A very brief history of the Roman Empire to Make Sense of Current American Unrest
by Cfitter · 29 things on Twos
- So, the Roman Empire was there for almost a millennia. That’s an insanely long time for a civilization to last.
- It started as Rome the city in the 700s BC
- It then became the Roman Republic in the 600s AD, mainly holding power in the Italian peninsula
- This went on till about the 200s AD, which is when it got some land outside of the boot
- So you could say it was an “empire” this whole time because it was a great power in the Mediterranean
- It became, I guess, an official empire with an emperor with Julius Caesar in the 100s and onwards.
- This whole time, they built huge sculptures and big buildings in honor of great rulers and military victories, thus deifying them. All this self imposed greatness contributed to this folly and vanity that we humans are somehow super awesome and cooler than the rest of the natural world.
- I also didn’t know that there were THREE guys ruling the Roman Republic at the time it was first declared an Empire. One was Julius Caesar, consul (kinda like a king), and the other two were Marcus Crassus and Pompey the Great. They all got what they wanted by favoring certain measures in the senate and then had Julius Caesar pass them through executively. Sounds vaguely familiar
- Anyway, Julius Caesar was killed in 44BC because he was so drunk for power. Except his assassins didn’t have the foresight to plan what to do after Caesar’s death, which didn’t turn out good for them.
- They let Caesars right hand man live, who led an attack on those assassins two years later and killed them.
- This guy, Mark Anthony, eventually died 14 years after Caesar’s death because of this new guy named Octavian who eventually got the new name Augustus Caesar since he was close to Julius Caesar during his life.
- Augustus became the first official emperor of the newly reorganized Roman Empire in 14BC.
- Ok, so now we know that Rome started as a city, became a republic, and later an Empire. It is now time to turn our Attention to Pax Romana, the period of peace that the new Roman Empire experienced for its first 200 years (we’re talking the transition from BC to AD till about 180 BC, when Marcus Aurelius died).
- The amount of peace these Roman people experienced was absurd.
- Except it was just for them. Everyone else hated the Romans and thought they were arrogant.
- This peace lasted until about 200 AD, which is when things started to fall apart. During 235 to 284 AD, Rome would see 20 Emperors rise and fall. Kinda like Manchester United nowadays.
- This crisis of the 3rd century would see these 20 emperors raised up and then killed by same troops. 🤦♂️
- During this time, the once expansive Roman Empire split into 3 empires, now making it somewhat smaller
- The now smaller Roman Empire was soon after divided into Eastern and Western Halves. The Eastern half was the Byzantine empire.
- Then comes in this guy Constantine, who was the first Christian emperor, who did a pretty good job of organize this civil unrest and chaos.
- Fast forward to 480 AD and the western Roman Empire falls apart, leaving the Eastern half as the last of the Roman Empire.
- This last fragment of the once great Roman Empire lasted until the 1400s as the Byzantine Empire, barely resembling Rome of Anyiquity.
- What can we learn, then, from studying Rome’s rise and fall?
- Well, one thing is that a good emperor can bring peace and prosperity.
- But that peace can come at the price of nonpeace for outsiders.
- And people will obviously get attached to this peace and attribute it to the emperor, which makes them fear the change that follows their death, since emperors tend not to live forever
- If I had to say where we, the USA, are on a Rome-esc timeline, I’d say we’re around the time of the 3rd century crisis, when new leaders being promoted acted as band-aid fixes to deep internal unrest.
- But, all is not lost. If we can see it coming, we can prevent it.