed. Sometimes, this was seen for the crass undemocratic interruption that it was, but other times it succeeded.

Gaius Marius claimed to have found an eagle's nest with seven baby chicks in it – a large number of baby eagles for a single nest. He and his followers claimed that this was a sign from the gods that he was meant to serve seven terms as Consul, something that helped to sway Plebeian support for the unorthodox multiple terms that he served. The people of Rome recognized, for better or worse, that there was a law higher than the Roman codes.

Augustus took things a step further by claiming to be God's son, since God was Julius Caesar. By endowing himself with divine status, confirmed by the Senate's own apotheosis, he set the stage for the later Emperors and the Popes after them to claim infallibility. He also removed a key element to becoming a deity within his culture: dying. He was to his people a living, breathing divine entity, capable of bringing great good to his allies and terrible wrath upon his enemies.

It is really no wonder that this sort of thing got carried way too far by those who came after. It wasn't long before people were required to burn incense to the images of the sitting Emperor in order to enter local marketplaces as far away as Palestine and Asia Minor. But even deification couldn't save some Emperors from disfavor and assassination, as it seems even Roman piety had its limits.

Pax vobiscum

Culture Wednesday: The Early Republicans

For those of you rooting around teh Interweb for American political posts, welcome! This blog is about the ancient world, but hey, stick around and you might learn something new.

During the early Republic, Rome had certain ideals which its citizens, for the most part, tried to uphold. This young, upstart city-state was based, like most ancient economies, on agriculture first and foremost. The ideal Roman, therefore, was a farmer, regardless of social status, personal wealth, or fame. Land ownership was key to obtaining respect, political office, and financial independence, and the ironically egalitarian rhetoric of the Patricians often praised the Roman farmer-soldiers for their simplicity of lifestyle, expertise with weaponry, and willingness to fight for the city and put her needs above their own.

Not unlike Sparta before it, or even America much later, the early Roman military system was militia-style conscripting with annual training during the slow winter season. If you owned enough property to qualify for the fifth census class, you were not only eligible for service, you were required to report for duty. Those in the lower classes were expected to obtain work as farm-hands, house servants, or really any menial work.

Scipio Africanus, who I so recently covered, served as a great bad example by the conservative Senators of his day for his tendency to wear his hair long, spend huge amounts of money on lavish parties, and generally live a life of excess matched today only by rock stars, royalty and professional athletes. Despite his unique lifestyle, he still restored Rome's honor by defeating Carthage, though the Senate was largely displeased at his decision to parlay with the residents rather than simply burning their city to ash and putting its citizens to the sword.

The Senate's desire to see Carthage destroyed seems an unspeakable war crime to us today, and became a famous warning when it did happen after the Third Punic War. Their other imperial-style cruelties would certainly horrify us today, as well as their military discipline, which included killing soldiers who drew a short straw. However, what set the Romans apart from the Greeks and other peoples was their practicality. This may have come about because of their farming ethic, but regardless of its source, it was their most powerful weapon.

While other 'great' civilizations were concerned with the true meaning of love or which day is proper for worshiping Athena, the Romans concerned themselves with supply lines, siege engineering, battle tactics, and in general, how to ensure victory. They learned well the lesson of the Second Samnite War: either destroy your enemy or forgive them, but never humiliate if you intend to let them live. Their world and culture, heinous though some of its elements may seem to our modern sensibilities, was born out of necessity and practical reality.

The Republic had its triumphs along with its faults, and lauded the heroes of old who were granted temporary Dictatorship and did what was necessary to resolve whatever crisis led to their election only to relinquish power when their term was up. Cincinnatus was a one such hero, who went right back to farming after he had served Rome and defeated its enemies.

What happened to the noble Roman, the farmer-soldier who was as skillful with a sword as he was with a plowshare? He was out-sourced. In short, the Patricians and wealthy Plebs utilized slavery so extensively that it became impossible for the working class to find work. The excesses promoted by Scipio Africanus became commonplace, and politics became overly corrupt. The Senate, having grown powerful since the Punic Wars, desperately tried to restore the old ethics of a hard day's work and a simple lifestyle, but even they had grown used to living in great estates with their every need attended to by slaves from every corner of their colonies. Their conservatism was short-sighted at best; treating symptoms instead of stepping back to understand the problem. They sacrificed their hard-nosed practicality for selfish, soft living, and many of them paid the price in their own blood.

The biggest danger to representative government, historically, is itself. The poor Plebs became frustrated at their lack of power and representation and turned to liberators like Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Gaius Marius, and Julius Caesar. The cult of personality toppled the old rhetoric of freedom and shared power, replacing it with hero worship, mob rule, and might-makes-right style politics. The old Romans eventually faded into the annals of history along with Romulus and the kings of old, their lifestyles gradually viewed as quaint instead of inspiring.

Pax vobiscum

Scipio Africanus: A New Kind of Roman

Known to readers of this blog as 'that guy who finally beat Hannibal,' Scipio Africanus was much more than just another Roman military genius. He grew his hair long, wore his toga in an unorthodox style, preferred Greek culture and language to Latin, and became a model of later charismatic commanders like Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and Julius Caesar. Scipio introduced the cult of personality into Roman politics, and it was a cult that would outlive and ultimately destroy the Republic itself.

Scipio got his start at age 17, joining his father on campaign against the Carthaginian invaders. He was present at the battles of Ticinus, Trebia, and Cannae, all of which ended with decisive victories for Hannibal. In 211 BCE a mere five years after that crushing defeat at Cannae, Scipio went to the Senate and requested command over the new Roman army which was being sent to Spain (the previous army had been utterly destroyed by Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal). The other candidates kept their mouths shut, believing Spain to be a death sentence, now that it was once again so firmly under Carthaginian control. Scipio promptly captured New Carthage and proceeded to win goodwill for Roman occupation. He set captives free, and returned a young Celtiberian princess to her fiancé and family, thus earning that tribe's allegiance against the Carthaginians.

Wisely plotting his strategic course, he sought to defeat the three Carthaginian armies in the area one by one, knowing that they would too far outnumber his own legions if he faced them all at once. He faced off against Hasdrubal Barca in the battle of Baecula and gained a victory by using a similar technique that gave Hannibal the victory at Cannae. Hasdrubal withdrew and marched on Italy, and in a controversial move both now and then, Scipio Africanus refused to pursue. There have been many theories of why he did this, but I tend to believe that it was his strategic good sense that prevented him from risking being caught between the remnants of Hasdrubal's forces and those of Mago or Gisgo, the other two Carthaginian commanders in Spain.

