This is the story of the Rise of Rome in as little detail as possible focusing on political power, it is everything I know on the subject embellished with a few little itsy-bitsy Wikipedia speed-reads and gipitty-prompts…
About seven hundred years before Christ, two little twin boys were born of a Vestal Virgin (something like a nun, I don’t know..). The King (yes, King) didn’t like the look of them so they were left on the side of the Tiber to think about what they had done (been born) and hopefully (from the king’s perspective) die. Instead of dying, they shrewdly suckled on the tit of wolf and grew big and strong. When they were older, one thing lead to another and the twin Remus ended up murdered by his brother the twin Romulus.
Starting with Romulus and for two hundred years thereafter Rome was a kingdom, and its boarders enclosed very little of import. What happened after that, they think, is made up, but goes something like this: The final King was called Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and his son Sextus raped a noblewoman, who subsequently offed herself. After that the noblemen and the people set about deposing the king and installing a system of consulship of two; each consul had the power to veto on the others decisions so that if one started acting like a king, the other could do something about it, and they had a term of one year.
And this system jingled along rightly for few centuries. During those centuries a culture of military might / strength emerged from, and fed back into, the Romans want of territory and control. This was something of a feedback loop because the generals would go off conquesting, winning battles, gaining territory for Rome. And when they got home, there would be a triumph to celebrate the victory that made the soldiers and generals the bee’s knees, and incentivised them to go off doing it again and again.
In 200 and something BC began the Punic Wars - Rome vs Carthage lets go…
Round One: Rome and their dastardly neighbors, the Carthaginians both want to control Sicily because it in turn brings control of the western Mediterranean. There was a bit of fighting on land, but Carthage knew how to drive a boat so they set about making it a naval affair. Rome didn’t know much about boats so they invented a boat that was more like being on land called the Corvus and it actually worked. The Africans were pushed back into their corner and sued for peace.
Round Two: 20 odd years later the Carthaginians made another go of it. Young Hannibal bounced across the water to Spain which was probably not called Spain at the time - with 26,000 dudes, 6000 horses, and several score of war elephants (big fkrs with trunks). Up to the Alps they went and somehow crossed into Italy, this is considered one of the greatest logistical feats of antiquity. A few battles were fought and won by Carthage, before the big one. The Battle of Cannae; in 216BC near the town of Cannae, the Romans chose to plant their feet and throw down with the invading force. Rome fielded 86,000 men against 50,000 Carthaginians.
What happened thence was a loss for the ages. Carthage encircled the Roman forces and spent all afternoon slaughtering them almost totally in what became a text book example of a ‘double envelopment’. Roman casualties are estimated at seventy to eighty thousand, while Carthage lost less than eight thousand men. What an embarrassment? Well we can find it fun to treat battles like some sports ball game, it was ages ago, right?
Anyway, that should have been the end of it, most of the military wiped, Rome would be suing for peace now? BUT NO! She does not surrender! Come now Fabius Maximus! Introduce yourself! Go on!
uhhh helloo, or Salve, right? yea anyway I’m thinking like, he knows how to fight, so maybe we just don’t fight him? We can just like wreck his supply lines, wait for him to get hungery and hopefully he’ll just skulk off eventually.
Very good Fabius thank you. So this they did and sure didn’t it work? Buckin sures it did. Now, wheres that wee fecker Scipio? Scipio0!! There he is, go ahead Scipio Africanus, tell them about you bold tactics!
uhh hello salve.. omnis… so yea basically their whole army is here, like, down the road from Rome trying to build seige equipment or whatever, so how about we start fking up their cities in Africa instead?
Splendid Scipio. And so it was that the Romans won the second round of this epic match by taking their time, picking strategic battles, and finally by matching the enemy in his boldness.
Round Three: Some 50 years after this calamity, Carthage was on the mend and starting to prosper again. By the influences of one Cato the Elder, the Romans came to see Carthage as a bitch well and truly scorned. They were bound to hold this grudge and to make another go at invading Italy sooner or later and it would be much the better if Rome herself started it finished it decisively this time.
Carthago delenda est! Yes Cato, we heard you the first time.
Rome laid seige to Carthage (the city) and constrained it’s supplies for 3 years, in 146BC the walls were breached and what followed was a brutal mess. Over the course of a week the Romans butchered several hundred thousand Carthaginians, burned their city, and salted their soil… delenda… indeed. Thus ended the final bout and the 120 year saga with this particular foe.
