The Roman Empire

This is Unit Seven of Western Civilization One, part two of two: the machine of the Roman Empire, its army, law and stone, and the cracks the anchor sets in the same chapter, with the four procedures the exam tests on the emperors. Part one ended at the frontiers, with Parthia unbeaten beyond the Euphrates. Carry one idea through this part. The anchor presents the Empire's parts as one machine that ran for two centuries. The engine was a professional army sworn to the emperor and a civil service to pay it. The army held the frontiers and did more: auxiliaries served and became citizens, provincial elites learned Latin, and aqueducts, baths and roads made provinces Roman by service and by stone. The fuel was law and roads, and Caracalla made almost everyone a citizen. The cracks were in the same design: a machine that depended on the man, succession that worked only without sons, wealth with no mobility, gold draining east, and Persia. By the end you will be able to explain silk and gold and why Rome stopped at the rivers. To describe the legion, the auxiliaries and how a province became Roman. To describe engineering, wealth, the dole and the law. To sequence, map, classify and compare. And to state the machine and its cracks.

Two entries on what lay beyond the frontiers: the silk and pepper that drained Rome's gold, and the Germania Rome would not take.

Silk in, gold out, for centuries.

WC1 0615 Silk, Pepper, Monsoons, and the Drain of Gold

Only China made silk, and it reached Rome through Persia or, from Augustus's time, by monsoon voyages to India at the anchor's hundredfold profit, the Silk Road ending in Roman markets. Silk and pepper drained gold from Rome for centuries, and China was known but never formally reached. The gold drain is the anchor's economic point: luxury imports were paid in metal.

Forest, cold, and no land Rome wanted.

WC1 0616 Germania: Why Rome Stopped at the Rivers

Germania was forested and cold, its tribes diverse, ruled by retribution or blood payment. Romans fought them, hired them and settled them on the border for tribute, but wanted no German land and called Germans semi-human, unlike the assimilable Celts, while Tacitus praised German virtue to shame Roman decadence. Semi-human is the Roman view, stated as such. The limes held about three centuries.

Three entries on the army and the province: the legion's twenty years and bonus, the auxiliaries and the Guard that made emperors, and the generations by which a province became Roman.

Twenty years, and a bonus most never collected.

WC1 0617 The Professional Legion: Twenty Years, a Bonus, and Land

Augustus made the army professional: regular pay, twenty years plus five in reserve, a bonus of thirteen years' pay and land. A legion, the anchor's fifty-four hundred infantry and one hundred twenty cavalry in cohorts under centurions risen from the ranks, was self-sufficient and drilled constantly. More than half died before retirement. The bonus was the promise, not the norm.

Citizenship after twenty-five years, and a Guard that chose emperors.

WC1 0618 Auxiliaries, Praetorians, and Citizenship by Service

Auxiliaries were non-citizen subjects, Celts, North Africans, Syrians, as numerous as the legions, the anchor's one hundred fifty thousand in twenty-three, and Claudius granted citizenship after twenty-five years; Latin, mixed units and military families were assimilation. The Praetorian Guard, nine cohorts at higher pay, guarded and sometimes made emperors, as every emperor from Claudius on knew. Learn the Guard for unit eight.

Rebellion crushed, then Latin, baths and loyalty.

WC1 0619 How a Province Became Roman

The pattern ran over generations: rebellion crushed brutally, then local elites in the governor's office, their sons learning Latin, locals enlisting, aqueducts and baths and roads, and finally identification with Rome by the elites and toleration by the countryside. Loyal elites gained citizenship; most subjects stayed subjects. Assimilation ran through elites and soldiers, and the countryside was tolerated, not converted.

Four entries on stone, wealth and law: engineers rather than scientists, a one percent with zero mobility, the grain dole and the coloni, and the emperor as unappealable law.

Engineers, not scientists.

WC1 0620 Concrete, Arches, Aqueducts, Roads

Romans were engineers, not scientists: concrete, arches and domes, gravity-fed water carried dozens of miles, roads still in use. The anchor counts eleven aqueducts in Rome and forty thousand miles of road, and grid cities within a generation of conquest, cities serving as tax capitals and cultural centers. The anchor's claim of productivity unmatched until the seventeenth century is its own.

