The Mental Floss History Of The World Part 11

Political instability was another problem: in 68 CE, there were four different emperors; in 238 CE, eight different men either held or shared the t.i.tle. The Roman Army became the single biggest influence on who was in charge, and the army itself was often fragmented into warring camps. It's something of a tribute to the Roman bureaucracy that the government continued to sputter along, given the turnover at the top.

From time to time emperors tried to make the empire a little less unwieldy by sharing control. In 293 CE, the emperor Diocletian appointed himself and one of his generals as emperors of the Eastern and Western halves of the empire, respectively. Each had the t.i.tle "Augustus," and each had a vice-ruler with the t.i.tle "Caesar." (Luckily for Diocletian, his rule occurred after 253 CE, so he wasn't murdered or killed in battle-he retired after pa.s.sing rule on to his successors, and died peacefully.)

IT'S DANGEROUS AT THE TOP Being emperor of Rome wasn't all toga parties and throwing out the first Christian on Opening Day at the Colosseum.For one thing, there was no actual t.i.tle of "emperor" attached to the job during the period 1500 CE. Instead, the guys we think of today as emperors held t.i.tles such as "princeps senatus" ("lead senator") or "pontifex maximus" ("greatest bridge-maker," or "chief priest of the Roman religion"), or "pater patriate" ("father of the fatherland"). Emperors were known as "imperators," designating them as commanders of the army, and "augustus," which basically meant "majestic" or "venerable."Moreover, there were no specific powers inherent in the job beyond what the emperor could a.s.sert on his own. A strong leader with good political sense, firm control of the army, and intimate knowledge of his enemies and potential enemies could make it a pretty good job, with a lot of fringe benefits. But a weak, lazy, or timid emperor was almost always in for a very short reign.Getting the job wasn't easy. Some emperors took office because their dads or granddads named them as successors. Some were adopted by the inc.u.mbent and groomed to take over. Some were elected by the Senate or whichever part of the army they commanded. Some were forced to take the job as puppets for various factions. More than a few got it by killing a relative or two.However the job was secured, the pension plan was generally lousy, mainly because your chances of living to collect a pension were about the same as being hit by lightning. (Actually, the emperor Carus was found dead in his tent in 283 CE, reportedly the result of his tent being hit by lightning, but more likely the result of poisoning.)Consider this: Of the nineteen guys who served either as emperor or co-emperor between 218 and 253 CE, all but one were either murdered or died in battle. The one guy who wasn't? He died of plague.

This "tetrarchy" lasted until 324 CE, when one of Diocletian's successors, Constantine, decided he could handle things on his own. When Constantine died in 337 CE, co-ruling was tried on and off until 395 CE, when the empire was formally divided in two.

By then it was too late. Various groups of "barbarians" had been invading and sacking various parts of the empire for a century, and in 410 CE, the city of Rome itself was sacked. Alliances between the remnants of the Western Roman Empire and some of the invaders postponed the inevitable until 476 CE.

In that year, however, a mutiny of Germanic troops under Roman employ-who felt they had been cheated out of a land deal with the empire-took place. They forced the last Western Roman emperor to quit and turn over the reins to the Germanic leader Odoacer.

Irony lovers will revel in the fact that the last emperor was Romulus Augustus-named after both the legendary founder of Rome, and its first and possibly greatest emperor.

And sentimentalists will be happy to know that Romulus Augustus, who was probably no more than a teenager, was allowed to retire to Naples with an annual pension of six thousand gold pieces.

The last Roman emperor wasn't even important enough to execute.

The Barbarians: MOVING ON UP MOVING ON UP

The popular image of the different groups of people who fought on and off with the Roman Empire is of a bunch of giant hairy lunatics who lived for nothing but looting, raping, and pillaging, followed by heavy drinking.

Actually, such life goals aside, most of these groups, such as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, and Vandals, had very different motives for clashing with Rome. Originating in Northern Europe, the Germanic tribes were pushed west and south by overpopulation, the need for new food sources-and fear of the Huns, who in turn had been pushed west out of Central Asia.

They were stuck with the common label "barbarian," which is a word the Greeks came up with because the Europeans' language sounded to them like nothing but a repet.i.tive "bar-bar-bar."

