The Roman Empire

ROMAN EMPIRE AND DICTATORSHIP . . ROME INTERVENES ABROAD While India was being invaded from Bactria, and while China was at peace and growing in prosperity, Rome was sending armies across the Adriatic Sea to Greece and beyond. In Greece, popular movements had been raising the old demand that land be redistributed and debts canceled, and men of wealth in Greece -- tradesmen, shipbuilders and landed aristocrats -- sought the help of Rome against the threat of reform or revolution. Some conservative Romans wished that their city avoid entanglements in Greece in order to avoid contacts with fancy philosophies they believed would corrupt their fellow Romans. Some Romans believed that rather than going to Greece it would be best to focus on recovery from the war against Hannibal and other problems in Italy and at home. Those with rival opinions spoke of Rome's destiny and of its triumphs yet to come. They had become hawkish during the war against Carthage, and they had a heightened concern with security. They wanted the city to use its power to serve what they described as its interests abroad. Among these Romans were a few who sought to advance or acquire military reputations. Some among them believed that Roman military strength backed by their virtues and the power of their gods could improve the world beyond Italy. They saw Rome as more blessed than others and more capable and wise, and they argued for selective intervention beyond Italy as a duty and service to mankind. Rome against Philip V of Macedonia An issue that Rome faced involved the king of Macedonia, Philip V -- son of Antigonus II. Philip had been making appeals to the dissatisfied masses in neighboring Greek cities. War broke out between Philip on one side and Rhodes and Pergamum on the other. Greek oligarchs appealed to Rome's Senate, and senators remembered that Philip had sought an alliance with Carthage during Rome's darkest hour. They feared the recent growth of Philip's navy. The senators heard exaggerated reports of Philip's aggressions. They consulted with the council of twenty priests who regulated relations with foreigners, and although Philip did not want war with Rome and Rome could have negotiated a settlement with him, the council of priests chose war. Rome sent an army of volunteers to Greece that was poorly led and poorly disciplined, and for a couple of years Philip pursed a cautious strategy designed to wear-down the military that Rome had sent his way. The war remained mainly between Rome and Philip, Rome allies, including Rhodes and Pergamum, contributing little to the war effort. Rome's navy was vastly superior to Macedonia's, allowing Roman transport across the Adriatic, and Roman and Macedonian land-forces became equal in size. Then at the Battle of Cynoscephalae, in 197 BC, Roman legions outmaneuvered and over-powered Philip's army. Rome drew up a settlement that satisfied their purported purpose in going to war: Philip was to stay out of Greece. Philip agreed to pay war damages. The Romans allowed Philip to stay in power, and Rome's troops returned home. Some Greeks were impressed by what they saw as Rome's selfless-ness in protecting order in their part of the world. But some other Greeks were left with unpleasant memories of Roman soldiers looting, or with distaste at having been rescued by what they considered a barbarian power. And those Greeks who had feared Philip were upset that Philip was still in power. Rome against Antiochus III Trouble then erupted between Rome and Antiochus III. Antiochus had expanded his rule from Syria and Palestine, and he aimed at absorbing Thrace and Asia Minor, believing as a Seleucid that these areas were rightly his. Feeling threatened by Antiochus, Rhodes and Pergamum requested Rome's help. Rome saw Antiochus' expanding empire as a possible rival to its own power, and it remembered that Antiochus had given refuge to Hannibal. Rome asked Antiochus to leave the autonomous cities of Asia Minor alone and to refrain from expanding from Asia Minor into Europe. Antiochus objected to Rome's interference in the east and asked Rome how it would feel if he began intervening in Italian affairs. He spoke of liberating the Greeks from Rome, and with his army he crossed the straits at Hellespont into Europe, a move that was welcomed by some Greek cities opposed to Rome. Rome allied itself with Rhodes, Pergamum and other Greek cities hostile to Antiochus, and together they defeated Antiochus and his allies in 190. Antiochus agreed to Rome's demand that he withdraw from Asia Minor, and Pergamum gained territory at his expense. Antiochus agreed also that he and his successors would no longer hire Greeks as soldiers. He agreed to surrender Hannibal, and he agreed to pay a great sum to Rome as tribute. Giving money to Rome broke Antiochus financially, and in 187, when he tried