Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire

by Baker, Simon

  Above all, however, it was the characteristics of soldier and peasant that had become fused in the Roman. The virtues that made a good farmer also made a good fighter. Patriotism, self-lessness, industriousness and a hardy ability to persevere in the face of adversity would not only make a farm or a plot of land productive. These were the same virtues that would build the greatest empire of the ancient world. This, at least, is how the Romans liked to see themselves. It was a comforting view. The poet Virgil, who composed the epic story of Aeneas’s foundation of Rome, neatly summed this up. The Roman peasant-soldiers, he said, were like bees. They were not individuals, but a highly organized community striving together. Like Aeneas, these ‘little Romans’ worked hard, were dutiful and patriotically repressed their private desires to the greater good of the group. Yes, some died from their exertions along the way, but the race as a whole flourished. And the glowing, lucent honey they produced? This was pure gold, the product of a golden age, the riches of an entire empire.1

  However, as in the story of Aeneas’s violent struggle to found Rome, the rural ideal of the bees clashed with the reality. Away from the hive, observed Virgil, the bees were also capable of waging venomous war on outsiders. But outsiders were not their only enemy. With their wings flashing, their stings whetted and their arms ready for battle, they reserved their most vicious attacks for inside the hive, for an internecine war on themselves.2 Lurking behind the rustic virtues of the hardy peasant, behind his honour and his steadfastness, said Virgil, was something quite opposite: the chaos of passion, the irrationality of war and, worse, the messy brutality of civil war. This was the true theme of Rome’s foundation. It was one that would reverberate throughout the history of the empire that the city-state would create. It would characterize the eventual fall of Rome as much as its earliest foundation and its incredible rise.

  The site of the city that the mythical Aeneas first set eyes on was located 24 kilometres (15 miles) inland near a river, the Tiber. Made up of seven compact hills, it seems today like a small, unprepossessing place for the capital of an empire that would rule over the known world. There was no immediate port giving on to the sea’s trade routes, and the marshes lying at the bottom of the hills, subject to overspills from the Tiber, had to be drained before settlement could spread there. Nonetheless, on the Palatine Hill, the future residence of Roman emperors, a series of stone and wooden shepherds’ huts formed the first settlement at the very start of the Iron Age in 1000 BC, and from that time on it would be continually inhabited. By the seventh century BC that community on the Palatine joined together with others on the Quirinal, Aventine and Caelian hills. Soon the Esquiline and Viminal hills also were deforested, levelled and terraced to make homes for other settlers. The Capitoline Hill, which was nearest to the river, became the settlement’s acropolis and the home for the temple of the shepherds’ principal deity, Jupiter. The area at the foot of these hills, once the place where the shepherds grazed their flocks, was drained and filled, and the meeting-place of the Roman Forum soon formed the city’s epicentre.

  But while the site of the capital of the future Roman empire was perhaps unexpected, it did have natural advantages for an expansion into Italy. Those hills, for example, formed a natural defence against invaders, while the Tiber valley opened out on to the rich agricultural plain of Latium. The site also formed a natural bridging point between Latium (and hence the Greek colonies at the foot of Italy) and another region, called Etruria, to the north. Its sandwiching between these two civilizations is reflected in the language the Romans used: they spoke a dialect of the language of the Latins, but it was the Etruscans, themselves influenced by the Greeks, who predominantly gave the Romans their alphabet. However, the Etruscans gave the Romans much more than writing: they gave them their early rulers too.

  Between 753 and 510 BC Rome was ruled by kings, the last three of whom were Etruscan. The first, according to legend, was Romulus, and his story is in keeping with the rootless, belligerent theme of his ancient ancestor Aeneas. Romulus and his twin brother Remus were the sons of Mars, the god of war. Abandoned by their jealous great-uncle and exposed to the wilderness of Latium, they were saved when a she-wolf, an ancient figure of ferocity, suckled them. Later the brothers were looked after and raised by shepherds. It was a start in life that made the twins tough but also unforgiving. When they were adults the brothers quarrelled over who should be the founder of the city they decided to establish. In the course of this argument Romulus killed Remus and became the first king. Although the Romans believed that after Romulus there were six more kings of Rome, the reality is that perhaps only the last three (Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius the Proud) were real historical figures. Under these Etruscan kings, key characteristics of the political system of early Rome were established, and these would resonate throughout the city’s history.