The Romans actually began prodding the Germanic tribes first, seeking to conquer areas of present-day Germany that had been settled by some of the other groups. The Roman army won most of the key battles, but the Germanic tribes kept coming back for more.

Eventually, the empire began to enlist different tribes as confederates, or foederati, foederati, to help Rome fight the Huns, or other "barbarians." In return, the tribes enjoyed the protection of the empire and were sometimes granted territory to call their own. to help Rome fight the Huns, or other "barbarians." In return, the tribes enjoyed the protection of the empire and were sometimes granted territory to call their own.

TWO MEN AND A LADY.

The wedding customs of having a "best man" and of carrying the bride across the threshold probably date from the third-century practice of Germanic men abducting brides from neighboring villages and carrying them home, with the aide of a loyal companion.

Things came to a head, however, in the late fourth century, when a group of as many as eighty thousand Visigoths pushed across the Danube River into the empire to seek refuge from marauding Huns. The Roman emperor Valens allowed the immigration, but reneged on promises of food and land, and tried to disarm the Visigoths.

Bad idea. Valens was killed and the Roman army defeated. The defeat sparked the beginning of the end for the Roman Empire. In 410 CE, the Visigoths sacked Rome. (While they stole a lot of stuff, they burned relatively few buildings and generally treated the city's inhabitants humanely.) In 439 CE, the Vandals took Carthage and cut off the empire's Northern Africa breadbasket. In 452 CE, the Huns swept through Italy and would have sacked Rome again except for the personal plea to their leader, Attila, from Pope Leo I. No matter-the Vandals sacked it three years later.

By the beginning of the sixth century, various Germanic tribes had carved up the Western Roman Empire into kingdoms that roughly paralleled the nations in modern Europe: the Vandals in North Africa; the Visigoths in Spain; the Franks and Burgundians in France, and the Ostrogoths in Italy, Germany, and Austria.

Not bad for a lot of people limited to "bar-bar-bar."

The Huns: UP, DOWN, WHO CARES? UP, DOWN, WHO CARES?

(As Long as We Can Break Something) Okay, there was at least one group in the Late Cla.s.sic Age that fits anyone's definition of "barbarians."

The Huns were a nomadic people who originated in north central Asia and generally received bad press wherever they went. As early as the third century BCE, they made the Chinese nervous enough to erect a big section of the Great Wall.

Ferocious warriors, the Huns basically lived in the saddle. They didn't farm; they didn't trade. They just rode around and terrorized people.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...

One thing you could say about Alaric: He didn't give up easily. Alaric was a Visigoth leader born around 370 CE in what is now Romania. In 395 CE he led an a.s.sault on the Eastern Empire and plundered his way through Greece before being defeated by a Roman force and forced to retreat.In 401, he invaded Italy, lost a few battles, and retreated again. In 408, after Roman soldiers had killed thousands of "barbarian" wives and children, Alaric led a confederation of tribes and besieged the city of Rome itself.He made it clear he didn't want to bring down the Empire, but would settle for a guarantee of peace and a chunk of land for the Visigoths.But the deal fell apart, and in 410, Alaric laid siege to Rome again. This time, his troops burst into the city itself-and for the first time in eight hundred years, the heart of the Roman Empire had fallen.

After some internal feuding and a defeat at the hands of a Chinese army, the Huns gradually began moving west in the decades before 1 CE. By the time they got to Europe in the last half of the fourth century, they had developed an effective infantry to go with a killer cavalry.

The Huns were the scourge of the continent. They were fast, ferocious, and merciless. They didn't fight to conquer territory; they kicked booty to win booty. The Huns literally triggered a ma.s.s migration of Germanic tribes up to and into the Roman Empire.

In 434, command of the Huns pa.s.sed jointly to a man named Bleda and his brother, a man named Attila, who quickly earned the nickname "Scourge of G.o.d." By then, the Huns were sometimes extracting huge sums of money simply for not attacking.

The power might have gone to Attila's head. He killed his brother, set up a headquarters city (in what is now, naturally, Hungary), and invaded Italy. In 453, however, Attila died. On his wedding night. Of a nosebleed. Really.

