The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (17 page)

 
Great Caesar's Ghost
Politicians sometimes keep repeating certain phrases as “sound bites” to capture the public imagination. They can look back to Cato the Elder who, to keep hammering home his conviction that Rome should eliminate Carthage altogether, worked
Carthago delenda est
(“Carthage has to be destroyed!”) into every speech and party conversation whether it pertained or not.

In Chapter 4, “Club Mediterrania: Rome in the Context of Other Civilizations,” we described how Alexander the Great's empire was carved up by his generals into the
Hellenistic
dynasties of the Antigonids (of Macedon), Ptolemies (of Egypt), and Seleucids (of Asia Minor). These kingdoms fought a seesaw battle of cutthroat among themselves for dominance. Along the fault lines, a number of Greek city-states, islands, and leagues held on to a measure of independence by playing one dynasty against another. As Rome entered the picture, these smaller players tried to do the same thing with Rome. The conquest of Carthage had made Roman nobles and middle class citizens rich in goods, land, and slaves, and the rich Hellenistic kingdoms promised other opportunities for expansion and glory.

The Illyrian Wars set the stage for Roman involvement in Greece. The Greek cities of Magna Graecia had always suffered from piracy, and the Illyrians, who lived across the Adriatic from Italy (modern Yugoslavia), were particularly good at it. The Romans negotiating with the Illyrian queen, Teuta, and when that didn't work, they conquered part of her kingdom and gave it to a Greek adventurer by the name of Demetrius of Pharos. When Demetrius turned out to be a loose cannon and began to conquer his neighbors, the Romans expelled him and set up their own Roman garrison at Dyrrachium. Demetrius fled to king Philip V of Macedon and urged him to attack the Romans before it was too late. Philip V did form a brief alliance with Hannibal after Rome's defeat at Cannae, but he backed off and made peace with Rome in 206
B
.
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.
E
. when things went badly for Carthage.

 
When in Rome
The term
Hellenistic
refers to Greek civilization and culture throughout the Mediterranean and Asia Minor after the death of Alexander the Great in 323
B
.
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E
. to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 31
B
.
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.

Philip V turned his attention to defeating the Ptolemies of Egypt. His successes threatened the independence of the island of Rhodes. Rhodes appealed to Rome and claimed that Philip was conspiring with Antiochus III of Syria to divide up Egypt. This would have made Philip far too powerful for Rome's tastes. They invaded Macedonia in 200
B
.
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. but had trouble until a gifted general and diplomat, Gaius Flaminius, took over the effort. Flaminius spoke fluent Greek and was well-liked by the other Greeks. He defeated Philip at Cynoscephalae in 197
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.

In 196
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. at the Isthmean Games (in Corinth), Flaminius declared in the name of Rome that all Greek city-states were to be free and independent. Pandemonium broke out. Greek cities minted coins with his image, and in some cities he was, like Alexander, worshipped as a god. Freedom for Greece, however, served Roman interests. It kept the Greeks fragmented while the Roman declaration made any unifier think twice. Unfortunately, the Greeks, whom Flaminius admired, proved incapable of managing their affairs, and Greece dissolved into chaos and anarchy. Eventually the Romans imposed a terrible order.

Trouble with Philip V's son, Perseus, brought the Romans back in 171
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. After the general Aemilius Paullus defeated Perseus at Pydna in 168
B
.
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., the Romans broke Macedonia up into four separate republics. The war spoils and Macedon's yearly
tribute
to Rome was so great that all Romans were exempted from direct taxes. The Macedonians rebelled in 149
B
.
C
.
E
. under the yoke. Rome crushed them and made the once great state of Macedon into a Roman province, Macedonia.

In Greece, the Romans traded anarchy for oppression. They plundered and depopulated whole areas, selling at one point 150,000 captives as slaves. They helped local despots to terrorize their people, and when they found some of Perseus's papers with the names of leading Achaean citizens, they deported them to Greece (including the historian Polybius) and kept them imprisoned for years. Finally, in response to yet another Greek uprising, the consul Lucius Mummius sacked Corinth in 146
B
.
C
.
E
., plundered its treasures, razed it to the ground, and killed its citizens or sold them into slavery. The city-states of Greece were placed under Roman-approved authorities. Eventually the emperor Augustus separated Greece from Macedonia and made it the province of Achaia in 27
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.
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.
E
.

