SPQR of the House

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I'm going to light a candle and confess to an expensive addiction that takes years out of my life. I read about five books a week. At first it started with a few trips to the library. But in the years since, my habit has become so extreme that I keep paperback novels everywhere around my house and even at the office...

I'm halfway through a great book about life in the Roman legions in the first century BC. In recent years, there have been a growing number of fictional pieces set in classical Roman times. Blame part of this on the spectacular box office success of "Gladiator", but methinks that there is more to it than that...

Rome. A city built around seven rolling hills along the Tevere river. The home of the Vatican, the world's smallest sovereign nation. The setting and focus for countless political, religious, literary, fashion, and technological events that have changed the world for millions of people. But it's not the allure of the ruins, the glory of the Papal presence, or the ambiance of the bustling and aromatic piazzas that makes me think of this one city above all others. It's the social legacy.

How did one city render its Greek cultural roots into a force that would eventually conquer its mentors, evolve into a republic and expand into an empire that spanned the borders of the known world. An empire that would eventually relocate eastwards to survive for another thousand years until the rise of Islam. Europe, Asia, and Africa were held bound by the actions and legacies spreading from this single city for over a thousand years.

The cultural imprint is deep. From the names in the Julian calendar to the roman numerals found on the banner of most newspapers. Carthage is no more. The emperor Hadrian's wall still crumbles in peace. The ramp at Masada still stands testimony to an epic struggle. And the forests of Germany still grow tall in soil fertilized with the bones of warriors and soldiers who fought under or against a banner that bears a stylized eagle.

From my perspective, however, what is even more intriguing is the Roman influence on this continent. The United States of America, the eagle totem, and the republic for which it stands. The founding fathers of this nation, like most educated and elite men of their time, were raised on a steady diet of Latin, classical verse, and studies of the Roman republic. They looked back over two millenia when they expounded against tyranny and laid out the freedoms inherent to being a citizen.

When I was younger, I used to marvel at how parochial schools forced their students to learn latin and read Virgil. How useless, I thought. I'm glad that I don't have to study those dead cultures. Looking back, I feel like Steve Martin in "The Jerk" when he complains to the sommelier at a swank restaurant about the old wine. "Bring us some fresh wine. No more of this old stuff." I now think that there is great value in examining the classics. We stand on the shoulders of giants. And it would be wise to see if their feet were made of clay, as ours surely are.

The political and social leadership of the Roman republic and empire was, perforce, centered on the Roman metropolis. Pacifying and appeasing the masses in this crowded and decadent city was not merely the image of power. It was the raw stuff of power. In a society where emperors were murdered and the army itself was banned from entering within the walls, fear and politics went hand in hand. But what about the rest of the empire? The breadbasket of Egypt, the parched deserts of Syria, the wooded dales of Britain, the mountains of Spain, the hills of Greece, and even the farms and latifundia of Italy? Roman history is not merely of the Romans. It is about the Scythians, the Celts, the Macedonians, the Pontics, and the Carthaginians.

What is fascinating for me is trying to figure out who was changed more by contact with Roman law and technology -- the Romans or their subject peoples?

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” said Monty Python in their irreverent film "The Life of Brian". Where Roman soldiers conquered, civilization soon followed. A civilization whose economy was geared at pumping wealth back into the heart of the empire. Vae victus. Woe to the conquered. The residual benefits of Roman occupation would have been sour grapes indeed to those laboring to meet the demands of Roman tax farmers.

But changes to Roman law would alter the balance between rich and poor. For the first 400 years of the Republic, the army was composed solely of established citizen land owners in the Greek tradition. But in 107 BC, a Roman consul named Gaius Marius was faced with a growing shortage of soldiers to maintain the empire. He abolished the land minimum and started recruiting from the ranks of the poor. Henceforth, the rights and duties of citizenship were made available to anybody who fufilled a term of service in the army. After Marius, citizenship was no longer the prerequisite for military service in defense of Pax Romana, it was the final reward.

This was to have far reaching implications for the army and society as a whole. Marius' reforms achieved its immediate goals by producing a larger and more professional army with enlistment periods of twenty years or more. But it also led to legions who were so loyal to their generals that the army became instrumental tools in civil and political conflicts. When legion loyalty to their own was paramount and conflicted with civil authority, battles for patronage and political power were played out on actual battlefields as well as the forum. But the implications of Marius' reforms extend beyond internal power plays.

In physics, Newton's third law of motion states that there is an equal and opposite reaction for every action. A balancing that leaves the status quo altered. And many of the military forces which caused the greatest grief to Rome were led by those who were once enslaved or trained by Roman arms. It wasn't just Spartacus who raised the gladius in defiance. Many rebel armies were led, trained, or advised by former soldiers or deserters from the very same legions that opposed them on the field of battle.

But not every foreign soldier abandoned Rome during its final years. And not all of the legions died fighting. Many fought and endured; others continued on to defend the new empire in Constantinople; or remained behind as the tide of empire waned. In the north of England, there are two graves along Hadrian's wall. One grave is of a man who was born in Syria, fought across Europe with the legions, and was finally posted to Britain. The other grave is that of his wife, a local girl. Of such things are empires made.

There are many analyses of the rise and fall of the Roman empire, with Gibbon being one of the most famous and authoritative. But I boil it down to one word which is one of the cardinal sins. Pure pride.

Surrounded by proud Celts, Greeks, and other fractured and combative peoples, Romans were so proud of their culture that they subjugated entire continents to sustain their superior way of life. The same pride maintained those lands in the face of populous uprisings and periodic waves of barbarian invasions and assimiliation. But after centuries of economic and military dominance in the west, a growing tide of setbacks and insurrections fueled by repressed native pride swamped the legend of Roman invincibility. The empire in the east survived for another thousand years but the west was lost.

Some commodities cannot be monopolized, especially those emotions which are innate to all beings. All social mores and customs are based on the judicious preservation of individual and collective pride. It is the driving force behind all great hopes and achievements; and the twisted rationale for baser actions and drives. Like the other deadly sins, pride is not only innate but beneficial in moderation. But just as lust and gluttony are desire and appetite in excess, pride without a leavening of tolerance and fairness becomes arrogance and exclusion. It pays to be careful about who gets left out in the cold... Because the barbarians at the gate often used to reside within the walls.

This is even more important when living within a land with great individual freedoms and lofty ideals. America was founded on a concept that was the cornerstone of the Roman world -- the rights of the citizen. And like Rome, it has grown mightily from a backwater, provincial nation to the world's greatest superpower.

As the great issues of our time are debated on television and in casual bar conversation, there is always a refrain that sings in the back of my mind. As talk radio chatters about private citizens setting up armed roadblocks on the border, I wonder. As soldiers deploy overseas for months of hazardous duties and CNN returns images of road side bombings, busy air bases, and quiet elections, I ask myself the same question. A thousand years from now, when the Gibbon of that time is writing the history of this age, how will we be remembered? And will my lifetime be enclosed by the first, second, or last volume?

 

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