After Attila's death, his many sons quarreled among themselves. In 455, they were defeated by an alliance of Germanic tribes, and the Huns' run as world terrors was over.

THEY MILK HORSES, DON'T THEY?

The Huns weren't big produce eaters. They avoided scurvy by drinking large amounts of mare's milk, which has four times as much as...o...b..c acid as cow's milk.

The Jews: DOWN. So What Else Is New? DOWN. So What Else Is New?

There have been very few times in recorded history when it was easy being Jewish, and the Late Cla.s.sic Period wasn't one of them.

In the first century or so after Judea was taken over by the Roman Empire in 63 BCE, the state's Jewish population got along relatively well with their conquerors.

"JUST KEEP DIGGING..."

According to legend, the Huns were pretty secretive about where they laid their main man Attila after he pa.s.sed on. They reportedly put him in a triple-layered iron, silver, and gold coffin and buried him in an unmarked grave. Then they killed all the members of the burial party, so they couldn't reveal the grave's location.Which leads one to wonder how they kept quiet the guys who killed the guys who did the digging.

In 66 CE, however, increasing poverty and a Roman decision to confiscate money from the newly rebuilt Jewish temple at Jerusalem led to a revolt. Roman garrisons in the city were wiped out. Extremists known as "Sicarii" ("dagger men") went around stabbing people faithful to Rome. A Jewish sect known as the Zealots seized the mountain fortress of Masada in what is now southeastern Israel.

Not surprisingly, the Romans reacted negatively. A few years of internal political struggles in Rome delayed the inevitable, but in 70, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem. After nine months they had destroyed the new temple and most of the rest of the city. In addition to about one hundred thousand Jews killed, another hundred thousand were taken prisoner and variously crucified, burned alive, forced into slave labor, or turned into gladiators.

Four years after the fall of Jerusalem, Roman legions attacked the fortress at Masada, still held by Jewish rebels. The place was so formidable that it took fifteen thousand Roman soldiers almost two years to subdue Masada's one thousand inhabitants, including women and children. Only seven of the defenders survived; many killed themselves rather than surrender.

There were two more rebellions, one in 115 CE and the second in 132. The latter flap started in part because the Romans decided to build a pagan temple at the site of the destroyed Jewish temple, and because the emperor Hadrian outlawed circ.u.mcision, an important ritual of Judaism.

Led by a messianic man named Simon Bar Kochba ("Son of the Star"), the Jews successfully waged a hit-and-run war for about three years. Eventually, however, Roman military might-coupled with some really disturbing atrocities against the civilian populace-prevailed. As many as six hundred thousand Jews were killed, and Simon's head was delivered to Hadrian at the end of 135 CE.

To ensure against future rebellions, Hadrian ordered Jewish temples destroyed. Jews were banned from entering the rebuilt Jerusalem, which was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and Judea was renamed Syrian Palestine. Jews were dispersed throughout the empire, and there would be no official Jewish state for another eighteen hundred years, give or take a decade.

Roads: UP UP

One of the most remarkable accomplishments of the Roman Empire was its road system, which at its peak consisted of more than fifty thousand miles of hard-surfaced highways and thoroughfares, stretching from Great Britain to North Africa.

Specially trained army units built the roads. Actual construction varied according to the materials available at the site, but most of the main roads were admirably put together. They were sloped from the middle to facilitate drainage, built on multilayered foundations, and paved with thick, tightly fitting stones, and then concrete.

Along each side were unpaved paths for pedestrians and for horseback riders who wanted to save their horses' feet from the wear and tear of the paved roads. The excellence of the construction is evidenced by the continued existence today of many of these Roman roadways.

Markers placed alongside the main roads to indicate distance traveled, called mila pa.s.sum, mila pa.s.sum, were about 4,800 feet apart, or a little short of a mile. were about 4,800 feet apart, or a little short of a mile.

Two kinds of overnight accommodation existed along many roads, usually about fifteen miles apart. Pretty nice villas were available for those on official business-or with money and connections. Less prosperous travelers had to make do in often seedy inns/hostels called cauponae cauponae.