After gaining more Celtiberian allies, he defeated the two other Carthaginian commanders at Ilipa (modern Seville) in 206 BCE, and consequently drove their commanders out of Spain entirely. In addition to recruiting the local tribes, Scipio also made overtures to Syphax and Massinissa, two Numidian princes who agreed to cease their support of Carthage and supply the Roman army with cavalry. This was a huge win for the Romans because Numidian cavalry of the time outmatched nearly all other types, and was one of the chief causes of Hannibal's many successes. Syphax later switched back to the Carthaginian side, marrying one of their noble-ladies to seal the deal, but Massinissa proved extremely helpful in the later invasion of Carthage itself.

Scipio was the ultimate success story for the new culture of Rome: a culture which was fast-growing among the military and plebs. The old Roman model of farmer/soldier was quickly eroding under the increasing power of the Senate and their abusive practices toward the soldiers and the poor. The conservatives in the Senate distrusted his charismatic Greek mannerisms and disliked his fame. When Scipio won at Zama and ended the Second Punic War, he was greeted as a national hero in Rome and given his famous moniker Africanus. Several dissident groups offered to nominate him as Dictator or Consul for Life, but to his credit, he refused. It seems that this radical, innovative commander and politician had some old-fashioned Roman virtue in him after all.

Pax vobiscum

Hail Caesar! - Rome's First Emperor

When Julius Caesar was stabbed to death during the famous Ides of March assassination in 44 BCE, he left a power vacuum big enough to suck Rome into yet another Civil War. After some initial sieges and skirmishes, which resulted in the deaths of the two sitting Consuls, this vacuum ended up being filled by three unlikely allies who were appointed to a kind of co-dictatorship in October, 43 BCE in hopes that they would check and balance each other over the course of their five-year term. What ensued should be no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention to the politics of the day: a temporary and uncomfortable alliance followed by massive Civil War.

Gaius Octavius Thurinus was Julius Caesar's grand-nephew, and renamed himself Gaius Julius Caesar after his great uncle adopted him, and I assume to confuse the later students of history. In any case, Octavius, as we shall call him, proved a worthy adversary for the other members of the Second Triumvirate, leading armies to victory against both the rebel armies of Caesar's assassins and Marcus Antonius.

Like many ancient people, the Romans would occasionally deify their dead leaders, and Caesar, though he was objectively ruthless, self-seeking, and a dangerous consolidator of power, was declared by the Senate to be a patron god of Rome on January 1, 42 BCE. Octavius, capitalizing on Caesar's honor, began referring to himself as the 'son of god' and no doubt won over several followers from Rome's middle and working class through his relationship with their late champion.

After Marcus Antonius was defeated at the Battle of Actium, Octavius was in a position to increase his influence and forever alter the Roman Republic. His power as Consul increased gradually, and he was smart enough to periodically return control to the Senate, as he did in 27 BCE. However, this Oligarchical body was made up of mostly sycophants and Caesarians, since the civil wars purged most of the old Republican guard. Plus, the soldiers in the provinces, over which Octavius had been named governor, were loyal to him personally and cared nothing for an ineffectual Senate that could not deliver on land reform or veteran benefits.

In January of 27 BCE, the Roman Senate bestowed the title of Augustus upon Octavius, a name which he would carry long after his death. The word Augustus comes from the same root word as Augur, a diviner who observed the flight of birds. The title was much more than a simple political office: it meant 'illustrious one,' and carried implications that Augustus Caesar not only held power over the politics of Rome, but over nature itself.

It is from these roots that all future Emperors of Rome would reign. And though Augustus Caesar's example was full of concessions and the avoidance of appearing supreme, his descendants would of course focus on his title, which implied that the Emperor was not merely a man, but a god.

Pax vobiscum

For the Love of God - How Christianity Changed Everything Part I

In the interests of full disclosure, yes, I am a Christian. That being said, I don't think my faith hinders my view of history. Sure, I probably have some bias when it comes to history that involves the Church, but I do my best to put personal opinion aside and truly examine the facts alone, allowing them to determine my ultimate opinion. So while this article is favorable toward Christianity, rest assured, I have plenty of critique for the ancient Christians, which will come to light in the next few months' worth of Thursdays.

Religion, as it was understood by the Pagan world, was something that the State controlled. The Pontifex Maximus, chief priest of the Roman religion, was appointed by the Senate, and not by either the mass of believers or some religious institution. Any worship outside of the state-prescribed deities was usually either syncretized or forbidden, and Christianity was not the only religion to be persecuted by the authorities. As far as the Romans were concerned, religion was a way of currying favor from the gods or preventing yourself from falling under their wrath. Their gods, after all, were not typically benevolent or altruistic; they were petty and concerned first and foremost with their own fame at any cost.

Christianity, that is, Apostolic Christianity, taught that there was one God, who was not only all-powerful and all-knowing, but full of love and compassion for mankind. This quality was an aberration when it appeared in Pagan myth, like in the story of Prometheus, and what usually confounded the Pagan powers-that-be more than anything else was that Christians did not merely fear or obey their God; they loved Him!

Ultimately, it was that love for God that drove Christians to refuse to burn incense at the Emperor's altar, or to have their hands marked at the market in Ephesus. This religion, after all, was founded by a martyr, who was not believed to simply be a good teacher, but God's very son! When persecution came, as it did sporadically throughout the next three hundred years, Christians reacted, most of the time, by silently going to their deaths.

Pax vobiscum

Julius Caesar Part II: The Later Years

When we last left old Gaius Julius Caesar, he had just won Consulship for the year in 59 BCE by a nasty, corrupt election that left no Senator clean, including Caesar's most tireless opponent, the notoriously incorruptible Cato. Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus was elected to serve as the second Consul, but would prove to be an ineffective check against his fellow executive. Supporting Caesar were Crassus, to whom Julius owed his freedom, and Pompey, whom Caesar recruited by promising to support land redistribution, a wedge issue amongst the Senators, and one that Caesar would use to cast the elite into the role of petty oligarchs and himself as the egalitarian savior of Rome.

