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ATHENS AND ROME: ‘A Tale of Two Cities’
Athens – 510-338 B.C.
The Mediterranean Sea stands at the meeting point of three continents:
Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since homo sapiens arrived at its shores over
50,000 years ago, and floated primitive rafts onto its waters, this mighty sea
has carried ideas, people, and goods from continent to continent; and it has
fostered the development – and collapse – of great civilisations.
In 510 B.C. Athens was not the capital of an united Greece as it is today.
Greeks were scattered around the eastern and central Mediterranean in
settlements amongst foreign peoples in modern Turkey, Sicily, Italy, Africa,
the Balkans, the Black Sea, Crete, Cyprus, and other Aegean islands – as well
as modern Greece itself. And although they saw themselves (more or less)
as one people, the hundreds of Greek communities around these shores
were nevertheless independent states. Athens was just one of these ‘city
states’ – so called because each was centred on a single city, with land and
smaller settlements around it.
Its name, reflecting this crucial position, means ‘Sea at the Middle of the
Earth’ in Latin – the language of the city of Rome. The Romans, in fact, didn’t
call it the ‘Mediterranean’, but ‘mare nostrum’: ‘our Sea’. Both our name for
the Mediterranean, and the Romans’ possessive title, say something about
our respective attitudes. Yet while people around the world might quibble
that the Mediterranean is quite the ‘centre of the earth’, there is no doubting
its crucial role in worldwide history; and the role of two cities, Athens and
Rome, in particular.
In 2016 A.D., Europe is dominated by a new power, the European Union,
and Italy and Greece are two relatively minor members of that club. But two
and a half millennia before, in 510 BC, events were transpiring in each of
the two cities that would see them achieve a position of unrivalled
importance in world history. This is why both cities are still so intensively
studied today.
The sea ‘at the centre of the earth’: a
reconstruction of a Roman world map, with east
at the top. The three known continents, Europe
(left), Asia (top) and Africa (right), wrap
themselves around a central point: the
Mediterranean. The spiky peninsulas of Italy and
Greece project into the sea from the left.
SUMMER PROJECT WORK:
Read, highlight, & annotate this
article; then read or watch 2-3 books
or films from the list on p20.
Each Greek city state had its own traditions, its own heroes, its own local
versions of the multiple Greek gods – and its own means of government.
Many states were ruled by individual kings or by collections of wealthy
nobles. Sparta, the most powerful Greek city state, was dominated by rich
aristocratic families, and a strange system in which two kings ruled at once.
Athens, until 510, was ruled by dictators – first Peisistratos, then his sons
Hipparchos and Hippias. In 510 BC, however, the Athenians, with help from
Spartan troops, overthrew Hippias. The Spartans and those on their side
within Athens now wanted control, while others wanted to form a
‘democracy’ - demokratia, a Greek word meaning ‘rule of the people’. In
508/7, the latter group won out, brushing the Spartans aside.
The Spartans hoped that their intervention in 510 would win gratitude and
compliance from a newly ‘free’ Athens – a hope many a ‘liberating’ power
has held in vain throughout history (witness some of the USA’s 20th and 21st
century experiences). In fact, they helped to create their greatest rival, and
a thorn in their side for the next hundred years and more. It was the new
democracy of Athens, established in 508/7 B.C., that would rise to a position
of dominance in Greece and the eastern Mediterranean; make strides in art,
thought and culture that still have a profound influence today; and engage
in direct and indirect jostling with Sparta, until their own mutually assured
destruction in the later fifth century BC.
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THE PERSIAN WARS BEGIN – 492-480 BC
But democratic Athens’ first great enemy was not Sparta, but Persia. The
Persians were a tribal people from Iran who in the sixth century BC had
expanded their power into the largest empire the world had ever seen. By
510 BC, the Persian King of Kings ruled the whole of the Middle East, from
Afghanistan to Egypt. He had also brought Asia Minor (modern Turkey)
under his control, including many Greek city states on the western coast. It
must be remembered that at the time, this was most of the world as known
to either Greeks or Persians. Persia was a true superpower.
TROY
GREECE
THERMOPYLAE
ATHENS
PersIan
EmpIre
SPARTA
BATTLE SITES
TOWNs /
City states
Above: Greece in 510. Below: the Persian Empire. Greece is found in the far left hand corner of this vast area.
