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The Ancient World Part VI:
Rome, Jews and Christians 500 CE
Time Line of Art History: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In his famous book, "Organism," Abraham Maslow originated the idea of self-actualization within a hierarchial structure of physilogical and psychological needs. Within this structure are what Maslow calls "esteem needs." From the very beginning of time historians have made manifest evidence of man's expression of "esteem needs." Over 30,000 years ago in Chauvet France the discovery of dynamic, vibrant paintings of animals drawn on limestone cave walls stand as a testament to man's need to express his world through art.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,
That is all ye know on earth and
All ye need to know.
-------- John Keats (1819) "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Take the time to see the truth, to see the beauty that man has created across time and space. "Click away!"
The Roman World
Italian Peninsula, 1000 B.C.E..–1 C.E.
The
Eastern Mediterranean, 1–500 C.E.
Time Line Index:
The Timeline Index : People, Periods, Places and Events in a chronological context.
Jerusalem Rise of Christianity
Readings
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
The Roman World:
Roman history begins in a small village in central Italy; this unassuming village would grow into a small metropolis, conquer and control all of Italy, southern Europe, the Middle East, and Egypt, and find itself, by the start of AD time, the most powerful and largest empire in the world. They managed what no other people had managed before: the ruled the entire world under a single administration for a considerable amount of time. This imperial rule, which extended from Great Britain to Egypt, from Spain to Mesopotamia, was a period of remarkable peace. The Romans would look to their empire as the instrument that brought law and justice to the rest of the world; in some sense, the relative peace and stability they brought to the world did support this view.
Italy is a peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean west of Greece. Unlike Greece, Italy is poor in mineral resources and surprisingly devoid of useful harbors. However, the most stunning difference between Greece and Italy is the exponentially larger amount of fertile land. While Greece is poor in fertile land, Italy is wealthy in both land and precipitation. So the two peoples developed very differently; the Italians began and remained largely an agrarian people. Even in its latest stages, Roman culture would identify its values and ideals as agrarian.
Somewhere between 900 and 800 BC, the Italian peninsula was settled by a mysterious peoples called the Etruscans. We don't know where the Etruscans came from, but archaeologists suspect that they came from the eastern Mediterannean, possibly Asia Minor. We will, however, never really know where they came from or why they colonized Italy. We do know that when they came to Italy, they brought civilization and urbanization with them. They founded their civilizations in north-eastern Italy between the Appenine mountain range and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Their civilization stretched from the Arno river in the north to the Tiber river towards the center of the Italian peninsula; it was on the Tiber river that a small village of Latins, the village that would become Rome, sat. So the Romans, who were only villagers during the rise of the Etruscan civilization, were in close contact with the Etruscans, their language, their ideas, their religion, and their civilization; the Etruscans were the single most important influence on Roman culture in its transition to civilization.
Rome was founded by an agrarian Italic peoples living south of the Tiber river. They were a tribal people and the social logic of tribal organization dominated Roman society in both its early and late histories. The date of the founding of Rome is uncertain, but archaeologists date its founding to around 753 BC, although it probably existed as a small village long before then. As the Romans steadily developed their city, its government, and its culture, they imitated the neighboring civilization to the north, the Etruscans. The Etruscans, though, as they saw the power and influence of the Latin city to their south grow, would take over the government from these new, threatening people.
After the overthrow of the Tarquin monarchy by Junius Brutus in 509 BC, Rome does not revert back to a monarchy for the rest of its history. The era of the great expansion of Roman power and civilization is the era of the Roman Republic, in which Rome is ruled by its Senate and its assembly, which were institutions formed at the beginning of the monarchy. The history of the Republic is a history of continuous warfare; all of the historical stories which the Romans will use as stories of Roman virtue and values date from this tumultuous period of defense and invasion.
The conquest of Italy began soon after the Romans expelled the Tarquins in 509 BC; their first target were the Etruscans themselves. Allying themselves with other Latins and with the Greeks, the Romans quickly drove the Etruscans from the Italian peninsula. Etruscan civilization came to a brutal end. Rome steadily conquered all the Etruscan territory throughout the fifth and fourth centuries BC.
