Page 326 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

roman empire 1627

What have the Romans ever
Rome as a Naval Power done for us! • Life of Brian
(1979 film)
In the extract below, Polybious (c.200–c.118 BCE),
a leading historian of Rome, describes the origins
of the Roman naval fleet. Greek, and under the principate a large number of the
empire’s inhabitants spoke both. Much of the inspiration
. . . so long as the Carthaginians were in undis-
for Roman artistic and literary forms derived from Greek
turbed command of the sea, the balance of suc-
models, whose influence became paramount as soon as
cess could not incline decisively in [the favor of
Rome first established its military dominance over
Rome]....
Greece. The first full blossoming of Rome’s cultural
It was because they saw that the war they had
achievements coincided with the republic’s unraveling
undertaken lingered to a weary length, that [the
during the first century BCE. Many of the finest surviving
Romans] first thought of getting a fleet built, con-
fruits of Roman literature and architecture, however,
sisting of a hundred quinqueremes and twenty
were produced under the principate. If the late republic
triremes [261 B.C.]. But one part of their under-
can claim the historian Sallust, the poet Catullus, and the
taking caused them much difficulty. Their ship-
statesman Cicero, the principate can claim, among oth-
builders were entirely unacquainted with the
ers, the poets Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and Juvenal; the his-
construction of quinqueremes, because no one in
torians Livy and Tacitus; the philosopher and dramatist
Italy had at that time employed vessels of that
Seneca; the essayist and biographer Plutarch; the medical
description.There could be no more signal proof
theorist Galen; the astronomer Ptolemy; and the archi-
of the courage, or rather the extraordinary audac-
tects of the Colosseum and Pantheon.We should remem-
ity of the Roman enterprise...It was [at this
ber, however, that if the prosperity of the empire derived
time] that, the Carthaginians having put to sea
in large part from the Pax Romana (the peace the Romans
in the Strait to attack them, a decked vessel of
succeeded in imposing on the Mediterranean world and
theirs charged so furiously that it ran aground,
used as justification for their imperialism), it also relied
and falling into the hands of the Romans served
heavily on slave labor, a mainstay of the Roman economy
them as a model on which they constructed
since the conquests of the third and second centuries BCE.
their whole fleet. And if this had not happened
it is clear that they would have been completely
Crisis and Recovery
hindered from carrying out their design by want
On 31 December 192 CE, Marcus Aurelius’s son and suc-
of constructive knowledge.
cessor Commodus (reigned 180–192 CE) was murdered
Source: Shuckburgh, E. S. (1889). The histories of Polybius (Book 1, p. 22). New
York: Macmillan. in a palace coup. He was the first emperor to meet a vio-
lent end since Domitian, who was assassinated in 96 CE.
Claiming to be the incarnation of Hercules and the most
continued to function in an orderly and durable manner. skilled of gladiators, Commodus had emphasized the
When a civil war broke out at the end of Nero’s reign, role of emperor as warrior above any other function of
each of the rivals claimed the title of “Augustus.” No one the office. All of the contenders in the subsequent civil
considered the possibility of eradicating that office. war legitimized their claim to the imperial throne through
Overall, the first two centuries of the principate acclamation by the empire’s soldiers, each being sup-
brought the Roman empire the benefits of peace and ported by different contingents of the Roman army.The
material prosperity, reaching an apex under the reigns of ultimate victor, Septimus Severus (reigned 193–211 CE),
Trajan (98–117 CE), Hadrian (117–138 CE), Antoninus secured his title by presenting himself to the people as a
Pius (138–161 CE), and Marcus Aurelius (161–180 CE). military conqueror. The institutions of the principate
These emperors ruled over a population estimated at 50 gave way to an empire ruled and fought over by com-
to 70 million, linked together by roads, aqueducts, mar- peting generals. The results were a marked economic
itime travel and trade, and a shared imperial culture.The decline, political chaos, and a serious destabilization of
two universal languages of the empire were Latin and the empire’s borders.