Posted on 05/12/2013 6:14:17 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Yipes! We already got a plague last fall courtesy of election fraud.
Thanks for the info.
Ewww! Right after I posted my last response to you, I found a tick on my neck.
Domes came straight from the pagan Roman architectural tradition. The Hagia Sophia’s innovations included using four half-domes to support the main dome, thus expanding the extent of the worship area. The apocryphal anecdote about the HS is, when Justinian first entered it, he fell to his knees and shouted, “I have surpassed you, oh Solomon!”
The Romans had some setbacks against the Parthians, imo related to the battle tactics of the Parthians and general fighting style of the Romans, who generally prevailed with astonishingly little manpower.
Trajan, probably the greatest general who ever became Emperor (and that’s saying something) kicked the living hell out of the Parthians, seized their capital, and added the Roman province of Mesopotamia.
For one brief shining moment (about three years) the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland (and Ireland, but that’s another story) and Denmark (ditto) to the Persian Gulf and Arabia and much of the length of modern Egypt.
Alas, Trajan died before he could launch what would have been the final campaign against the Parthians, and was succeeded by his catamite-loving allegedly adopted son Hadrian, who abandoned Mesopotamia, retreated behind some long walls in Britain and central Europe, and squandered Roman resources on lame-brained projects like Antinoos in Egypt. He spent nearly his entire reign touring the Empire, and allegedly knew every soldier in the Roman army by name (that story is obviously horse dung).
Hadrian had to be talked out of abandoning Dacia — had he gone ahead with it, the Roman Empire would never have had Aurelian in the 3rd century (he was born in Dacia), who, despite a mere five years as Emperor, reunited the Empire by eliminating all the rival sub-Caesars, smashed barbarian invasions, built the first city wall around Rome (it can still be seen here and there today), and consolidated Roman control in (you guessed it) the east. He was murdered by some embezzler on his staff who was afraid of being found out and punished.
Hey, I was just checking dates, and find that the Wikipedia page on Aurelian is pretty close to what I’d written. I just want to go on record that I wrote this without that, and didn’t write that. :’)
:’) The lead poisoning claim emerged some years ago, and has never been accepted, except by various popular media scribblers. Oddly enough, someone just FReepmailed some questions about this just in the past couple of weeks. :’)
Well, lead did infect the denarius and debase it to such an extent that it was almost as worthless as the Federal Reserve Note vs the U.S. Dollar.
Diocletian introduced eastern-style supplication to the office of Emperor — supplicants had to be face down on the floor with their hands up, oddly enough the same way priests are ordained by the Popes. And he compelled his colleague in the w empire to retire at the same time, in order to test his system of succession. That retirement villa is (because it still stands) a fortress, and had soup-to-nuts facilities — he may have been the first survivalist. He was right near the border between the empires in case he had to raise an army and settle things down again. Mind-boggling that, until he came along, the Empire never had a fixed, orderly system of succession.
BTW, VERY impressive response for an ancient history topic, bravo!
Ping to everyone who’s posted.
Actually, the Republic had a form of succession with two Tribunes. The Empire didn’t.
The Roman Empire had a better grasp on what currency is than a lot of people today. Currency can’t be debased, because the government defines what it is. The supply of gold has always been too small to support a huge economy, which is what Rome had. At its peak, the Empire had a substantial fraction of the entire world’s population, and the Roman economy was enormous, having a major impact on the economy of India, and trade as far afield (uncontroversially) as China and (controversially) the Americas.
Don''t think Cassius would have objected to that one bit.
The "too ambitious" was the perceived intention of JC to make himself King of Rome, anathema for many centuries to Republicans.
Which he probably intended, though not perhaps specifically under that title. Making himself Dictator for Life was pretty much the same thing.
His nephew of course actually accomplished this, but managed to disguise the autocracy with a veneer of republicanism enough to avoid his uncle's fate.
The so-called Republic had two *consuls*, who served for a single one-year term, and could veto each other’s decrees. It was a way to keep a balance of factions among the 35 or so families who literally owned Italy and most of the population of Rome itself.
Tribunes were as numerous as the tribes, and as the tribal identity faded away in the 1st & 2nd c AD,
Cassius was just a murdering scumbag, and got what he deserved. That’s more than can be said for the Gracchi, who were beaten to death by their fellow Senators and their bodies thrown into the Tiber. Caesar was a reformer, Cassius et al were elitist reactionaries.
Actually, the story is better than that.
Aurelian was a harsh and suspicious ruler. With good reason, given recent history in the empire. He had a well-earned rep for executing corrupt or conspiring generals and officials.
So the embezzler you mention forged a list of names the emperor was planning to have executed, and went around showing it to the "intended victims."
Given Aurelian's character, they instantly believed the fraud and killed the emperor in what they thought was self-defense.
The moral being that suspicion and harshness can be every bit as deadly as the clemency that killed Julius Caesar.
Oh, I generally agree.
Not that I’m such a huge fan of JC. I think Octavian was a much cannier politician. He reminds me of Reagan to some extent, who said it’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit. JC’s assassins killed him basically because he flaunted his (real) superiority over them as a way of inflating his own ego. Octavian didn’t have that egomaniac urge, or if he did was able to keep it well hidden. He was interested in the reality of power, not the appearance.
The later Roman Republic resembles nothing quite so much as a mafia state. Warlords using the resources of the State, including its army, to plunder at will across the world, and then use those resources to fight each other for control of the State.
The Empire came as a huge relief to everybody but the tiny number who say themselves as “dons.”
10 tribunes, two consuls, a varying number of praetors and a bunch of minor magistrates, all elected for annual terms.
A term-limited Dictator in ultimate emergency.
Well, as to the overall decline of the empire, it was happening with or without the plague, or the lead. Inevitable.
As far as the lead, it carried water and was used for eating/drinking utensils. That had to screw up the people using it.
What can I say............................It’s FREE REPUBLIC!
Thanks SL. Aurelian remains one of my favorite emperors (not a hard choice, IMHO).
It’s perhaps not surprising that often the greatest leaders have arisen at or very near the beginning of great states — for if they don’t, the state never becomes great. :’) Augustus was a delegator and blessed with a good friend in Agrippa, who was one of the more competent (probably not great) military minds of their times. And his stepsons Drusus and Tiberius were probably the best generals who were brothers the Empire ever produced, they established Roman dominion over the Rhine. Augustus completed the transition of the Roman political system into one with a permanent executive branch.
Tiberius in his turn had a series of advisers of varying quality, and managed to hang on through at least one assassination plot (Sejanus). Caligula by contrast never seemed to maintain any trustworthy staff, probably because he wasn’t worthy of trust himself. Claudius settled on two capable advisors and executive assistants, one of whom prevented a mutiny and kept the invasion force on track to Britain. Having two meant being able to ensure their loyalty to him and competition between them maximized their output. Nero was in the shadow of his own mother, both of them were loons, and after he had her killed (seems like it was aboard a vessel), and had his wife (Claudius’ daughter) killed, and the city burned down, he had burned off anyone and everyone who might have been loyal to him.
The months of anarchy that followed ended with the ascension (usurpation) of Vespasian, the first of a number of military leaders to seize power in Roman history, and the final establishment of the precedent of dynastic rule.
I’ve got more lead in the water here than the Romans had, from old solder, and I’m in no danger. The risk of lead pipes and lead drinking utensils were known to the Romans, and their water pipes were 99 percent clay tile, with some lead and bronze used to supply the baths.
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