The greatest naval power of the Mediterranean in the third century BC was the North African city of Carthage near modern day Tunis. The Carthaginians were orginally Phoenicians and Carthage was a colony founded by the Phoenician capital city of Tyre in the ninth century BC; the word "Carthage" means, in Phoenician, "the New City." The Phoenicians, however, were conquered by the Assyrians in the seventh century BC, and then conquered by the Persians; an independent Phoenician state would never again appear in the Middle East. Carthage, however, remained. Since Phoenicia no longer existed as an independent state, that meant that Carthage was no longer a colony, but a fully functioning independent state. While the Romans were steadily increasing their control over the Italian peninsula, the Carthaginians were extending their empire over most of North Africa.
The Conquest of the Hellenistic Empires
While Rome was engaged in internal politics and the conquest of Italy, the Macedonian Greeks first conquered the Greek mainland and peninsula, and then, literally, the whole of the world. By 324 BC, when Rome still didn't control much of Italy and the city was still struggling with friction between the patricians and the plebeians, the entire world east of Rome, everything, was under the control of a single man, Alexander the Great. While there were numerous Greek cities on the Italian peninsula and while Rome was heavily influenced by Greek culture and thought, the Romans didn't seem to pay this ground-shaking development with much concern. Although the Hellenistic world fractured in pieces, nonetheless the end of the fourth century saw three great empires controlling the world east of Rome. The Romans, however, didn't seem overly concerned, occupied with problems of their own; the Romans, you see, were not particularly interested in world domination, but rather on their own immediate security. And the Hellenistic empires were not viewed as a threat.
Rome had begun as a small city-state. It's constitution, its government, its social structure, and its moral values were those of a small, mainly agrarian state. All of these, the constitution, government, social structure, and values, adapted well to the governing of Italy. The Empire, however, which Rome had stumbled into by accident, provoked a profound crisis in Roman society, government, and morals.
The First Triumvirate, consisting of Julius Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, came to power in 59 BC when Caesar was elected consul. The Triumvirate reform program was enacted and Caesar got himself appointed governor of Illycrium and Gaul. The way to power in Rome was through military conquest; this gave the general a loyal army, wealth (from the conquered), and popularity and prestige at home. So the governorship of Illycrium and Gaul allowed Caesar to become the general and conqueror he so desperately desired to become.
Augustus called himself "princeps," or "first" (from which we get the word, "prince"); his full title that he assumed was "first among equals." So, in language at least, nothing had really changed in Roman freedom and equality. His successors, however, would name themselves after their power, the "imperium," and called themselves "imperator." Augustus, however, was on a mission to restore order and even equity to the Empire, and so in many ways is considered the greatest of all these emperors.
After the death of Augustus in 14 AD, Rome underwent a series of profound changes. The Empire itself grew dramatically; from Augustus to the time of Trajan (98-117 AD), Rome acquired more of northern Africa, most of Great Britain, parts of Germany, eastern Europe around the Black Sea, as well as Mesopotami and the northern part of the Arabian peninsula. At home, Rome struggled with its new institution of quasi-monarchical rule. Augustus had fudged the issue by declaring himself "first among equals," or simply, princeps , but his successors stopped pretending and simply called themselves either Caesar, to indicate descent from the royal house, or imperator , since they derived their power from the imperium over Rome and the military. The institution became more like a monarchy after Augustus's death; Augustus had been elected by the Senate, and this practice remained—in truth, the early emperors were simply hand-picked by the current emperor.
The Calamitious Century (180-284 CE)
When Marcus Aurelius died in 180, his son Commodus assumed the imperiate. Marcus Aurelius had been appointed by the Senate and proved to be a thoughtful and highly efficient administrator. His son, however, was slightly imbalanced. Fancying himself to be a reincarnation of Hercules, Commodus was both brutal and incompetent. He openly defied the Senate and revelled in all sorts of perversities. He was so violent and vicious, that the palace guards murdered him in 192.
While people like to talk about the "decline" or the "fall" of Rome, no such thing really happened. Although Rome underwent several shocks in the fourth and fifth centuries, some of them violent with a transfer of the imperiate to non-Romans, Rome really did remain in existence. It's impossible to say when the history of Rome ends and when the medieval ("medieval" means "in the middle") period begins, so I'm going to arbitrarily end this history of Rome with the assumption of the imperiate by foreigners. But the empire really does end, for all practical purposes, with the restructuring of the empire by Diocletian.