When Caesar proposed a series of reforms designed to redistribute tracts of land to the poor, Crassus supported it on the Senate floor, while Pompey garrisoned his soldiers inside the city, frightening the moderate Senators into passing the decree. Seeking divine intervention, Bibulus tried to declare foul omens and therefore end the assembly prematurely, but he was chased off by armed supporters of Caesar and a bucket of sewage was thrown onto him as he rushed to his home to remain until the end of his term. The law passed without further delay, and thus was the First Triumvirate born: an alliance of three ambitious and savvy populists who would ultimately turn on each other. Caesar and Bibulus' Consulship was so one-sided that the Romans jokingly referred to the year 59 BCE as the Consulship of Julius and Caesar.

Caesar's father-in-law was elected as Consul during the next term, and it was lucky for Caesar because the Optimate Senators were thirsty for his blood. Instead of being confined to stewardship of a nearby uninhabited forest, Caesar's friends saw to it that he was appointed the governor of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, in northern Italy and just east of the Adriatic Sea. He was given command over four legions and was now prepared to fight his way out of his ever-increasing debt. He made war on some local tribes which had been arming themselves, and made some money from their spoils. His term as governor was made to be five years instead of the usual one, which was lucky because otherwise his debts would have made him a slave, and he would have faced prosecutions for his quasi-legal activities while serving as Consul.

His campaigns in Gaul led him all the way to Britain, which he invaded under the pretense that they had aided a local Gallic tribe against him, a shaky accusation against anyone other than the Britons, who were mostly Gauls themselves and very similar in culture. His first invasion didn't go well and he had to return to the mainland, but he succeeded following season, securing Roman-allied control over the southern portion of the island.

Meanwhile, back in Rome, Caesar's daughter Julia, whom he had married to Pompey to secure his alliance, died during childbirth in 54 BCE. He offered him his niece Octavia, but Pompey eventually refused. Crassus died the next year while trying to invade Parthia in the east. Pompey weighed his options carefully and chose to marry Cornelia, the daughter of Caesar's enemy Quintus Metellus Scipio. In 52 BCE, political violence in the city got so bad that Pompey was declared the sole Consul, an office very different from Dictator because a Consul is answerable for their actions in office while a Dictator is not. While in office, Pompey blocked an attempt by Caesar to serve as Consul in absentia, though this had been allowed in previous years. The Triumvirate was broken and the two men left would now fight over the real prize: Rome itself.

That same year, there was a massive rebellion in Gaul led by Vercingetorix, a charismatic and capable military leader who defeated the Roman legions on more than one occasion during the war. Eventually, the Gallic forces were defeated by superior technology through the extensive siegeworks in place at the Battle of Alesia and Vercingetorix was forced to surrender. I'd like to go into more detail here, but rest assured, there will be coverage of these battles in upcoming Military Mondays.

In 50 BCE, Pompey and the Senate ordered Caesar to lay down arms, disband his troops and return to Rome. Caesar believed that it was a trap; that Pompey, who had now joined his enemies, would lead the way in prosecuting Caesar for crimes real and fabricated. He was probably not far off, for at one point that year Pompey accused Caesar publicly of insubordination and treason. January 10, 49 BCE, Gaius Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River with one legion and set off the Civil War. When many of the cities in northern Italy surrendered willingly to the invading legion, Pompey and his Senator allies abandoned Rome and sailed for Greece, taking with them every ship in the harbors of southern Italy. And so Caesar, being unable to chase his quarry, set off to challenge Pompey's lieutenants in Iberia, declaring, “I go to fight an army without a leader, so as later I may fight a leader without an army.”

He swept up the remains of forces loyal to Pompey and the Optimates in Iberia and made passage to Greece, where he would square off against his old ally and former son-in-law. At the Battle of Dyrrachium the next year, Pompey's army, which outnumbered Caesar's own legions at least 3 to 1, easily broke through Caesar's battle lines and his army routed. Caesar himself withdrew, and Pompey probably could have ended the entire war then and there, but his years of alliance with Caesar had taught him to be wary of this crafty populist. He feared a trap, and so did not pursue the enemy legions. Even Caesar remarked later that victory had belonged to his enemies, if only one of them would have claimed it.

His forces resupplied and fought the Battle of Pharsalus, in which they won an impressive and decisive victory for Caesar. The Optimates' power now broken, they fled in all directions, while Pompey sailed to Egypt where he believed he might find refuge. Instead he was assassinated, and his head presented to Caesar by Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII, who believed the gift would win him Caesar's favor. It worked in the opposite, however, and Caesar soon cast his support for Ptolemy's sister, Cleopatra VII, helping her to secure the throne of Egypt before he left. Caesar maintained a close relationship with Cleopatra, and there are historical rumors that they had a secret love child. He could have never married the Egyptian queen, however, as she was not a Roman citizen.

There was still work to be done, so Caesar granted immunity to many of his former enemy Senators, while mopping up the remnants of Pompey's forces, defeating all military opposition by 45 BCE. He had been elected Dictator in 48 and again in 47 BCE. In 46 he was appointed as Dictator for an unprecedented 10-year term, which undoubtedly led to his downfall two years later.

On the 15^th of March, 44 BCE, Caesar was attending a session of the Senate. A group of Senators had organized a conspiracy against this perpetual Dictator, calling themselves the Liberatores, or liberators. They lured Caesar into a false state of security by gathering around him to support a bill, and then proceeded to stab him repeatedly until he was dead. As many as 60 Senators participated in the assassination, and declared that Rome was now a free Republic once again.

Ultimately, Caesar's death did nothing to stem the tide of anti-Republican sentiment. In the old days of Rome, citizens were expected to be loyal to the State first, and many of the cautionary fables from the early years involve fathers ordering the executions of their own children if they betrayed the Republic. The shift from Republic to Empire was a gradual one, and as I said last week, Caesar is by no means the first ambitious Senator to have delusions of kingship. However, because the people had come to believe, generation after generation, that the Oligarchical Senators did not have their best interests at heart, they turned to Dictators and Emperors to right the wrongs that their own corrupt and bogged down bureaucracies had either created or failed to counteract. The fall of the Republic, and indeed Caesar's life as a whole, should send shivers down the spine of any government official, elected or otherwise, who fails to care for their citizens.

Pax vobiscum

Women in Rome

One of the more famous Roman myths is the story of the Sabine women. Romulus, Rome's founder, gathered outcasts from neighboring cities to Rome to populate it. Unfortunately, they were mostly men and had been exiled from the other cities for fraud, theft, and other bad behavior. If Rome was to have a future, they would need to find women and reproduce. The nearby tribe of the Sabines had plenty of women, but they were unwilling to allow their daughters to marry the scoundrels that lived in Rome. So Romulus hatched a nefarious plot.

