Caesar© 1992 Impressions

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Caesar: Copyright Impressions 1992

INTRODUCTION~~~~~~~~~~~~Welcome to the grandeur and glory of imperialRome! It is the first century BC, and the repub-lihas just fallen to the first Emperor, CaesarAugstus. Positions of power change hands as thewould-be masters of the Empire rise and fall in theEmperor's favour.

You are one such ambitious publifigure. Throughpatient skill and hard nosed dealing, you havemanaged to secure the governorship of a provinceof the Roman Empire.

If you can turn the undeveloped backwaterinto a secure and prosperous home for itscitizens, you will rise in rank, and in the Emperorsesteem. If you can repeat that success throughoutyour career, anything is possible - perhaps eventhe throne itself.

ABOUT CAESAR~~~~~~~~~~~~~In Caesar, you job is to govern your province asefficiently as possible. Much of your time will bespent in the capital city of your Province. You willhave to design & build this yourself. Housing,water-supply, industry and many other factors willhave to be balanced to produce a successful city.

However, your citizens do not live in an ideal,insulated world where the only problem is how tospend your money. Beyond the Imperial frontiersare barbarians of many tribes, constantly trying theEmpire's defences. If life under your rule is miser-able or harsh, you will also have to face oppositionfrom within. You must ensure that the entireprovince is well defended, and that safe travelbetween its towns is maintained.

OBJECTIVES~~~~~~~~~~~Your objective in Caesar is to govern your provinceof the Empire sufficiently well that you will bepromoted. If promoted, you will be given control ofa new region where standards must be higher.With enough successes, you could eventually riseto the rank of Emperor yourself.

Your performance as provincial governor will beassessed in four ways:

Peace - the degree of security your people enjoy.

Culture - the publiand cultural amenities avail- able to the citizens.

Prosperity - the wealth you have bought your province.

Empire - the communications and transport network in the region.

You will also have an overall rating based on these factors.You can always get a report on your current performance byconsulting your administrative advisor, from the forum.Click on the base of each pillar in his report for a resumeof the requirements to increase in each rating.To gain promotion, you need to achieve a certain overall rating,and have at least a minimum in each category. You can see what those figures are, again, by going to the forum - this timeto see your political advisor. Once there, just click on your current title.

The imperial favour rating on the same screen gives a moregeneral indication of how important and how competent theEmperor considers you to be.

TITLE IN CAESAR~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~You start the game with the title of Decurian, one level above the citizens of the province. The ranks which existin the game, from lowest to highest are as follows:

Citizen - Decurian - Magistrate - Praefectus - Legate - Quaestor - Senator - Praetor - Consul - Proconsul - Emperor.

INTERFACE INTRODUCTION~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This game has been designed with an easy to use mouse drivenpoint and click interface. Each command you mighyt wantto issue will be associated with an icon (a small picture)on the screen. The icons are always along the bottom ofthe screen.

To give the command, just click on its icon - move the mousepointer onto the icon and firmly press the left mouse button.

Keyboard commands are also included for pusers who do not havea mouse.

COMMAND MODE AND SCROLL MODE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~After you load the game, you will see terrain over all of thescreen except a strip along the bottom - the icons.

The mouse pointer initially looks like an arrow. This means that you are in command mode, and can issue iunstructions by clicking on icons.

If you give a command that needs a location to bespecified (like building something), the pointer willchange - usually into a picture of the thing youwant to build. You are now in Scroll Mode.

Clicking the right mouse button (right clicking)anywhere will also toggle you between the twomodes.

In Scroll Mode, when you move the mouse beyondone of the screen edges, the screen display willmove in that direction up to the border of theterrain area. Both of the main terrain displays inthe game are of an area much larger than what isfirst visible on the screen.

So, if you want to build new houses, say, youmust be in Command Mode and click on the iconthat looks like a house. The pointer will become asmall house, indicating that you are now in scrollmode. You can scroll all around, looking for a goodsight to place your building. Click on a site tochoose it. Having done so, you will stay in ScrollMode, with house-building still the selected com-mand, until you right click, and shift back toCommand Mode.

GETTING STARTED~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Please refer to your technical supplement forinstructions on how to load the oame on yourcomputer.

Having done so, you will be shown the optionsscreen. Here you can either load a partially-finishedgame you saved earlier and carry on, or set theparameters for a new uame.

In a new game, you must first set a difficulty level,which determines how much money you start within each province. You can also personalise thegame by naming your new governor.You can rename your character later, or gain areminder of where in the Empire you have beenposted, by clicking on your Name and your prov-ince within the Political Advisor's report (see 'Inthe Forum ').

THE CITY LEVEL AND THE PROVINCIAL LEVEL~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Once past the options screen, you will be shownthe area where you must build your new city.Initially, this 'City Level' is a bare landscape ofrocks and trees. It is here that you will clear theway for housing, hospitals, schools and all theother buildings of the capital. Eventually, most ofthis countryside may become a bustling urbanlandscape.

Whenever you take control of a new province, theterrain of the City Level will be generated randomlyso as to maximise replay value.

If you click on the arrow icon on the left, you willbe taken from the City Level to the ProvincialLevel. This shows the whole province, not just thesmall area selected for the new Capital. The mostimportant elements here are your main city and thelarger towns of the region. You must add roadsand walls, and base garrisons where you expecttrouble. The red battle standard next to the build-ings marking your city represents the Prima Cohors- your first cohort of soldiers.

The shape of the Provincial Level will reflect theactual province you are in.

TIME IN CAESAR~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~While you are looking at the City Level or theProvincial Level, time is always ticking away inCaesar. You can pause the game by clicking on theDisk Options icon and choosing Pause.

Time also stops when you leave the two maindisplays altogether - for example when you consultyour advisors in the forum, or inspect a Mini Map.

THE MINI MAPS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~As well as the normal City Level, there are anumber of small 'Mini Maps', each of whichsummarises information about one specifiaspect ofthe city, all on one screen. Select the Mini Mapicon, and you are presented with the following listof available maps.

Land Shape Water Distribution Land Value Administration Trouble Areas Road Layout Urbanisatinn

Below that, the name of the map currently se-lected for display is given. This is the map that isactually shown to the left of the list. Click on thebutton next to an item on the list to select it. Notethat most Mini Maps will initially look very boring -a display of your road layout won't be too interest-ino until you have built some roads.

IN THE FORUM~~~~~~~~~~~~The large F icon will take you to the forum - theadministrative centre of your city. Here you cancheck up on the state of various things, and getinformation from your main advisors and assist-ants.

Each of the six figures in the picture is such anassistant. To get a report from any one of them,just click directly on them. From left to right, theyare:

The Political Advisor (BIue clooked man)The Military Advisor (Red uniformed soldier)The Financial Analyst (Man with blue robe)The Treasurer (Orange robed man)The Administrative (White robed &Advisor hooded man)The Slave Foreman (Man in white tunic)

MONEY~~~~~The figure on the right of the icon bar is theamount of money left in the Province's coffers.This is a crucial fiqure - if you run out of money,you are doomed. Without money, you will not beable to build things, maintain them, support aworkforce or keep a standing army. Eventually, theannual tribute which you are expected to pay toRome will be missed enough times that you will besummoned to face the wrath of the Emperor.

All expenditure is measured in Denarii, theDenarius being the basic unit of Imperial Romancurrency.

There are five main costs you will have to face inthe game

* Construction costs * Paying your soldiers * Looking after the slave population * Paying the Governor * The annual tribute

You will be able to get money in from taxes - bothpersonal income tax and business tax.

CONSTRUCTION COSTS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Any sort of construction, from building a school tolaying a road to establishing defensive walls costsmoney. Different projects cost different amounts.The cost will be displayed on the screen when yougive the command (ie before you select where it isto be and so confirm the order). For comparison, consturction costs are also given below:

City Level ---------- 1 Clearance 2 Housing 3 Water pipe 3 Road 5 Well 5 Wall 10 Plaza 10 Fountain 10 Tower 25 Prefecture 80 Barracks

Forum ----- 60 Aventine 100 Caelian 200 Janiculan 300 Pincian 500 Romanum 140 Esquiline 250 Regia 350 Palatine

20 Temple 60 Hospital 200 Oracle 20 Market 100 Theatre 300 Hippodrome 40 Bath House 60 School 300 Heavy Industry 50 Business 200 Amphitheatre

Provincial Level ----------------- 15 Clearance 30 Road

500 Fort 50 Wall 100 Tower

PAYING YOUR SOLDIERS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Your soldiers cost you money. This goes on sala-ries, recruitment drives and other means of con-vincing people to join the army, as well as on thesoldiers' basikit. The more you spend, the morepeople will sign up over time.

To alter your military spending, select your MilitaryAdvisor from the forum (See 'In The Forum').

Towards the bottom of the screen is the WagesBill, initially set at 10 Denarii per year. Use the upand down arrows next to the figure to alter it.

LOOKING AFTER THE SLAVE POPULATION~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~One of the most unpleasant aspects of the Empirewas its practice of slavery. As a Roman adminis-trator, slaves are a normal and important resourceto you - they provide the workforce for mostactivities. Although unpaid, slaves must be caredfor. The more you spend on this, the more theslave population will grow over the years.Call on your Slave Foreman (See 'In The Forum')to check the current slave population and slavewelfare expenditure. Use the arrows next to thelatter figure to alter it.

PAYING THE GOVERNOR~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The province must also pay its most importantemployee - you! As chief administrator, it is per-fectly possible for you to award yourself a hugewage. However, the city will probably go bank-rupt, and you will be taken away in chains toexplain your failure.

It is important to understand the difference be-tween your personal wealth and that of the prov-ince. You are governor, and have control of theprovince's money. It isn't yours, but you areallowed to say what it should be spent on - con-struction, wages etc. When you set your salary,you are setting how much the province will give toyou personally.