PersIan EmpIre
510 B.C.
Attacking superpowers, or helping others to do so, can be a satisfying but
dangerous move, as the Taliban discovered in 2001; and Athens found the
same two and a half millennia ago. In the 490s BC, some Greek cities in
Turkey rebelled against the control of the Persians and appealed for help
from Greeks abroad. Sparta refused; Athens agreed. Athens and the rebel
cities between them marched to the local Persian capital, Sardis (see map),
and burned it. Imagine New York in September 2001; and imagine the
response. The rage of the world’s only superpower was terrifying.
The rebellion was crushed, the Greek cities punished, and the Athenians
retreated back to their own city across the sea. But they were far from safe.
In 492, the Persian King Darius (Daryash in the original Persian), still
smarting at this tiny city’s barefaced cheek, launched an invasion, pouring
ships across the Aegean towards Greece. As fate would have it, this great
fleet was beaten and battered by storms, and the invasion abandoned. A
second invasion in 490 landed a great force at Marathon, near Athens; but
the Athenians, on their home soil, were able to defeat the invaders. (The
slightly distorted legend of a lone runner dashing the 26 miles from
Marathon to Athens gave the modern race its name and distance.) Against
all the odds, Athens had survived. But the Persians had unfinished business
with this paltry little barbarian city across the sea.
In 480, Darius’ son and successor Xerxes (Hsharyasha) launched his own
invasion of Greece. This one was much more successful, and his armies –
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hundreds of thousands of troops, so Athenian historians tell us – poured
down the Greek peninsula, enlisting allies and destroying cities as they
went. The southern Greek city-states, including Athens, allied together to
fight the Persian menace. 300 Spartans, the greatest fighters of the Greek
world, held the Persian multitude at the narrow pass of Thermopylae. For
days on end they fought and died, one by one, before they were finally
betrayed, encircled and destroyed. Their story does not need the
pyrotechnics and CGI of the film ‘300’ to render it an astonishing tale of
bravery and self-sacrifice. An inscription they left in the narrow pass read:
‘O go and tell the Spartans, passer-by,
that here, obedient to their will, we lie.’
There was no-one left to carry that message in person.
The Spartan blockade, broken though it was, may have saved Greece, by
giving their arch-rivals the Athenians time to decide on their own strategy.
In Athens, in the assembly of the people, where decisions were debated and
voted on, there was panic. The god Apollo had spoken through his oracle
(holy prophet) at Delphi, telling the Athenians to
The pass at Thermopylae. In ancient times the sea reached the point the road follows now; sea and cliffs
allowed the Spartans to resist, until the Persians were shown a mountaintop route to outflank them.
VICTORY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES – 480-431 BC
…and for the deeply religious Athenians, this phrase formed the heart of
their debate. How were these words to be interpreted? Should they build
wooden walls to defend themselves? Why of wood, not stone? Where
should they build them? Or could the oracle mean siege towers?
Although the decision to abandon the city must have seemed horrific when
the destruction began, it proved the key to victory in the war against the
Persians. The massive Persian fleet which had accompanied the invading
army now entered the narrow waters around Athens, confident of victory.
But emerging from around the island of Salamis the Athenian fleet, an entire
people at sea, desperate and cornered, won the victory (nike) of their lives.
The Persians lost their fleet, and thousands of soldiers.
At last, a noble named Themistokles persuaded his fellow citizens that the
‘wooden walls’ mentioned by the god were the wooden hulls of ships, and it
was voted to abandon the city to the Persians’ wrath. The entire city fled to
the fleet and shortly after, the Persian horde descended on Athens. It was
payback time for the looting of Sardis. Houses and temples were burned,
sacred groves trashed, treasures looted. The people of Athens could only
watch in horror from their ships as the black smoke spread.
Xerxes, watching from his splendid throne on the Athenian mainland,
sobbed in rage and disbelief. For him, the sight of his glorious, worldconquering troops and ships, foundering and drowning, must have been
impossible to accept; as the 1975 images of Americans, fleeing in panic from
the rooftops of the US embassy in South Vietnam, were to the USA. This was
the shock, horror and humiliation of a superpower defeated, by what
should have been an insignificant band of outnumbered foreigners. In 479,
put their trust in wooden walls…
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Athens, Sparta and their allies finally defeated the Persians on land at
Plataea, just outside Thebes, and Xerxes retreated in humiliation.