He invited the Sabines to a massive feast just outside the city gates. Since it was an all-you-can-eat affair, they brought their children, daughters, wives, and sisters along for the party, and it carried on for some time. When the Sabine men had become drunk, the Romans seized every unwed woman they could find and carried them into the city, locking the massive gates behind them. There was war with the Sabines, and the story goes that it was the abducted women who prevented all out slaughter on both sides, agreeing to live in Rome. Since they had been raped, they were considered ruined for other men, and they knew that their best bet at survival lay in submission to their newfound Roman companions.

This story seems so repugnant to modern sensibilities that it's hard for us to imagine how any culture would place it in their oral history and public record. However, it certainly helps to shed light on the position of women in the Roman world. For the most part, women weren't permitted to hold office, own property, or choose a husband. Their family structure was such that the father or Paterfamilias held legal power over life and death for all his children. At least for the young boys there was an age of independence, but a girl might live in her father's house all the days of her life.

It was assumed that marriage would eventually lead two people into a deep romantic friendship, but first and foremost, marriage was duty. They needed to continue their family line, and they were very often betrothed from birth. As a result, marriage became a burdensome chore and many soldiers and aristocrats started putting off, visiting prostitutes and keeping female slaves and concubines instead. Augustus Caesar, desiring to preserve Roman culture despite helping to destroy its Democracy, passed a series of laws and regulations governing betrothal, marriage, and success.

He promoted soldiers who fathered many children, fearing that Rome was becoming dangerously underpopulated. He gave the best seats in the Coliseum to married men, and granted some say in property disputes to married women who bore three or more children. He penalized wealthy bachelors and single women by heavily taxing their inheritance, and made it illegal for husbands to murder adulterous wives, preferring that they divorce them instead.

Despite all these reforms, women were a far cry from men in terms of power in almost every measurable criteria. Though they could sue for divorce themselves, the courts often ruled with the father, giving him custody of their children. And if their husband was involved in a war, there was always the chance that he would return with a German or Phoenician slave girl whom he would take as a concubine. However, since the earliest Roman wives were brought to Rome in a similar fashion, it was hard to argue that things should be any different. After all, only barbarians allowed their women to have the same rights and privileges as men.

Why do All Roads Lead to Rome?

The simple answer is that the Romans built them. There. Satisfied? I didn't think so. We see in the Romans a penchant to absorb and syncretize the things that they admired from other cultures, and in one respect, roads were no different. Government building of roads has been with humanity since at least the Ancient Persian Empire, and it is likely that the Etruscans brought a road-building ethic with them from Asia Minor, and that the Romans appropriated this idea. And if there was one thing that the politicians could all agree on, it was roads.

The Romans didn't just level dirt paths; they had a method of paving these roads which made them durable and easy to drive on. Merchants from all over mainland Europe used carts to transport goods, and sturdy, flat roads ensured that their more expensive breakable items would remain intact on the way to market. Travelers and pilgrims eager to visit the famous Temple of Saturn in the heart of Rome could now make the trip without fear of getting lost, since Augustus made the Temple the starting point for the marker stones. If the numbers on the stones got smaller, you were heading for Rome, hence the famous saying.

The politics of roads was always contentious, with many Patrician Senators using their vast treasuries to pave large, wide roads and name them after themselves. Like the Gladiatorial games, this was a good way to endear themselves to an underrepresented populace of mostly Plebeians. However, anyone who built a road in the early Republic was required to pay for its upkeep, which could be a problem if a wealthy Senator got involved in shady financial dealings that went south.

Eventually, the Roman Empire was connected by a large system of roads, which were eventually all made public property. Armies could march over the roads very easily compared to marching through dangerous forests and hunting paths. While this also helped the enemy armies of 'barbarians' to invade, the Romans made a habit of building a system of outposts and forts near choke points, and had a swift communication system to help ward off the smelly hordes. The roads lasted for centuries, some of them being preserved up to this present day.

Famous Friday: Tiberius Gracchus

While Rome was busy establishing dominance over the Mediterranean in the 200's BCE, there were problems on the homefront. Various enemies had abandoned fighting toe-to-toe with the legions in favor of hit-and-run ambushes and guerrilla warfare. However, Roman pride would not allow them to disband a legion until its campaign was finished, so many of the legionnaires were fighting for ten years or longer in places like Spain, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Meanwhile, back on the farm, their wives and children were tasked with caring for their estates, which often fell into ruin.

The wealthier land owners had plenty of money to buy or make slaves (by calling in debts), and they could leave their expansive vineyards and ranches in the hands of capable servants, paying them only food in return for tending their property. Soldiers at the lower end of the middle class who had smaller farms and no money to hire hands or purchase slaves would return from a long campaign to find their animals poached or rustled and their orchards gone to seed. Some tried to make the best of it, seeking work to earn money and reinvigorate their family farm, but work became very scarce with every new batch of conquered slaves that arrived from wherever there was a campaign. These men were unwittingly putting themselves out of work.

This economic crisis is one of the many factors in the Republic's ultimate death, but it is a significant one. The droves of people who later supported Julius Caesar and Augustus after him were the disenfranchised middle class whose farms had been plundered by greedy oligarchs who took advantage of their absence while they were defending Rome from the Barbarians. To my mind, it is the chief failing of the Republic's political structures that they didn't adequately address the needs of those they derisively referred to as “the mob.”

However, some within Rome's political elite tried to enact land and economic reforms before it became such a widespread problem. The Gracchi brothers were two such Patricians who attempted to reverse the injustice of losing one's home while fighting for the Republic. Their payment for these attempts was brutal death.

Tiberius Gracchus, born sometime between 168 and 163 BCE, and served as a military tribune in Spain. Plutarch tells us that while returning to Rome after a campaign, he began to notice the need for reform. He saw the huge tracts of land throughout Etruria (northern Italy) which were being tended mostly by foreign slaves, as well as the smaller farms which had gone into ruin. When he came to Rome itself, he saw several large mobs of unemployed and homeless men wandering the streets looking for work. He knew something had to be done, so when he was elected as Tribune of the People in 133 BCE, he went right to work campaigning for reform. In one of his fiery speeches, he said, "The wild beasts that roam over Italy have their dens, each has a place of repose and refuge. But the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy nothing but the air and light; without house or home they wander about with their wives and children."

