This blogpost is the first in a series on the works of Tom Holland, a popular writer on ancient Roman history. He is a professional historian, but one of his many talents is to make the study of Roman history compelling and engaging for non-specialists via prose written in an accessible style. In his works, he does not merely compile the facts, dates, and significance of the events; rather, he weaves them together to form a narrative that helps the reader experience what it was like to live during the period. On its own, this is a noteworthy accomplishment, but his works have other benefits for readers, like me, who have an enduring fascination with ancient Rome. One is to learn in great detail about the personal lives of second-century AD emperors, such as Trajan and Hadrian, who left an enduring legacy in the history of the empire. Another is to obtain a bird’s eye view of the empire, which during this period stretched from Britain to Arabia, and because of a single administrative system covering such a vast and diverse territory, had created an unprecedented level of exchange of goods, services, people, and ideas. As such, it would only be a little bit of a stretch to characterize this period as the first wave of globalization (at the time, goods from Asia reached Rome; only the Americas were not connected to the Eurasian landmass).
In this blogpost, I will present Tom Holland’s Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age with an emphasis on several themes, including the deepening and intertwined relationship with Greece, which would eventually determine the cultural composition of the empire, and the successful conquest and pacification of key regions on the opposite ends of the empire, Judea and Britain, which would delineate the empire’s boundaries and which contributed to a proto form of globalization destined to dramatically alter the course of Western history. Lastly, we will explore some of the great emperors who contributed to these events, such as Titus, Vespasian, Trajan, and Hadrian.
Unruly peoples in the periphery
Greece was conquered in 146 BC, well before the period covered in the text under discussion, and by the first and second centuries AD had become a shadow of its former self. The city’s glory was during the golden age of the 4th and 5th centuries BC, during which, as is generally known, it produced proto forms of democracy, rationalism, and philosophy. This golden age was snuffed out by Athens and Sparta’s—and their respective allies’—mutual destruction during the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. Despite the war’s official ending, quarrels continued between various Greek city-states, and it was the Roman conquest, we learn in Pax, which finally put an end to them and established a semblance of stability and peace. Moreover, it integrated the Greek world into the Roman empire, and as is well known Greek language, culture, religion, literature, and architecture had an enduring influence. During the second century BC, for example, many Roman elites were educated in Athens and became “hellenized”; this distanced them from their local compatriots, who were more conservative in the sense of being attached to Roman traditions. At the same time, in echoes of the relationship today between America and its European satellites, while Romans admired the beauty and culture of Greece, Greeks viewed their Roman overlords as philistines.
During the period under discussion in Pax, Greece continued to be frequently visited by elite Romans for education and tourism. Many Greeks also lived in Rome, often as slaves, although not doing menial tasks or hard labour. Rather, they worked for many nobles as personal doctors, secretaries, editors, and other fields that required intellectual effort. They had an enduring reputation for being educated, clever, and witty, but also effeminate and hedonistic. It was partly for this reason that many Romans warned against their influence, believing that it threatened to undermine the manly and martial values which made their empire redoubtable.
Thus, Romans were ambivalent in their views of Greeks, but for some, they continued to merit respect and admiration. One of the emperors discussed in Pax, Hadrian, had a deep fondness for Greece, and one reason was that Antonius, a beautiful young Greek boy of 19 or 20, was his lover and offered Hadrian, says Holland, “a distinctly Greek kind of love, which blurred the erotic with the poetic”. In his travels to various Greek cities accompanied—strangely to contemporary sensibilities—by both his wife and his young male lover—Hadrian committed to re-establishing their glory, via massive investment in public works and refurbishment of crumbling buildings. His vision included the establishment of a pan-Hellenic union which would unite Greek cities under a single administration and Roman tutelage. The Roman Senate gave its approval, highlighting the special place that Greece had in the Roman Empire. So special, in fact, that when the city of Rome was sacked, and the Western part eventually collapsed, the empire became divided into Latin and Greek parts, and it was the latter which would survive, in the form of the Byzantine empire, until 1452.
