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Wednesday, 30 November 2005 01:35 |
By DAVID FORBES
The Roman Empire may have ended more than a thousand years ago, but its ideas and images remain alive in today??s culture and politics, Dr. Brian Hook, a history professor at UNC Asheville, said in a Nov. 14 lecture in UNCA??s Humanities Lecture Hall.
?®Rome brought us many ideas, but three of those are: the idea of citizenship, the idea of empire and the idea of eternity,?∆ Hook said.
To illustrate these threads of ideas, Hook showed the audience of around 100 students examples of architecture that later generations borrowed from the ancient Romans.
To express the idea of citizenship, he noted, societies like America adapted Roman-style architecture in churches and universities.
?®Those who commissioned and designed these structures wanted to borrow the associations they had,?∆ Hook said. ?®To them, these examples from Rome presented themselves as models of a democracy, representative government and maybe senatorial debate. But these Roman models have multiple meanings.?∆
The Fascists and Nazis in the 1930s incorporated far different concepts when they used Roman architecture.
?®The Fascist movement took its name from the fasces, the bundle of rods
that symbolized Roman authority,?∆ Hook said. ?®This is Rome as the idea
of empire.?∆
?®Nazi architects also borrowed from these classical forms because they were favored by Hitler.?∆
Moreover, Hook said, ?®Hitler said he wished to copy these forms to
establish a link between past historic epics and his own
soon-to-be-historic epic. In fact, he wrote that Roman history remains
the best teacher for all history.?∆
Regarding the idea of eternity, Hook pointed to St. Peter??s Basilica in Rome.
?®This was built on the location of the stadium of Nero, which was
traditionally the place where Peter and Paul were executed,?∆ Hook said.
?®Both the site and the form connect this structure directly with Rome
and the idea of eternity.?∆
The variety of these interpretations, and their implications, shows the
wide range of views on the signifiance of Rome, he added.
?®You could just as easily view Rome as the idea of war or the idea of
law or language,?∆ he said. ?®But these three ideas follow a basically
chronological approach.?∆
As an example of citizenship, Hook told a story dating from Rome??s
foundation. While Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, offered
amnesty to anyone who came to his city, he also attracted many outlaws
?? but no women. To populate the city, the Romans invited the
neighboring Sabine people to a feast.
?®On cue, the new Romans stole the Sabine women,?∆ Hook said. ?®The
Sabines then regrouped and returned to Rome and are prepared to meet
the Romans in battle, until the Sabine women rush in between and plead
for peace between their fathers and brothers and their new husbands.
The two peoples then live together as one.?∆
While noting that the account was more mythical than historical, he
added that it illustrates how the Romans viewed the idea of citizenship.
?®It??s a free gift for the taking for the outlaws who come to Rome,?∆ he
said. ?®On the other hand, it??s applied violently to the Sabine women,
and yet still assumed to be a valuable gift. When you look at Romans,
these two ideas are very important ?? the gift, the generosity of
citizenship, but also violence.?∆
Later, after a period of quasi-historical kings, the Romans overthrew
their monarchs and established a republic, expanding the idea of
citizenship, Hook noted.
?®The right to citizenship guaranteed the right to vote, the right to
trial, the right to appeal capital charges to be decided by popular
assembly and not by individual magistrates,?∆ he said.
Furthermore, Rome began to grant the rights of citizenship to those
outside the city ?? something Hook asserted may have been the reason its
society lasted for so long.
?®That??s what made Rome last for a thousand years ?? its generosity with
its citizenship,?∆ he said. ?®Rome did not define citizenship by blood,
nor did it limit it to a certain geographical area. Rome made treaties
with those of equal or superior strength and with those weaker than
they. Rome offered forms of citizenship to its neighbors and allies and
allowed them to come to Rome to become full citizens. By extending its
citizenship, Rome developed a sense of ?¥Romanness?? instead of simply
being overlords.?∆
Even when the military commander Hannibal crossed the Alps in the
winter and defeated the Romans in battle after battle, Hook noted, the
vast majority of its allies remained loyal because of the Romans??
generosity.
However, Hook added that this generosity was often paired with
violence, and many countries had to give up part of their territory in
exchange for Roman protection.
In addition, he said, the Roman republic relied on citizen-soldiers to
do its fighting, meaning that the long wars against Hannibal left much
of their land untended ?? and ripe for the taking by powerful Roman
aristocrats.
This development, Hook said, left many of the poor without land and
caused social tension as reformers and conservatives fought back and
forth, each using parts of the newly professional army to help them win
and
leading to assassinations and civil wars.
At the end of the civil wars, Hook said, a man named Octavian, later
known as Augustus, won, and seizing massive personal power, began the
Roman Empire.
?®While the empire refers to a specific historical period, the Romans
always referred to their ?¥imperium?? as the territory they controlled,?∆
he noted. ?®The idea of empire is an idea of single rule, expansion and
dominion.?∆
While Augustus?? reign is often referred to as the ?®Pax Augustus?∆ or
?®Peace of Augustus,?∆ Hook said that this also was based on violence.
?®This peace is based on a great deal of war and violence,?∆ he said.
?®And that fact allows for quite a different view of Augustus.?∆
That view highlights the cost of the empire??s achievements, which Hook
said did not just include the costs of war, but also lost liberty.
?®Augustus assumed extraordinary powers beyond anything anyone else had ever assumed before,?∆ he added.
?®He also quelled all dissent by silencing, sentencing, banishing or
murdering his opponents. Most significantly ?¥libertas,?? or freedom of
speech and action, had been curtailed.?∆
In contrast, Hook read from the Aeneid by the Roman poet Virgil, which was written at Augustus?? command.
One passage in particular sums up how the Romans viewed their mission in the world.
?®?¥Romans, remember by your strength to rule Earth??s people,???∆ Hook
read. ?®?¥For your arts are to be these: to pacify, to impose the rule of
law, to spare the conquered and to battle down the proud.???∆
If that statement sums up the Roman idea of empire, the idea of
eternity can be seen in buildings like the Roman Pantheon, which
honored all the gods, Hook said, illuminating Rome??s ability to take a
variety of ideas and cultures into its own society or in the Roman
Colosseum, which still stands today.
?®This ability to draw and assimilate many things into itself is yet
another principle reason that Rome survived so long,?∆ he added. ?®The
Romans stressed a sense of their own longevity, their immortality. Much
of Rome has outlasted the high priests. It can be seen in the Romance
languages, and Rome has retained a symbolic hold on all governments and
peoples to come after.?∆
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