This made him popular with the people, but very unpopular with the other Patrician families and Senators, who were all enjoying the benefits of the situation, paying meager sums of money to gobble up the small farms around them when they came to ruin while their owners were away at war. In retrospect, it was quite a nefarious scam that the Senate was running on the people; sending them to war for years so that they buy the land cheap, staff the huge farms with slaves which were captured during these same wars, and profit from the whole scheme. Thus, as they were benefiting so much from the system as it was, they were more than eager to douse this fire of reform.

Believing that the Senate would never pass his reforms, he planned on submitting them instead to the Plebeian Council, since they had some legislative power. The Senate learned of his plan and was deeply offended. In fact, some of the moderate Senators who may have supported these reforms were now firmly against them and against Tiberius himself. They somehow persuaded Marcus Octavius, another Tribune, to use his veto against Tiberius and make him a lame duck. Tempers ran red hot at the Council assembly, as it became clear that Octavius was acting as a tool of the wealthy. The people voted to depose him, and he vetoed them, which probably didn't help matters. Tiberius therefore ordered that Octavius be forcefully removed so they could have a proper vote. In a moment of horrible clarity, Tiberius realized that he had violated the law by using force against a Tribune, something which was very illegal and severely punished since the formation of the Council. So instead of moving forward with voting on his reforms, he moved to basically shut the entire city down until the Senate passed the bills themselves. Businesses weren't allowed to open, temples were closed, and all commerce ground to a halt until the Senate decided to approve his reforms, which they did, but used a parliamentary trick to give his newly-created agrarian commission only minimal funding.

Later that year, King Attalus III of Pergamum died without an heir, leaving his entire kingdom and vast fortune to Rome. Tiberius jumped at an opportunity to give his reforms teeth and claimed part of the inheritance for his commission. The Senate, who was constitutionally in charge of the treasury, saw this as a direct affront to their authority; a check without a balance. They also sought to prosecute him for his unlawful and unconstitutional expulsion of his fellow Tribune Octavius, and waited eagerly for his term to end.

Knowing that the end of his term would likely mean the end of his life, Tiberius ran for re-election as Tribune, making outlandish promises, including giving Roman citizenship to foreign allies. Neither side much liked that particular idea, since the poor were already competing with slaves and didn't want to share the rights of citizenship with a bunch of smelly Barbarians. Quintus Pompeius told the Senate that, since he was Tiberius' neighbor, he knew that the populist Tribune had received royal gifts from a Greek named Eudemus of Pergamum, who prophesied that he would one day be the king of Rome. This, coupled with the testimony of one of Tiberius' cousins who claimed that this Gracchi was amassing power for himself in a play to become King, led the Senators to do something that most of us today feel was a bit . . . drastic.

During the re-election vote, the well-groomed and cultured Patrician Senators followed the accusatory cousin down to where Tiberius was, beat him to death with their chairs and threw his body in the the river Tiber. About three hundred of his loyal followers tried to protect him and were also killed by the malevolent politicians.

Since they had now also violated the law against harming a Tribune, the Senators worked quickly to mollify the Plebeians, who were ready to take up arms against an upper class that was entrenched within the status quo. They agreed to fund the land reform commission, and this satisfied the mob for the moment. At least, until Tiberius' younger brother Gaius came upon the political scene ten years later.

Pax vobiscum

Culture Wednesday: Democracy, Roman Style

When Romulus founded Rome, so the story goes, he appointed one hundred upstanding and powerful men to be Senators of the new city. These hundred men elected kings, raised armies, and administered the day to day needs of Roman citizens. Later this number swelled to 300 with the incorporation of the Sabine and Etruscan people, but those original hundred Latins would be important for hundreds of years to come, for they would be known as the Patricians.

The Patricians were the old money of Rome, and everyone who was not a Patrician was a Plebeian. Over time, these distinctions only made a difference for the sake of elected office and plain old discrimination, since several of the Plebes did pretty well for themselves. I find it helpful to think of them in terms of Jew-Gentile, that is, if you are not a Jew, you are a Gentile. Of course, being a Gentile means you could be black, white, asian, hispanic, or really any race on earth that isn't Jewish, making the Gentiles a diverse group by that sort of division. In the same way, while the Patricians were a specific group of old-money aristocrats, a Plebeian might be poor, rich, or even middle class. At the founding of the Republic, they just couldn't be a Senator.

After Rome exiled their king, allegedly in 509 BCE (the Roman historians probably chose this date just to predate Athens' democracy by a year), the Senate took command over the anarchy that ensues when a leader is deposed. They decided that executive authority should never rest with just one man, and thus the position of Consul was created. Every year, the Senate would elect two Consuls for a one-year term, the hope being that if one of them talked to his horse, the other could veto his decision to order the execution of all Rabbits in Italy (a hypothetical scenario, since our records from the early Republic are less than trustworthy). The Romans feared what absolute power could do in the hands of any given man, so they set up a complicated system of checks and balances as seen below:

Sorry if I just gave you flashbacks of U.S. History, but the founding fathers of the United States had a similar fear, which led to a similar system. However, the system displayed in the diagram is the final product; the original was basically Senatorial rule with no recourse for the Plebeians if those ruling Patricians did something they didn't like. Also, the Tribal Assembly wasn't for family tribes, but for regions, similar to our own congressional districts today, except you were part of the tribe that your father belonged to regardless of your current home. So I, for example, would still be included in the Tulare County Tribe even though I now reside in Fresno County because that's where my family comes from.

The tricky thing about Democracy is reassuring the citizens that each of them gets a fair shake. It's a little difficult to ensure the lower class that they're being represented fairly when one requirement for being a Senator was being a Patrician. And not just a Patrician, but a rich one, owning at least 100,000 denarii worth of land which would be several thousand acres (we think). Now, on the one hand, I can see the benefit of Senators who supposedly couldn't be bribed because they're already rich. But I can also see how the Plebeians may have begun looking fondly toward their pitchforks whenever the Senate did something they didn't like.

The creation of the Plebeian Council is, to my mind, one of the most brilliant compromises in the political history of the world. While it still did not give a voice to women or slaves, it did give an unprecedented amount of power to those at the lowest station of Roman life. The Plebeians were allowed to elect a Tribune who had veto power over the wealthy Patrician Senate, thus giving the common freemen of Rome a check against their wealthy and aristocratic overlords.

As the Roman Constitution continued to evolve, Plebeians were eventually given the right to become Senators, if they were elected as a magistrate. But who elected the magistrate? You guessed it: the Senate. In 342 BCE, however, a law passed that required at least one of the Consuls to be a Plebeian.

