The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (5 page)

Chapter 2
 
Rome FAQ: Hot Topics in Brief

• Four good reasons for Roman conquest
  
• A quick stab at Roman games and spectacles
  
• Roman slaves and slavery
  
• Looking at women and women's lives
  
• Theories for why Rome fell
  

Okay. You have a basic understanding of Roman history and literature. What now? Since we're covering a broad range of times and topics, this book is primarily organized chronologically. But, you know, sometimes you don't
want
to wade around in three periods of Roman history to find a quick, basic answer to something you're interested in. This chapter helps out by providing brief overviews of Roman topics that people most frequently want to know about.

What are the Romans most famous for? In a word, conquest. The Romans had a gift for conquering people. Without it, we wouldn't be reading about their other qualities and contributions to history. In fact, it is largely Roman skills in winning and
maintaining an empire that made the rest possible. Their ability to martial forces and materials, to execute a campaign, to adapt to circumstances, and, above all, to persevere is profoundly impressive. Frighteningly impressive.

The Romans saw themselves as destined by fate and the gods to conquer and rule. Their literature, architecture, and art make it clear that they believed Roman rule of the world was the natural order of things. They seemed to realize that this role had limitations (they didn't think that Romans were best at
everything
), but accepted them as the necessary burdens of those who were responsible for carrying out the practical duties of governance.

 
Lend Me Your Ears
“Others will hammer out bronzes so gracefully that you would think that their statues breathed, and bring out the living features of a face from stone. They will plead cases better, better trace out the wanderings of the heavens with a compass, and name the rising stars. But you, Roman, remember, these are your skills: to govern the peoples with power and to establish the habit of peace; to be sparing of the vanquished and to crush the arrogant in war.”

—Virgil's
Aeneid
6.847–853

The Romans not only conquered well, they also successfully integrated conquered peoples into their system. Being a part of the Roman world had distinct advantages that conquered peoples (especially the elite) came to value. In fact, some of Rome's problems stemmed not from people wanting to escape but from people wanting more rights within the system that they served.

The Romans were incredibly organized, disciplined, and determined. In war, as long as they had space and time, and especially in the area of siege warfare, they were
without equal. Because of their tendency to be deliberate, the Romans were sometimes surprised or caught off guard by quicker and more mobile enemies. But Roman organization and tenacity generally triumphed.

 
Roamin' the Romans
You can visit the spectacular site of a Roman siege at Masada along the Dead Sea. King Herod fortified the site, perched high upon the cliffs, in the first century
B
.
C
.
E
., and Jewish insurgents took refuge there against the Romans after the fall of Jerusalem in
C
.
E
. 69. After waiting at the bottom of the cliffs for two years, the Romans began piling dirt until they built a ramp from which to march into the stronghold in 73—but not before some of the insurgents may have killed themselves (and their families) to avoid capture.

The Roman system of punishments and rewards could be summed up with something like this: “Use some reason in making mandatory compliance bearable, and use terror to make noncompliance unimaginable. Provide examples when necessary.” This applied to both discipline of the military and treatment of enemies.

The rewards for settling with the Romans were often a degree of local autonomy and integration within the Roman orbit. The potential for rewards tapered off quickly as an enemy resisted and then passed into horrific punishments. All right of negotiated surrender for terms ended when the first battering ram hit the wall or gate of the town. After that, Roman reprisals could be so incredibly harsh and far-reaching that everyone thought twice before crossing that line.

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
The word decimate came from the rarely used Roman military punishment of
Decimatio
in which every tenth man of a unit was selected to die. In what was a gruesome and savage twist to group punishment, the selected men had to be beaten or stoned to death by the comrades spared in the lottery. The brutal practice, though seldom used, imprinted our language with words for a terrible, random, and deadly thinning of group members.

Roman games and spectacles are one of the major areas of interest about the Romans to the modern audience. These public entertainment venues grew in size, depravity, and popularity during the last century of the Republic and first century of the Empire. Modern readers focus on the arena games because of the jaw-dropping horror and fascination that they evoke. The Romans' penchant for the grand scale played into this area—they even flooded the Colosseum to create naval battles. It's sobering to contemplate what these events may have to say about Roman mass culture, since they occurred by popular demand.