The road system also accommodated two kinds of mail service. The cursus publicus cursus publicus was for official business. Urgent mail was carried by riders using relays of horses-a Roman pony express-and it was said a letter could travel as far as five hundred miles in twenty-four hours. Private mail could be sent through a sort of UPS-type service that used slaves. was for official business. Urgent mail was carried by riders using relays of horses-a Roman pony express-and it was said a letter could travel as far as five hundred miles in twenty-four hours. Private mail could be sent through a sort of UPS-type service that used slaves.

Despite the great road system, most large shipments of goods and food still traveled by ship. This was because as smart as the Romans were in many things, they failed to develop a well-designed wagon or cart.

ROME'S BELLY b.u.t.tON Loving order and tidiness, the emperor Augustus had a "Golden Milestone" constructed in the city of Rome, on which were listed the distances to all the major cities in the empire. The emperor Constantine later referred to this as the Umbilicus Urbus Romae-or "navel of Rome."

Religions: ALL OVER THE PLACE ALL OVER THE PLACE

Aided by improved transportation systems, common languages such as Greek and Latin, and increasing trade among nations, religions began to move beyond the borders behind which they'd originated.

Buddhism moved out from its original base in northern India across China and Central Asia. Hinduism spread throughout the Indian subcontinent.

But no religion benefited more from the confluence of empires than Christianity. The new faith took advantage of the empire's reliable postal system and spread along the extensive network of Roman-built roads; it even organized itself like the empire. Dioceses were like Roman administrative districts, reporting to broader divisions, with central power shared at Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. From an obscure and sometimes persecuted cult in the Middle East, by 391 CE Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire.

HERE COMES THE SON.

Whatever one's personal religious beliefs, it's pretty hard to argue against the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth was one of the most important figures in world history.What's more difficult to determine is just who Jesus was and what he did. The only historical doc.u.ments we have with much detail of his life are the Gospels of the New Testament, along with letters by St. Paul and a few references in first-century Roman and Jewish doc.u.ments.Scholars generally agree that Jesus was born between 4 BCE and 6 CE in the town of Bethlehem in what is now Israel, to a Galilean woman named Mary, and raised in the town of Nazareth by Mary and Joseph, a carpenter.Very little is known of Jesus's youth and early adulthood. When he was about thirty, he apparently began a public preaching career that lasted about three years. His sermons sometimes drew huge crowds, and his basic message-nonjudgmental love of G.o.d and one's fellow humans-was coupled with a warning that the world would end without notice and that people would be judged on their behavior.About a week before his death, probably around 30 CE, Jesus and his followers went to Jerusalem for the observance of Pa.s.sover. At some point he ran afoul of Caiaphas, the local Jewish high priest. Accused of blasphemy, Jesus was turned over to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.Although Pilate almost certainly didn't care about Jewish religious disputes, he also probably saw Jesus as a possible troublemaker, and ordered his execution. Following his crucifixion, several of Jesus's followers claimed to have seen him alive and well.A whole lot of people eventually believed them, and the impact of that historical fact has been felt in most of the world ever since.

While Christianity was taking advantage of the Roman road system to spread itself around the empire, followers of Buddha took a different path: they used the Silk Road. By the beginning of the millennium Buddhism had gained a firm foothold in the Kushan Empire of northern India and modern-day Afghanistan, and reports of it had reached the Han Empire court in China.

According to contemporary Chinese historical accounts, around 68 CE the emperor Ming had a dream about a golden figure, and was advised by his ministers that the figure was the "G.o.d of the West." Ming sent an official named Cai Yin to India to investigate. Three years later, Cai Yin returned, accompanied by two Buddhist monks. Eventually a Buddhist community grew in the Han capital of Luoyang.

In 148, a Buddhist temple was opened in Luoyang, and translations began of Buddhist texts into Chinese dialects. Chinese pilgrims began to visit India as well, to study on what had been Buddha's home turf. By the end of the fifth century, there were an estimated two million Buddhists in China, and Buddhist missionaries were pushing into j.a.pan.

The spread of Islam in the seventh century helped begin the decline of Buddhism along the Silk Road. But its impact lived on throughout Central Asia in art and architecture.

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE...