Rome 101

Italy. Blogpost 2

 

Romans are children of Mars, the god of War. That explains a lot.

Rome is a name one hears growing up in more than one contexts. An ancient city, a civilization, an empire, a mention in Qur'an, full of history and romance and much more. Once you are there you realize that Rome is all of that. It gradually grows on you while you are there and continues to do that after you have left. 

A friend of mine had warned me, 'Rome wich history purry pai ay', Rome is full of history. I realized that all the times, every day. It is perhaps the oldest place with continuous civilization and a connection to modern man's history. 

It is helpful to refresh the history a bit while visiting Rome. You don't have to be a history buff, but some background information adds to the experience of the vacation. 

Much of the life we live, thoughts we have, work we do, politics we experience and art we cherish and are influenced by are all deeply rooted in the Greco Roman civilization. Here you have a chance to experience a bit of it.

At one time, it was either Rome or the rest of the world, they considered everybody else barbarian.

Basically, the history is divided into three parts:  Roman Kingdom, Republic and then the Roman Empire. Founded around 700 BC the Kings ruled for three centuries, then the word King became a bad word. Kings were replaced by senators electing Consuls, two at a time, for the next five hundred years.  After the death of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire came into being, which lasted for another five centuries.

Rome conquered Greece in early second century AC. They inherited the Greek thought, adopted it and spread it to the world. This is all pre Abrahamic Faiths. Rome was Rome before anybody had heard of Bible in Rome. 

The world around the Mediterranean Sea seems to be the cradle of civilization as we know it today. First Egyptians, then Greeks and then Romans. Strange that in Urdu and Arabic the Mediterranean Sea is called Bahirae Rome ie Roman Sea.

Birth of Rome, like many cities is full of myth. 

The seat of the kingdom was Alba Longa, 12 miles away from the future Rome. King Numitor was dethroned by his brother Amilius who killed all his male heirs and forced the daughter Rhea Silvia to become a Vestal Virgin ,  basically a nun. She later became pregnant by the god Mars, the god of War, and gave birth to twins Romulus and Remus. 

The tradition of a virgin giving birth to children by gods is quite old in Roman mythology and who knows it may have influenced the later concept of trinity. Anyhow,  Amilius found out about the twins and have them drowned in the famous river Tiber. They survived and were nursed by Lupa, a She-wolf on Palatine Hills. She nursed them. The statue of wolf nursing the infant twins is an icon of Rome and I saw it far and wide in its colonies, even in Pisa. Brothers survived and later took the power. Later as it happens, one killed the other and the newly formed city was named after the victor. That was roughly around 700 years BC. 

Myths aside, Rome started as a new kingdom and survived for three centuries. Then it was brought down, as it usually happens, due the excesses of a son of the king. The seventh King Superbus was cruel but his son raped a noblewomen named Lucretia. A popular uprising ensued and a republic was formed. Republic is from res publica ie property of the people. (1)

As a republic it was governed by a senate of nobles, who used to elect two consuls on annual basis. (and we say presidency in our fratenral organizations for one year is too short) .  There were the party of the nobles ie patricians and then there were the common people, plebeians. Gradually the plebeians gained more say as the centuries progressed. Once in a while they used to elect a dictator, in situations of emergencies, who had more power. Then came Julius Caesar who, all his greatness aside, wanted to become the dictator in perpetuity. He was killed and in the aftermath his adopted son Octavius became the king. Then started the Empire phase, which lasted for another five hundred years.

Going back to the republic phase, it is amazing to think that two thousand five hundred years back these Romans got disgusted with the royalty, abolished it and replaced it with a republic instead of opting for another king.. The word king became a bad word. As a republic, Rome became stronger and ruled the area. Most of the modern day Italy was under Roman dominance but it was a republic not an empire for 500 years.

History is strange as the 'defenders of democracy' i.e Brutus et al became the villains for times to come and the dictator was eventually deified. Caesar was the first one to be consecrated as a god in Rome.

Even as it became an empire the Romans still insisted that it was a republic. The best time of Roman Empire was the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. 

In 313 the emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and himself became christian. Strange that he is the one who shifted the capital to Constantinople, newly renamed after him, and while the Roman empire continued to grow and flourish, it was downhill for the city of Rome after that.

Roman elite continued its dominance over the wold, but it gradually shifted to religious authority from political. The Roman kings eventually became Popes, the title for Pope in Italian is Pontifex Maximus, the senators became Bishops and their Basilicas, the public places, became the cathedrals.

So while the Christianizing of Rome was a boom to the religion and helped the spread of Christianity in Europe, the New World and the rest of the world, it took Rome off the map as the most important city in the world. It remained the center of the Western Roman Empire which lingered on for another two centuries and fell by 500 AD, at the hands of the 'Barbarians' of North Europe, mostly Germans. Many blame Christianity as the main cause of Rome's fall.

Seems to me that the strength of Rome was in constant invasions and conquering new lands. Soon they ran out of real estate they can conquer. Empires need new territories to pillage and plunder in order to keep their standard of opulence. Perhaps that happened to Rome and many of the so called Barbarians, who were nothing more than Northern Europeans, trained by Romans and now became fed up, rose their arms and invaded Rome.

The Eastern Roman Empire continued to flourish, broke its religious ties with Rome at the turn of the fist millennium and went Orthodox. People of Constantinople still called themselves Romans and perhaps it was the second Rome. It is this Roman Empire which is  referred to in Quran. They were in an eternal battle with the Persians and finally lost to Muslims in 1453, forty years before the fall of Granada.

Western Civilization or history is divided broadly in three sections. Antiquity, Medieval and Renaissance. . Broadly speaking the times are up to 500 AD, up to 1490 and after that. One way is to say it would be before, during and after Christianity (as Renaissance eventually was the beginning of the fall of religion as the authoritative force in the West).

Rome was captured once again in late 19th century, this time by fellow Italians, who defeated the Pope and Italy became one nation with Rome as its third (and present) capital.

You see all of it in Rome. As I was told before the trip, Rome is full of history, I realized its depth as I walked the streets of Rome. I will try to trace back the trip in the chronological order of history: from the ancient times, to middle ages to modern. 

Only in Rome a place like Vatican is considered modern.

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 1  http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/ancient-rome