Roman History

Manach

I am doing a course on Roman History. I am wondering what are people's thoughts on Rome in general. Given the number of films/t.v. series about the period it still has a hold on popular imagination.
So either was it a precursor to a multicultural Europe or a blood stained example of excess best forgotten?

bizmark

The world would more than likely be a better place if rome never fell tbh

Kobie

Well the Roman empire never really fell - it just faded away. Empires are about exploitation ,with the few ruling the many. It's great if you get to be one of the few, but pretty crappy otherwise.

Depends on your viewpoint.

If you view that civilisation (i.e. education, medicine, laws etc) are wonderful things, then the Roman Empire was the greatest thing that happened to Europe. Because of its existance, the British Ruling class were trained for both war and peace (more advanced knowledge, and training than the old pict, celt, or saxon ways), and certain areas in France, Germany, and Spain became the nations that emerged to rule Europe for centuries. The Romans brought tactics, strategy, warfare technologies etc to greater heights, and introduced horsemen properly to the battlefield. So they did bring wonderful aspects with them.

On ther other hand.

They killed, raped, and commited mass murder in the name of their Emperor & Gods. They were a nation bred for War or Politics (Pretty much the same thing). They brought their Gods across the known world, and thousands died in their worship. Civilisations as strong and educated fell to their blade, slaves by the millions were taken.

Without Rome, the world would have been a very different place. Better? I doubt it.

Capt'n Midnight

Not much in the way of arts and culture

if not them then the greeks or carthiginians would have prob. taken their place - and they wiped out most records of the carthiginians and destroyed the library at alexanderia...

what have the romans ever done for us ?

what have the romans ever done for us ?

They brought the true art of masonry to Europe, allowing the building of proper roads, and bridges. Education of the ruling classes was implemented as never before, and the Romans introduced plenty of culture to the world. Arts such as music, pottery, and sculpture were enhanced by their presence, especially in their worship of their Gods.

If you mean by us, the Irish, then nothing directly. However, their roots can be seen in the manner that Britain colonied Ireland, the manner in which they ruled us. Also the roots of British power came from Roman Science.

Manach

Re: Ireland, apparently occuring to new archological evidence there was a discovery of a Roman fort at Drumanagh near Dublin a few years back.

was it proven to be a Roman Fort, or just another fort that took the same style of engineering? Just curious.

Manach

Well. the book I reference it from "The Roman World" by Goodman says 'Certain Evidence' but I flicked thru an academic paper which disaggrees in part with this.

Kobie

I don't know about building forts, but it stands to reason that they at least came here for a bit of a look-see.

It's to their eternal credit that they didn't think it worth their while sticking around.

arcadegame2004

Rome provided our alphabet (except for the letters W, Z and Y which were added during the late-Middle Ages ) and established Christianity in Europe (in 395 AD Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion throughout the Roman Empire). Also, together with Ancient Greece, the Roman Republic (the Roman state before the start of rule by the Emperors) they helped start the democratic tradition in Europe with the holding of some elections.

Rome fell for a number of reasons:

A:The division of the empire. In 395AD, the Empire was divided into the Western Roman Empire whose capital was in Milan until moved to Ravenna in 407AD. 70% of the population of the empire's population lived in the Eastern Roman Empire whose capital was at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul). The Eastern Empire survived the fall of Rome until 1452 (except for the period 1204-1261 when Constantinople was occupied by the Crusaders). The Eastern Roman empire often refused to give the West military help during the Germanic invasions of Italy. Also the manpower stemming from the huge population of the Eastern empire was no longer available to the Western half of the empire and this meant far less tax-revenues and potential military conscripts were available to the Western Empire. This and the increasing tax-avoidance by the wealthy Senators meant that the Western empire could not afford to pay its army. Because of this, troops often mutined, went untrained, and became poorly equipped. Many ended up racketeering from civilians.

B: The Eastern Empire was much richer than the Western Empire because of the spice trade. So they could afford to pay their army and avoided the widespread mutiny, and lack of training, equipment and discipline in their army. They often bribed enemies not to attack them. The Western empire in the 5th century was less able to do so.

C: Italians avoided military service by moving to the cities (traditionally Italians from the countryside were recruited into the Roman army). Senators offered to protect them from being conscripted in return for the Italian rural-dwellers handing over ownership of their lands to the Senators and renting it from the Senators. The Emperors feared that intervening against this could lead to the Senators inviting the Germans into Italy. Among the reasons for avoiding joining the army was the fact that soldiers were going unpaid in currency, and some were even paid in kind e.g. clothes and food. Also, service was unattractive since the minimum period you had to spend in the army was 20 years. Another reason was widespread discontent caused by unemployment, which in turn was mostly due to slavery. A large slave population did all the work for the nobles (Senators), meaning that the Senators did not need to employ wage-earners to do the work for them.

