The Super Summary of World History (15 page)

Pompey went on to kick Rome’s enemies sideways from Greece to Egypt, while back in Rome Crassus had joined with Julius Caesar
[40]
in a financial partnership making them both wealthier. Caesar became consul for one year and began to redistribute land to the poor of Rome, making him the champion of the masses. After serving as consul he took over the governorship of Gaul (France today), and demonstrated that he was a man of outstanding military talents by conquering the whole place. He wrote a book on his brilliant conquests thereby showing himself to be a master propaganda artist as well. Crassus felt he needed to prove himself a general as well, so he invaded Parthia. Parthia was a large empire on the eastern edge of Rome. These Parthian’s had repelled Roman incursions before and were skilled warriors. They were especially good with the bow and arrow. Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome but no general, died like a ensnared rat in Mesopotamia near the city of Carrhae, along with 70,000 Roman legionnaires doing porcupine imitations because of all the Parthian arrows sticking out of them. The Parthian army had brought up caravans of arrows for the fight. Ouch! After this encounter Rome stayed away from Parthia . . . of course, no Roman general had wanted to invade in the first place.

Caesar, seeing that the informal triumvirate of himself, Pompey, and Crassus, had been undone by Parthia, wanted to march on Rome from Gaul with his victorious army and establish himself as dictator; however, under Roman law a general had to abandon the position of commander upon re-entry into Italy (at the Rubicon River). Caesar marched up to the Rubicon, the boundary no general could legally pass with his legions. Pompey, who was in Rome, convinced the Senate to remind Caesar he must not enter Rome with his army. The Republic was at the brink. The legions were now loyal to their commanders, whom they had served under for years and enjoyed scores of victories.
This
made
the
legions
servants
of
their
commanders
and
not
the
Republic
and
its
Senate.
This
divided
loyalty
doomed
the
Roman
Republic.

Caesar, against the orders of the Senate, crossed the Rubicon (a river in Northern Italy)
[41]
and entered Rome to the triumphant roar of the greedy citizens. Caesar was loved by the masses of Rome, and by distributing money and land to the
plebes
he increased his popularity. What followed was a series of civil wars between Caesar and his rivals (Pompey, Crassus, Anthony and their allies) which Caesar won. Caesar returned to Rome triumphant. The mobs of Rome adored him. After his return he was made perpetual dictator; however, not everyone wanted Rome under a dictatorship, no matter how wise the dictator.
[42]
A few members of the Senate formed a conspiracy to eliminate Caesar, thus regaining the republic. This group murdered Caesar in the Forum on the ides of March (the fifteenth) in 44 BC.

Before going on, we need to discuss a smallish fire. No, not a fire destroying a city, or a fleet, or a forest—just one building. This fire destroyed the
Library
at
Alexandria
, the largest library in the ancient world and the depository of all the knowledge of the time. Plutarch said Caesar started the fire accidently while burning enemy boats in 48 BC, but what really caused the conflagration is unclear. The books of the ancient world were scrolls, normally just rolled up and placed in wooden holders like wine racks. The fire easily burned the library and all its contents, depriving our world of the knowledge of their world. When the library burned thousands of years of history and learning burned as well. This was a disaster beyond measure. If I could reverse one event in the ancient world the burning of the Library at Alexandria would be it.

Figure 12 Roman Empire at its height under Trajan—115 AD

In spite of the elimination of Caesar, the republic failed to reassert itself and another period of civil war began with Octavian battling the conspirators. Eventually,
Gaius
Octavian
(later Augustus) won the wars against those who plotted the assassination of Caesar, and he took over as
Caesar
Augustus
.
[43]
Under Augustus, the office of dictator would transmute into Roman Emperor. Augustus was one of Rome’s greatest leaders. Under his rule, the Pax Romana (Roman peace) initiated two hundred years of peace within the empire, the poor were fed, land was given to the soldiers and numerous building projects were undertaken increasing the opulence of the city. Unfortunately, the civil wars had undermined the Roman Legions, and upon those legions the safety of the Empire rested.

While all these earth-shaking events were transpiring, a small event took place in a remote and grimy province on the very fringe of the Roman Empire. It was an event gathering no notice at the time, but it was a world-changing moment.
Jesus
the
Christ
was
crucified
outside the gates of Jerusalem in
AD
33
. Jesus had claimed to be the Son of God (Messiah of the Jews) during his 3 year ministry, but the Jews rejected him and demanded the Romans crucify him as a blasphemer. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, gave Jesus over for scourging and crucifixion with two criminals that same day. Three days later, his infinitesimal group of followers, who fled and hid on his arrest, began to claim Jesus had risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, and truly was the Son of God. From this insignificant event in an insignificant place the
Christian
religion
was born.
[44]

Caesar had adopted Octavian as his son (Caesar was Octavian’s great uncle) in his will. After Caesar’s murder Octavian became emperor; thus, Caesar found a way to keep the empire intact through a novel method of transferring the power of governance. The death of a dictator often causes problems with the transfer of power. Normally, an heir takes over, however, if there are many heirs wars start endangering the existence of the state. Under Caesar’s concept, as an emperor neared the end of his rule he adopted a person as his son who would then go on to rule in his place after his death. Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus (maybe those Greek names were not so bad after all), for example, chose the best man he could find to rule the empire after his death, in this case Tiberius, and adopted him as his son; thus, the power transfer problem was solved. If Emperors following Augustus followed his example the result would be a kingship based on
merit
instead of heredity—at least as long as each emperor followed the plan.