To change this amount, choose the Political Advi-sor from the forum (See 'In The Forum '). Use thetwo arrow icons next to the Salary Drawn figure tochange it. You can also donate some of yourpersonal wealth to the province, if you feel yourcareer depends on it. The money you have isshown below your name and title. Click on 'Do-nate money to city' to give some away. Set theamount with the arrow buttons, and right click toconfirm .

Your personal wealth will go with you whenyou are promoted to a new province.

THE ANNUAL TRIBUTE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Every year, you are expected to return a tribute toRome. If you have insufficient funds to do so, youwill receive a warning. If you fail to deliver atribute three times in a row, you will be removedfrom office, your career over (not to mention quitepossibly your life).

The tribute begins at 50 Denarii per year, andincreases over time.

TAX~~~Fortunately, there are ways of getting money in,as well as spending it. This means tax. As Gover-nor, you set the tax rate. This affects the amountof money you get from private citizens, as well asfrom businesses. On the down side, high taxesdiscourage people from moving to your province,and so slow population growth. They also add tocomplaints and disaffection within the population.

Note that Roman taxes were much lower thanrates in modern countries: 5% would be a typicalfigure.

Income Tax revenue depends on the number andquality on houses in your City. Business taxesdepend on the number of businesses established,and how well they are doing.

To see or check the current tax rate, which appliesboth to businesses and individuals, consult yourTreasurer (See 'In the Forumr'). The tax rate is thefirst thing on his report. Alter it upwards or down-wards by using the two arrows next to theamount.

Finally, you will only collect taxes from areas overwhich you have administrative control. Two typesof building help here: prefectures give control overa very limited region. Fora (the plural of Forum)cover a much wider area. Use the AdministrationMini Map to see how far the arm of the taxmanreaches.

KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR MONEY~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Two of your advisors (See 'In The Forum' willhelp you understand how your governorship isdoing financially. They are the Financial Analystand the Treasurer.

The Financial Analyst will tell you how youreconomy has been doing over the last few years.

He will present four graphs, showing the changesin:

* Tax revenues gained from private citizens* Taxes gained from businesses* The overall funds held by the city* The population of the city

The Treasurer on the other hand deals with exactfigures for the present time and last full year.He will tell you the current tax rate, population andtax gained per head of the population. This lastfigure reflects the tax level and the strength of theeconomy.

Below that is a summary of the income and costsfor the previous year. The annual profit/loss overthe previous few years is reflected in the bar chartrunning down the left of the picture.

BUILDING THINGS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Your main task in the Game wlll be choosing whatto construct, and where. You will need to ordermany different construction projects to maintain anaffluent and secure province. Check the 'Construc-tion Costs' section above, to see how much eachcosts.

The procedure for building is the same in all cases.Each thing you might want to create has its ownicon. Click on that and the mouse pointer willbecome an image of the thing you want to build.At the same time, you are also automatically takeninto Scroll Mode, so you can move around untilyou have found the right spot. Then just click onthe desired site to place your new development.If you build over terrain features like trees, theywill automatically be cleared away. Also, if youkeep the mouse button pressed down and drag themouse across the screen, the new constructionwill be repeated again and again in all of the placesthe pointer passes over. This is particularly usefulwhen laying out roads, pipes and walls.

On the City Level, there are too many buildings tofit all of the icons on the screen at once. To get tothe icon you need, you will first have to say whatsort of project you are ordering. The normal iconsare then replaced by new ones representing thespecific jobs available, and you can click on the oneyou want.

All jobs gexcept housing, which is available di-rectly have been divided into two groups.

Infrastructure = roads, water supply, walls, administrative buildings.Construction = public amenities, cultural sights, businesses So, let's say you want to lay a road. That's Infra-tructure, so:

1. Select that icon. The new icons for roads and walls now appear. 2. Choose roads and click on the site where you want the road to be. 3. Finally, you can easily check how much of the City Level you have actually built on, by checking out the Urbanisation Mini Map. THE EVOLVING CITY~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In many cases, buildings will expand or fail inde-pendently of you, once they are set up. For in-stance, if you order housing for an area, your firstsettlers put up simple tent-like, semi-permanentdwellings. If you fail to provide basic amenities:opportunities for employment and so on, theinhabitants will just pack up and leave - the housewill vanish. If you create the conditions for afashionable residential area, the tents will eventu-ally become luxurious villas. Note however, thatthey will still cover the same physical area.

The Land Value Mini Map will tell you how desir-able each area is considered to be.

BUILDING A FORUM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The centre of your new City will be its first Forum.This large open square, surrounded by publicbuildings, is an administrative centre and also amajor meeting place and social centre for every-one.

To build a Forum, click on the Infrastructure icon,and then on Build Forum. You must then selectfrom the eight different types of forum, from thesmall Aventine to the grand Romanum. The largerones maintain their economic and administrativeinfluence over a larger area.

Convenient road access to the forum is a crucialfactor in the development of many types of build-ing. You will see various people wending their wayalong the roads to and from the forum. Thequicker and easier it is for them to reach a place,the greater the boost that area will receive. Thearea around a Forum is also considered to be underfirm administrative control. See 'Tax' for thebenefits of this.

Note that it is perfectly possible to build severalFora, if your city starts to outgrow its original one.

HOUSING~~~~~~~~The most basic thinq your city will need is, ofcourse, housing. Ensure that the house:

* has a road route to a Forum* is supplied with water* and that there is employment for the new settlers. A local market is also handy. Note also that build-ing humble shacks right next to grand mansionswill depress the value of the more expensivehomes.

ROADS~~~~~Roads can be built in the City, and also on theProvincial Level. Road access to the Forum isimportant to all homes. On the Provincial level, it isimportant to connect the major towns of thereuion to your capital. If you can do this, trade will

expand quickly, and the revenue you will get frombusinesses in the city will increase rapidly.

Also, establishing a reliable road network is veryimportant for Romanizing the entire area, andspreading Imperial culture and influence. This isreflected in the Empire success rating.

There is a Road Layout Mini Map to show youwhere your roads extend to.

WATER~~~~~Houses need water. You are not expected toconnect plumbing directly to each dwelling, justprovide all homes with a reasonably close watersource. House values will be severely curtailed ifyou fail to provide them with water, and you willnever see those shabby tents become palatialmansions.

Bath Houses also need nearby water supplies. Alocal bath house is very important to the quality oflife of any civilised Roman. Houses will not im-prove in quality very fast without bath housesaround.

There are three types of water source available inthe game. Wells are the simplest. They can besunk anywhere, but only provide water within avery limited area.

Reservoirs are the next option. To create one, justlay a piece of water pipe on a straight section ofriver or lake. The pipinq will become a small waterstore. Nearby people will be able to collect theirwater directly from there.

However, the main purpose of reservoirs is toprovide water to fountains. If a fountain is placed,and is connected by pipe to a reservoir, it willprovide water to a large area. It is possible tocontinue the pipe on past the fountain to furtherones.

The Land Shape Mini Map will tell you quicklywhere the natural water supplies are. The WaterDistribution display from the same list will showwhich areas are currently considered to be sup-plied with water.

WALLS~~~~~Any province of the Empire would be overrun withbarbarians, were it to neglect its defences. Areliable army is one necessary protection. Anotheris a proper network of defensive walls.

You can build walls on the Provincial Level, and onthe City Level. The walls on the Provtncial Levelare by far the most important - it is far better tokeep the attackers out of your city than to containtheir rampages once inside.

A normal wall will usually keep a barbarian armyout, although there is a small chance that it willbreak through the wall and carry on. If there is atower built onto the wall close by, the chance ofbreaking through is much reduced. Note thattowers are only used to strengthen walls - theycgnnot be built on their own.

For more information on soldiers and barbarians,see 'The Army'.

BARRACKS AND PREFECTURES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Barracks are small, local militia bases, which hold afew soldiers each. Prefectures are the Romanequivalent of police stations. Other officials like taxcollectors also work there.

Both buildings keep down the level of discontent intheir part of the city.

Barracks also put out soldiers who will interceptany barbarians and rioters they encounter. Note

that these soldiers act automatically and need notbe controlled by you.

Prefectures create an administrated area immedi-ately around them, which means that taxes can becollected there. For more information, see the'Tax' section.

STARTING BUSINESSES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~As Governor you can help start small businesses,such as workshops, within the city. To do so,select the business icon and choose what the newfirm is to manufacture. The workshop will appear.Once it begins to operate, you can check itsperformance at any time. The empty space withinthe workshop courtyard, below the main building,will start to fill up with produce. The more there is,the more successful the business is.

Differene provinces will be best suited to makingdifferent things. For example, most people will tellyou that the grapes in Gaul produce better winethan the ones in Brittanial Experience will tell youwhere to press wine and where to make pottery.

Some variety is essential, though. If you find thatcopper goods flourish in your province, and fromthen on you only build those workshops, you willquickly flood the market, and wind up producingmore copper than anybody wants to buy.

For a business to be successful, two other thingsare needed. A nearby heavy industrial plant tosupply the necessary raw materials is essential.Secondly, there must be a road from the businessthat leads to the vicinity of a marketplace, so thatgoods can be sold. Note that the road does nothave to go right up to the market, but it shouldtake you as close as possible.

AMENITIES~~~~~~~~~Schools, Hospitals, Temples and Oracles all fallunder this category. The number of schools andhospitals there are per head of the population willsignificantly affect the quality of life of your citi-zens - and so your ' Culture' rating. Having suchfacilities near a house will also help to boost itsvalue slightly.

Temples work in the same way, but are even moreimportant. Oracles provide the benefit of severaltemples, and also have a significant effect onhouse values over a very large area.