Roman Philosophy:
Cicero was born in 106 B.C., six years before the birth of Julius Caesar, into a wealthy family, though none of his family served as senators. He received the Roman equivalent of an Ivy League education, studying rhetoric and philosophy in Rome, Athens, and Rhodes. After making a name as a lawyer in the Roman lawcourts, he was elected to the office of quaestor in 76, which made him a member of the Senate, and in 63 he was elected consul, 1 at the lowest legal age and as the first man for thirty years to gain that position from a family which had not previously held the office. During his year as consul he put down the conspiracy of Catiline, for which he was awarded the title of "Father of his Country."
A Glossary of Roman Culture and Concepts:
As Rome began to control other cities early in its history and incorporate foreigners, such as other Latins and Etruscans, into their regional hegemony, they developed a set of laws to apply to these newly subjugated people. Since they were not Roman citizens, Roman laws could not exactly apply to them. In their singular penchant for improvisation, the Romans developed a separate set of laws in the early fifth century to deal with crimes and civil complaints involving foreigners or the relation of foreigners to Romans. They called these new and separate laws, the Law of Nations.
Perhaps the single most important idea the Romans incorporated into their culture from the Stoics was their concept of the logos. The universe is ordered by God and this order is the logos , "meaning" or "rational order" of the universe. Each and every event, physical and historical, has a place within this larger rational order. Since the order is rational and meaningful, that means nothing happens which is not part of some larger reason or good (compare this with Boethius' Christianization of this concept). For the Roman, this larger good came to mean the spread of law across the face of the planet; this law was to be spread through Roman imperial conquest. Therefore, each and every function a Roman undertook for the state, whether as a farmer or foot-soldier, a philosopher or emperor, partook of this larger purpose or meaning of world history.
The single most important philosophy in Rome was Stoicism, which originated in Hellenistic Greece. The contents of the philosophy were particularly amenable to the Roman world view, especially since the Stoic insistence on acceptance of all situations, including adverse ones, seemed to reproduce what the Romans considered their crowning achievement: virtus, or "manliness," or "toughness." The centerpiece of Stoic philosophy was the concept of the logos. The universe is ordered by God and this order is the logos , which means "rational order" or "meaning" of the universe.
Rome at its beginning was primarily and agricultural
and martial culture. As a result, the earliest Romans stressed simplicity,
strength, and toughness, which are all requirements of both the agricultural
and martial lifestyles. What is anomalous about Roman society is that, even
after Rome became not only urbanized, but downright cosmopolitan, Romans still
looked back to their agricultural beginnings as defining the essential character
of Romanness. As a result, one of the principal cultural values in Rome was
virtus, which is derived from the Latin word vir, or "man." Virtus
, then, means something like "manliness." Unlike the Greek value
areté, which means "being the best one can be," virtus stresses
strength, toughness, simplicity, and bearing up under adversity.
Video Presentations
Rise of and the Fall of Rome and Empire:
The Western Tradition Series
Through its army, Rome built an empire that shaped the West
Rome's civil engineering contributed as much to the empire as did its weapons
While enemies slashed at Rome's borders, civil war and economic collapse destroyed the empire from within
Despite the success of emperors such as Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, Rome fell victim to barbarian invasions.
Ancient Rome The Rise And Fall Of An Empire
Part 1 -Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
This is a documentary/drama that examines the system, both political & military, of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. It explains how the Romans came to conquer most of the known world & why the empire eventually fell into ruins.
What the Ancients Did for Us
The city of Rome was founded on the banks of the Tiber in 753 BC and for a all thousand years the western world was ruled from within its walls. To support this vast Empire the Romans created complex infrastructure and used the techniques of mass production, centuries before the industrial revolution. In this programme Adam Hart-Davis will find out how the Romans managed to do so much, so long ago and discover just what the Romans did for us. For a start they created the first professional, salaried army and invented fearsome war machines. To move around the Empire they constructed thousands of miles of roads – and we find out what it actually takes to build one of these. They built amphitheatres and race tracks and in the process brought gladiatorial games and equine sport to every corner of their empire
Lost Treasures Of The Ancient World
The Roman Empire In North Africa.
Francis Schaeffer Presentation
How Should We Then Live -The Roman Age
Chapter One-Ancient Rome The finite Graeco-Roman gods were not a sufficient inward base for the Roman society: Rome crumbled from within, and the invasions of the barbarians only completed the breakdown
Cullen Murphy Presentation
"Are We Rome?: Fall of an Empire, Fate of America"
Are We Rome?: Fall of an Empire, Fate of America
Cullen Murphy, writer, editor at large, Vanity Fair The rise and fall of ancient
Rome has been on American minds from the beginning of our republic. Today
we focus less on the Roman republic than on the empire that took its place.
Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves either as
a triumphal call to action, or as a dire warning of imminent collapse. Esteemed
editor and author Cullen Murphy ventures past the pundit's rhetoric to draw
nuanced lessons about how we might avoid Rome's demise. Working on a canvas
that extends far beyond the issue of an overstretched military, Murphy reveals
a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinding, insular
culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of corruption; the paradoxical
issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic through various forms
of privatization. Most pressingly, he argues that we most resemble Rome in
the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance
of the world outside: two things that are in our power to change. In lively,
richly detailed historical stories based on the latest scholarship, the ancient
world leaps to life and casts our own contemporary world in a provocative
new light.
Readings
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
The Rise of Christianity:
Christianity in two millenia of existence can only be described as a dramatically volatile and dynamic world view and religion. It has undergone numerous transformations since its inception as the religion has been required to adopt to new roles in society and to changing world views; it has also, as the first deliberate multicultural religion, been deeply transformed by its early translation into foreign cultures and its later translation into European and world cultures. While historians emphasize the cultural unification that occurred in Europe with the diffusion of Christianity, we should also emphasize that medieval Christianity was profoundly changed by its diffusion into other cultures.
There is a pronounced tendency in Christian history to stress the innovative character of the religion inaugurated by Jesus of Nazareth; this view of Christianity was introduced by the early Christians themselves. This view tends to elide the social and religious backgrounds that operated in the formulation of this new religion, particularly the role of Judaism. The hostility between Jews and early Christians led to a mythology that Christianity was a substantial departure from Judaism; this view has led to serious anti-Semitism and the insistence on the discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity is itself a fundamentally anti-Semitic stance.
The central figure in the foundation of Christianity was Jesus of Nazareth. In the earliest of his biographies, we have glimpses into a radical Jewish teacher from humble origins who drew on Pharisaical teachings. We also have glimpses of a Jewish shaman who cured the sick and cast out demons along the lines of popular Jewish practice. For some of his contemporaries, Jesus seemed to have been regarded as the Messiah, or "Anointed One," meaning that he was the king anointed by Yahweh to deliver Israel from its enemies. For the Christians following Paul, Jesus was the crucified and risen God that served as a prelude to the final judgement and destruction of the world. For these early Christians, Jesus was the Christos, Greek for "anointed one," but this was God himself incarnate. For the last biography of Jesus, that ascribed to John, Jesus was the logos, the divine plan or pattern of the universe made flesh in its completeness.
The second important founder of Christianity is Paul
of Tarsus (originally Saul of Tarsus, ~5-67 AD)who, even though he was
a young contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, never even met him. In fact, he
spent part of his early career rooting out Jewish Christian communities and
prosecuting them. Not long after, however, he underwent a vision and converted
to the new religion and brought to it an energy and creativity that soon made
him the most prominent leader in the new movement. Unlike Jesus of Nazareth,
Paul's role in the foundation of Christianity is absolutely clear. The standard
narrative of his career was written down within a decade of his death, and
many of his writings were preserved. We can be fairly confident in ascribing
ideas and doctrines to Paul, whereas there is much dispute over what genuinely
belongs to Jesus of Nazareth in the accounts of his career.
The debate which inspired the innovations of Paul of Tarsus and radically changed the face of Christianity was that between the Hebrews and the Hellenists. For many centuries, that debate has been regarded as a volatile and sometimes violent debate; historians have begun to question whether or not such a conflict even occurred. At some level, however, there emerged doctrinal and social friction between Christian communities composed of Hebrews and those composed of non-Hebrews, mainly Greeks. That conflict, at whatever level it was played out, eventually resulted in Paul's formulation of Christianity as a universal religion and a reorientation from eschatological concerns to concerns over personal salvation.
The earliest Christian communities following the death of Jesus of Nazareth were small, communal groups under the leadership first of the Twelve and then under a financial and administrative control of the Seven, appointed for precisely that administrative purpose. As you might imagine, the community of Christians was incredibly small. Even as the community increased in size, authority remained vested in a small group in Jerusalem who parcelled out authority to individuals in other cities and decided important issues raised throughout the world of Christianity.