Childless Augustus died in AD 14 choosing Tiberius as his successor. Not a great choice, but Tiberius made an even worse choice for his successor, Caligula. Caligula spawned horrendous crimes, including killing his grandmother and engaging in sex with his three sisters. He also dissolved the Senate, making everyone angry in the process. Somehow, through it all, the Roman bureaucracy held on and held the empire together. After Caligula decided he was divine the Praetorian Guard decided to test that out and killed him, showing that being divine is not easy; thereafter, Claudius became emperor. After yet another round of murders and conquests, mostly in Britain, Claudius adopted Nero as his heir. Nero was 16 when Claudius died, and he was a poor leader. Nero drank, ran around with women endlessly, and raised taxes (sounds like most modern politicians). He also engaged in a hideous persecution of Christians.
[45]
After a life of killing people for no reason, including kicking his pregnant wife to death, the Praetorian Guard put Nero to death. Rome rejoiced.

Their followed a series of emperors rejecting rejoicing, but they held things together: Galba (AD 68), Vespasian (AD 69), Titus (AD 79), Domitian (AD 81), Nerva (AD 96),
Trajan
(AD 98), and Hadrian (AD 117). In AD 138 Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius took over, ran a good administration, and then, adhering to Roman tradition, named
Marcus
Aurelius
as his heir. Too bad, because Marcus Aurelius broke the long tradition of awarding power to the most worthy man. Marcus gave the empire to his son
Commodus
, a worthless man who murdered one of his sisters and slept with another. Commodus, his mind filled with filth from the start, was terminated by a conspiracy of his personal whores in AD 192. Civil War followed, and a rapid succession of emperors that were unworthy of the post.

A group of very poor leaders was at the helm as the empire declined.
[46]
The empire was not able to hold on to its far-flung territories. Just as before, in the early empires of the Middle East, barbarians from the east and north began to pound the frontiers of the western Roman world. Slowly at first, the empire pulled back, still trying to defend on the boundaries of the great rivers the Rhine and the Danube. Nothing the Western Empire could do stopped the invasions of the barbarians; thus, Western Rome disappeared from history.

Diocletian
, who became emperor in
AD
284
,
split
the
empire
into two parts, east and west, to better govern the whole. However, the real economic strength of the Roman Empire was in the east. In my opinion, the Eastern Empire was stronger because it enjoyed a connection to Asia through the Silk Road, and was better able to trade and build its wealth through these contacts. When
Constantine
became emperor, he moved the capital to Byzantium and renamed the city after himself—Constantinople (is this typical of a politician or what?). Slowly, the two halves of the empire stopped supporting one another, and the west grew ever weaker until it could no longer defend its boarders from the barbarian tribes attacking from the east. As the Western Roman Empire fell, the invaders settled into Gaul, Spain, and Italy itself. Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire would last until defeat by the Turks in AD 1453. The west fell in about
AD
455
after numerous sacks of the city of Rome.

It was during the Western Empire’s decline that the Christian religion began to be accepted, and eventually became the mainstay of European culture after Rome’s demise. The emperor Constantine granted Christianity legal status in AD 313 through the
Edict
of
Milan
, thus preventing further persecution of Christians. In 380 it became the official religion of the empire, and by AD 392, Christianity was the empire’s only legal religion. Through a series of church counsels beginning in the 300s, the church settled on which books would comprise the Bible, and settled various questions concerning key elements of the faith (
Apostles’
Creed
—2d century,
Nicene
Creed
—AD 325).
St
Jerome
(AD 374-420) and
St.
Augustine
(354-430) were major contributors to church doctrine. By the time the Western Roman Empire was at its end in AD 455, the Catholic Church has taken up its position as the philosophical and religious center of Western Europe. In addition, the importance of Rome’s preserving and transferring classical Greek culture and learning to the West cannot be overstated. The ability of Western Christianity to absorb these classics was a key factor in the Renaissance.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire centered on the following problems—in order of importance:

1)    Major Economic Weakness. After the empire split into the eastern and western halves the Western Empire became weaker by the year. After losing the oriental trade, and the food supplies from Egypt, the Western Empire degraded incessantly.

2)    Total Corruption of the Government in Rome. By the end of the empire in the West, the Roman emperors, the senators, and the administrators were scoundrels of the first order. The great leaders who had built Rome had long since left the government and the army.

3)    The Roman Army Failed to Adapt to Changing Warfare. The Roman legions, which emphasized infantry formations, were becoming obsolete because of improvements in heavy cavalry formations. Leadership was also wanting, and strategic thinking was not the forte of the legions and their leaders as the end neared.