ENTERTAINMENT~~~~~~~~~~~~~Amphitheatres, theatres and hippodromes all keepthe populace entertained. Their presence boostshouse values significantly. They also have a lessereffect on the Culture rating.

FORTS~~~~~A Fort is the headquarters of a cohort. The cohortis the basiunit of men in the Roman army. Eachone has its own fort. So, when you build a fort onthe Provincial Level, you create a building forsoldiers to live in, and you declare that a newCohort shall be formed to operate there. A flutter-ing red flag appears at the fort, to indicate wherethe new cohort is.

Note however, that until you assign men to thenew Cohort there will be no-one in it, ond it willonly exist 'on paper'. See the 'Army Recruitment'section for more information.

DEMOLITION & CLEARANCE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~If you build something and then change your mindabout it, you can always knock it down. Select thedemolition icon, and click on the building you wantdestroyed. It will come tumbling down, and beconverted into rubble. Then just sweep over therubble with the mouse button pressed to erase all

trace of the unfortunate project.

MAINTENANCE~~~~~~~~~~~Unfortunately, the things you build don't necessar-ily stay up. As well as barbarians and rioters, yourcreations are threatened by natural disasters suchas fires, and the effects of the passage of time.Fortunately, you can assign people to do workwhich will reduce these dangers.

The workforce in your province is composed ofslaves. A slave can be given one of six tasks:

Construction Work Fire PreventionBuilding Upkeep Army dutyRoad Maintenance No work assigned.

You can see who is doing what by asking yourSlave Foreman (See 'In the Forum').

Each work category has two figures next to it. Thefirst is the number of work groups currently as-signed this job. The second is the minimum youshould have assigned to cover that area fully.

(Except in the Army cgtegory. See the 'ArmyRecruitment' section for more details).

To change the number of groups working in anarea, click on the two arrow icons next to thenumber itself. Note that the jobs are ranked inorder of importance. If you try to allocate moreslaves than you have to an area, the computer willautomatically take them from less vital categories.

Construction is so important it works differentlyfrom everyging else. The computer will automati-cally draw enough slaves from the pool to fulfillconstruction needs. If there are too few, it willtake all that it can. Without construction groups,you will not be able to build anything.

Leaving some slaves with no work to do is basi-cally wasteful, but it will help expand the slavepopulation a little over time.

THE ARMY=========

COHORTS~~~~~~~You control one Legion of men. This is made upof units called Cohorts. A Cohort in turn consistsof several Centuries - groups of 100 men.Each Century is made up of one of the followingtypes of soldier (there are no mixed Centuries):

regulars - superbly trained professional soldiersirregulars - reasonably proficient drafted menauxiliaries- absolutely terrible slave soldiers

Each Cohort will also have a morale rating, whichwill increase if they win battles, and go down ifthey lose.

Every Cohort will also have its own battle stand-ard, number and name.

BARBARIANS & RIOTERS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There are 16 different races of barbarians whomight attack you. In battle, different tactics workbest against different types of barbarians. Experi-mentation will tell you what sort of approachworks best when facing Carthaginians, for exam-ple.

It is vital to keep barbarians away from the capital.If they do reach your city on the Provincial Level,they will enter the City Level. They will then roamabout destroying much of what lies in their path.Walls and barracks on the City Level may provide alast defence.

Violent rioters are another class of people who willendanger your city. They act much like barbarians,

but calm down reasonably quickly.

INSPECTING YOUR TROOPS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~To inspect your Cohorts, go to the Military Advisor(see 'In the Forum'). The legion number at the verytop of the screen just depends on which provinceyou are in. Below that you will see the flutteringbanner of one of your Cohorts. To the right of thestandard, you should see the current orders of theunit, its morale, and the Centuries it is made up of.Use the arrow buttons further to the right to stepthrough the different Cohorts you control. Thebutton between the two arrows will toggle thecurrent Cohort between mobilised and demobilisedstatus gsee 'Army recruitment').

The very large numbers in the centre of the screentell you the total number of regular, irregular andauxiliary Centuries in your entire Legion. Thenumbers in brackets are the amounts you had lastyear, so you can see if your army is growing orshrinking. Note that some of your Centuries maybe en route to join a unit, and so not currently inany Cohort.

ARMY RECRUITMENT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~You start off with oniy one Cohort - the PrimaCohors. Initially, it consists of just 1 Century ofregulars. Clearly, you would be safer with a bitmore than that. You can set up new Cohortswhenever you like (see 'forts'). As explained inthat section, however, setting up new Cohortsdoesn't increase the number of men in the army,just the number of units it's divided into. There arethree ways to add to the number of soldiers youhave.

If you spend more on your annual army wages(see 'Paying your Soldiers'), you will get moreregular soldiers joining up. The new recruits willnot appear immediately you spend the money.

Rather, a steady flow of new applicants will beattracted to the job over the next few years. Youwill not need to assign these men to particularCohorts - they will be spread throughout all of theCohorts you have as evenly as possible.

If you increase the rate of conscription, alsothrough your Military Advisor, the number ofIrregular soldiers you have will go up in the sameway.

If you ask your Slave Foreman to put more slaveson army duty (see 'Maintenance'), more Auxilia-ries will be assigned throughout your army. Notethat on the Foreman's report, the first figure afterthe Army heading is the number of slave workgroups assigned to army duty, and the second isthe total number of cohorts your work groupstranslate into. The army will not use odd individu-als which they cannot form into a new cohort.If you want to increase the number of men in aparticular location, you can tempotarily demobilisesome other Cohorts. Their soldiers will feed slowlyinto the general pool of recruits, and will then beassigned to the various mobilised units of thearmy. You can re-mobilise the Cohort at any time,and it will start to fill up again. See 'Inspectingyour Troops' for how to demobilise.

CONTROLLING COHORTS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Your army exists only on the Provincial Level.(Thesoldiers you may see coming from city Barracksare militia - nothing to do with the regulor army.)

There are four sorts of instruction you can give acohort. In each case, you should click on therelevant icon on the Provincial Level, and then onthe Cohort you want to order.

Stop -the Cohort will stay still, awaiting further orders.Patrol -click anywhere and the unit

will move between there and where it is now, indefinitely.Attack -click on a barbarian horde and the Cohort will attackReturn -the Cohort will 9O back to its home Fort.Battles -When a Cohort and a group of barbarians meet on the Provincial Level, a battle will occur. You will have to decide the tactics used by your troops, and you will be given the results. It may take a few rounds of decision-response to finish the battle.

If you have Impressions' Roman battle game,Cohort 2, you can play through the battle in detailif you wish to. To do so, just click on the informa-tion panel along the bottom, and follow the in-structions on the screen.

Otherwise, click on the main picture. The bottompanel will display information on the state of yourtroops, and then on the enemy.

You will see the name of your Cohort, its morale,and the number of regular, irregular and auxiliaryCenturies in it. Below that, the type of barbariansyou are facing will be shown, and then the numberof Centuries of them there are. These statistics areupdated during battle to show you the data aftercasualties have been taken out. The number theyhad originally will be given in brackets, so you cansee how you are doing.

You now have to choose a tactic from the following list:

Tortoise - A close knit, defensive formation.Retreat - Pull out with Whoever you can save.Assault - A standard frontal attack.Flank - An attempt to encircle the enemy.Charge - An all out attack.

Click on one of the icons along the right of thescreen to make your decision. The result will beshown on the bottom panel.

The strategy to choose depends on whether you or theyare outnumbered, and also on what type of barbarians you are facing.

UNREST IN THE CITY~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~If the people do badly under your rule, dissent will grow. Eventually, fierce riots may break out in oneor other portion of the city. The rioters will wanderabout wreaking havoc in your city. Any militia soldiers youhave nearby will try and contain the trouble.

The mere fact that there is unrest indicates that youhave gone wrong, however. By far the best way to deal withunrest is to prevent it from happening. Make sure the people are content, have money and jobs and feel secure and there should be few riots. The presence of barracks and prefectures will also suppress violent dissent. You can check out potential trouble spots by looking at thetrouble areas mini map.

DISK AND GAME OPTIONS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Click on theDisk Options icon to save your progress so far in the game. If playing from floppy, you will have to inserta fresh formatted disk. You can also load up a game that was saved previously, pause the game, or start again. If you wishto you can also forbid the usual message panels which appear, warning you of barbarian incursions, natural disasters and so on. This information is valuable and you should only do this ifyou are very confident that you can keep track of everythingyourself.

HINTS AND TIPS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~> Divide your time carefully between the city and the province. If you get too wrapped up in working on the City Level, you might suddenly find your new buildings being decimated by a flood of barbarians because you have neglected to set

up adequate defences on the provincial level. > Never forget water supply. Use the Mini Map to check that all of your houses are supplies. Lack of water will hurt land value very badly. > Similarly, don't neglect the road network. Build (or at least plan) the roads before the build- ings: don't set up housing and then worry about roads. Roads on the Provincial Level are very useful, but also very expensive. Before starting any such project, make sure you can afford it.

> Always try and cover Fire Prevention, Road Maintenance and Building Upkeep needs com- pletely. If you don't have enough slaves, spend more on their welfare to bring the numbers up. If your city is expanding, allocate substantially more than you need, or you will soon realise that the growing requirements have exceeded your alloca- tion - when things start falling down.

> If you let this happen, or if barbarians or rioters get into the city, check your infrastructure (roads, pipes, walls) carefully. One damaged section of pipe can cut off water to a wide area.

> Don't be tempted to spend all of your money at once - always have something available for contingencies. > Remember that tax is only collected from administrated areas. Tax collection facilities - like new fora - are the best investment around. > Don't start off building hundreds of houses at once - they will just disappear because there are no amenities or jobs around. Work up housing, business and cultural centres in a balanced way. > Use the Mini Maps. Land Value especially will tell you just how valuable different projects are, and how far their influence extends.