Britain was conquered and pacified much later than Greece. In 43 AD, Vespasian successfully defeated locals in the Battle of Medway, and the Southern part of Britain became a Roman province. At the time, the island was divided into many different tribes, all, believed the Romans, in various states of barbarism as they did not have the refinements of Roman or Greek life, including literature, art, or architecture. One particular British tribe, the Caledonians, we learn in Pax, was among the most barbarous, as they practiced human sacrifice, and they had not yet been subdued. Agricola, in the major battle of Goaupius, finally defeated and subjugated them. And as with other Roman provinces, Britain gradually became Romanized and adopted all the advanced accoutrements of Roman civilization. The entire Island was not yet conquered, however, and Hadrian, in his travels to Britain, participated in further campaigns against locals, which were often costly and inconclusive. After these experiences, he decided that it would not be worthwhile to conquer the northernmost parts of Britain, and ordered the building of the famous Hadrian’s wall—which still is visible—to demarcate the northernmost borders of the Roman empire. This line, which separated Romanized regions and peoples from others, would eventually lead to two distinct nations, English and Scottish.
A large part of Pax is devoted to recounting the gory details of the conquest and destruction of Jews’ homeland, Jerusalem, in AD 71. It was Pompey the Great who initially conquered the capital 100 years prior, and subsequently, relations had been cordial, in part because Judean leaders had accepted Roman rule and paid their taxes. In some cases, they even integrated Roman civilization into their capital city. Herod the Great, who famously rebuilt the temple after its destruction by the Babylonians, had also built temples to honour Augustus, plus Roman-style theatres and monuments to impress visitors from the capital. Because of these cordial relations, it was relatively cheap to govern them, and Romans only had a small contingent to ensure order and authority.
Relations deteriorated in 66 AD, and the famous revolt against Roman rule commenced the same year. Vespasian made the order to send 3 legions, a total of 60 thousand men, and Titus arrived at the Jerusalem gates in AD 70. They preferred that the Judeans surrender, as he knew that there were internal divisions and that some accepted Roman authority. But the rebel faction evidently had the upper hand, and Titus made the decision to siege the city and starve it into submission. As supplies dwindled, food had to be rationed to fighters, and many Judeans starved to death. In some of the macabre scenes in the book, their bodies, with bulging bellies typical of starvation, were thrown over the wall towards the Romans. Some rebels in desperation took the risk of sneaking out to obtain supplies of food, but they were caught by the Romans and crucified in front of Jerusalem’s walls to send a message to those remaining inside that there would be no mercy unless they surrendered. After three months, the final assault was ordered, and the gates and walls of the Holy City were penetrated; Judeans fled into their holiest place, the temple, believing that their god would save them, but it was not to be. The Romans mercilessly slaughtered them and rased their sacred temple to the ground.
The significance of this can hardly be understated. Now, the Judeans’ holy land was a Roman province, which they would give the name that remains to this day, Palestina. It set a precedent and an example to other peoples around the empire, namely, that rebellion will lead to utter destruction. The wealth of Jerusalem was taken and paraded through the streets of Rome, and this was memorialized in the famous arch of Titus, which tourists can still visit and see up close, and in coins with the inscription “Judea Conquered.”Jews were now dispersed around the world, and many fled to Rome, where they lived among, and easily blended in with, ordinary Romans, made possible because they were Mediterranean peoples who resembled Italians and Greeks (unlike, say, the lighter-skinned and haired Germans and Britons, or the darker-skinned Ethiopians). Many became slaves, others citizens, and over time, some would assimilate entirely among Roman peoples and lose all vestiges of their ancestors’ faith.
Hadrian, after his travels to Greece mentioned above, travelled to Jerusalem. Six decades had passed since the revolt and the city’s destruction, and the temple still lay in ruins. Some local Jews remained in the city and dreamed of rebuilding the temple. Hadrian had considered restoring Jerusalem just as he had done in Greece, but his vision clashed with the locals. Rather than rebuilding Judeans’ former monuments, he wanted to Romanize the city even more, and to add insult to injury, built a temple to honour Jupiter, the greatest of Roman gods. According to Holland, he believed the Judeans did not deserve his benevolence, as they were inveterately rebellious.