The most significant event in the history of European Christianity was the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity. Born in 280, Constantine became one of the four emperors of the empire after the retirement of Diocletian. This scheme soon fell apart until there were only three generals vying for control: Constantine in Gaul, the least populated portion of the empire, while rule in Rome was under the control of Maxentius, and the east under the control of Licinius. In 312, Constantine threw caution to the wind and marched on Maxentius's forces, even though he was vastly outnumbered. The most important battle occurred at Milvian Bridge; he both won the battle and killed his rival, making him emperor of Rome and Gaul and soon emperor of the east as well.
Augustine (354-430) is so important in the remolding of Christianity of the fourth and fifth centuries that it's hard not to think of him as a founder of Christianity on a par with the original founders of the religion. He was a brilliant and creative man who lived at a time when the European world was changing in shattering ways; not only had no-one quite melded Christianity with the political authority it had as a state religion, but also that authority was crumbling down around everyone's ears as the Roman empire began to fragment into a million separate states. In the face of these profound changes, Augustine, using early Christianity as a base, fundamentally remade the religion by emphasizing and explaining some aspects and by introducing others.
Ancius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born about
480 A.D. into the prestigious family of the Ancii; he rose quickly to the
top of the Roman political establishment (which was, of course, ruled over
by non-Romans). He was, in addition to a wildly successful politician, as
his father was, a profoundly intelligent scholar of Greek, particularly Platonic
philosophy. The Roman Empire was at this point Christian, and if it weren't
for Boethius's treacherous end, he probably would have been barely remembered
in history.
Video Presentations
Roman Empire and Rise of Christianity:
Western Tradition
Christianity spread despite contempt and persecution from Rome.
The old heresy became the Roman empire's official religion under the Emperor Constantine
Rick Steves Presentation
The Life of Apostle Paul with Rick Steves Journey to Turkey and Greece with noted public television host Rick Steves and introduce the Apostle Paul, Christianity’s greatest theologian and missionary. About two thousand years ago Roman soldiers executed Jesus of Nazareth. The story appeared to be over. But it was just getting started. Within a generation, pockets of Greek, Roman, and Jewish members of a new faith, developed communities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean world. In time, that new faith, Christianity, became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This is the story of early Christianity’s greatest missionary and leading theologian - the Jewish Pharisee and tentmaker from Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul.
Frontline:
This FRONTLINE series is an intellectual and visual guide to the new and controversial historical evidence which challenges familiar assumptions about the life of Jesus and the epic rise of Christianity
Geocities Presentation:
A very revealing history of the "authors" of the bible. Clearly there was much politics and many power-struggles that contributed to the creation of what we, today, call the bible. If there is a god and his holy spirit did, in fact, inspire the writing, assembling and compilation of the bible, then surely there is truth in the words... "Our God is an awesome God", for such amazing and terribly nonspiritual characters to have played such major parts in this saga.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
The Lost Gospels
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4- Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9
The Lost Gospels, presented by Anglican priest Pete Owen Jones, is a fascinating exploration into the huge number of ancient Christian texts that didn't make it into the New Testament. Shocking and challenging, these were works in that presented a Jesus who didn't die, who took revenge on his enemies and who kissed Mary Magdalene on the mouth. This Jesus is unrecognisable from that found in the traditional books of the New Testament. Pete travels through Egypt and the former Roman Empire looking at the emerging evidence of a Christian world that's very different from the one we know. He discovers that in addition to the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, there were over 70 gospels, acts, letters and apocalypses circulating in the early Church
History of Christianity from 301-601 CE
During the Ante-Nicene Era (about 170 to 325 CE) many religious movements were active in the Roman Empire: Christianity, Greek Pagan religion, Judaism, Mithraism, Roman Pagan religion, various secret mystery religions, etc. Religious tolerance was widespread throughout the empire, but it was only granted to those adults who had fulfilled their civic duties. Many points of conflict developed between the Roman authorities and the growing Christian movement.
The pagan emperor Constantine calls the Council of Nicea in order to determine, among other things, if Jesus is God, Man or some combination thereof.
What was the Council of Nicea all About?
In The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown claims that Jesus was made divine by a vote at the Council of Nicaea, in 325 AD. This was at the insistence of the Roman Emperor Constantine. What was the Council of Nicaea really about?
Additional Links:
An Illustrated history-Interactive Maps-Videos
This site is a collection of "Rome resources" for the The Dalton School community. Anyone interested in Classical Rome will find this site to be a valuable research tool
In the First Century
Timeline-Virtual Library-Family Tree-Emperor Game
3D Presentations-Audio and Video
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