CAESAR======Once upon a time, a man stood on a hill looking down atthe bend in a river. He decided that this would be a goodplace to build a house. Being a popular fellow, after awhile some other people decided to come and join him onhis hill and the foundations of the Roman empire werelaid.

A thousand years later, a young man called MarcusPublius sat in the Theatre of Pompey (not far from thatfirst house) watching a very tedious Greek tragedy. Weknow this because most Greek tragedies are tedious andbecause in school books every young Roman man who isnot an emperor is called Marcus Publius and has a slave(or a dog) called Titus. As yet another over-excited fatlady rushed onto the stage brandishing a bloodied dagger,the eyes of Marcus Publius glazed over and he set todreaming of glory in the all-conquering legions of Rome.

It would have been hard for Marcus to imagine a worldwhich Rome did not dominate. As he sat and day-dreamed, there were no serious rivals to the Roman Armyapart from a few barbarians in the north and an empire ortwo in the distant east. Yet a couple of hundred yearslater the city of Rome was just part of an Ostrogothickingdom. Of course, ripples remain of Marcus Publiusand his friends. Rome survives in our language, ourgovermnent, our judiciary, our buildings and our imagi-nations. Nevertheless, while some Roman roads are nowthree lane motorways, others are barely discernible tracksalong the edges of obscure fields.

Why Rome fell has been a popular topic of debate eversince, lending itself to dramatic reconstructions full oforgies, corruption and barbarian hordes. And yet why itfell is not as interesting as the simple fact that it did.

Historically and for whatever reason, an empire alwaysdoes. Had you asked Marcus, or an Ancient Egyptian, ora Ming Dynasty Chinaman, or a Napoleonic Frenchman,

or a Victorian Englishman, or even a Russian five yearsago about how their empire might disappear, they wouldprobably have thought it a silly question.

The fact that we cannot imagine how, for instance, theUnited States of America could break up or how westerncapitalism might collapse does not make our position anymore secure than that of Marcus Publius. So far theUnited States has not lasted as long as the Roman Empire.

Rome fell partly because the strength of the Empire wasshifted east to Constantinople; the strength of westemcapitalism is also shifting east. But then again, perhapswe are so different from every other empire in history thatwe, as opposed to anyone else, will last for ever...

THE GREEKS~~~~~~~~~~It is not unfair to say that the Romans inherited from theGreeks much of the philosophy behind how a civilisedsociety should organise itself and the Greek 'polis', orcity-state, was fundamental to this. Thus, rather thanstarting the story of Rome in the foothills of central Italyit makes sense to take a quick look at the model for a citythat the Greeks had already come up with and which theywere about to hand on to the new boys in town.The Greek mainland and islands had been a centre ofcivilisation for a couple of thousand years before Romewas even thought of. They had been at the heart of boththe Mycenaean and probably the Minoan civilisations andhad thus enjoyed long periods of prosperity and settledconditions. This had produced a population increasewhich in turn led to a widespread process of colonization.New Greek cities were founded all along the Black Seacoast and the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor, NorthEast Africa, Spain, France and Southern Italy. Amongmany others, Greeks were responsible for the founding ofthe cities of Marseilles, Naples and Istanbul (originallyByzantium and then Constantinople).

The geography of Greece, consisting largely of islandsand small plains encircled by mountains, made for smallpolitical units and created a sense of the value of inde-pendence and self-sufficiency. These values were passedon to the new colonies which regarded themselves asseparate entities from their mother cities. Thus the Greekworld came to be made up of hundreds of small city-states, most of them with populations of only a fewthousand, who shared a common identity, culture andlanguage and could be formed into various leagues toconfront the barbaric outside world but who were alsojealous of their own independence. This tension was aninherent part of Greek civilisation, on the one handlimiting the extent to which it could reach out and domi-nate its neighbours while on the other enabling it tosurvive as a vibrant part of subsequent civilisations;notably that of Rome.

THE POLIS~~~~~~~~~The success and creativity of the Greek polis led to anumber of developments which were reflected in theRoman city ideals. As the wealth of individual citiesgrew, tribal kingship gave way to rule by landed gentrywhich in turn was threatened by the political aspirationsof the wealthy merchant classes. If by their endeavoursthey could acquire economic strength, why not politicalpower as well ? With literacy came intellectual debateand the spread and development of reason. This bravenew world needed to be ordered. The wild and amoralgods and demons were tamed and made to look and actlike men. They were given proper houses to dwell in anddirty little shrines became magnificent temples, monu-ments as much to civic pride as to the deities themselves.Perhaps most important of all was the introduction ofcivilian law, to which all free men could appeal and to whichall men, however well-bred, were subject. Rather thanthe law being meted out at the king's pleasure, it Was nowthe responsibility of elective and even collective govern-ment. Various experiments in democracy arose (even aform of communism) with different combinations ofassemblies and elders being thrown up by variouslyconstituted electorates. The roles of the feudal lord aspriest, judge and military defender were taken over by thepolis. An infantry was organised which reduced thesignificance of individual military prowess, which hadbeen the mainstay of tribal and feudal rule.

The ebb and flow of political power in Greek society neednot concern us. Suffice it to say that by the 5th CenturyBC, Athens and Sparta had emerged as the two mainrivals for dominance. The land-based Peloponesianleague of the Spartan monarchy was supplanted by thesea-based Delian league of the Athenian democracy, onlyfor Sparta to make a brief comeback. They joined todefeat external enemies such as Persia and then returnedto their internecine struggles. Eventually, the merry-go-round was stopped by Philip of Macedon when hedefeated the Greeks at Chaeronea in 338 BC, finallyending city-state freedom.

Philip's son, Alexander the Great, exploded Greekculture throughout the middle east by taking a Greekarmy on a truly spectacular invasion of most of the knownworld. He then died at the age of only 32 before he couldget home to Macedon, leaving his empire split betweenhis generals. Three entities emerged (plus the littlekingdom of Pergamum); Macedon (which had control ofGreece), Syria (which included most of the easternconquests) and Egypt where Ptolemy founded a newdynasty. The Greek cities, and especially Athens, largelyabdicated from politics and concentrated on being centresof learning. They permeated the rising star of Romewhich on a clear night could be seen in the west.

THE CITY OF ROME~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The romans took many of the ideas of the Greek Polis andadapted them to serve the building of an empire. The ideals of law and order were changed from moral standards to instruments of control. The common responsibility for defencebecame a way of recruiting for the legions.

Perhaps most important of all, the notion of ultimate powerresting with the citizen was developed so that power rested notjust with any old citizen but a citizen of rome. The rulersof distant cities scrambled for the honour of Roman citizenship.

The greeks were restrained from trying to rule an empire becausethey valued the principal of independance. Athens did not wantto rule sparta so much as dominate a Greek league included Sparta.The Greek city-states sought allies wheras the Romans soughtpossessions.

The Romans formed allies to defeat common enemies but in the end allies and enemies were swallowed up together. The Greeksproduced a magnificent civilisation but not much of an empire.The Romans borrowed the civilisation and turned it into a greatempire.

However, we are bounding ahead of ourselves by about700 years. The historical founding of Rome is lessimportant and much less interesting than the legendaryone. In any case we cannot be sure of early historicaldetails beyond the reasonable assumption that the citycoalesced from a small group of villages. In fact there aretwo legends about the founding of Rome which eventu-ally merged into one. In the 5th Century, the Greeksrecorded that Rome was founded by Aags, the Trojanwar veteran and son of the goddess Venus. The otherlegend, that Rome was founded by Romulus, twinbrother of Remus, was joined to the first by asserting thatRomulus and Remus were after all direct descendants ofAeneas.

THE LEGEND~~~~~~~~~~The story of Romulus and Remus is a good one. Aban-doned as babes on the banks of the River Tiber, they weresuckled by a she-wolf and brought up by a shepherd.Having killed his brother in a quarrel, Romulus foundedRome on the Palatine Hill in 753 BC. Reckoning thatthey were a bit short of women in this new city, Romuluswent Off and kidnapped some from the nearby Sabinetribe; the so-called 'rape of the Sabine women'. To helphim, Romulus also appointed one hundred elders, or'patres', who became the first Senate and whose descend-ants called themselves 'patricians', thereby acquiringinstant credibility and a pre-eminent position in society.Over the next one hundred and fifty years, Rome devel-oped from a cluster of hilltop settlements on and aroundseven hills into a fully fledged city, draining the marshes

in the valleys between the hills and eventually buildingmasonry structures such as temples and defences. Ruledby a succession of seven kings who were chosen by theSenate, she was very much under the influence of theEtruscan civilisation which held sway to the north.Indeed, the last three kings, of whom Tarquin I wasresponsible for most of the major building work of theperiod, were of Etruscan extraction. By 509 BC, how-ever, the Romans were ready to take matters into theirown hands and Tarquin the Proud was thrown out ofoffice for being much too unpopular and the RomanRepublic was proclaimed.

THE EAST~~~~~~~~As the Romans gradually defeated and took over theCarthaginian empire, the powers in the eastern Mediterra-nean began to get nervous and tried to face down the newthreat. When the Romans attacked pirates on the Illyriancoast, the Macedonians to the south took the side of thepirates with the not too surprising result that the Romansextended their campaigns into Macedonia, defeating herin 197 BC. Just as the Romans were going home theSyrian empire in Asia Minor invaded Greece, forcing theRomans to sweep back through Greece and into present-day Turkey, defeating the Syrians in 190 BC.