In the wake of the Persian defeat, Athens rode high on a wave of triumph
and prestige. Athenian sea power had proved the key to victory and was
now to form the foundation of a lucrative empire. As Sparta retreated into
isolation, afraid to entangle itself further with foreign adventures, Athens
gathered a league of Greek islands and states under its own leadership and
began to harry and harass the Persians in Asia Minor. In the following
decades this league won some victories against the Persians, but its real
significance was to allow Athens to spread and secure her power. Within a
few decades, the ‘League’ had become an Athenian empire.
The wealth from this Empire; the cosmopolitan culture of the imperial city;
the opportunities for leisure and contemplation that the rich were afforded;
and the enquiring culture of the Greeks; all led to developments in the city
of Athens, in the rest of the fifth century, that were to have a worldwide
impact. A few of these developments will be explored below.
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Literature: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were composed in the 7th or 6th
centuries BC, but in 5th century Athens, they were unparalleled in literary
and moral influence. Their epic stories of war, love and adventure have
been as influential in world literature as almost any other work. They
should be read, in some form, by anyone hoping to get to grips with Greek
culture – and, indeed, later Western literature. Even Hollywood made an
attempt: Troy is a starting point (though very different from the original!).
Drama: Drama, theatron, tragedos, komoidia, orchestra, skene, choros
(‘drama’, ‘theatre’, ‘tragedy’, ‘comedy’, ‘orchestra’, ‘scene’, ‘chorus’) – all are
Greek words, and this is no accident. Greek plays, growing out of religious
rituals and performed during festivals, were the first plays in the world.
They were the ancestors of all subsequent Western theatre, from Roman
drama, to Shakespeare, to Brecht. The bloody pattern of Greek tragedy
informs later tragedies from Hamlet to Reservoir Dogs.
These plays are key sources for Greek attitudes to, for example, history and
society. Aeschylus’ The Persians dramatises the horror of the defeated
eastern empire, and is a fascinating text for anyone studying the Persian
Wars. The plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides give fantastic (male)
portrayals of women: dominant, dominated; violent, violated; whorish,
hypocritical – and always memorable. Aristophanes lampoons Euripides’
portrayal of women in his later comedy Thesmophoriazusae.
Philosophy: Greek philosophers were striving to understand the world
before the fifth century but it was in Athens that the foundation of western
philosophy (philosophia, ‘the love of wisdom’), and truly logical enquiry,
began – with Socrates, his pupil Plato, and later Plato’s own pupil, Aristotle
(who in turn taught Alexander the Great).
Staff and soldiers evacuate the US embassy in Saigon, capital of South Vietnam, April 30 th, 1975.
Art and architecture: Greek naturalistic sculpture, art and architecture
had a great influence on Rome, and on the artistic movements of the
Renaissance and later Europe. The sculptures of the Parthenon in Athens
enthralled English nobility in the 19th century, when Lord Elgin hauled
them back to the British Museum in London. They are still there today.
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Politics: ‘Politics’ is yet another Greek word, ta politika – ‘things to do with
the affairs of the polis (the city-state)’. The Athenian political model of
demokratia, democracy, has had a profound influence.
History: The Persian Wars brought about the first work of real ‘history’ – a
true attempt to get to the bottom of what really happened in the past,
discarding myth and folktale. This was Herodotus’ Historia, Greek for
‘Enquiries’. His successor Thucydides wrote about the next great war to
consume Athens, the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, and was critical of
Herodotus; he moved even closer towards history in the modern sense.
THE END FOR ATHENS
ROME – 510 B.C.-14 A.D.
In the end it was Sparta, with Persian money, that brought about Athens’
demise. In the long and bitter Peloponnesian War that lasted on and off
from 431-404, the two old rivals struggled, and eventually Athens, after
victories, defeats, riots, coups and chaos, fell to the Spartans. Few lamented
the city’s fall. Its glories had been built on military power and slavery, as
well as heroic victories and a marvellous flowering of culture.
Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were
dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was
fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was
ambitious, I slew him.
