The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (10 page)

It would be hard to overestimate the influence that the Greeks had on the Roman world both directly and indirectly. Greek colonies existed in every corner of the Mediterranean, and after Alexander the Great, Greek became the lingua franca of the ancient world. Greek culture also served as a model from which the Romans developed Latin literature, philosophy, and rhetoric.

When Rome was nothing more than a collection of small mud huts along the Tiber, Greek culture was emerging from a long dark age after the fall of Mycenean Culture (the Bronze Age Greek civilization) about 1200
B
.
C
.
E
. After three or four centuries of dislocation, migration, and new settlements, the Greeks began to develop the Phoenician alphabet, and a long fermentation of oral literature sprang, fully formed, onto the page (or papyrus roll) with Homer's
Iliad
and
Odyssey.
These works were written down about the same time as the traditional date of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, ca 756
B
.
C
.
E
.

From the eighth through fifth centuries
B
.
C
.
E
., the Greeks got rid of their monarchies and established
poleis,
or city-states. Cities and their surrounding territories were organized, governed, and defended by citizens. Aristocracies generally controlled the city-state, but some places, such as Athens, developed more broadly based governance in which the general citizenry, or
demos,
had more control.

The Persians tried to conquer Greece in the early fifth century, and the Greek city-states cooperated to drive them from Greece. This conflict is called the Persian War (490–480
B
.
C
.
E
.). Two states emerged as the most influential: Sparta, located in the Peloponnesus, and Athens, located in central Greece. These two city-states represented very different ideals in the fifth century. Sparta was a conservative, traditional, and land-based power; Athens was a radical, innovative, and sea-based empire.

These states and their allies went to war at the end of the fifth century. This conflict is called the Peloponnesian War (430–404
B
.
C
.
E
.). Sparta was eventually victorious, but not before Athens blossomed (in part through the tribute it extracted from its “ allies”) into the city of literature, drama, science, culture, philosophy, art, and architecture that students have been studying ever since. We often think of the Golden Age of Greece as being one in which men in white frocks strolled about marble buildings pulling their beards while musing about poetry and philosophy, but this period was, in fact, about as turbulent and unstable as it could be. In Chinese proverbial terms, it really was “interesting times.”

In the fourth century, Athens regained some of its footing, but the age of the city-state was on the decline. Only two possibilities for larger order existed: cooperative
federation of the city-states under some larger body or conquest of the rest by one. Between the fractious city-states, Greek federations lasted about as long as modern Italian governments (not very long), so the conquest of the rest by one became the possibility that was eventually realized.

A Macedonian king, whom many of the Greeks (at the time) would have considered a barbarian, brought this conquest about. Philip II (king from 359–336
B
.
C
.
E
.) unified Macedonia, created a professional army, and conquered the rest of Greece. He brought the Greeks together for a combined attack on the Persian Empire. (There's nothing like a good war against a common enemy to bring fractious people together.) Unfortunately, Philip was assassinated on the eve of this expedition.

Philip's 20-year-old son, Alexander, took his father's place. After putting down some of the disorder that erupted in Greece, Alexander went on to conquer Persia, Egypt, and all the territory over to the Hindu Kush mountain range. A ruthless and brilliant general, Alexander never lived to try to make something permanent of his conquest. He died at the age of 33.

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Several Romans tried on Alexander the Great's mantle as a god-like and youthful conqueror. The famous general Gaius Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) was given the name Magnus in emulation of Alexander because of his youth and his great victories in the East. Julius Caesar defeated Pompey for control of Rome. Caesar was in part marketing himself as Alexander by using the trappings of royalty while making sweeping plans for eastern conquests (like Alexander's) at the time of his assassination.

After Alexander's death, his generals divided up the regions of his empire. The general Ptolemy governed Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty (this period of Egyptian history is known as Ptolemaic). The general Seleucus eventually controlled the east and founded the Seleucid dynasty that ruled over that area. The general Cassander controlled Macedonia, but descendants of Antigonus finally came to rule it in an Antigonid dynasty. Greece and Macedonia were thereafter in turmoil as Macedonians struggled for power, Greek city-states jockeyed for position, and other Greek areas (such as Aetolia) formed powerful leagues. The Romans eventually put a stop to the commotion.