  One political principle arose from a clash of loyalty among the leading aristocrats; they felt they owed their primary loyalty not to the state or the wider community, but to their clan. The noblemen were known to walk around the city with their associates, relatives and retainers, whose families could all trace their descent from one common ancestor. These dependants were known as ‘clients’, and the informal network of which they were part became a key nub of political power, status and influence in the state. This is reflected in the names of Romans then and through the centuries to come.3 Appius Claudius, for example, was a prominent politician in Rome of the 130s BC. His family name shows how, alongside his personal name of Appius, he could trace his ancestry back to Attus Clausus, the man who founded the clan. The Claudii would not only become the leading men of state throughout the Roman republic, but would also form one branch of Rome’s first dynasty of emperors, the Julio-Claudians.

  But it was not just the ancient names and the associated prestige which began under the Etruscan kings that would echo through the centuries to come. The authority invested in the kings was their most important legacy. It was this that would become the foundation stone of the Roman imperial mentality. The Romans called the kings’ executive authority imperium. This was their right to give orders to ordinary people and to expect those orders to be obeyed. Imperium allowed them to punish and even to execute people for disobedience. Crucially, it also included the power to conscript citizens into an army and lead them to war on people outside the boundary of Rome who challenged that authority. The holder of imperium carried a symbol of his power, and this too was of Etruscan origin. The fasces was a bundle of elm or birch rods 1.5 metres (5 feet) in length; they were tied together with red leather thongs, and in among the rods was an axe. The authoritarianism symbolized by the rods survives today in our word ‘fascism’.

  Long after the Etruscan kings had gone, the authority of imperium would remain. In Roman eyes it would legitimize and justify conquest. Be it Julius Caesar’s annexation of Gaul or the emperor Trajan’s invasion of Dacia, imperium carried with it the honourable appearance of the execution of justice. The first Roman emperor Augustus was also the first to regularly use the title of imperator, from which we get our word ‘emperor’, the man to whom that authority is attached. The reality of imperium, however, would be much more self-serving. It would result in the mass shedding of blood, not just within Italy, but throughout the entire Mediterranean world. How Romans other than the Etruscan kings came to hold the power of imperium is the central story of the first great revolution in Roman history: the foundation of the Roman republic in c. 509 BC.

  CREATING THE REPUBLIC

  The great revolution that spawned the political system of Rome is told in a famous story. Sextus, the son of the king Tarquinius the Proud, made sexual advances to Lucretia, the wife of a nobleman. When she resisted, Sextus threatened to kill both her and a slave in her company, and claim that he had caught her committing adultery with the slave. Lucretia gave in. Unable to live with the dishonour, however, she soon committed suicide. Personal tragedy quickly escalated into a very public revo
lution. A nobleman called Lucius Junius Brutus, enraged at the death he had just witnessed, was spurred to take action against the Tarquins. With a band of aristocrats, he drove Tarquinius the Proud and Sextus out of the city of Rome. While the details of the story might more comfortably belong to the world of romantic fiction, the fact remains that Roman nobles mounted a coup d’état in the final decade of the sixth century BC against the last of the Etruscan kings and crystallized a crucial political change. This revolutionary moment would become the most pivotal point in early Roman history. From it was forged another key cornerstone in the Roman mentality: a desire for political freedom and a hatred of domination by one man.