However, just as in 510, Spartan interference in Athens was to be shortlived. The pattern of a powerful Greek polis (city-state) winning enmity
through arrogance and brutality repeated itself, and the Greeks turned
against Sparta just as they had resented Athens. Sparta struggled to
maintain its dominance until in 371 it was beaten by the city-state of
Thebes. Then the pattern repeated yet again: in 362 yet another league of
Greek city-states (including both Athens and Sparta) halted the ambitions
of a powerful city – Thebes – that had grown too sizeable for its sandals.
So speaks Brutus in William Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. On 15th March,
44 B.C., Brutus and others had murdered the most powerful man in Rome,
the title character of Shakespeare’s play and Brutus’ own close friend.
These lines speak of Brutus’ love and admiration for Caesar, but also give
his motive: ‘as he was ambitious, I slew him’. The murderers feared (and
envied) Caesar’s growing personal power in a state that was unremittingly
hostile to the idea of tyranny, kingship, and personal rule. Romans wanted
‘to live all free men’; would murdering one man keep all of them free?
But the era of the city-states, and their squabbling, was coming to an end.
Greece’s northern neighbour, Macedonia, had developed a powerful
kingdom. In 338 King Philip of Macedon defeated the Greek cities and took
control of the whole of Greece. His son, Alexander, earned the title ‘Great’
when he repeated Xerxes’ great invasion in reverse, and toppled the Persian
Empire. But that is another history, and another Hollywood film.
In fact, within a couple of decades, in the wake of the brutal civil wars that
followed Caesar’s murder, the Republic was dead and a true monarchy in
all but name had been established. Rome had grown and flourished as a
Republic – indeed it had an empire long before it had an Emperor – but it
continued to expand under imperial rule. The development of this most
influential Empire is explored below, beginning, once again, in 510 B.C.
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THE BIRTH OF THE REPUBLIC – 510 B.C.
Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king.
Shakespeare’s Brutus again, here steeling himself to carry through the
murder. This Brutus - Marcus Brutus - had a significant ancestry. It was his
ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus who, in 510 B.C., had led a revolt against the
hated last King of Rome (Tarquinius - ‘the Tarquin’). It was this revolt that
founded the Republic, and Rome’s hatred of tyranny: never again would
their free city ‘stand under one man’s awe’. These world-changing events
were underway in Italy while in Greece, Spartan troops helped Athens rid
itself of its own dictator (see above, p.2).
So by historical coincidence the two greatest cities of classical antiquity
overthrew their respective tyrannies in the same year, hundreds of miles
apart, and only hazily aware of each other at the time. But very different
political systems grew from the two revolts. Whereas in Athens a truly
‘direct’ democracy grew up – sufficiently direct to risk ‘mob rule’ – in Rome
the power of the people was limited. They could participate in politics only
indirectly, through elected ‘tribunes’. These put their case before the city’s
true rulers: the Senate (a kind of ‘Parliament’), exclusively reserved for
those who were not only rich, but also aristocratic.
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THE FIRST PUNIC WAR – 264-241 B.C.
The early growth of Rome’s Empire was spurred, as with that of Athens, by
clashes with an ‘eastern’ empire. Rome’s great enemy was the city of
Carthage in modern Tunisia, a colony of the Phoenician people from
modern Israel and Palestine (so geographically southern, but culturally
‘eastern’). The Carthaginians were great traders and seafarers, having even
traded as far as Britain; and they had built a powerful empire in the western
Mediterranean, in North Africa, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. It was this
sphere of influence that the Roman Republic threatened to disrupt.
These two powers dominated the western Mediterranean but had very
different strengths: Carthage had one of the world’s most powerful navies
but no standing army, while Rome had a strong army but no navy to speak
of. In 264, a local dispute on the island of Sicily blew up into all-out war
between the two great powers. After twenty years of war, the Romans had
developed a powerful navy, based on Carthaginian designs; and learned
how to use it, following Carthaginian tactics. They beat the Carthaginians at
their own game and took sole control of Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia.
As the state expanded, power was constantly renegotiated and
redistributed, but never approached the level of democratic involvement
that was found in Athens. Just as in Athens, women, slaves, and foreigners
were excluded from politics; though Roman women generally had more
economic freedom and social opportunities than female Athenians. As the
Empire expanded, citizen privileges were only slowly extended to other
Italian peoples. Finally some conquered peoples were granted similar
voting rights; but ironically, this widening of political representation only
occurred under the dictator Julius Caesar, and the all-powerful Emperors.