At this stage, however, Rome was not interested in directrule of the east (it must have seemed like they werealready doing quite well enough in the west, thank youvery much) and withdrew into Italy. nevertheless,Macedonia continued to grow in strength, provoking afurther Roman invasion in 171 BC. Finally in 146 BC,the new Roman province of Macedonia was created,which incorporated the whole of Greece after the southernGreeks had revolted a few years earlier. The rest of theAegean went Roman in 133 BC when the last king ofPergamum, Attalus m, bequeathed his kingdom toRome and it became the province of Asia, consisting ofthe western end of Asia Minor.

14C BC was an important year in the history of Rome. Inthat year both Carthage and Corinth were razed to theground and the Corinthian citizens were sold into slavery.It marked not just the defeat but the end of the powers oneither side of Italy and it announced Roman rule to theworld. It marked a transition from Rome merelytrying to secure its borders to feeling confident enoughto boss the known world around. If in the same yearthey could do that to two of the greatest cities in theworld, everybody else had better watch out.

IMPERIAL ROME~~~~~~~~~~~~~Ironically, but as so often happens, just as Rome acquireda position of unparalleled external strength, she verynearly fell apart. There had been rumblings for a whilewithin Italy and the next hundred years or so brought civilwars and the death of the Roman Republic. Republics arenot really designed for ruling empires (Napoleon had thesame trouble and came up with the same solution and asthe empire had grown the republican system had beenhijacked by a senatorial elite. The rural and urban poor,who seemed to be getting poorer as Rome became richerasked the question, 'Are we a republic or not ?' andeventually discovered that they weren't.

Theoretically, power rested with the citizens, who gave itto the Senate which acted as an executive, responsible toan elected Assembly. However, increasingly the Senateand the magistrates were dominated by a new nobility,made up of patricians and nouveau-riche plebians, whofound it much more convenient to ignore the Assemb1yaltogether. While this system was unchallenged, itworked very well but it had no constitutional validity andcollapsed as soon as the boat was rocked. This was doneinitially by land reforms proposed in 133 BC byTiberius Gracchus and then economic and legislativereforms proposed by his brother Gaius a decade later.Both brothers came to a sticky end.

In 122 BC, southern Gaul was taken over and becamethe province of Gal Narbonensis but very soon after-wards the army started losing battles to troublesomeGermanic tribes, putting the whole State of Rome at risk.As a consequence the Roman army was reformed by

Gaius Marius, becoming much more efficient andprofessional but at the same time switching its allegiancefrom the State to individual army commanders. Thismade civil war a constant possibility and almost inevita-ble.

THE DICTATORS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~However, before ambitious generals could really get theiract together, the so called Social War from 'socii 'meaning allies) broke out in 91 BC. The non-RomanItalians, who for two hundred years had been fighting tostay non-roman, had gradually realised that, in this newday and age, there was a lot to be said for being a Romancitizen. This resulted in the political unification of Italy,with citizenship granted to all in 90 BC, but it hardly ledto peace. When war was declared on Mithridates ofPontus who had attacked the province of Asia, a squabblebroke out about who should command the legions in Asia;Marius or the consul Lucius Sulla. In the end it wassettled by Sulla marching on Rome and declaring himselfdictator. Although his rule only lasted a year, it was thefirst (but not the last) time that Rome had been taken by ageneral at the head of her own legions.

After Sulla, three men jockeyed for power; a politiciancalled Crassus and two generals, Pompey (one of Sulla 'sboys) and Julius Caesar. They formed a private alliancein 60 BC, known as the First Triumvirate, but they werereally all out for themselves. Pompey had established hiscredentials in the 70s and 60s BC, first by helpingCrassus to defeat the slave rebellion led by Spartacus andthen by conquering a lot of eastern territory, includingBithynia, Cilicia, Pontus, Syria and Cyptus. Crassus puthimself out of the picture by getting himself killed by theParthians in 53 BC. Caesar, however, employed bettertactics and made the most of his opportunity by conquer-ing the whob of Gaul by 49 BC and even having a look atthe mysterious island of Britain.

By this time Pompey had taken power in Rome andpersuaded the Senate to take away Caesar's command. Asa consequence, Caesar invaded Italy, forcing Pompey towithdraw to Greece where he was defeated by Caesar atPharsala. Pompey escaped to Egypt, where he wasmurdered. Caesar returned to Rome to rule for four yearsuntil the infamous Ides of March in 44 BC, when he wasmurdered by 'Brutus and the rest'. There was thusanother power vacuum, more civil war and three morecontenders, Mark Antonyr, Marcus Lepidus andOctavian. Octavian beat Antony at Modena and marchedon Rome, only to make friends again when Anthony andLepidus joined forces. This was then the Second Trium-virate, formed in 43 BC as a legal dictatorship for aperiod of five years.

The following year, Octavian and Anthony went off todefeat Brutus and Cassius while Lepidus looked after theshop in Rome. In 40 BC, they divided power, Lepidusbeing given Africa, Octavian the west and Anthony theeast. Lepidus blew his chances with a failed power bidand Anthony suffered a series of disasters in the east, notleast of which was to start a bit of thing with QueenCleopatra in Egypt. All of this played into Octavian'shand, who in 31 BC got a mandate from the Senate toattack Egypt. Anthony and Cleopatra were finallydefeated in Greece and committed suicide together inEgypt.

THE EMPERORS~~~~~~~~~~~~Although he claimed to have restored the Republic in 27BC, Octavian was effectively the Emperor of Romefrom that time, assuming the name Augustus and rulingvery successfully for 32 years until his death in 14 AD.He brought stability and reform, taking the army out ofpolitics with land grants, and undertaking a tremendousprogramme of public building. It was said that Augustusfound Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.He laid the proper foundations for Roman imperial rulewhich lasted for over 300 years.

In the hundred years following the death of Augustus, theempire continued to grow, particularly in the north and inthe east. Under the Emperor Trajan, the Empire reachedits greatest extent, taking possession of Arabia and Dacia(modern Romania) in 106 AD and armenia, Assyria and

Mesopotamia in 117, whereupon he died.The newEmperor, Hadrian, decided that it would be better toconsolidate the imperial boundaries rather than seekfurther expansion. He even abandoned some of theeastern conquests of his predecessor. Nevertheless, thethreat of invasion, especially from the northern Germanictribes was always there and the army gradually re-asserted its influence over politics.

In civilian life, things bubbled along but internal weak-nesses were beginning to appear. More and more peoplebecame Roman citizens until 212 when the EmperorCaracalla awarded citizenship to all free-born men inthe empire. This was mainly a financial measure since itmeant that there were more people totax but it was part of a generalweakening of the imperial structures. More and moreemperors were being murdered and a long period of anarchyfollowed Caracalla's death in 217. The confusion waspartially resolved by Diocletian, who came to power in 284 anddivided the empire into four prefectures, ruled over by two emperors(Augustii) and two assistant emperors (Caesars). This wascalled a 'Tetrachy' or 'four-man rule'.

However, this system was further evidence of weaknessand inevitably it broke, down. In 324, the EmperorConstantine defeated his co-emperor, Licinius and tookover sole power. Constantine was the first emperor toconvert to Christianity and his ties with the pagan city ofRome were not as strong as some of his predecessors. In330, he moved his capital to Byzuntiun, building a newunashamedly Christian city. The western half of theempire collapsed over the next hundred years or so and,although Justiniun re-conquered some of it in the middleof the sixth century, it was lost again three years after hisdeath.

The Roman empire had become the Byzantine empire,Greek-speaking and Christian. This new empire acted athousand years more, to some extent carrying the Romantorch, until it was finally crushed by the Turks in 1453.

THE CONQUEST OF BRITAIN~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The effect and character of Roman rule varied fromregion to region. In general, the western half of theempire underwent a rapid and far-reaching process ofRomanization simply because the standard of governmentand level of civilization that Rome brought were so muchbetter than what had been before. Without meaning tobelittle the vibrancy, creativity and sophistication of theCeltic tribes, it is nevertheless true to say that relativelycrude tribal societies were exposed to new levels ofeducation and technology and had modern roads andbuildings constructed in their midst.

This is in static contrast to the eastern empite where thecivilisations of the Greeks, Persians, Egyptians and thelike were in no way inferior to that of Rome. Indeed, ASwe have seen the so called Roman civilisation was verylargely borrowed from the Greeks in the first place.

Consequently, the eastern empire remained very Greek incharacter and was simply ruled from Rome. Great citiesexisted already and the Romans did not build that manynew ones, instead building Roman baths and templeswithin existing Greek and Egyptian cities.

As such, it is in the western and northern regions of theempire that we see more dearly how the Romans wentabout building settlements. It is here that they weregiven a relatively blank canvas to paint on. In particular,we will concentrate on Britain, that most northerly andmagnificent outpost of the Roman Empire.

Contrary to popular belief, Britain was not invaded byJulius Caesar, although he did pop over to study theform while he was in the area conquering Gaul. In fact,Britain was invaded a hundred years later byClaudius, partly because he felt that his imperial positionneeded a bit of A boost after the excesses of his nuttypredeoessor, Caligula. Moreover, both the emperorsprevious to Caligula, Tiberius and Augustus, had enjoyedgreat military successes and Claudius no doubt felt that byfinishing what the great Julius CAesar himself had startedhe would be putting himself right up there. It was alsotrue that the troublesome Gauls had a nasty habit of

slipping across the English Channel to hide out with theirCeltic cousins.

THE INVASION~~~~~~~~~~~~~So it was that in 43 AD, Claudius dispatched AulusPlautius with four legions to invade Britain. Landing inKent, they swept north west, defeatine the Britons underCaratacus near Rochester and then again on the future siteLondinium (London). There, with the native capital ofCamulodunum (Colchester) at their mercy, they waiteduntil Claudius could arrive from Rome to lead themtriumphantly to victory. After a full sixteen hard dayssitting around being triumphant in Briton, Claudius wenthome again leaving poor old Aulus Plautius to resumecommand and continue the campaign.