The Western empire had to replace the lack of Italian conscripts with German mercenaries who were cheaper to use because they could be hired during a war and laid off afterwards. However, 40,000 of them defected to the army of the Visigoths (a Germanic tribe led by Alaric) in 410 after a massacre of the families of German soldiers serving in the Roman army and Rome was captured an plundered in 410. The Western empire still continued until 476 as the capital was no longer in Rome. The Visigoths then left Rome and captured southwestern Gaul, which the Emperors were forced to accept as a part of the empire ruled by the Visigoths on the Emperors behalf.

E: During the Visigoths invasion of Italy in 409-410AD, the Romans had to withdraw their soldiers from Britain and from much of Gaul to defend Italy, which allowed the Germanic tribes such as the Vandals, Alemanni, Burgundians etc, to invade Gaul and take it and Spain from the Romans. Then the Vandals crossed into North Africa in 422 and conquered it by 439 (Egypt was not part of the province of North Africa). North Africa was the richest province in the Western empire and losing it further eroded the Western empire's tax-base.It also allowed the Vandals to starve Rome of grain, as North Africa was traditionally the main source of Roman grain. The Vandals also had a huge fleet and sacked Rome in 455.

F:The last 5 or six Western Roman Emperors were actually appointed by German generals in the Roman Army and were puppets. The vast majority of the Western Roman Army in the 400's were German. The official end of the Western Roman Empire happened in 476 when a German general in the Western Roman Army called Odovacar declared himself king of Italy.

Rome fell for a number of reasons

G: The Roman army downgraded its equipment, making the armour lighter, since new recruits from Italy, complained too much that it was too heavy. This in turn caused more causulties. Also their training practices became almost leisurely in comparison to the training they performed to conscripts coming from Gaul and Britain. The reduction in the number of troops allocated to the supply, engineers, and cavalry sections made the legions less capable of being flexible. (They'd seen the power of Heavy infantry, but forgot that the other components of the army ensured success). Officers within the Army after a time, came more from the Nobility rather than from the ranks. Money could be used to purchase commisions, which in turn gave the legions leaders who were incapable of fighting effectively. Sure, there were exceptions, and many did rise from the Ranks, but after a time, it became an almost legendary task to do this.

F: A number of rebellions/Civil wars initiated by Roman Generals and Politicians, weakened the morale of troops, and reduced the numbers of Legions capable of being Operational.

Jim

Nero touched me

jmcc

Rome fell for a number of reasons

Don't forget the catastrophic changes to the weather system that effectively triggered social collapse all over Europe at the same time. Civilisations became more predatory as food supplies failed. (Ever hear of the dark ages? A Krakatoa size event effectively produces a nuclear winter. And some research on dendrochoronlogy supports this I think. The site of the event was near Indonesia if I remember correctly.)

Regards...jmcc

Hairy Homer

There's a common theme to the fall of Rome and the fall of other empires: it had to delegate its administration and importantly its fighting machine to its subordinates drawn largely from its subject peoples. Always a dangerous thing to do.

Britain lost its empire rapidly in the 25 years following WWII.Why? Because it had trained and armed its colonies to the teeth to fight off the threat from the German/Italian/JApanese empires.

What have Costas Grivas from Cyprus, Li Peng from Malaya, Moshe Dayan from Israel got in common, apart from the fact that all were instrumental in freeing their countries from British rule? All learned their trade in the British Army. Much is made of Mahatma Gandhi's pacifist rebellion in India. But the fact that the British had armed and trained a huge India Army to fight the Japanese in Burma must have played on British administrators minds when it came to assessing the situation in India.

'Do we have an army big enough to hold on to these Indian Chaps?'

'Well, yes sir. The only problem is most of the army are Indian Chaps'


Something similar happened in Ireland after World War One. Tom Barry, Emmet Dalton, the two guys who assassinated Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson. Who taught them how to shoot? Yup. Her Majesty's Forces.

Not that this is a phenomenon confined to the British (or the Romans) The French had trouble with their highly trained colonial troops in Algeria. Not least one Ahmed Ben Bella who led the armed wing of the independence movement. Same chap won the Croix de Guerre TWICE while serving in the French and later the Free French forces in WW II.

Britain lost its empire rapidly in the 25 years following WWII.Why? Because it had trained and armed its colonies to the teeth to fight off the threat from the German/Italian/JApanese empires

Its definetly a reason, but not one of the main ones. One of the main reasons for the reduction of the British Empire, was that US influence and agreements made in regards to US war aid stipulated the reduction of British interests abroad. Britain no longer had the economic or political power to keep those countries under control.

The fall of the British Empire occured for different reasons than the Roman Empire. Rome fell due to internal politics, civil wars and Military ineffectiveness. Britain fell due to political power wielded by the US, and the policies of the politicians following WW2. After Churchill, the following politicians weren't interested in keeping an Empire.