Above: Carthage as it might have looked; figurines of the Phoenician and Carthaginian chief god Baal (about
whom much hostile propaganda can be found in the Bible); a shrine to his divine wife Tanit.
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THE SECOND PUNIC WAR – 218-201 B.C.
In the wake of their defeat, the Carthaginians built up their empire in Iberia
(modern Spain), but never forgot the insult of Rome’s victory. In 218 B.C.,
the great Carthaginian general Hannibal set out to take revenge from the
city of ‘New Carthage’ (modern Cartagena). Hannibal’s plan was to take the
battle to Rome on its own territory, through a massive land invasion
launched into the very heart of Italy itself. To do so he had to march across
the Pyrenees, through southern Gaul, and over the frozen, storm-battered
Alps (see left). No-one could be expected to be able to take tens of
thousands of soldiers through such hostile terrain. Hannibal did.
Above left: ‘Hannibal Crossing the Alps’ by British artist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851); the
tempestuous image suggests something of the hardships Hannibal’s army faced.
Above right: this silver Carthaginian coin from the time of the Second Punic War depicts one of Hannibal’s
famous war elephants. The figure on the reverse is a Phoenician god, Melqart, but could also be a portrait of
Hannibal or a member of his family. The laurel wreath and club point to Carthage’s cosmopolitan influences, for
this eastern God looks very much like the Greek hero Herakles. The style is also very like Greek and Roman coins.
Below: the Second Punic War, showing the rival Empires, Hannibal’s route and significant battles.
GAUL
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR
218-201 B.C.
TICINUS
TREBIA
. MASSILIA
Trasimene
CORSICA
IBERIA
CANNAE
ROME
MaCEDONIA
SARDINIA
SAgundum
GREECE
NEW CARTHAGE
CARTHAGE
SICILY
ZAMA
AFRICA
THE
MEDITERRANEAN
SEA
His army contained Carthaginians, Iberians, and Africans, but he also
persuaded or paid Gallic and Italian tribes to join what he portrayed as a
‘liberating’ expedition. His army also consisted of African war elephants:
trumpeting and snorting, enormous and armoured, the ancient equivalent
of tanks, these vast creatures terrified the Romans and European tribes,
who had never seen them. A Roman army sailed to Massilia (Marseilles) to
intercept Hannibal, but missed him. In the Alps, he smashed two Roman
armies at Ticinus and Trebia. He trapped, ambushed and utterly defeated
the main Roman army by the shores of Lake Trasimene in 217 B.C.; and in
216 B.C. massacred around 50-70,000 Romans at the battle of Cannae.
The war was now in a delicate balance. Hannibal’s triumphs in Italy had
terrified Rome, but until the massive military and propaganda victory at
Cannae, he could not be confident of enough Italian support to attack Rome
itself. Meanwhile, Roman armies had been sent to Spain, where they were
achieving great success; war continued at sea and in Sicily; and the kingdom
of Macedonia joined Carthage, after Cannae. After a long wait, Hannibal did
march on Rome, but by then Rome had reinforced the city, and begun to
recover its fortunes in Italy. In the scale of historical hesitations, Hannibal’s
in Italy was perhaps as significant as Hitler’s on the brink of invading
Britain. Without taking Rome, Hannibal could not win; and now Rome was
ready to take the battle to Carthage itself.
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GROWTH OF A REPUBLICAN EMPIRE – 201-146 B.C.
THE LATE REPUBLIC – 146 B.C.-44 B.C.
After years of rebuilding their strength, the Romans were finally able to
despatch an army to Africa under Scipio, later known as ‘Africanus’ for his
exploits. He won a string of victories, and in 203 B.C., Hannibal himself was
finally recalled to his homeland. With an inexperienced army he did not
wish to lead, he faced defeat for the first and last time at the battle of Zama.
The Romans had learned how to deal with his elephants, and again beat the
Carthaginians at their own game: Roman cavalry finally proved themselves
a match for Hannibal’s; Roman tactics, learned from observing Hannibal’s
genius, finally won out. Carthage was beaten. Apart from a brief revolt in
the mid-second century, after which it was burned and symbolically
ploughed with salt, Carthage’s rivalry with Rome was over.