Over the nexct few years, the Roman legions movedsteadily north and west, finally defeating Caratacus inWales. He fled north to the Brigantes, only to be be-trayed to the Romans. Sent as a captive to Rome, theBritish chieftan so impressed Claudius with his courageand dignity that he was allowed to live out his days inhonourable if captive exile. By the time Paulinus wasappointed governor in 59 AD, most of England andWales south of Lincoln was in Roman hands. He wasbusy trying to polish off the Druids in north Wales whena revolt broke out in East Anglia led by Queen Boadiceaof the Iceni.

In the folklore of British resistance to the Romans, thefeisty Queen Boadicea in her heavy war-chariot takespride of place. She quite eclipses Caratacus, which isvery unfair because she was much less trouble than hewas. Although the Iceni had a high old time and evensacked Londinium, they were an unruly bunch who gotrather carried away with themselves. Heavily laden withbooty they were easily routed by Paulinus when hereturned from Wales. After that, the south of Englandwas pacified and Romanized and the fighting shifted tothe north.

In 78 AD, Agricola was appointed governor of Britainand under him the Roman legions reached their mostnortherly point. Establishing three permanent legionarybases at York, Chester and Caerleon he headed northand defeated the Brigantes of northern England beforemarching into Scotland. By 84 AD he had control ofLowland Scotland and had inflicted heavy defeats on theHighland tribes. Exactly how far north Agricola got, wedon't really know but it certainly seems to have beenbeyond Aberdeen. Just then however, in the winter of 84AD, he was recalled to Rome and the border slowly sankback into England over the next forty years.

HADRIAN'S WALL~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In 117 AD, the Emperor Hadrian came to power and, aswe have seen, introduced a policy of consolidating hisborders rather than attempting new conquests. He wenton a tour round his Empire, visiting Britain in 122 andinitiating the building of a defensive wall along what wasthe northern border at the time; a line between Car1isleand Newcastle. However, Hadrian's Wall in Britain wasonly a tiny part of a defensive system, cal1ed 'the Limes',that stretched over 7,000 miles around the edges of theempire; along the Rhine and the Danube between theNorth Sea and the Black Sea, from the Caspian Sea to theRed Sea and from Egypt to Morocco.

Without wishing to belittle Hadrian's Wall still further, inmany ways it was built in the wrong place. It does notfollow the natural features very well, with views some-times obscured by inconvenient hills, and it seems simplyto have been built where the border happened to be whenHadrian arrived. In the hundred years or so after Hadri-an's Wall was built the Romans tried to establish afrontier 80 miles further north between the mouths of therivers Clyde and Forth. This is a much shorter distanceand makes much more sense. However, the so-calledAntonine Wall built along this line was less substantial.

Eventually the legions found themselves overstretched andthe border fell back to the earlier line.

The Wall--------

In fact, the Wall is not a defensive structure so much as apart of a defensive strategy. On its own, it could hardlyhave kept a horde of marauding Picts at bay. It was onlyabout 8ft wide, which was enough for a legionary topatrol along but not enough to concentrate sufficientforces to defend it. It was thus primarily an observationplatform and a boundary line. No doubt it was supposedto look like a formidable obstacle to the aforementionedmarauding horde, in the sense that to approach it theywould have had to have come over a mound and thendown into a ditch to stand beneath a 22ft stone wall, butany horde worth their salt would have been able to scale it.

The point was that simply standing on a wall exchangingarrows with the marauding horde below was really awaste of all the training that the Roman legionnairesunderwent. It was in the open, where they had room tomanoeuvre and organise, that they were the best fightingforce in the world.

Thus the Wall was designed to release legionaries into theopen at the optimum time and place.

A marauding horde simply had no idea how many legion-aries were about to burst out of the Wall and attack them,nor from where they would come.

This trick was achieved with an elaborate system ofmilecastles, forts and turrets that were built along, infront and behind the wall. The milecastles were smallforts positioned (surprise, surprise) one Roman mile apartalong the wall. They were really guardhouses, usuallyholding far fewer than the 50 or 60 men they couldotherwise accommodate, and provided access to thenorthern side of the border. The Romans could spot theenemy from afar, muster their troops unseen behind theWall and emerge on either side to trap the unlucky hordeagainst the very wall they were trying to attack.

The main body of troops were stationed in fifteen fortsalong the length of the Wall, protected behind by theVallum. This was a double line of mounds with a ditchbetween which seems to have been the Roman equivalentof a barbed wire fence; simply telling the civilian popula-tion to keep off military land. The forts were thenserviced by the Military Way, which was a purpose builtroad running behind the Wall with branches going to eachfort. Later on, a series of outpost forts were also built infront of the Wall, providing even more warning of anadvancing horde and even more room to manoeuvre. Insome respects, the role of the Wall itself was thuschanged from a first line of defence to an administrativeline to fall back on in times of crisis.

THE END~~~~~~~The end of Roman rule in Britain is usually dated as 410AD although in effect it simply fizzled out through lackof interest. As the Roman empire itself collapsed, a seriesof army commanders in Britain laid claim to the imperialthrone and set off for the continent with all the troopsthey could muster. This, of course, progressively weak-ened the defences of Roman Britain against raids by theIrish, the Picts, the Sagons and various other assortedhordes. In 410 AD, the Romanised British people ap-pealed to the Emperor Honorius help and were told togo away and leave him alone; or words to that effect.As for Hadrian's Wall, it seems to have been abandonedby the Legions and taken over by the civilian populationin 383 AD, although it may simply be that the soldiershad their families living with them from that time. Eitherway, it is not surprising that a civilian population in thewilds of the north of England would jump at the chance tolive in fortified Roman buildings. This leads nicely intothe topic of Roman cities, how they worked, how theycontributed to the operation of the Empire and why theywere thought to be such a good ides by barbarian peoplewho had never lived in them before.

WHY CITIES ?~~~~~~~~~~~~There are two basic reasons why people choose to livetogether in cities (or towns); security and trade. This isas true for us as it was for the Romans and the Celts.However, as civilization has progressed, the relativeimportance of these two factors has changed. For tribalfarming settlements, community life was mostly about

protection from rampant hordes of Picts, although marketday had a crucial role to play. For the Romans, securitywas important but easier to achieve and thus the benefitsof trade came to the fore. For us, there is very littledanger of rampant Picts (except for international soccermatches) and business is why we live in cities. It isinteresting that we seem to be approaching a level ofsophistication where business is going back to the coun-try, linked by phone, fax and computer.

Often a town grows up to exploit a very specific naturalresource or geographical feature. These might include arich seam of coal, fishing grounds, a fertile plain, a lake,a bend in the river, a major crossroads, a bridge, a hill ora natural harbour. Moreover, the nature of a settlement isto some extent determined by what kind of security iswanted and what kind of trade is expected. While mostCeltic houses were timber-framed huts with walls ofwattle and daub, the Romans built elaborate stone build-ings. While a Celtic settlement consisted almost entirelyof private dwellings clustered aimlessly around that of thechieftain, the Romans carefully arranged temples, bathhouses, aquaducts, theatres and forums and linked themtogether with streets.

The most fundamental reason to gather together is secu-rity. The human being is not designed to live in totalisolation from the rest of its species and even nomads andhunter-gatherers, who do not build permanent settlements,move around in groups and maintain relations with theirneighbours. For tribal peoples this safety in numbers isreinforced by long standing family ties, both real andimaginary. In this way there will always be people toidentify with and club together with because there willalways be kinsmen and fellow tribesrnen. More over, itmakes sense to live in the same place as those most likelyto help out in times of trouble.

THE CELTS~~~~~~~~~The Celts were both tribal and warlike, forever sweep-ing off to attack some enemy, perhaps in order to takeover more fertile land, perhaps because they had beendriven off their own land and perhaps just for the hell ofit. It was therefore a good idea to identify with the mostpowerful chieftain, join his band and build houses aroundhis in the sure knowledge that in the face of an externaldanger he would lead them all into battle. Furthermore,since the settlements were often not much more thanglorified military encampments (even if they stayed in thesame place for a good many years) there was no particularreason to build houses that would last forever.

Of course, even for the mighty Romans simple physicalsecurity was an important factor. The very fact that theywere an invading force made them a target for attack fromirate natives. Moreover, a legionary fort would oftenbecome the focus for a haphazard settlement; if you builtyour hut next to a Roman stronghold it was hardly likelyto be attacked by casual bandits and if it was, you couldshelter inside the fort. Many of the Greek and Romancities started out with the basic model of a central forti-fied area surrounded by an agricultural settlement. Inmany ways, of course, this model was similar in form tothe Celtic settlements but the Greeks and Romans substan-tially developed the basic theme.

For those who chose to live in a Roman city, otheraspects of security were becoming important also. Therewas the security of knowing that there were priests in thetemple doing the right rituals to appease the right gods,there were teachers and doctors ready to educate and cure,there were merchants making sure that all the goods thatmight be wanted were in the market and as always therewere neighbours who might hear the agonised screams ifsomeone fell down and broke a leg. By subscribing to thelaws and administration of the city, one became part of awhole that was greater than its parts could ever be.

TRADE~~~~~This brings us to the other main contribution of cities;trade. At its most basic level, to trade with someone youor your representative generally have to be in the sameplace as them (at least you did before the invention of thetelephone). The local market has been the foundation ofmany a thriving town, even some Celtic ones. By

actually living next to the market, you had constant accessto a wide range of goods, which was not possible for afarmer who might only come to market two or three timesa year to sell his crop in exchange for some basic necessi-ties. More importantly, however, since the marketprovided you with all you could want, there was theopportunity to specialise and become a shopkeeper, abuilder, a potter or a tailor. You could get an educationor even go into politics.