Lastly, readers of Pax will learn some fascinating details about a civilization the Romans attempted, but failed, to conquer, namely the Persians. Both Romans and Greeks looked down on them as slavish and effeminate; approaching their king, they’d kneel like slaves, while they wore eyeliner and ringlets in their hair. Unlike the Britons and the Judeans, Persians were comparable to Rome in size and military strength, and many Romans dreamed of the glory of Alexander in their campaigns to conquer Parthia, which ultimately ended in failure. In 36 BC, Mark Anthony’s attempt ended in utter failure, and 30 thousand men were lost. Augustus recognized Rome’s limits and signed a peace treaty with them, but one of his successors, Trajan, took up the mantle for the glory of Rome, and initially scored some decisive victories, capturing the symbolically important Babylonia, the city where Alexander died. Next on the list was Mesopotopia, but the gods had other plans; some Jews who were scattered after the destruction of their temple went to live in Persian lands, and they joined the fight against the Roman invaders. Shortly after this failure, Trajan died from the exhaustion of these military campaigns. He was replaced by Hadrian, who concluded, correctly, that the empire was overstretched and ordered the withdrawal from Persian territories.
At this point, the borders of the Roman empire reached their peak, and it was Hadrian who played a major role in establishing them from the Northernmost to the Southernmost reaches. This period is also associated with the golden age, in part because of the increase in trade which the empire’s connectivity across vast distances had produced. Shared languages among elites (Latin or Greek), a single currency that could be used for payments everywhere (denari), and a single system of law and transportation vastly expanded commercial opportunities, and many profited enormously. By 100 AD, the city of Rome’s population was 1 million, an unprecedented size in the ancient world. Most lived in precarious 4 or 5-story apartment blocks, while the wealthy lived in villas. The Bay of Naples became an ancient version of Dubai, a place where the wealthy purchased properties, lived in luxury, and practised debauchery. Here, we learn in Pax, money became the measure of everything, as the nouveau riche consumed luxuries from across the empire and beyond, including silks from China. These same elites were often educated in Greece, had Greek slaves, and were mesmerized by exotic ideas and philosophies produced by Greek intellectuals. Some Greek practices adopted by these Romans, such as cooking exotic recipes with ingredients from afar—a major departure from the Romans' traditionally manly and simple diet of locally grown food—were probably not that significant. But others, such as becoming more intellectual and hedonistic and less warrior-like, would probably have greater repercussions, especially for the nobility, as their sons were less and less willing, as their ancestors had done, to sacrifice themselves for the glory of Rome.
One Eastern influence, but this one from Jerusalem, Christianity, was destined, however, to forever change the fabric of the empire and history. It was Rome’s connectivity that facilitated the diffusion of all ideas, including those of Jesus, and consequently, many quickly converted. Rome was a multireligious empire, and Roman authorities did not interfere in locals’ religious practices. But in Pax, we learn about how many 1st-century Romans viewed this Jewish heresy with deep suspicion. For example, Tacitus was appointed by Trajan to govern Asia, and believed that the East’s influence posed a threat to Rome’s moral fabric. In a letter to the emperor, he said this sect, which called itself “Christian”, was particularly egregious, anti-social, and anti-Roman authority. Pliny, also a governor and an intellectual, noticed that this belief was spreading very fast and threatened Rome’s order. He accused them of, among other things, “depravity” and “stubbornness”. He tried to nip it in the bud by prosecuting adherents. They were arrested, and commanded by Pliny to worship Caesar—by then believed to be a god—and Jupiter. Christians refused and were executed in cold blood, but this did not produce the desired results, as the faith spread quickly, first in the Eastern provinces, then eventually in Rome. The rest, as we know, is history, as the entire empire would eventually convert to this faith, which would utterly transform Roman civilization and set the foundation for what came next, namely, Europe.
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