Office by wealth, and almost no new wealth.

WC1 0621 One Percent: Wealth, Office, and Zero Mobility

A one percent aristocracy held office by wealth: the anchor's million sesterces for the Senate, one hundred thousand for a town council, against a soldier's twelve hundred a year. Elite wealth grew about eight times from one to four hundred with almost no new wealth, under low taxes on elites and ruthless taxation of provinces. Sesterces stay sesterces; the course converts nothing.

Free grain, short lives, and farmers who could not leave.

WC1 0622 Bread and Circuses, Life Expectancy, and the Coloni

Male citizens of Rome received free grain and games, which the anchor calls cynical control and a right that could not feed a family. Life expectancy was forty-five for men and thirty-four for women. As conquest ended, slavery declined from the anchor's forty percent of Italy under Augustus, and farmers became coloni, serfs in all but name.

Overlap, a universal grant, and decrees without appeal.

WC1 0623 Roman Law: Overlap, Caracalla's Grant, and the Emperor as Law

Provinces kept their law under Roman loyalty, and the trial of Jesus is the anchor's case of overlap. In two twelve Caracalla granted citizenship to all free men and women, the Constitutio Antoniniana by convention, to ease taxation in the anchor's reading. Precedent, spirit over letter and presumption of innocence are the anchor's claims. Imperial decrees were unappealable: the emperor was the law.

Four procedures: emperors sequenced by dynasty, the map of one seventeen read by three edges, an emperor classified by how he got the throne, and Republic against Principate on five features.

Three dynasties as blocks, a date at each seam.

WC1 0624 Sequencing the Emperors, 27 BCE to 235 CE

Learn the dynasties as blocks with a date at each seam. Julio-Claudians from twenty-seven B.C.E. to sixty-eight, and the seam is sixty-nine. Flavians sixty-nine to ninety-six, and the seam is Domitian's assassination. Adoptive emperors ninety-six to one eighty, and the seam is Commodus. Severans one ninety-three to two thirty-five. Claudius is Julio-Claudian, before sixty-nine; Nero is the last of them, dead in sixty-eight; Vespasian is the first Flavian; Trajan is adoptive and early; Marcus Aurelius is the last true adoptive emperor; Septimius Severus follows one ninety-three. Read: Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, with Augustus at the front and Severus Alexander at the back. Two seams trap: Titus and Domitian are Flavians, not adoptive, and Commodus is a son, not an adoptee. Dynasty first, then order within it.

River edge, wall edge, desert edge.

WC1 0625 Reading a Map of the Empire in 117 and Its Frontiers

The imperial map is usually dated one seventeen and asks what a line marks, where a province lies, or what lay beyond. Three edges: the river edge, Rhine and Danube against Germania; the wall edge, Hadrian's Wall in Britain; the desert edge, the Euphrates against Parthia with Armenia as buffer. Everything inside the three edges and the Sahara is Rome. A line across northern Britain is the wall. Two rivers from the North Sea to the Black Sea are the river edge, held since Teutoburg. A region east of the Euphrates marked briefly Roman is Trajan's Mesopotamia. The unshaded power beyond is Parthia. Silk entered overland through Parthia or by sea from India on the monsoon to Egypt's Red Sea ports. After one seventeen Mesopotamia is gone, and after two twenty-four the Sasanians stand in Parthia's place. Never draw the limes as a wall except in Britain.

How did he get the throne.

WC1 0626 Classifying an Emperor: Julio-Claudian, Flavian, Adoptive, Severan

Ask one question: how did he get the throne. By descent from Augustus's family, Julio-Claudian. By winning the civil war of sixty-nine or being Vespasian's son, Flavian. By adoption as the most competent, adoptive. By a general's seizure after one ninety-two, Severan. An emperor whose mother poisoned her husband to make him heir is Nero, Julio-Claudian. A general who won a four-way civil war and had the Senate ratify him is Vespasian. An emperor chosen by a childless predecessor who gave up a province as unsustainable is Hadrian, adoptive. An emperor who inherited from his father inside the adoptive century and neglected the empire is Commodus, the exception. A soldier-emperor who took power after Commodus's murder is Severan. A description drawn from Suetonius will stress scandal that may or may not be true, so classify by succession, not by reputation.