Whereas in an agricultural settlement everyone had tospend most of their time looking out for danger andgathering food for the day, in a city these were largelytaken care of by others. Each individual had only toperform a specific role. Furthermore, the very fact thata city was permanent, built to stand for ever, made itworth while investing in infrastructure and technologicaldevelopment. Thus the structures, physical, legal andadministrative, became more important than the individu-als that used them. Once established, they could just aswell be used by every subsequent generation.

Of course, it is very simplistic to suggest that the Celticsettlements were incapable of providing any of thegoodies that the Roman cities offered. It is nevertheless.true that the Roman system was so much more efficientand stable that it constituted a totally different way of living.

Things which before could be achieved only if you werelucky were now taken for granted. There is no doubt thatRoman cities posed awkward questions for the local people.

Farmers are naturally conservative and the idea of a Celticwarrior becoming a Roman shopkeeper was a bit of a sellout. At the same time, the Roman urban lifestyle was veryattractive.

This was all part of the Roman plan. Cities. were foundedvery largely as an instrument of control over the peoplethey had conquered. On the one hand, of course, theyprovided somewhere to station legionnaires and an adminis-trative centre for a region. More important in the long term,however, was the Romanising effect that they had. Byshowing the people how wonderful it was to live like aRoman and by tempting so many of them to join in the fun,the threat of local insurrection receded. Even those whoremained in the fields had kinsmen in the cities. It issignificant that Rome was finally swept away by barbarianhordes from outside the Empire rather than through upris-ings among the subject peoples.

ROMAN CITIES~~~~~~~~~~~~Before looking at the bricks and mortar, it would be well toidentify who lived in different types of city and how theywere organised. As we have seen, primitive pre-Romansettlements were not much to write home about but therewere exceptions, such as our old friend Camulodunum(Colchester) in Britain. Under Roman influence theseoften grew into cities and were called 'oppida'. Equally,where a proper city existed before the Romans arrived (moretypically in the cast) a city charter might be granted by theRoman emperor and it would be given the title, 'municipa'.Sometimes these new cities would be re-organisedalong Roman lines and sometimes they would continuerunning in the same way, subject to Roman approval.However, it is in those cities that were founded by theRomans that we can see what the ideal was. Thesewere called, 'coloniae' or colonies and were initiallybuilt and lived in by veterans recently discharged fromthe legions. Far from being old and infirm, these werehighly trained and experienced rnen who had simplydone their allotted time in the service of Rome andbeen rewarded with a plot of land. Legionary trainingincluded surveying, construction, engineering and ahost of skills useful to the building of a new city.Perhaps it is not surprising that the cities tended to bebuilt in the same grid formation as a Roman fort. Ofcourse, in an emergency the veterans could also act as ahighly trained militia.

The coloniae were given a charter by the emperorwhich laid down its constitution, gave it a name anddetailed its rights and privileges. The administrationwas very similar to that of Rome itself. Just as (in thegood old days of the Republic) the Senate elected twoConsuls to rule the Empire, each city had a town

council, the 'ordo', which elected two chief magis-trates, 'duovirs' to act as mayors. There were thenvarious city officials with functions carefully spelledout in the city charter. Each city was also given anarea of land which it could cultivate and raise rentfrom. With respect to their internal working, the citieswere relatively independent from the authority of theprovincial governor.

Roman citizenship was a valuable status to possessin that it bestowed several important privileges. Aswell as various legal exemptions and rights of appeal,there were two major rights that bore directly on theworkings of the cities. The first, 'commercium', was theright to conduct commerce under Roman Law which wasa great advantage, particularly when trading betweenprovinces. The second, 'conubium' was the capacity tohave a marriage recognised under Roman Law, therebyprotecting the legitimacy of any children and their rightsof inheritance. Thus Roman citizenship was of greatadvantage to anyone seeking to build and retain a fortuneand became increasingly highly sought after.

BRICKS AND MORTAR~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Although early Roman towns (including Rome itself) werejust as haphazard as everyone else's, by the 1st CenturyBC Greek notions of town planning had caught on andthings changed dramatically. When they got going, theRomans were great little planners and relished the pros-pect of meticulously planned new cities. A site would bechosen and marked out by the imperial surveyors, closelyfollowing the layout of a legionary fort. Sacrifices wouldbe made to the gods and away they would go. As far aslocal conditions would allow, the city would be in theshape of a playing card with two major roads crossing atright angles in the centre. The quarters thus createdwould be divided by side streets into a grid of numberedblocks, called 'insulae'.

The surveyors would also allocate agricultural land tofeed the population as well as making calculations as toland rents and the taxation needs of the new city. ARoman city was much more of an integral part of thesurrounding countryside than is the case today. Sincetechniques for the preservation of food were not veryhighly developed, many of the needs of the city popula-tion had to be produced in the immediate vicinity. A citywas simply not viable if it had insufficient agriculturalland locked into its operation. Over time there was atendency for smaller farms to be bought up by largelandowners, who languished in plush villas and maintained substantial estates.

Major public buildings would be built at the centre of thecity, next to the main crossroads. Perhaps the mostimportant of them was the forum. Although in the earlydays of the Republic the forum might sirnply be an openspace, by the 1st Cantury BC the planners were startingto enjoy themselves and the forum took on a standardform, often resembling the headquarters of a fort. In theshape of a square, three of the sides would be formed bycolonnaded walks, offices and shops. Along the fourthside would stand the basilica, which was a large assemblyhall used for a range of activities, including court sittings,administration and political meetings. The area thusenclosed was used as the market place, with stalls set upmuch as they are today. The forum therefore acted ascivic centre, market place and administrative hewhere goods and ideas were exchanged.

CIVIC PRIDE~~~~~~~~~~~Civic pride was an important part of city life and many ofthe public buildings were constructed simply to show off.Huge arches and monuments were constructed to honoursome great deed of daring-do performed ned by a foundingveteran or simply to toady to the emperor. Templeswould be built in honour of some deity but great troublewould be taken to made sure that it was just a little biggerthan the one in the next city. The city walls and thegateways in them were usually much more elaborate andmassive than a purely defensive function would dictate.

However, this was not simple vanity. The more prestigea city could generate, the more trade and imperial favoursit could attract. Well, all right, it was mainly vanity.

Naturally enough, some of the building work wasfinanced out of city coffers. As with any city, moneywas collected from a bewildering array of rents andcharges; fines, water-rates, customs duties, market tax'entrance fee to the city paths, licences etc. In Ephesus,had you wanted to set yourself up in the potentiallylucrative business of selling salt and parsley, it wouldhave cost you one denarius for the privilege. However,many individual buildings were paid for by wealthybenefactors which, if gou were very luckg, might eveninclude the emperor. Moreover, the management of cityfinances could in itself be a matter of civic pride. Thecity of Nicomedia got in big trouble with the EmperorTrajan for spending vast amounts of money on not onebut two failed aquaduct schemes. Perhaps they justleaked.

Nevertheless, apart from showing off, the city didprovide extensive civic amenities. Although medicinewas in its infancy, there were hospitals and there wereschools, often in rooms off the basilica. As such, marketdays were usually a school holiday simply because no-onecould hear what the teacher was saying over the din.While the very wealthy might live in luxurious townhouses or country villas (or both), most of the citypopulation were housed in tenement blocks. These werevery badly constructed and were forever spreadingdisease, falling over or burning down (or all three).

Eventually, a height limit of 60ft was imposed, presum-ably on the basis that if they were going to fall down itbetter not be from too great a height. In the northern partof the empire, it was more usual for the poor to live inrows of timber houses.

WATER~~~~~However, the two most famous public amenities wereconnected to water. Aquaducts are perhaps the mostspectacular legacy left by Rome. Many were fairlysimple affairs consisting of underground pipelines. Somewere colossal feats of engineering, blcing water careeringdown one side of a mountain and shooting up the otherunder force of pressure. They crossed gorges and wentthrough mountains. One at Nimes went along a channel,through a mountain, and over a river on a bridge 1542 ftlong and 161ft high. At Segovia, the quaduct is still inworking order. On one rather sad occasion in Numidia,two teams of workers set about tunnelling through amountain from either side but missed each other on theway.

The other great watery contribution to world civilizationwere the Roman baths. In fact, of course, they were morelike a cross between a sauna and swimming pool than abathroom, with 'bathers' moving together from theundressing mom (apodytcnum) to the cold room(frigidanum) to the warm room (tepidarium) to the hotroom (caldarium). Heat was produced by an underfloorsystem which sent hot air from a furnace into spacesbeneath the floor and up the walls. It was so efficient that'bathers' had to wear thick-soled sandals to protect theirfeet. The daily bath was very fashionable and a greatsocial focus for both men and women. However, in the2nd Century the Emperor Hadrian (who seerns to havebeen a bit of a spoil-sport) issued a decree forbiddingmixed bathing.

Although the aquaducts usually ensured a plentiful supplyof water to the city as a whole, very few houses had theluxury of their own piped supply. The water was col-lected in large tanks and piped to the public baths andfountains. Moreover, since there was no mechanism forconrolling or stopping the flow, the drainage system hadto be very efficient. The public latrines, with everyonesitting in rather sociable lines, were flushed with thewater from the baths and the whole was carried awayalong drains and sewers.

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Straight roads are also something for which the Romanswere famous. They built a transport and communica-tion network over their vast empire that was unparal-leled until the modern era. They built wooden cause-ways across marshes, bridges over rivers and zig-zaggedroads up mountain sides. Moreover, it was all so well

constructed that many roads and bridges have survivedtwo thousand years or more. A bridge at Vaison-la-Romaine even survived a direct hit by a German bomb in1944. Although the main roads were originally built formilitary purposes and to facilitate the running of theempire, once they were in place, of course, they were ofgreat benefit to the communities through which theypassed. The cities built side roads to link into the net-work and the maintenance of the system fell largely to thelocal communities.