to recoup his financial losses by sacking a temple in Persia, he was killed. Four years later, Hannibal was tracked down by the Romans. But rather than be captured he killed himself. An Arrogance of Power Those Greek cities that had allied themselves with Antiochus were forced into an alliance with Rome, and they were made to agree to give no aid to forces hostile to Rome or to allow such forces to cross their territory. Looking at some of the Greek cities that had been friends, Rome resented what it saw as a lack of gratitude. Romans had begun to believe that Greeks were insincere, the Roman leader Cato describing them as speaking from their lips while Romans spoke from their hearts. Romans saw contemporary Greeks as a lesser people than the Greeks of former times, and they believed that rather than just helping the Greeks they were justified in pursuing authority over them. Roman diplomacy had been growing devious and self-serving. Rome favored oligarchies against democrats, its Senate never having approved of the authority of the masses. And Rome had begun to create borders abroad that served its interests by being ill-defined, borders that kept various powers at odds with each other and desirous of maintaining favor from Rome. And when the people of Sardinia and Corsica rose against Rome in an attempt to re-establish their independence, Rome sent armies against them. Rome did not wish to tolerate any example of defiance. It crush-ed the uprisings and made slaves of 80,000 Sardinians, glutting its slave market and making "as cheap as a Sardinian" a common expression among the Romans. THE HOMEFRONT After the war against Hannibal, wealthy Romans had begun investing their money abroad, some in mines in Spain and some in vast tracts of land in Sicily and elsewhere, and they turned these lands into slave plantations. Some of them lent money abroad, at high interest rates, and Roman financial operations became greater than that of the Greeks and Near Easterners. The wars in Greece had brought Roman entrepreneurs new wealth from war contracts, Rome spending as much as eighty percent of its budget on its military. There was an increase in fraud, against which the Senate was not always willing to press charges. And those with wealth imported more spices, carpets, perfumes and other luxury goods from the east. The wars across the Adriatic were a boon also for Romans who volunteered for the military. They brought back money and booty from Greece, which encouraged more Romans to volunteer for military duty. Meanwhile, most freemen who lived in Rome and other Italian cities had no work -- most work being done by slaves. Ambition for most of the freemen was limited to getting enough to eat -- which for most city folk was boiled wheat, or what was becoming a staple diet of baked bread. Common Romans were packed closely together in rows of jerry-built tenement houses separated by narrow alleyways. People were without protection from fires, and their only heat was the small charcoal brazier they used inside their homes. For a toilet they had a chamber pot. They had to haul their water, which was often polluted. Rome had no theaters or restaurants. Dancing was done only by those thought by others to be insane. Most Romans passed their time on their porches or in the marketplace. There was, however, some makeshift street-corner theater. And the poor were entertained by the occasional circuses and public festivals that included sensational and exciting duels between slaves -- paid for by politicians who sought approval from grateful citizens. Prostitution and thievery flourished. Outcasts from smaller communities migrated to the big cities, especially to Rome, which had no police force. In Rome, feuds and violence between families were frequent, with the participants calling on friends and neighbors for assistance. There were no medical professionals to attend the injured or the ill or to help combat epidemics. Few Romans lived past the age of forty. The poor who died were buried in common pits in the public cemetery on Esquiline Hill. But most Romans continued to enjoy what they believed was the glory of Rome's position in the world. More Cultural Diffusions Roman excursions east of the Adriatic had increased their interest in that part of the world, which resulted in many Roman men adopting the Greek habit of shaving. The Romans acquired an interest in Greek athletic games, which in Rome were played for the first time in 186. No Romans participate because the athletes were naked and the Romans saw stripping naked as shameful and as a prelude to vice. Some wealthy Romans began sending their sons to Greece to finish their schooling, to learn rhetoric -- a lawyer's cleverness in oration. The Romans were little interested in Greek literature or other arts, and they were to produce no great plays of their own, or