Five features, and what Augustus kept.

WC1 0627 Republic and Principate Compared on Five Features

Republic against Principate on five paired features. Imperium: two consuls for a year, against one man for life through tribunician power and imperium maius. The Senate: controller of finance and war, against a facade that ratifies. The army: citizen-soldiers and then clients of generals, against professionals sworn to the emperor with pay and a bonus. Office: election within client networks, against wealth thresholds and imperial favor. Law: from assemblies and Senate, against the emperor's unappealable decrees. A statement that republican institutions survived while one man held power is the Principate, and it is sample question five's answer; a dictator expected to resign is the Republic. Augustus abolished neither the Senate nor the consulship. He kept them and drained them, and the change is in who decides, not in what exists.

One capstone entry: the machine that ran for two centuries, engine and fuel, and the cracks the anchor sets beside it.

A machine that depended on the man.

WC1 0628 Rome at Its Height: The Machine of Empire and the Cracks in It

The exam tests the Empire's parts, and the anchor presents them as one machine that ran two centuries and then showed its cracks. The engine: Augustus built a professional army, twenty years' service, regular pay, a bonus and land, sworn to him and not to the Republic, and a civil service to pay it, replacing tax farmers with salaried officials. The army held the frontiers, the Rhine and Danube after Teutoburg in nine, Hadrian's Wall, the Euphrates against Parthia, and did more than hold them: auxiliaries served twenty-five years and became citizens, provincial elites learned Latin and gained office, aqueducts, baths and roads followed within a generation, and the provinces became Roman by service and by stone. The fuel: Roman law ran everywhere a citizen went, Caracalla made almost everyone a citizen in two twelve, and roads, a common language and the Pax Romana let goods move from Spain to Mesopotamia, with a productivity the anchor calls unmatched until the seventeenth century, a claim it owns. The cracks, in the same chapter. The emperor's relation to law was never defined, so the machine depended on the man; it worked under Augustus and Trajan and failed under Caligula and Commodus, and after sixty-nine everyone knew that armies made emperors. Adoption ran only while emperors had no sons, and ended with Marcus Aurelius's. Wealth sat with a one percent whose fortunes grew eight times while nothing new was made; slavery, the anchor says, stifled innovation, and as conquest stopped, free farmers sank into coloni. Silk and pepper drained gold east. And beyond the Euphrates stood Parthia, then the Sasanians, an enemy Rome fought for centuries without winning. Two thirty-five is where the machine breaks, and the next unit begins there. The exam does not ask whether the Empire was good, and the course does not say. It asks what the Principate kept, what the legion was, how provinces were assimilated, what Caracalla granted, why sixty-nine mattered, and what adoption depended on. The anchor's figures and its judgments on productivity and innocence are its own, attributed, and no sum is converted into today's money.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain that silk and pepper drained Rome's gold east for centuries, and that Rome fought, hired and settled Germans but wanted no German land. You can describe the legion's twenty years, bonus and land, the auxiliaries who earned citizenship and the Guard that made emperors, and the generations by which elites and soldiers made a province Roman. You can describe concrete, arches, aqueducts and roads, a one percent holding office by wealth with no mobility, free grain that could not feed a family, coloni as serfs in all but name, and an emperor whose decrees had no appeal. You can sequence the emperors by dynasty first, read the map of one seventeen by three edges, classify an emperor by how he got the throne, and compare Republic with Principate on who decides rather than what exists. And you can state the machine, army, civil service, law and roads, and its cracks, the man, succession, wealth, gold and Persia, which is this unit's one idea. Unit eight opens in two thirty-five, where the machine breaks, and runs through Diocletian, Constantine, Christianity and the Germanic kingdoms.