However, the legendary straightness of Roman roads is alittle misleading. The road engineers were not stupid andif the easiest route was round a mountain or along thebanks of a river, they could build curves with the best ofthem. However, when the terrain was flat and there wasno particular reason not to go in a straight line, they wentstraight. Moreover, the Romans had the know-how tobuild in a straight line when they wanted to. The pointreally was that the roads were planed, so they actuallywent to where they were going by the shortest route.

This seems to have been a revolutionary idea. Certainlythe new roads must have seemed ridiculously straight to alocal population used to tracks meandering their way happilyacross the countryside, apparently with no particular end in sight.

Nevertheless, however good the roads were, they were much moreexpensive than water transport. Particularly when transportinglarge or heavy loads, a barge to the sea and then onto a ship wasby far the most sensible way to go. Every permanent humansettlement needs access to water and most ancient ones were builtnear to a river. If the river access was not sufficient for theirneeds, the Romans were more than capable of building canals to bridge the gap. A city with sea access could reap great rewards and would spend a lot of money on harboursand lighthouses etc. Although the city of Rome had very littlesea faring tradition, with the advent of the empire and the large distances involved, it quickly acquired one.

Not only did it make trade much more efficient and profitable but itmade sense to rule the waves as well as the land in between.

RELIGION~~~~~~~~Religion played a vital and obvious role in Romansociety; it is the back-seat driver of every society. Al-though we may have a clear impression of who theRoman gods were (Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva,Mars, Mercury and their chums) in fact Romanreligion was a highly complex, not to say unwieldystructure. Not only did they rule a huge empire whichcontained a dazzling array of faiths, deities and spirits butthey were also (on the whole) very tolerant of them andincorporated many into their own system. This confusionwas not helped when Julius Caesar was made a god afterhis death, initiating a practise of emperor worship. Eventhe spirit of Rome itself, Roma, was worshipped.Religious belief often starts with a vague idea that theremust be a divine essence in everything. Like manyprimitive societies, the Romans believed that every aspectof life and nature had its own spirit. Thus there werespirits of victory, fortune, marriage, storms, trees,streams, animals and anything else you care to name.

There was also a spirit, called a 'Lar', which protectedeach household. When they dedicated an altar or a city,they often ended with, 'and any other gods around that wemight have forgotten to mention'. This divine soup wasgiven a little more structure by adopting the gods of theEtruscans and the Greeks. In particular, the Greek godswere very handy. The Romans identified some of theirdeities with particular Greek gods (Zeus became Jupiter,Hera became Juno, Hermes became Mercury etc.) therebyacquiring a ready-made pantheon complete with welldeveloped mythological characters and legends.

As they conquered new territory, they discovered newgods and incorporated them also, as much as anythingto avoid having to suppress indigenous religions. So inBath for example, there was a temple dedicated to 'SulisMinerva', Sulis being a local Celtic nymph. Moreover,some of the eastern deities, such as Mithras in Persia,Cybele in Anatolia and Isis in Egypt found themselves atthe centre of Roman mystery cults. Of course, some localreligions were suppressed because they were seen as a

threat to the Roman State. Druidism in Britain andnorthern Gaul came in this category, as did Christianityand Judaism. At first Christianity was tolerated but it didrather inconveniently demand that its followers renounceall other gods, which sounded like atheism to the Ro-mans. However, after a period of savage persecution(being thrown to the lions and all that) Christianityeventually became the official State religion at the endof the 4th Century.

Of course, all of this was quite literally a god-send to thecivic show-offs. There was no shortage of spare deities tobuild a temple in honour of and most cities boasted averitable rash of shrines and temples, including at leastone to their own patron deity. With each new emperorthere was yet another possible candidate, particularlysince there could hardly be a better way to carry favourwith someone than to dedicate an enormous gilded shrineto them. Furthermore, it was a good excuse to really goto town with the decoration. Nevertheless, temples didhave an important civic role in that Roman religionwas a public rather than a personal affair, in which therituals and sacrifices necessary for cantinued protectionand prosperity were performed by priests in front of theassembled community. Temples and religious festivalswere funded by the city and the priests were highlyesteemed city officials.

GOOD TIMES~~~~~~~~~~As a society becomes wealthier and more technologicallyadvanced, continued survival can be ensurred by workingfor less and less of the day. The wealthiest members ofsociety do not have to work at all. As such, more timeand effort is spent in working out how to have a reallygood time. To some extent the Roman empire collapsedbecause people ended up working so hard at enjoyingthemselves that they forgot to work at anything else. Inmodern legend, barbarian hordes gathered at the gates ofRome while the inhabitants were busy with the mostenormous orgy. Moreover, with apologies to Virgil andOvid, it is fair to say that the Romans did not spend theirleisure time making great cultural and artistic strides.The drama was mostly borrowed from the Greeks and thechief role of music was to signal manoeuvres to fightinglegions. In general, Romans were much better at eating,drinking and fighting than at writing sensitive poetry.Of course, the wealthy classes had cultural evenings intheir homes, washed down with enormous banquets, butmost people just went to the pub. These taverns alsoserved as gaming houses and of the hundred or so identi-fied in Pompeii, several were brothels with unpaidaccounts still scribbled on the walls. Under Greekinfluence, theatres were built and the educated classes satand watched Greek tragedies arld comedies but it did notcompare with what the Greeks themselves used to do.

The rest of the public preferred less intellectually chal-lenging entertainment such as pantomime and mime, notleast because women were not allowed to appear on thestage of a serious theatre. They were, however, allowedto appear in panto and these events soon degenerated intovery vulgar and debauched spectacles, more in keepingwith Roman sensibilities.

THE GAMES~~~~~~~~~What the Roman people enjoyed most of all were 'thegames'. These came in various forms, most of them withorigins in Etruscan funeral rites and Greek theatre butslowly adapted to suit the sadistic nature of the Romanaudience. In fact, one can divide the games into thesporting, which took place in the circus and the sadistic,which took place in the amphitheatre. Sport had been apopular part of Greek culture and in the early days of theRepublic, Romans had gone to Greece to take part in theirgames. Later, Greek sports were includet in Romanpub1ic games. In 67 AD, the Emperor Nero went on tourin Greece in order to take part in a Greek sporting festivalwhich included the Olympic Games. He returned homewith 1,808 first prizes, no doubt as a consequence ofmany a potential gold medalist tactfully falling over in thehome straight.

The circus games included wrestling, boxing and athlet-ics but the most popular sport was chariot racing. Assuch the design of the circus was best suited to this

activity. It consisted of a long, thin racetrack with tiersof seats either side and ridiculously sharp bends at eitherend. A low wall called the spina ran down the centre toprevent head-on collisions (no doubt to the disappoint-nent of many of the spectators). Some of the circuseswere simply enormous; the Circus Magimus in Romehaving a capacity of 250,000. Chariot racing was bigbusiness (much like horse racing today) and the chariot-eers became real celebrities. There were four racingfactions (imaginatively called red, blue, white and green)and the rivalries often led to violent altercations.

DEATH AT THE GAMES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The sadistic Roman games took place in the ampithea-tre, which was an oval structure with the tiers of seatsoften raised above a high wall to protect the audiencefrom the nasties below. The biggest of five in Rome wasthe Colosseum which could seat 50,000 people and hadan arena that could be flooded to produce a large in whichto stage naval conflicts. Beneath the stadium there was amaze of underground passages from which would emergewild animals, Christians and gladiators. The gladiatorialcontest had its origins in the Etruscan ritual of a fight tothe death being staged at a funeral to help the deceased onhis way. The Romans gradually lost the ritual signifi-cance but liked the idea of a fight to the death. Notsurprisingly, most gladiators were slaves, althoughsuccessful ones could eventually earn their freedom.They all got their freedom one way or another.

As well as fighting each other, gladiators calledbestiarii would fight wild animals, including bulls,bears, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, lions and elephants.The animals were also pitted against each other to add tothe fun and a thriving trade grew up with distant prov-inces to supply the games with exotic animals for slaugh-ter. Nero once produced a spectacle that brought aboutthe death of 400 bears and 300 lions in one day and 9,000animals are said to have died to inaugurate the Coliseum.It goes without saying that many Christians, Jews andother enemies of the State were executed by wild animalsfor the entertainment of the populace. They were a prettybloody thirsty lot those Romans.

THE LEGACY~~~~~~~~~~However, dont lets be beastly to the Romans. They did after all give us both the word and the idea of civilisation. Whileit may no longer be geographically true that all roads lead to Rome, she lingers on in our own culture.

Roman letters, your date of birth is recorded using the Roman calendar, your home town may well have been founded byRome, your country was ruled by rome and given a name byRome, you are governed partially under the principals ofRoman law, many of the very words you speak are Roman. It ishard then to deny, that to some extent, your identity is tied up with Rome.

2,000 years after the coming of Imperial Rome we all still knowabout gladiators and legionaries, aquaducts and baths, the Circus Maximus and Hadrians wall. Caesar and Caligula.Most of us know practically nothing about the Minoan civilisation, the Chinese Empire (which was just as greatas the Roman one), the Babylonians, the Assyrians, theEgyptians, the Hitties, the Persians, the Indians, the Goths, the Vandals, the Huns, the Slavs, the Greeks, the Britons. We dont know all that much about the greeks.We know they all existed but not much more than that. One almost gets the idea that the Romans were the ancient world;apart from Christ, the Battle of Hastings and Robin Hoodthey are what happened before Henry VIII.

---Typed by Razor Blade

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