There are other fun things we could explore like the twelve tables, the sack (no) of Rome, the Caitaline Conspiracy, the infrastructure projects, and many more, but lets not lose sight of ourselves, this is a last minute essay for Esquirery Essay Club. We must make haste and cut corners until this thing becomes an amputated finer nail shaped attempt at covering this topic…. Fast forward now some hundred years and find ourselves in the next big phase change of Roman history: Republic into Empire.
hmmm where shall we start? Whats that creep doing over there beside the statue? Why is he crying? Speak man! What is the matter?
look there at he, this marble man, the Great Alexander. he had so many Instagram followers and a great pension, he always had a the latest gear and so many woman too. He died at my age - 32 - having done all this. What have I achieved by comparison? Nothing! *weeps on and on*
Wait-wait-wait-wait we went too far forward. What about the part where he crucified some pirates who had previously kidnapped him…? ahhh never mind this will do. So this is Gaius Julius Caesar, tall enough, strong enough, patrician family (fancy folk), and educated to the back-teeth. Born in 100BC, married the opponent of a previous dictator’s daughter (I’m skipping this, fug ye), won awards for fighting bravely in the military, then went on a legendary run through power holding offices: magistrate, pontifex maximus, praetor, and consul (aged 41). After consulship he spent 5 years crucifying gingers at scale in a place known as Gaul, and this made him very rich and very powerful. In 49BC he and the thirteenth.. Thirteenth! THIRTEENTH!! Paulo you drunken fool be quite!… he and the 13th legion crossed the Rubicon at arms (a big no-no), back into Italy. This was the point of now return in his political ambitions - the proverbial die was cast: “Alea iacta est” he announced at the crossing.
An equally rich and powerful fellow by the name of Pompey was charged with opposing this legion shaped missile hurtling towards the nations capital city. Because they didn’t think Caesar was actually going to do it, they left it far too late to set up counter measures. Thus despite being out numbered 20:1, Caesar flew down Italy’s thigh and seized control of Rome, all the while globbing on many thousands more troops that had served under him in the past. There were a fistful of actual battles thence which left Caesar something like 5-0-1 (outnumbered in each) and left Pompey totally headless.
In 44BC Eyul-ee-oos returned to Rome for a cozy life of being the dictator / emperor / owner / God of the Roman empire. Well some people didn’t like that so they killed him : ]
ET TU BRUTE?!
In his will, Julius left his estate to a sensitive young lad who would have loved Twitter / Reddit, podcasts, and making coffee with and Aeropress if he were alive today. This was his nephew Octavian who was so talented at politicking that he somehow, more or less, just picked up where Julius was murdered from. Octavian gave himself the lovely name ‘Augustus’ and the position of emperor - Romes First. This then concludes the second phase change in Rome’s statehood, from republic to empire and the beginning of a period remembered as Pax Romana (Roman peace). Augustus ruled until his death in 14AD and his nephew in turn ruled from 14AD to 37AD…
I think that will do for this brain dump of what I know of Roman history on the way up. From such sources I am draw to know more about Rome as Rome: Total War, which I tried to play when I was far too young to know what was going on. Despite not realizing that maxing out the taxes slider was the cause the revolts in all my cities, the game left a big impression from its bewitching aura levels. Such sources as Mary Beards SPQR, which despite being contemporary and dead set of counterpointing the ‘ancient magnificence’ narrative that we know and love today, tells the story of Rome in an excellent whole-picture way. Such sources as HBO’s Rome, 10/10 TV show. Such sources, frankly as the enumerable little scraps we see day to day that fall into their jig-saw place occasionally until one finds themselves intently interested in this era… I’m speaking of the elements of Latin language we see over doorways and on tomb-stones, the paintings we see a depicting Roman battle scenes, the infinity of references from Coldplay to Shakespare. She sits there in the past to enchant thee as a complete picture of the natural and full cycle of an empire. “How many times a day do you think of the Roman Empire?”, you answer the person that threw this at you: “idk, four?” but what you meant was “Silence woman, I am thinking of her now!”. Brilliant she is and overwhelmingly grey at the same time; George RR Martin could never.
Perhaps this is part one of three - covering the way up. Next comes the way down; the currency debasement, the price fixing, the sicko emperors… and after that, where did it all go? And what is it that went where when Rome fell? Are we Europeans the inheritors of this intangible fortune? or is it the Catholics?
ok enough, Salvete : ]
