ATHENS AND ROME: ‘A Tale of Two Cities’

The Mediterranean Sea stands at the meeting point of three continents:

Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since our species 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.

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’, say something about our

attitudes. Yet while people around the world might quibble that the

Mediterranean is the ‘centre of the earth’, there is no doubting its crucial

role in world history; and two cities, Athens and Rome, in particular.

In 2017 A.D. in Rome, the Pope still faces questions about his Church’s

involvement in abuse scandals worldwide. Athens, now the capital of a

united Greece, still struggles as one of the economically weakest members

of the Eurozone. But two and a half millennia ago, in 511-507BC, 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.

Athens – 51-338 B.C.

In 510 B.C. Athens was not the capital of a united ‘Greece’ as it is today.

Greeks were scattered around the Mediterranean in settlements amongst

foreign peoples in modern Turkey, Sicily, Italy, Africa, the Balkans, the

Black Sea, France, Spain, Crete, Cyprus, and other Aegean islands – as well

as modern Greece itself. And although they saw themselves (more or less)

as one people, speaking one language, the hundreds of Greek communities

around these shores were totally independent states (‘countries’). 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.

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; a strange system in which two kings ruled at once;

and a completely militarised warrior class of citizens. Athens, until 510,

was ruled by dictators or ‘tyrants’, most lately Hippias. In 510, however,

the Athenians, with help from Sparta, overthrew Hippias. The Spartans

and their allies 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 (as in 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 they

tore each other apart in the later fifth century BC.

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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.

THE PERSIAN WARS BEGIN – 492-480 BC – your Unit Two (Year 12!)

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.

Attacking superpowers, or helping others to do so, can be a dangerous

move. The Taliban discovered this in 2001, and Athens did 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 (the

Ionian Revolt, 499-4BC: see map, 1). Sparta refused; Athens agreed.

Athens and the rebel cities marched to the local Persian capital, Sardis

(see map), and burned it. Imagine New York in September 2001; and 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 490, the Persian King Darius (Daryash in the original Persian), still

raging at this tiny city’s barefaced cheek, launched an invasion, pouring

ships and men across the Aegean towards Greece (see map, 2). The

generals he sent to lead the invasion (he himself remained in Persia)

landed their 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

survived. But the Persians had unfinished business with what was for

them an arrogant little foreign city over the sea.

In 480, Darius’ son and successor Xerxes (Hsharyasha) launched his own

invasion of Greece (see map, 3). This one was much more successful, and

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Above: Greece in 510. Below: the Persian Empire. Greece is found in the far left hand corner of this vast area.

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1. Ionian Revolt, 499-4BC

2. Darius’ invasion, 490BC

3. Xerxes’ invasion 480BC

his armies – ‘millions’ of troops, Greek 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 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

put their trust in wooden walls…

…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?

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’ rage. 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.

VICTORY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES – 480-431 BC

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 Athenians

and their allies, desperate and cornered, won the victory (nike) of their

lives. The Persians lost their fleet, and thousands of soldiers.

Xerxes, watching from his splendid throne on the Athenian mainland,

sobbed in rage and disbelief. For him, the sight of his glorious, world-

conquering 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.

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The pass at Thermopylae. The sea is just out of shot on the right; the sea and the cliffs allowed the Spartans

to maintain their defence, until the Persians were shown a secret mountaintop route to outflank them.

In 479, 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 now

formed the basis of a profitable 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

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 study that the rich were given; 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.

Literature: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were composed in the 8th, 7th or 6th

centuries BC, and had a vast influence but in Athens. Their epic stories of

war, love and adventure have been as influential in world literature as any

other work. They should be read by anyone hoping to get to grips with

Greek culture – and later literature. Even Hollywood made an attempt:

Troy is a starting point (though very different from the original!). We will

study Homer’s Odyssey as our Unit 1 (starting in September).

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 (which we study in unit 2)

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 portrayals of heroes, villains,

murderers, prophets, gods, cheats, victims... including the great play

Medea, about a wronged and vengeful woman, which we study in unit 2.

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).

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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Staff and soldiers evacuate the US embassy in Saigon, capital of South Vietnam, April 30th, 1975.

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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

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.

However, just as in 510, Spartan interference in Athens was to be short-

lived. 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 Thebes – yet another state that had grown too sizeable for its sandals.

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.

ROME – 510 B.C.-14 A.D.

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.

So speaks Brutus in William Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. On 15th March,

44 B.C., Brutus and others 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 Caesar’s

growing personal power in a state that was ceaselessly 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?

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 in 511 B.C.

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THE BIRTH OF THE REPUBLIC – 511 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 511 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 few years, 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 – almost ‘mob rule’ – in Rome the power

of the people was limited. They could participate in politics only

indirectly, through elected officials and ‘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.

As the state expanded, power was constantly reformed and shifted, 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.

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.

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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.

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.

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 in 1940. Without taking Rome, Hannibal could

not win; and now Rome was ready to take the battle to Carthage itself.

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.

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GROWTH OF A REPUBLICAN EMPIRE – 201-146 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.

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.

THE LATE REPUBLIC – 146 B.C.-44 B.C.

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.

In 61 B.C., three generals, Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar, made an

agreement known as the first ‘Triumvirate’ which split power between

them. By 49 B.C., Crassus was dead (died 53BC), 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. We study the Triumvirate, their

ambitions, their politics, and their opponents in Unit 3 (Year 13).

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.

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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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.

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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 sketchy outline of these two great

cities, their empires, countries, and 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 21st century, should still study and care about these two

particular places. Whether it is through a study of Homer’s Odyssey (Unit

1A); of Virgil’s Aeneid, written to honour the author’s master, Augustus

(Unit 1B); of the Persian invasions of Greece in the 480s (Unit 2); or of

Rome’s turbulent politics in the Late Republic (Unit 3) – studying these

two cities and peoples helps us understand ourselves.

SOME FURTHER READING / WATCHING (* = set texts, ** = other

particularly important texts)

Classical

** Homer, The Iliad

* Homer, The Odyssey

* Virgil, The Aeneid

* Aeschylus, The Persians

Sophocles, Antigone

* Euripides, *Medea; other texts of interest, Trojan Women, Bacchae

* The letters of Cicero

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) (…and many more!)

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