music, or to paint any remarkable pictures. Rome's wealthy families were inclined to leave the adding, reading and music to Hellenized slaves. And they were inclined to reject Hellenist advances in medicine. Most Romans continued to believe that they could get leprosy by passing under a dewy tree. And they continued to seek cures by priestly rituals, including an application of holy water, the "laying on of hands," or by applying salts, herbs, powders, potions, gladiator's blood, human fat or animal dung. The Romans looked askance at Hellenist advances in astronomy. They saw the idea that the world was round as one of those peculiar, laughable ideas from the east. And they had little interest in Hellenist advances in technology. The Romans kept track of time by the rise and fall of the sun, until they borrowed a water clock from the Greeks, which told time by water dripping from one container into another. The Romans also brought a sundial from Greece, but it took them a hundred years to learn that by having moved the sundial they had to adjust it for the change in latitude. But Rome's wealthy readily adopted the Greek drinking party and feasting -- with the excuse that these were needed to boost morale. In the homes of Rome's wealthy citizens, meals had become elaborate affairs, prepared by professional cooks, served on silver plates, with occasional drinking bouts. Some Romans continued to believe in austerity, which they thought had contributed to Rome's past successes and glory, and some Senate conservatives were concerned about the new extravagances. No longer was anyone being fined for having too grand a home, but in 182 the Senate passed a law regulating the size of parties. Partying grew, however, with the introduction of a new feast in 173: a celebration at Floralia modeled perhaps after the Greek festival of Aphrodite. The chief attraction at this new Roman festival was dances by prostitutes, dances that ended in a strip tease, which many Romans considered terribly decadent. The Spread of Religions of Bliss and Salvation Those who had migrated to the cities found the gods they had worshiped in the countryside no longer significant -- gods that had guarded their woods and had made their grasses green. In the cities these folks came into contact with religions that had been imported from the east, religions that had less to do with nature and more to do with bliss, excitement and salvation. Among these new religions was the worship of the Great Mother, Cybele, the deity that had been imported to save Rome during the war against Hannibal -- a worship that involved begging, self-mutilations, eunuch priests and colorful processions. Another imported religion was the Orphic mysteries from Greece, which claimed that the human soul was of divine origin, that human nature was divided between good and evil, and that one's soul could rise above humanity's inherited evil. Some Romans worshiped Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. Rites of this religion included frenzied, ecstatic trances and self-abandon similar to the worship of Dionysus, the god of wine among the Greeks. Some from Rome's elite families became involved in these gatherings, which were conducted in secrecy. The Senate viewed secret meetings as conspiracies that might foster subversion, and when Rome's Senate finally became aware of the spread of Bacchus worship it became alarmed, outlawed the movement and put to death seven thousand Bacchus devotees. The Senate also outlawed astrology, seeing this import from the east as subversive. But believing in many gods rather than one jealous god, and remaining confident in Rome's power, state officials saw the worship of most gods as benign, while they continued to foster patriotism by promoting Rome's official gods: the gods that had looked after the welfare of Rome and had made Rome great. Cato the Elder -- Portrait of a Roman Conservative Marcus Porcius Cato (pronounced KAY-toe) was a much admired Roman patriot, a man who believed in honesty and courage, a respected veteran of the war against Hannibal and a military leader against a 197 BC uprising in Spain. He was a Roman senator, a consul, and then a censor -- a position responsible not only for assessing property for taxation and taking the census but also for public morality. While censor he tried to restore what was thought to be the rectitude of the past. He opposed what he saw as a new decadence among the elite. It was he who passed the law limiting the size of private feasting, and he created a tax on high-priced slaves in order to discourage the purchase of attractive young male slaves for use as pages or concubines. Cato was frugal. He believed in temperance and that luxury corrupted. He lived unostentatiously and ate coarse food, and although he had slaves he did some of his own manual labor. Most of Cato's