While this all sounds very progressive and looks wonderful on paper, there was still a huge divide between rich and poor. Most of the Plebeians who were elected to the Senate were very well-off, and the old economic separation between Patrician and Plebeian were already blurring, favoring instead a simple matter of have and have-nots. The one thing the rich could still claim was the protection of Rome, as the army was still staffed by those of the 5^th Census class and above, but even that would prove insufficient in later years and the army would eventually be opened to all citizens under the Marian Reforms.

Those reforms would forever change the face of Rome, both militarily and politically. The Senate and other Legislative Councils faced an identity crisis which they failed to deal with, leaving a power vacuum that the Emperors easily filled. The Plebian Tribune who still held veto power over the Senate became little more than just another wealthy and complicit politician whom the Senate could bribe if they needed to. What began as an ancestral caste system changed into an economic class system over time, and failure to recognize the role of economics in politics ultimately brought an end to the Roman Republic.

Famous Friday: Pomp(ey) and Circumstance

Toward the beginning of the 100's CE, the Roman army was radically redesigned by Gaius Marius, who changed the rules and forever changed Rome. Prior to these reforms, in order to serve in the Roman army, you had to be a member of the upper class, own a significant plot of land, and provide your own weapons and armor. Marius opened the ranks to all classes of Romans, promising land and plunder to whoever signed up. The army was thus transformed from an elite institution into a social ladder by which “new men” could earn money and fame for themselves and climb the class structure. One of these new men was Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, the father of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known by his more common title, Pompey the Great.

Pompey was only nineteen when his father was killed during a Roman civil war. He inherited a massive and wealthy estate and after two marriages, was swiftly climbing to the most powerful ranks of Roman society. His father-in-law, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, had distinguished himself by winning the first Mithridatic war in Greece and Asia Minor, and had several uses in mind for Pompey. Sulla became the Dictator of Rome and sent Pompey to secure the empire from further rebellions and civil strife.

First on the to-do list was Sicily, which supplied Rome with necessary grain. Next was North Africa, Numidia to be specific, where Pompey excelled at achieving victory with his legions. However, this presented a problem when he returned to Rome wanting a triumphal entry because he was a privatus, that is, just a private citizen with no Senate-seat or Senate-given titles and for him to be granted a parade was actually illegal. Sulla decided to allow it only after he and another general were finished with their own parades. When the day arrived, Pompey was embarrassed by a late start because of an incident with an elephant-driven chariot. It seems that the gates of Rome were too narrow for the elephant to fit, so he had to make a few last-minute changes.

A few years after Sulla's death, he asked for the title of Proconsular Imperium of Hispania (that's Spain and Portugal) so that he might crush an ongoing Roman rebellion in that area. The Senate was beginning to fear this young upstart who gloried in military triumphs but seemed to have no interest in becoming a Senator or going the traditional rout of Roman leadership. They also didn't wish to offend the general in Hispania who already held that title, thus giving them another rebellion on their hands. However, as he refused to disband his legions until they agreed to his title, they acquiesced, hoping that perhaps he would meet his end in Iberia. They were mistaken, of course, and Pompey destroyed the rebellion in five years.

Enter Spartacus. While I do plan on writing more about this slave-general in future weeks, this will be minimal. The Third Servile War was underway in Italy, with Spartacus as its leader. Crassus, another future Famous Friday subject, had faced the Gladiator/Slave army and defeated it, killing Spartacus in the process. Pompey was making his way back to Rome, and encountered the remnants of the enemy army, capturing about five thousand of them. He brought them into Rome as his slaves, and claimed credit for wiping out the rebellion for good. Crassus, needless to say, was not amused.

Pompey was then granted his second (but still illegal) triumphal entry by the Senate, who continued to fear the influence he had with the common people of Rome, the mob. In an attempt to domesticate this brilliant warrior, they elected him Consul, despite the fact that it was a Senate-only office and Pompey had never even been elected Senator. He ruled the Senate as a Consul right alongside his fellow Consul and longtime anti-fan, Crassus. It seems that the Senate believed the two would cancel each other out, their fame would fade with time, and they could be swept from office in a few years. Unfortunately, Pompey and Crassus both desired power, and they proved willing to work with even each other to attain it.

Just when it seemed like Rome's enemies had all been contained, the problem of piracy began to re-emerge in the Mediterranean. Two years after his Consul-ship, Pompey was given command of a naval task force designed to obliterate piracy completely. It was another controversial appointment for the still unelected general, but it passed through the Senate albeit by narrow margins thanks to Julius Caesar (who hadn't become Caesar yet). Whether they liked Pompey or not, they couldn't argue with results. Short version of Pompey's naval command: Pirates lose, Pompey wins, no more pirates for awhile. This, of course, made him popular with the masses once again and left his Senatorial enemies wringing their hands over what to do.

Meanwhile, back in Pontus, the third war against Mithridates the Great was going swimmingly well for one Lucius Lucinius Lucullus (who, I'm guessing, didn't appreciate being called 'Lucy'). However, his troops were growing weary and insubordinate after years of fighting without much to show for it, and Rome was starting to doubt his ability to subdue Asia Minor and the East. He had been chasing Mithridates VI around the countryside, only to learn that he had sought refuge at the court of Tigranes II, the king of Armenia. So he sent an arrogant letter to Tigranes demanding that he produce Mithridates, which Tigranes refused. Then, after fighting with the Armenians for a few years, he also failed to capture Tigranes. Thus, he was replaced by Pompey, who chased Mithridates all the way to Colchis, in the northern Black Sea coast. He still didn't capture the last Pontic king, but he didn't waste any time. He set up Roman-style governing authorities to replace the Pontic nobles and went about conquering Syria, Palestine, and Judea. Afterwards, he returned to Rome, had some more parades, and allied with Julius and Crassus to form the Great Triumvirate which would eventually bring an end to the Republic and usher in the age of Emperors. I'll write more about this in a few weeks when we take a look at Julius Caesar.

While Pompey was certainly skilled at all matters military, politics brought about his eventual undoing. The Great Triumvirate worked well while it lasted, but just like the Highlanders, there can be only one. Caesar practically chased Pompey out of Rome, and once he secured his family, he debated where to go next. He decided on Egypt, which was being ruled by the Greek Ptolemies, and fled there with Caesar's Triremes close behind. When he set foot on the shore, he was stabbed to death by the Egyptian “welcoming party.” The Pharoah thought it best to dispatch Pompey and present his body to Caesar, thus preventing a large-scale pitched war in their country.

