The All-Purpose Historical Discussion Thread

[ER]

If it's in the historical past, want to talk about it here? State a fact, leave an opinion on long ago, drop in a link to an archaeological find, mark the passing of a day from history, stick it here.



My opening post concerns brutality, and it is this:

Across at least a portion of time in ancient Rome it was considered a violation of custom (and custom was semi-sacred to Romans) to execute a female Roman citizen if she was a virgin, therefore to get around this inconvenience, the condemned were often married the night before their deaths to the retainers and henchmen of those in power, or in a few cases, such as the daughters of proscribed public enemies, unmarried girls in a proscribed family were raped in the midst of mob frenzy, before being killed.

These rapes were spun as honoring custom, therefore good deeds lawfully undertaken by patriotic men.

One family among the multitudes proscribed under Sulla, the name of the paterfamilias, escapes me, was known to have twin daughters still breastfeeding who apparently fell victim to this practice of rape before being murdered. As far as we can tell far from being punished for this crime, the perpetrators received a portion of the proscribed family's possessions as reward.

I have sometimes made a case that Rome may have been, as Poe termed  it, "grand" and certainly interesting, but it was also just perhaps the most evil empire in history in terms of cruelty.

I'd cite Rome's widespread slavery (the backbone of its economy, really), conquests, sadistic notions of entertainment, its brutality, its savage criminal codes, its traditions like the one above, or the one that gave a head of household life and death authority over everyone living under his roof. Romans reached depths that the Soviets never dreamed of. To argue that other cultures of the time were as bad, okay, many were, but Romans were able to practice these savageries on a scale unseen before or since, and if we judge evil by its quantity then Roman proliferation of brutality pushes them to the top of the list. I;d wager Romans slaughtered more people in their long history than Hitler, Mao, and Stalin combined.

After all, evil is less about who you are than what you do, therefore, an honorable Roman who was a perfectly sedate fellow in his home life, yet who invaded another people, crucified a thousand captives to make a point about his side being the stronger, then sent the women and children off to the slave markets after giving his troops the pleasure of their company.... Wouldn't a reasonable case be easy to make that this general was a committing crimes against humanity, whether he was following orders and societal custom or not? And aren't crimes against humanity evil?

Somehow Roman atrocities always get a pass on judgment and I never understood why.

But that doesn't mean I don't find Rome fascinating!

[Svengoolie 3]

I honestly agree with you,  ER,  and have had the exact sentiments.  I guess Rome gets a pass as it was the bedrock of European civilization,  love it or shove it. Mass literacy, public works,  roadways,  widespread organization,  the Roman empire had them on a previously unprecedented scale.

What you said about brutality and I humanity was all too true and i'm totally in accord with you.  They also has public water,  public health facilities known as bath houses which were  more  about public hygiene than gay buttsex no matter what christian revisionists say,  they had public police and firemen, etc. A lot of western civilization was based on ancient Rome.

[RCMerchant]

You also had Caligula and Nero....

[Svengoolie 3]

Nero gets a bad rep from christian revisionists. Yeah he was a narcissistic sicko but he was not likely responsible for the great fire.  He did not play a fiddle (didn't exist in ancient Rome)  while the city burned,  he opened the grounds of his palace to the homeless and ordered them fed and sheltered at the empires expense. After the fire he wrote the first "fire codes" that became a staple of civilized cities thereafter.

[indianasmith]

The problem is that the surviving histories of Nero's reign were written by Romans who sympathized with the Senate and the ideals of the Republic (not by Christian revisionists, sorry) and therefore he and most of the First Century Emperors had a LOT of abuse heaped on their heads by the only primary sources we have.  No doubt some of the things said about them were true - after all, Nero was stripped of his powers by the Senate after they had endured a TON of abuse at his hands, and committed suicide to avoid being condemned to death.

I'll have more to say about Rome in a bit; I have to get my lesson plans in.

[Svengoolie 3]

The facts that are irrefutable show that nero was not in rome when it went up in smoke, he opened his palace grounds to the homeless, fed and clothed them at his expense and the empire's and initiated a series of building codes that lasted long after his death. His attitude towards the fire was "Hey, this xxx ain't happening again!"

[indianasmith]

He also took advantage of the fire to build himself the largest personal residence the world had ever seen up to that point, right over the burned out homes of some of his neighbors.

He was probably out of Rome at the time, but I'd be careful throwing down "irrefutable."  When you have three ancient sources and each one puts him at a different place when the fire broke out, who knows which one is right?

[Svengoolie 3]

He also took advantage of the fire to build himself the largest personal residence the world had ever seen up to that point, right over the burned out homes of some of his neighbors.

He was probably out of Rome at the time, but I'd be careful throwing down "irrefutable."  When you have three ancient sources and each one puts him at a different place when the fire broke out, who knows which one is right?

He did institute the first fire codes in recorded history, that much is certain.

[indianasmith]

That's true.  Firefighting in Rome was haphazard up to that point.
First century Rome is a time of great fascination to me.  I am reading Mary Beards' SPQR: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROME right now.