The Seleucid king, Antiochus III, the Great of Syria, had taken advantage of Philip's troubles with the Romans. He conquered the eastern Mediterranean from Europe to Egypt. The city of Pergamum (western Turkey) appealed to Rome for assistance against Antiochus, and Flaminius (the general who defeated Philip V) went to have a talk with Antiochus. Antiochus was not impressed.

 
When in Rome
Tribute
(
tributum
) was the yearly assessment of taxes. Provinces and conquered peoples also paid installments as a part of treaties to cover the costs of conquest (yes, conquered people paid for their own subjugation).

 
Roamin' the Romans
Pergamum became a powerful and wealthy city, renowned for its medical school, sculpture, town planning, library, and the famous Altar of Zeus. You can visit the site of Pergamum in Turkey, and you can see the amazing high-relief sculpture of the “Pergamum Altar” in Berlin.

It was about that time that Hannibal, on the run from Carthage, showed up in at Antiochus' court in Syria. He advised Antiochus to cooperate with the other Greeks against Rome, but Antiochus attacked Greece instead in 192
B
.
C
.
E
. This brought the Romans in, big-time. The Romans combined with Macedon, Carthage, and Greece to drive Antiochus back to Syria where the Romans pursued and defeated him at the battle of Magnesia in 190
B
.
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E
. Antiochus made a final peace in 188, and died plundering a temple in 187
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. The Romans carved a huge slice out of his empire for their ally, the city of Pergamum, who had originally appealed to them for help. Pergamum returned the favor in 133
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. when King Attalus III of Pergamum willed his kingdom to the Roman people, and Pergamum became a possession of Rome.

Besides Rome's conquest of the eastern Mediterranean, there was conquest going on in the west. It's hard to imagine that the Romans were able to fight wars on so many fronts. Gauls in northern Italy, who had joined Hannibal, remained an unpredictable and dangerously unstable force on the northern border. Meanwhile, Rome had inherited Spain from Carthage, but with a very messy probate: Spain's rugged terrain and rugged people proved difficult to subdue.

After the Second Punic War, the Romans reconquered, colonized, and imposed order on the Gauls in northern Italy between 197 and 170
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. They settled colonies from Aquilia on the Adriatic to the Italian Riviera, and relocated troublesome people like the Ligurians from their homelands to places where they could be better controlled. The Romans also went on a road-building boom to unify the area and better connect it with Rome. Colonies, economic development, and infrastructure accomplished what armies could not, and northern Italy became peaceful, stable, and Romanized.

Rome took over Carthaginian holdings in Spain, which was rich in resources and manpower. They had trouble, however, subjugating the Spaniards, who were adept at guerilla warfare in the mountainous Spanish terrain. In 197
B
.
C
.
E
., the Romans divided Spain into
Hispania Citerior
(Nearer) and
Ulterior
(Farther) and tried to impose taxes on the tribes that would pay for Spain's administration. This went badly until Cato the Elder (195
B
.
C
.
E
.) and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (180–178
B
.
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.
E
.), two Roman governors, set up fairer and more equitable terms and conditions.

Later, Roman governors provoked the Spanish into rebellions. The tribes achieved successes against the Romans under a charismatic leader, Viriathus (141
B
.
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.
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.), and at the city of Numantia (137
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.
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.
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.), the Romans shamelessly broke treaties made in good faith with both. Traitors to Spain, bribed by Rome, slit Viriathus's throat and shipped his people off to a colony. Numantia was besieged, starved into surrender, and burned in 133
B
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.

Roman conquests in 133
B.C.E.

The year 133
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. marks Rome's completed conquest. Rome's dominions extended from Syria in the east to the Atlantic ocean (with Spain), and from the Alps to the north down across the sea into Africa. It was a conquest marked initially by foresight, cooperation, and restraint, and later by brutal subjugation, exploitation, and dishonesty. The allure of unimaginable power, wealth, and glory through conquest and political dominance at Rome was strong, too strong not to have some terrible effects on Rome's treatment of other nations and on Rome internally in the years to come.

• Rome's success depended largely upon relationships formed with states and colonies in early conquests of central Italy.
  
• Rome's conquest of southern Italy led to conflicts with the Carthaginians and the Macedonians, who also had interests there.
  
• Rome's ability to recover and fight on multiple fronts allowed Rome to defeat Carthage while still maintaining and expanding its empire.
  
• Rome destroyed Carthage and Corinth in the same year (146
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  .) and in 133
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  ., possessed Spain and the Pergamum empire.