colleagues saw him as representing the old virtues, the virtues that Cato believed had made Rome superior. Cato believed that rule was doomed which ignored the collective wisdom of the past. He believed that Rome's republican government was best, that weakness lay in rule by lone kings and tyrants, that it was better to draw from the wisdom of the many, and he believed that Rome benefited from a balance of power between common people and the aristocracy. Cato disliked the softer manners of the Greeks. He was fluent in Greek but he opposed Greek literature, poetry and art, and he opposed Greek medicine, claiming that it was poisoning Romans. Cato joined other Roman conservatives in fighting against the spread of Greek sophistication. He was influential in deporting from Rome two Epicureans whom he thought had been sneering at religion, and he played a role in deporting a host of other philosophers and rhetoricians from east of the Adriatic. To keep his children untouched by Greek intellectuality he taught his children himself: Latin grammar, boxing and the history of the great deeds of his forefathers. He wanted to keep Roman youth puritanical. He thought Socrates had been a babbler justly put to death for questioning religious faith and the laws of his city. Rather than all the questions put forth by eastern doubters and philosophers, Cato preferred what he saw as the solid answers provided by Roman tradition. Cato's solid answers included his belief that by having his wife nurse the infants born to his slaves these infants would grow up loving his own children. Although concerned about love from his slaves, he believed that his slaves should be either working or sleeping, and when his slaves grew too old to work he sold them, which must have been for little money, but it saved him the trouble and the cost of feeding them. Never missing a chance to make a little money, he obliged his male slaves to pay him for sleeping with his female slaves. And after he aged and his wife died he had one of his slave women visit him nightly, Cato apparently believing that her compliance was right in the eyes of Rome's gods. ROME TAKES MACEDONIA, GREECE AND DESTROYS CARTHAGE The eldest son of King Philip V of Macedonia, Perseus, succeeded his father in 179, and by the mid-170s Macedonia had recovered from its defeat by Rome two decades before. Perseus allied himself with Thracian and Illyrian chieftains. He gave refuge to reform-minded exiles and those fleeing debt, and across Greece he became known as a champion of the poor. King Eumenes of Pergamum continued his father's hostility toward Macedonia, and in 172 he delivered a complaint in person to Rome's Senate and convinced the Senate that Perseus was plotting against Rome. The Senate decided that it was in Rome's interest to destroy Perseus. In the autumn of 172 Rome deceived Perseus by granting him a truce. As planned, Rome spent the winter preparing for war. And early in 171, on the pretext that Perseus had attacked some allies of Rome in the Balkans, the Senate declared war against him. Greek cities whose rulers feared rebellion and domination by Macedonia joined with Pergamum and Rhodes in an alliance with Rome. Perseus won the sympathy of Greeks who favored the poor and those who saw Perseus as an underdog and Rome as a bully, and Perseus won support from a few Greek cities in Boeotia and from the Republic of Epirus, just west of Macedonia. But, as before, Rome had complete control of the seas, and its troops slightly outnumbered those of Macedonia. Rome's elastic military formations and forged steel swords proved superior to Macedonia's rigid formations of pikemen and its cast iron swords. In one great battle in 168, Rome destroyed Perseus' army, and Perseus died in a Roman prison three years later. The Republic of Epirus had given Perseus no effective help during the war, but because it had allied itself with Perseus, the Romans attacked its towns and villages and carried away 150,000 people whom they sold into slavery. Rome attempted to eliminate Macedonian kings and to weaken Macedonia by dividing it into four republics. Rome forbade the divided areas to have contacts with each other. It demanded half of what the four republics collected in taxes, and Rome took possession of Macedonia's mines and forests. It was the beginning of Roman annexations east of the Adriatic. With cooperation from wealthy Greeks, Rome moved to extend its authority over the Greeks. Roman sympathizers among the Greeks gave the Romans reports as to who was anti-Roman, and the Romans deported the denounced people in great number. In helping conservative politicians in one city, Roman soldiers invaded an assembly and murdered five hundred officeholders who had been reported to be anti-Roman. From Perseus' archives, the Romans discovered letters disclos-ing that he had had secret support