Caesar, so the story goes, was not happy about Pompey's death, even though they had become enemies. He put his assassins to death and gave Pompey's remains over to his wife, who took his ashes back to his country home in Alba. His reputation was that of a great and famous general who fought for Rome and whose life ended ultimately as a tragedy.

Pax vobiscum

Military Monday: The Early Army of Mithridates VI

The army of Pontus reflected the Kingdom itself, and even its king: it was a mixture of different fighting men with different styles, cultures, and ideas. In the best of circumstances, this mix led to sweeping victory, but in the end, it led to ultimate defeat. Fancying himself the heir of Alexander the Great, Mithridates VI followed Alex's tendency to augment his army with whatever kind of troops he conquered along the way. While this worked well for Alexander, it should be noted that Mithridates lived considerably longer and this region had been changing for almost three hundred years since the young Macedonian conqueror.

Asia Minor was and remains a land of many peoples. Considered prime colonial ground by the Greeks, it had an unmistakable flavor of Hellenist-style learning, fighting, and worship. However, there were also Persian colonists there, left-over from Darius' invasion years before Alexander. And this is all in combination with the native peoples, who were primarily tribal, though growing more and more agrarian and urban, forsaking their nomadic ways. In order to unite these people, Mithridates would often resort to xenophobia, at least the anti-Roman variety, thus giving them a common enemy. Here, truly, was a wise student in the art of war.

After he had conquered some of the Balkan region to the North, Mithridates looked to securing his borders in the south. So he made plans, along with Nicomedes III, the king of western neighbor Bithynia, to divy up the area called Cappadocia, just south of Pontus, between the two of them. Mithridates' sister was ruling as regent because her husband had just died. Nicomedes, being a cunning king himself, decided to marry the sister instead, leaving one of his sons in charge of the region.

The two men sent representatives to Rome to resolve the dispute, leaving Nicomedes in a position of comfort, thinking that there would be no battle until their dignitaries returned. Mithridates waited for a time, then invaded Cappadacia outright, and its puppet king was killed in the ensuing fight. This enraged the Romans in the area, who helped Nicomedes raid and burn several towns and settlements in southern Pontus as punishment for his invasion.

Mithridates was more than capable of stopping this looting, but instead he allowed it to happen. Nicomedes ravaged the countryside while the Pontic king merely took reports and made preparations. He knew that the Romans would likely move against him on the pretense of aiding Bithynia, and so he spread word far and wide that those villages had been pillaged under Roman advice, thus uniting the varied people of Pontus against Rome, and Bithynia, her handmaiden. Raising an army was easy for him at this point; those who had their crops and livestock stolen by the Bithynian raiders were only too happy to take up a spear and get some of it back, with interest.

Sure enough, the three Roman generals whose armies were in various parts of Asia Minor all moved against Pontus with the hope of quelling Mithridates VI. The three armies were probably about forty thousand each, along with Nicomedes' army which was reportedly fifty thousand foot, six thousand horse. If they had all joined together to take on this rogue Pontic despot, they may have had a chance. But in their anger, and without waiting for orders from the Roman Senate, they took him on individually, along with his army of two hundred and fifty thousand foot and forty thousand horse. He crushed them one by one, capturing their generals and subjecting them to horrible, humiliating treatment.

His footmen were likely Phalanx pikemen at the core, along with lighter armed auxiliaries and javilineers. The javelin-throwers of Pontus were legendary for their accuracy, and the deadliness of their weapons. The horsemen he employed were mostly, probably all, javelin-armed and heavily armored, capable of forming a kind of highly-mobile Phalanx which disrupted enemy formations with missiles before charging home at their flanks. His tactics were most likely pin-and-fork, using the heavy spearmen to hold the enemy in place while his horses harassed their flanks and caused a rout. He may have also had some Scythian horse archers in his ranks, recruited when he defeated them in the Bosporus up north, and if that were the case, their contribution would have been immeasurable. They were a Steppe people; born in the saddle and taught to ride and shoot from a very young age. Their accuracy was high, and their tactics were notorious: they would pretend to retreat in a panic, only to outrun their pursuers while shooting them with their poisoned arrows. No matter Mithridates' tactics, the comparatively small armies of Rome and Bithynia didn't stand a chance.

Because of this conquest, all of Asia Minor was under his control. He moved swiftly to secure the loyalties of Greek colonies in the western regions, and sent representatives to gain alliances with the Greek cities, who had been living almost a hundred years under Roman hegemony. They eagerly agreed, giving Mithridates a buffer region with which to hold back immediate Roman retaliation.

Unfortunately for him, when Rome did retaliate, they took all of Greece back, but signed a treaty with him that left him in control of Asia Minor. Though he accomplished much and did a lot to unify such a diverse group, it seems that their divisions were stronger than a mutual hatred of Rome. Mithridates the Great himself spoke at least twenty-two languages, which apparently was necessary just to communicate with all the captains in his army!

In the ensuing Mithridatic Wars, the Romans repeatedly punished Pontus with their manipular legions and flexible tactics. Eventually, trouble within his own household was Mithridates' undoing as he was betrayed by Pharnaces, his illegitimate son.

Opinion of this warlord varies, depending on the source. Some look upon him as just another petty king trying to build an empire and advance his own name. Others see him as a kind of freedom fighter against Roman imperial oppression. Personally, the jury's out for me. I think he was much smarter than the average despot, yet his cruelty toward Romans, both military and civilian, cannot be overlooked. It should be noted, however, that he never referred to himself with the surtitle “the Great.” That was something the Romans did shortly after he died. It seems that though they were enemies, there was something about this man that they deeply respected.

Pax vobiscum

Famous Friday: Mithridates VI, Alexander's Last Heir

I don't blame Rome for conquering the world. Sure, they did some terrible things along the way and their very name became synonymous for oppression, but I don't really think it was all their fault. Rome, not unlike Sparta, had the practice of ensuring its security by serious, disciplined military training, and using slaves to handle the menial work of growing food and tending to the livestock (although Rome's slavery was nowhere near the scale of Sparta's!). This meant that, in the same way that the Peloponnese city-states all wanted to be Sparta's ally when it was strong, the emerging powers of the Mediterranean wanted to be counted among Rome's friends. When a conflict would break out involving one of Rome's allies, they would often call for help and Rome would send and army. Eventually, to save on time and travel expenses, the Romans just built an outpost nearby and eventually saw to all that nagging day-to-day governance stuff.