After Carthage’s final defeat in the Third Punic War in 146 B.C., 55 years
after the battle of Zama, the following 100 years in Rome was a history of
political and economic change, and imperial expansion. In the early first
century B.C. the power of individual generals became more and more
important. A series of charismatic generals made politics more a personal
pursuit than a Republican or representative one, taking more and more
power for themselves. This was partly because of ambition, but partly also
because of the weakness and inflexibility of some parts of the old system.
Just as Athens grew from near-destruction to imperial power in the face of
an eastern rival, so had Rome; for after the horrors of the war with
Hannibal, Carthage’s empire fell into Rome’s hands. It is usual to draw a
distinction between the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire, for
the word ‘Empire’ suggests the existence of an ‘Emperor’; but the Roman
Republic itself possessed an international empire, in a more general sense,
from the point when it first clashed with Carthage.
This empire drove political change in Rome in several ways: firstly, the
riches and trading opportunities of the Empire helped to develop a
significant class of wealthy individuals, equites, who were not aristocratic
and could not sit on the Senate, but nevertheless demanded a greater and
greater share of power. Secondly, the flood of slaves and ex-soldiers from
the colonies led to unemployment and a shortage of land, problems which
were to bedevil the Roman state for decades (and give those seeking power
excellent causes to use for their own ends). Finally, military opportunities
to win fame and glory, build a strong power-base among one’s own troops,
and finally, bring those troops home and reward them with land in Italy,
made individual generals a much more powerful and significant force than
many in Republican Rome would like.
In 61 B.C., three generals, Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar, made an agreement
known as the first ‘Triumvirate’ which effectively split power between
them. By 49 B.C., Crassus was dead, and some in Rome had helped turn
Pompey against Caesar. Caesar, who had been put in charge of the province
of Gaul (France), was faced with the prospect of being excluded from power.
In 49 B.C. he took the almost unprecedented step of marching against Rome
itself with an army, crossing into Italy against the express orders of the
Senate. When he had done so, he declared: alea jacta est; ‘the die is cast’. He
had staked everything on a last throw of the dice.
Caesar’s gamble paid off, and Pompey fled. Although Caesar’s march had
not been expressly against Rome itself, but against his personal enemies,
many saw it as a sign that personal and military power had become more
important in Rome than aristocratic authority, or popular support.
Subsequent events proved this quite true. Caesar became dictator, a term
for an individual appointed to protect the State. He transferred much power
to himself and his allies, and reorganised the state in ways that deeply
offended some traditionalists: for example, he extended the membership of
the Senate from 600 to 900, opening it to ‘new money’ equites as well as to
aristocrats. It is little surprise that those who assassinated him were
themselves aristocratic senators. That fateful day in 44 B.C. ushered in a
new civil war, and ultimately, gave rise to a far more powerful ruler even
than Caesar: the first Emperor, Augustus.
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CIVIL WAR AND THE BIRTH OF THE EMPIRE – 44 B.C.-14 A.D.
After Caesar’s death, his allies moved against his murderers. Mark
Anthony’s famous ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen’ speech in Shakespeare’s
‘Julius Caesar’ is a masterpiece of persuasive rhetoric, designed to sway the
Roman mob against Brutus and his friends. The real Marcus Antonius, a
close friend of Caesar’s, allied himself with Caesar’s adopted son Gaius
Octavianus, and his old colleague Marcus Lepidus, to form the Second
Triumvirate. With popular support they chased the murderers from Rome,
and subsequently defeated them in battle. Brutus committed suicide.
The second Triumvirate took on all the powers that Caesar himself had
held. Rome had not become any more free, but nor was she even at peace;
this Triumvirate, like the first, did not last. First Lepidus was sidelined, then
Anthony and Octavian turned against one another. Octavian, ruling the
West of the Empire, had great support in Rome itself; Anthony, ruling the
East, earned suspicion through his relationship with Cleopatra, Queen of
Egypt (Caesar’s former lover), and his adoption of eastern ways. At last the
tension between the two grew into open warfare, and at the battle of
Actium in 31 B.C Anthony’s eastern Roman navy and Egyptian allies were
smashed by Octavian’s armies. Octavian was still only 32.