 
When in Rome
Barbarian
is originally a Greek word, and probably comes from emulating how non-Greek speakers sounded (“ bar-bar-bar-bar”). To the Greeks, it would, have applied to everyone who did not speak Greek (including the Romans!). Romans used the term to apply to tribal peoples whom they considered less civilized than cultures, such as the Greeks and Etruscans.

On the other side of the Mediterranean, things were a bit calmer, but only a bit. Southern Italy and Sicily had been colonized by the Greeks since the eighth century
B
.
C
.
E
., and powerful city-states such as Neapolis (Naples), Tarentum (Tarento), and Syracusa (Syracuse) were well established by the time Rome began to develop into a city and regional power. Like their mainland counterparts, however, the Greek city-states of Magna Graecia never could cooperate effectively and thus were unable to resist Roman expansion. Only Tarentum put up an effective fight, and that was, in part, by calling in help from Epirus.

The
barbarian
tribes that lived in the far north of Italy and beyond the Alps played a major role in Rome's history and development. As far as Rome expanded, the people along its northern border, whether that was in northern Italy or along the Danube, were both a menace and a source of wealth, conquest, manpower, and vitality. Across the Adriatic, Illyrians and the kingdom of Epirus were also to play a vital role in Rome's expansion, and during the period of the Empire, in providing both the troops and the emperors who held the Empire together in a period of crisis.

 
When in Rome
The term “
Gaul
” is a catchall term for the Celtic and Germanic tribes that fought and migrated their way back and forth over Europe for centuries. In other places, you will find some of these people differentiated as Celts, Germans, or by their specific tribal names.

For the Romans, Gaul was the lands that lay just before and beyond the Alps to the Rhine and west to the ocean.
Gauls
began migrating over the Alps from the north and settled the far northern region of Italy in the sixth century
B
.
C
.
E
. The Romans called the Gallic lands on their side of the Alps
Gallia Cicalpina
(Cicalpine Gaul). The rest was
Gallia Transalpina
(Transalpine Gaul). Transalpine Gaul was conquered by Julius Caesar. It was organized by Augustus into
Gallia Narbonensis
(basically Provence), and the farther reaches of Gaul were called
Gallia Comata
(or Longhaired Gaul).

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
As the Romans encountered various Gallic tribes, they Latinized their names. Many of these names remain with us today. Here's a few:

• The
  Belgae
  were the war-like Celtic and Germanic tribes living in what is today northeast France. Caesar fought and subdued the Belgians in 57
  B
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  C
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  E
  .
  
• The
  Alemanni
  was a Germanic tribe who gave the Romans trouble up and down the Rhine and into present-day Switzerland. The French name for the Germans,
  Allemands,
  comes from their name.
  
• The
  Germani
  , according to the historian Tacitus, was the name of a particular Germanic tribe and the various tribes adopted this name as the one that would represent them as a whole while fighting together against the Romans.
  

The Gauls were fierce warriors and were always a threat to the stability of Roman conquests. Though their tribes were too uncooperative and disorganized to maintain gains when they made them. Besides, the tribes were more concerned with plunder and with finding land to settle on than with creating an empire. Gallic forces twice sacked Rome (in 390
B
.
C
.
E
. and
C
.
E
. 455), but they didn't try to rule Rome. They went back to their own lands after they had enough pillage and ransom.

 
Roamin' the Romans
If you're in France and visit Narbonne, you're in the ancient Gallic capital
Narbo.
This Celtic and Iberian capital was settled by the Romans as a colony (
colonia Narbo
) in 118
B
.
C
.
E
. After Caesar's conquest of Gaul it became the capital of the Roman
Gallia Narbonensis
and the most Roman of the Gallic provinces.

Epirus was the wild region of northwest Greece that lay across the Adriatic Sea from southern Italy. The area was famous for its pirates, and I mention it because Alexander of Molossia, Alexander the Great's uncle, unified the area. Alexander came to the aid of Tarentum against Rome in 333
B
.
C
.
E
. and conquered most of
southern Italy. This set a precedent for a later Molossian king, Pyrrhus, to again become involved in southern Italy on the side of Tarentum. Pyrrhus won several
pyrrhic victories
against Rome between 280 and 275
B
.
C
.
E
., but given his huge losses, he was forced by the Romans and Carthaginians to withdraw from Italy.