from high-ranking officials in the Achaean League of cities in Peloponnesia. In response, the Romans rounded up close to nine hundred Achaean leaders and intellectuals, including the historian Polybius, and shipped them back to Italy, keeping them for a trial that was never held. Rhodes and Pergamum also suffered. Unhappy with Rhodes and Pergamum for having made a deal with Perseus during the war, Rome let Pergamum's neighbors attack and harass it. And, from Rhodes, Rome took Caria, Lycia and the island of Delos. The trade of Rhodes fell as much as eighty-five percent, which benefited Italian competitors. And the sea-going piracy that Rhodes had successfully repressed as a naval power started rising again. Rome Destroys Carthage and Takes Control of Greece In 157, Cato, still a senator, visited North Africa and became aware of Carthage's prosperity, and this sparked his belief that Carthage continued to be a menace to Rome. A veteran of the war against Carthage and narrow-minded, Cato still loathed that city. He ended every speech with the words "Carthage must be destroyed." A neighbor of Carthage, Numidia, took advantage of Rome's hostility to Carthage by making encroachments on Carthaginian territory and then asking Rome for arbitration. Rome failed to act with the impartiality that might have inhibited Numidia from making further encroachments, and after suffering a number of aggressions by Numidia, Carthage lost its patience and retaliated. Rome saw this as a breach of peace by Carthage, and in the year 150 Rome's Senate voted for war against Carthage. Believing that war against Rome was hopeless, a delegation that Carthage sent to Rome offered Rome surrender in the form of committing Carthage to "the faith of Rome" -- a move understood to mean that Rome could take possession of Carthage but that the lives of the people of Carthage would be spared and that they would not be taken as slaves. Rome's Senate responded by granting Carthage self-rule and the right of the city and its people to keep all their possessions on condition that Carthage send to Rome three hundred of its leading citizens as hostages. Hoping to save their city from destruction and amid much grieving, the Carthaginians sent their leading citizens to Rome as hostages. No longer wedded to its old concept of honor, Rome had already decided to wipe Carthage from the map. Rome demanded that Carthage surrender all its weapons, and Carthage surrendered its weapons, including two hundred thousands suits of mail and two thousand catapults. Rome demanded that the people of Carthage surrender their city and move ten miles inland. Moving back ten miles meant not only leaving behind their homes but also their docks and quays and their ability to carry on their sea-going trade. The people of Carthage preferred war and refused Rome's demands. Rome responded as it had planned, with military operations, which began in the year 149. Meanwhile, people in what is now Portugal -- the Lusitani -- were again attempting to free themselves from Roman domination, and so too were peoples in central Spain. Roman legions overwhelmed the Lusitani. Rome offered them peace and land, trapped them, slaughtered 9,000 of them and enslaved 20,000. A new leader arose among the outraged Lusitani and renewed his people's war against the Romans, the Lusitani achieving their first success in the year 147, killing 10,000 Roman soldiers. One response by Rome to the new trouble in Spain was a change in the New Year. To give one of its generals a longer season for campaigning, the Senate moved the date of the New Year from March 15 to January 1. While Rome was busy with Spain and Carthage, an adventurer named Andricus, who claimed to be the son of Perseus, defied Rome and reunited Macedonia. Rome sent an army to Macedonia that arrived in 148 and drove out Andricus. By the fall of 147, Rome's legions were in control of the countryside around Carthage. Rome had not yet penetrated Carthage's wall, but the possibility of a united effort against Rome by Carthage, Macedonia and the Greeks was over. Rome decided that its presence would be needed in Macedonia to keep the Macedonians in line, and it began a permanent rule and military occupation there, Macedonia becoming the first Roman province east of the Adriatic Sea. By now, of the 900 or so Achaean leaders and intellectuals that had been shipped to Italy some twenty years before, only 200 were still alive. Rome's Senate allowed them to return home, but resentment against Rome remained strong among Greeks of the Achaean League, and this resentment increased when Rome supported Sparta in a war that erupted between Sparta and other members of the Achaean league. Some in the city of Corinth saw the continuing war between Rome and Carthage and the continuing rebellion in Spain as an opportune time to stand against Rome's