  The solution the Romans devised to the problem of rule by kings was the republic. The word does not imply a democracy (although it would have democratic elements), but means literally the ‘public good’, the ‘state’ or the ‘commonwealth’. It was a system of government that evolved slowly over a long period of time, and was subject to continual tweaks and improvements as Rome’s influence and power in Italy and the Mediterranean world increased. Above all, the republic would see the power of imperium exercised not by kings, but by two annually elected office holders called ‘consuls’. Under the men who held this office and their powerful clan-networks of clients, the small city-state of the Roman republic would build an empire.

  The magistracy of the consulship approximated to the role of a prime minister or a president today, although, unlike that modern parallel, there were of course two consuls. The simple fact that two men were elected to the consulship meant that one could act as a restraint on the other. They were elected by a vote in a public assembly, and held power for a year. When presiding over official business, they, like certain other office holders, wore a light woollen toga distinguished by a purple border. Once their term of office was over, the consuls were called to account by their peers in the aristocracy. The basis of their authority, the power of imperium, was as strong and personal as it had been under the kings. For example, reflecting their aristocratic clan background, the consuls were accompanied by a group of twelve attendants wherever they went. Just as they had done under the Etruscan kings, these attendants, like a band of bodyguards, heralds and policemen rolled into one, carried with them the consuls’ rods and axe of office, and cleared the path for the consuls to pass through. Now, however, that power of imperium was circumscribed by the limitations of the office.

  For all their attempts to move decisively away from the kings, the aristocratic Roman nobles who founded the republic were careful not to abandon entirely the rule of one man. For times of emergency, they created the office of dictator, to which the consuls could appoint someone to restore control over affairs of state. Once the republic had been safely returned to order, the elected consuls would resume office. Indeed, as the responsibilities of the two consulships increased throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BC, the leading men of state sought to share out the burden of the consuls’ duties by developing subordinate magistracies with more specific tasks. The origins of these other offices are obscure but later in the republic they come to form a clearly defined hierarchy.

  One such office was that of praetor. This post was perhaps created to ease the responsibility of consuls in hearing private legal cases – at first within Rome, but later in trials brought by Romans elsewhere in Italy and abroad. The fact that praetors were also accompanied by attendants (though only six), also carried the power of imperium, and had the privilege of consulting the gods shows that they were like junior consuls. When Rome’s empire developed, the post of praetor would be held by military commanders and governors of Rome’s provinces abroad.

  Several other posts were important to the smooth running of the republic. The office of quaestor originally carried with it the responsibility of assisting the consul in hearing and judging legal trials. (This is suggested by the meaning of quaestor: literally ‘investigator’.) Later it too took on a different character: it came to be associated with managing financial affairs, and, as a result, the post of quaestor became an office akin to that of a minister of the treasury in a modern state. An aedile, on the other hand, was the magistrate who supervised the markets in the city. Perhaps the modern equivalent would be a minister in the Department of Trade and Industry.

  Finally, the responsibility of the censor was to compile a census of Roman citizens every five years. This office, loosely an ancient version of the General Register Office, was much more important than perhaps its task implies, particularly in a military context. The Roman army at this period was not a professional body; it was comprised of simply citizens of the republic. However, because soldiers had to provide their own armour, the process of registering Roman citizens and their respective wealth and property had the consequence of dictating their military obligations to the state. The wealthier had a greater influence within the Roman republic because they brought more wealth and prestige to its army.

  Out of all the holders of these offices a key body of the republic was formed: the Roman Senate. The Senate was a debating chamber and the collective voice of the political élite, and was presided over by the year’s consuls. However, the Senate was not at all like a present-day parliament, such as the US Senate. It was not made up of representatives of Roman citizens; instead it comprised simply ex-office holders. Indeed, senators did not pass laws and had no legal powers. As we shall see, sovereignty belonged not to the Senate but to the adult male citizens who voted in the assemblies of the people for elections and the passing of bills.