Back in Rome, Octavian used a combination of ruthlessness, his vast wealth,
superb propaganda and widespread support to consolidate his position. He
took on all the powers Caesar and the Triumvirate had held, and more. In
27 B.C. he was given the title Augustus, ‘honoured one’, and Princeps, ‘first
citizen’, by the Senate. Even as he was granted far-reaching powers for life,
he was still able to present himself as the restorer of the Republic. Indeed
he cleverly left some responsibilities with the Senate, but through his own
awarded powers and great wealth he was still able to exert effectively
monarchical authority. He was also awarded the title Imperator –
‘commander’ – now translated ‘Emperor’. His rule was long, and generally
peaceful and just. When he died in 14 A.D., Rome had truly become an
Imperial power. The Roman Republic had come to an end.
Augustus’ propaganda:
statues of Augustus as
general, senator, religious
leader and god; coin with
inscription reading
‘Caesar Augustus, son of
the god (Julius Caesar)
and father of the nation’;
and Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’, an
epic poem in the style of
Homer, written to glorify
Rome – and Augustus.
THE EMPIRE AND ITS LEGACY
Augustus’ successors in his own family, and subsequent dynasties,
continued to rule Rome and her Empire with varying degrees of success and
justice. Some Emperors were models of wisdom and restraint; others were
inbred, mad, perverted and sadistic, like Nero, Caligula or Commodus
(depicted, with only some exaggeration, in Gladiator). Rome’s impact in its
provinces ranged from slaughter and oppression to peace, public order and
infrastructure; her culture from beautiful, eternal works of genius, to the
mass slaughter of Christians and criminals for entertainment. Rome
imposed its will on millions through force of arms; yet left enduring notions
of liberty and justice. Rome worshipped Greek gods and often persecuted
Christians; yet one of its greatest legacies is the spread of Christianity
throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. Rome and Rome’s legacy were,
and are, full of contradictions.
The bounds of the Empire continued to expand to cover most of Western
and Southern Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, and it is for this
reason that Rome’s influence on world history has been so great. The
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eastern half of the Empire became a Christian state, Byzantium, that still
saw itself as Roman and endured until the 1400s. The western Empire was
looked back on with nostalgia by emerging western kingdoms which
became the ancestors of modern European states. Rome has remained the
seat of the most powerful man in any Christian Church, the Pope, from the
days of St Peter until now. When Russian and German monarchs called
themselves ‘Czar’ and ‘Kaiser’, they were in fact calling themselves Caesar.
Rome left works of art and philosophy like the works of Cicero, Caesar,
Horace, Juvenal, and above all, Virgil, which formed the foundation of
western education for more than a millennium. Yet unlike Greece, its
greatest contribution was through empire rather than culture. Its influence,
even on Britain, the furthest corner of the Empire, is hard to overstate. In
our legal traditions, our education system, the dominance of Christianity,
Rome’s legacy can be traced; and even in our language itself.
CONCLUSION
These two cities in the Mediterranean have had more impact on the course
of western history and culture than almost any other place or people, and
through the West, their impact can now be felt around the world. The
slightly arbitrary date of 510 nevertheless marks a starting point in both
their histories; a shift to new models of government and politics that had
something, if not everything, to do with their success.
The narrative offered above is a quite personal and sketchy outline of these
two great cities, their empires, and their legacy, but it provides a framework
for understanding their histories. Hopefully it also offers a starting point for
grasping why it is that out of all the world’s rich and varied past we in
Britain, in the twenty-first century, should still study and care about these
two particular cities. Whether it is through a study of the place of women in
their society; of the great Persian or Punic Wars; or of Virgil’s Aeneid,
written to honour the author’s master, Augustus; understanding the tale of
these two cities helps us understand ourselves.
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SOME FURTHER READING / WATCHING
(* = essential to at least dip in to)
Classical
*
Homer, The Iliad
*
Homer, The Odyssey
*
Virgil, The Aeneid
Aeschylus, The Persians
Sophocles, Antigone
Euripides, Trojan Women, Bacchae, Medea
*
Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria a.k.a. The Poet and the Women
Modern
Kelly, C., The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction
Beard, M., and Henderson, J., Classics: A Very Short Introduction
Goscinny, R., and Uderzo, A., the Asterix series
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra
Films
Troy, dir. Wolfgang Petersen (2004)
Alexander, dir. Oliver Stone (2004)
Gladiator, dir. Ridley Scott (2000)
Spartacus, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1960)
Cleopatra, dir. Joseph Mankiewicz (1963)
The Life of Brian, dir. Terry Jones (1979)
300, dir. Zack Snyder (2006)