To be sure, the arena games were big events and had many spectators. But their fans in no way represented a majority; the popularity of the arena paled in comparison to the Romans' love of chariot racing. Whether you compare the number of race tracks to arenas or the size of the crowds at those venues, racing wins by several lengths. The Colosseum, for example, held around 45,000 people. The Circus Maximus held
250,000.

 
Veto!
The most famous Roman entertainment venue is the Colosseum, built in Rome under the emperor Vespasian in
C
.
E
. 72. It held around 45,000 spectators. Nearly destroyed as a rock quarry in the Middle Ages, the Colosseum was protected during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a place of Christian martyrdom. Lots of blood was spilled in the Colosseum but not, however, in Christian persecutions.

Roman games, or
ludi
, originated in festivals and holidays that included public entertainment, much like county fairs. This entertainment began with races and theatrical events and grew, over time, to include arena spectacles of death and carnage. The Romans seemed to have a fascination with death and combat. It's important to keep in mind, however, that the executions and gladiatorial combat were only a part of the public venue. Many Romans deplored the games of the arena and considered them to be a sad and barbaric commentary on both their culture and human nature in general.

The Romans imported thousands upon thousands of animals for their games. Some were killed in mass hunts; others were paired against each other in experimental battles (to see what happened if you pitted an ox against a bear, for example). Lions and tigers were imported in huge numbers and used for killing both other animals and people. Sometimes armed men were pitted against the cats, but most of the time unarmed (and often bound) criminals were thrown into the arenas or other enclosures with them.

 
Lend Me Your Ears
“What fun is it for a civilized person to watch either a helpless man being torn apart by a powerful animal, or some magnificent beast stabbed over and over with a spear? Even if this was something to behold, you've seen it often enough already, and I, who was watching there, saw nothing new. The last day was for the elephants. The huge crowd was genuinely impressed, but didn't really enjoy it very much. In fact, there was a kind of sympathy for the elephants, and an impression that there was some connection between that large animal and humans.”

—From Cicero's
Letters to His Friends,
2.1

Mosaics from the Villa Romana at Piazza Armerina, Sicily show animals, such as this elephant, being loaded in Africa for transport to Rome.

 
Roamin' the Romans
If you visit Sicily, head north from Gela to Piazza Armerina. There you'll find a wonderfully preserved third-century Roman villa alive with floor mosaics. Many of the mosaics feature scenes of animals being imported from Africa just a short sail away.

The arena games also featured human combat. At one end of the spectrum were serial executions in which an armed criminal fought (and killed) an unarmed criminal. The winner was disarmed and the next (armed) opponent brought out. This scenario was repeated until all had been killed in some manner. At the other end of the spectrum were highly trained gladiators who often fought to the death. The gladiators were slaves owned and trained by the owner of a gladiator school. Some of them developed huge popular followings just like present-day World Wrestling Federation stars. A very, very few eventually won their freedom.

Human combat or punishments sometimes took on the absurd and theatrical. The emperor Nero put aristocratic women in the arena to fight each other. The emperor Domitian pitted women against dwarfs. Commodus (the evil emperor of the movie
Gladiator
) put cripples in the arena to fight each other and finished them off himself. Theatrical performances took on deadly twists of realism: Some arena productions included plays with real murders, and in one “performance,” a man was burned alive to reenact the funeral pyre of Hercules (must have been a one-night-only showing).

 
Veto!
When a gladiator or other contestant was beaten but still alive, it was up to the gladiator owner or emperor to decide his fate. The crowd joined in like a game show audience, shouting, waving handkerchiefs, and signaling thumbs up or down for whether they wished to have the contestant finished off or spared. But where we use the “thumbs up” sign to signal “good job” or “yes,” the Roman thumbs up (
police verso
) probably signified
Jugula!
(“Cut his throat!”)—the last thing the contestant wanted to see.