  Rather, senators were an advisory body whose decisions were formulated and passed on as guidance to the current office holders. This, however, should not belittle the importance and authority of the Senate. Future and past office holders relied on the approval and support of their colleagues in the aristocratic ruling class for political influence and success in elections. Considering that the office holders would most often come from the Senate, and return to it once their term of office was over, magistrates in the Roman republic ignored the wishes of their fellow senators at the peril of their future political careers.

  This, then, was the basic formation of the Roman republic. The Greek historian Polybius provided an astute analysis of this political system, which he based on knowledge gained while he was held hostage in Rome during the mid-second century BC. It had, he said, using Greek concepts, elements of democracy (elections and the passing of bills in the popular assemblies), oligarchy (the Senate) and monarchy (the consuls). The harmony between these three parts was the source of the republic’s great virtue, its unequalled strength and dynamism. When the three elements worked together, there was nothing that Rome could not achieve, no emergency it could not overcome. Two critically important questions remained, though. Who was eligible for these offices – the aristocratic heads of the leading Roman clans or ordinary Roman citizens? And how did the Romans vote for them? Answering these questions would be the cause of the next great revolution in the development of the Roman republic.

  CONFLICT: PATRICIANS AND THE PLEBS

  In the earliest period of the republic the aristocrats of the old Roman clans held all offices. These men called themselves ‘patricians’, and one argument was typical of the way they justified their complete monopoly on power. Since the time of the Etruscan kings, they explained, they had held all the ancient priesthoods. Their unique knowledge of the gods made them best placed for the decisions of political office; only with that knowledge could the gods’ favour on Rome in the future be guaranteed. The success of the state was considered to be dependent on the gods’ goodwill, making Roman religion of critical importance, both then and throughout Roman history. In the early republic, however, said the patricians, they alone were the gatekeepers to the gods and they alone should hold power.

  The rich leading plebeians (namely, the non-patricians from the rest of the Roman people, known as the plebs) vehemently disagreed with this claim. In the mid-fifth century BC they organized and agitated for re
form. Although they campaigned on a platform of alleviating the economic problems of the poorest plebs, the reality was different: they too wanted their hands firmly on the levers of power. By 366 BC they had notched up their crucial victory: one of the consulships was opened up to candidates from the plebs, and in 172 BC for the first time plebeians held both the consulships. However, this was not quite the radical, meritocratic reform it might appear.

  Wealth was the key to office holding. To secure election to a magistracy, to build up political alliances and support among the plebs and the aristocracy, prospective candidates needed lots of money. As a result, only the richest two per cent of adult male Romans ever reached the consulship. This situation seemed to get worse with the enfranchisement of the rich plebeians because they quickly closed ranks with the patricians and formed a new nobility, admission to which was carefully policed. That, at least, is what noble Romans liked to think. More recently, scholars have shown that the new élite was actually more open than even the Romans thought; the reform of rules relating to eligibility for the consulship helped achieve this. Another consequence of allowing plebeians to become consuls and office holders was not immediately recognized by the Romans, but lay some way off in the future. Later in the history of the republic, when Rome built its empire in Italy and throughout the Mediterranean world, candidates from Roman élites in Italy and the provinces of the empire would be eligible to run for the top offices of the republic. Later still, those provincial élites would even furnish Rome with its emperors.

  It had taken the best part of a century for rich plebeians to find their way to sharing with the patricians the top offices of the Roman state. The struggle of the ordinary plebs in fighting for their political voice also began in the fifth century BC. In order to curb the power of the patrician élite, they used the only leverage they could: an old-fashioned strike. When Rome’s security was being threatened by invading forces in 494 BC, the citizens simply laid down their weapons en masse, took up a position on the Aventine Hill and refused to fight. The plebs’ secession from the republic resulted temporarily in the formation of a state within a state. Instead of asking the rich nobility to provide them with an office in the republic to serve their interests, the Roman citizens, holed up in protest on their hill, simply made up their own. The magistrates they created were called ‘tribunes of the people’. Only when that office became formally recognized by the patricians as part of the state did the struggle, known as ‘the conflict of the orders’, come to an end.