pretensions of authority over Greek cities. It was a time of economic distress among the Greeks, and a leader from Corinth named Critolaus traveled from town to town in Greece calling for debt reform and opposition to Rome. Critolaus described the real enemies of the Greeks as those among them who called for conciliation with Rome. In Corinth, moderate opinion was silenced, and in the spring of 146 Critolaus persuaded the Achaean league to declare war against Rome's presence in their part of the world. The city of Thebes, resenting Roman interference in their affairs, allied itself with the Achaean league. Across Greece, patriotic clubs appeared and denounced Rome. Athens and Sparta stayed out of the war, but elsewhere across Greece men eagerly joined Critolaus' army or another army preparing to fight Rome. Slaves were freed and recruited for the fight, and wealthy Greeks who favored Rome were frightened into contributing jewelry and money to the cause. In the spring of 146, Roman soldiers were finally able to penetrate Carthage's walls. They swarmed into the city and began fighting street by street. First Carthage's harbor area fell to the Romans, then the market area, and finally the citadel in the city-center. Amid suicides and carnage, the Romans demolished and burned the city. They carried off survivors, selling the woman and children into slavery and throwing the men into prison, where they were to perish. Then the Romans spread salt across what had been Carthage's farmlands, and Carthage was no more. In Greece, Critolaus' army was defeated by the Roman army sent from Macedonia. Later in 146 a force sent from Rome arrived and defeated an army of Greeks at the city of Corinth. To warn others, the Romans slaughtered all the men they found in Corinth. They enslaved the city's women and children, and they shipped Corinth's treasures to Italy and burned the city to the ground. Greek cities hostile to Rome had their walls demolished and their people disarmed. The Romans found Thebes entirely empty of people, its inhabitants having fled to wander through mountains and wilderness. According to the Greek historian Polybius, people everywhere were throwing themselves "down wells and over precipices." Rome dissolved the Achaean league and had its leaders put to death. Rome's governor to Macedonia became governor also of the entire Greek peninsula. Rome would now allow only internal rule by Greek cities -- by wealthy elites. Border disputes would remain, but they would be settled by Roman power. It was the beginning of Rome's permanent presence in the region and of a rule by foreigners that was to last two thousand years. THE HISTORIAN POLYBIUS Polybius had fared better than most of the leaders and intellectuals that Rome had taken from Achaea. While a prisoner, he met the head of one of Rome's great families, Scipio (pronounced SKIP-ee-oh) Aemilianus. Scipio found Polybius good company and exchanged books with him. He took Polybius with him on military campaigns, and he introduced Polybius to Rome's high society. Polybius remained in Rome after the other captives returned to Greece, and Scipio became his patron while he attempted to write the history of Rome to 146 BC -- a work that happened to be compatible with the views of his patrons. Polybius sought to explain how Rome was able to become master over the Greeks. He described the Romans as having moderation, integrity, valor, boldness, discipline and frugality in greater amounts than have other peoples. This, he wrote, enabled Rome to unite and to close ranks when faced with danger. His fellow Greeks, he wrote, were more literate and educated than the Romans but when faced with adversity they had weakened themselves by division and argument. Polybius described the superiority of Romans as belonging mainly to the aristocrats. Common people, Roman and otherwise, he saw as lightheaded, filled with lawless appetites and inclined toward bursts of anger and fits of temper. He described the recent rebellion of Greece's common people against Rome as insane folly, and he believed that despite its abuses Rome was bestowing upon the Greeks great benefits. Polybius saw Rome's patriarchal tradition and its religion as serving the cohesion that made Rome successful. Awe of the supernatural, he wrote, helps maintain cohesion. Religion, he wrote, helps to pacify the common man's anarchic temper. And he described Rome's elite and other ruling elites as using religion with this in mind. Polybius saw Rome's success as partly the result of its willingness to enforce discipline by such punishments as executing a sentry for neglecting his duty or beating a soldier with a cudgel for throwing away his weapon, or beating a soldier for boasting in order to get a decoration, or for homosexuality. He saw strength in Rome's willingness to punish by decimation -- the killing of eve