Ergo (+100 Latin bonus points!), if there was a destabilized area in the Mediterranean from about 200 BCE onward, you could bet that it wouldn't be long before the Romans would lend a hand. Asia Minor circa 90 BCE was one such area where local conflict and civil strife were both common. It was a land of many cultures, having been conquered by both the Persians and Greeks respectively over the previous 500 years, and there was still a significant local population who had their own customs and philosophies. To the Romans, who admittedly had begun to look toward the expansion of their already impressive empire, it looked like a good land for up-and-coming politicians to get noticed through conquest.

So it was that Lucius Cornelius Sulla found himself far from home on the Asian frontier facing off against a mighty Pontic king who had somehow unified these diverse people and formed an army. Mithridates VI, also called Eupator, stood before him proud and defiant, refusing to repent for his slaughter of Roman civilian colonists in the terrible massacre that Appian refers to as the “Asiatic Vespers.” It is important to note that though this act certainly qualifies Mithridates VI as a cruel, petty despot, it was not without pretense from the Romans themselves

Though they admired Greek thought and borrowed their mythology, the Romans were notoriously merciless in their dealings with Greek settlements. In 167 BCE, the Greek colony of Epirus was sacked and all its inhabitants enslaved. In 146 BCE, they destroyed Corinth. Not to mention the slaughter of Archimedes at Syracuse. Though I don't believe the Romans always sought the wars that entangled them, they certainly didn't go to war without real commitment.

Before continuing our tale of the small kingdom of Pontus versus the mighty empire of Rome, let's explore Mithridates as a person, that we might better understand this man and why he did such terrible things. First of all, let's explore the area where he was born.

The light purple is his empire at its most expansive. The dark purple represents where he started. Clearly, this was a man who knew how to exert his influence without the aid of Roman interlopers. His heritage probably has a lot to do with his disdain for all things Roman.

Mithridates was a descendant of Alexander the Great on his father's side, and this was a fact he took great pride in. It helped him to recruit the Greeks living in Asia Minor, as they grew up hearing stories from their parents about mighty Alexander and how he conquered the world. On his mother's side, he was a descendant of Darius I, a mighty Persian conqueror. This helped him to win support from Persians, and also from the Asians. Thus, Mithridates set himself up as the heir of both the Macedonian empire and the Persian empire, which was a powerful political and rhetorical weapon.

His father died when he was only 14, and it is believed that he left his home soon afterward for a time. His mother ruled in his stead as a regent, and meanwhile sold large portions of the Pontic territory to Rome, who was eager to stake their claim on the East. The city of Laodicea is named after her.

Six years after his father's death, Mithridates VI either came of age or returned to his throne (since it's unclear whether he ever really left) and threw his mother in prison. He did not approve of the partitioning of the kingdom, and he especially didn't want to involve the Romans. He desired to defeat them, to overturn a hundred years of virtually unchallenged Mediterranean hegemony and establish a new Helleno-Persian Empire that would rule in its place. But first, he would have to unite Asia, carefully maintaining a balance between diplomacy and outright conquest.

First, he turned his eye to the north, knowing that it would be impossible to reunite Asia without a base of power in the form of money. So, in exchange for protection, he raised and sent an army to drive the Scythians out of Crimea and the Eastern Baltic region. The Bosporans, who lived in that area for many years, eagerly accepted this help because the Scythians had long been their bitter rivals; mostly horse archers who fought with poison arrows and had a raiding-based economy. They were kind of like ancient land-based vikings. Mithridates' army succeeded, thanks to the leadership of Diophantes, one of his greatest generals. Thanks to him, the Rhoxolanoi, a Scythian ally, also accepted Pontic rule. Now that he had cut his teeth on northern politics and warfare, he was ready to mix it up with the locals.

Nicomedes III ruled Bithynia at the time, and Mithridates initially meant to ally with him. Nicomedes proved himself a friend of Rome, however, and so a war broke out between them. Mithridates met Nicomedes on the battlefield, and the Pontic army consistently defeated the poorly-trained Bithynians, who were scattered like chaff in the wind. So it was that Nicomedes chose to enlist Rome's help directly, corresponding with them and begging for relief from the Pontic tyrant. Rome, having received a request for help, gladly obliged and thus began Mithridates' direct struggle with the Empire.

Next week, we will take a detailed look at the tactics and customs of the Pontic peoples, with their Greek Phalanxes, Peltasts, and Scythe Chariots. As this week turned out to be a “Greek Week,” next week will be mostly a “Mithridates VI Week.” Stay tuned, and stay safe.

Pax vobiscum

Technorati Tags: ancient, history, Mithridates, Eupator, empire, Rome

Why I'm doing this

Because I am a historiphile, I always have been. I love reading about antiquity in all its glory as well as its brutal shame. I do not romanticize the past, but I always seek a balance between recognizing savagery and tipping my hat to the truly great accomplishments of our predecessors.

This blog will focus, at least for the time being, on Ancient Roman history, from the 700's BCE to the 500's CE. And yes, though I am a Christian, and a very serious one at that, I will be counting years using the BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) system. It's what good scholars use, and though I'm just a dude sitting on a couch with his laptop, I would like to follow the practices of good scholarship.

That being said, I will by no means simply report history as it is told to me by Tacitus or any other aristocrat. They have their stories, but their stories revolve around themselves, and I would like to find and reveal the hidden stories; the legionnaire who has been digging a trench for three days for a temporary fortification and dies of exhaustion, the people who lived in peace until salt was discovered in the nearby mountains. Of course, I won't completely ignore the wealthy and victorious (who typically have told the story of Rome), but I won't be relying on their word alone.

The most important question that Historians should answer is, what can we learn from the past? While many see similarities between Rome and the modern-day United States, I will balance my conclusions with practical realities. The Romans did not have satellite technology, they didn't have firearms, and they had little to no notion of the liberty of the common man. While I do think there is much we can learn from them, we should not get carried away in any kind of Battlestar Galactica "All of this has happened before . . ." kind of philosophy. While I do believe that history repeats itself, I don't believe it ever repeats itself the same way.

I will also write extensively about Rome's neighbors and competitors. Expect some huge posts about Carthage in the future, as well as the early Spanish and Bythinians. For now, or at least the next few months, I will be focusing on early Rome, that is the BCE Rome. How did a city on the western side of the Italian Peninsula become so important to so many? This and other questions will be answered (in part) next time. Pax Vobiscum.