good day everyone and welcome back to encyclopediahermetica: a big history; this is going to be part 35 of our project, and the plan isto go back in time a little bit – i’ve been getting a bit ahead of myself talkingabout the middle-east – but we need to shift our focus for a bit to talk about that greatrising power to the west who will in time subsume the entire mediterranean world underone law, one rule, and one economy: rome. now rome has a long history stretching backinto myth, as we’ve discussed in previous lectures, and the traditional date given forits founding was 753 bc. early rome had been governed by kings, butafter only seven had ruled, (a remarkably low number in any historic period consideringnearly two and a half centuries of rule) – they
abused their power to the point they weredriven out, and the romans took power over their own city and decided to rule themselvesby a council of old men, the senate, which comes from the latin word “senex,†oldman. now the senate had existed under the kings,but this was more as a kind of advisory body – one might compare this system to the britishparliament or the french estates general during the ‘ancient regime’; in fact the ideaof council houses in modern european democracies – the german rathaus too – come directlyfrom these rather toothless royal advisory boards. so… the accuracy of this account, as withmost culture’s foundational and national
myths, is doubted by modern historians. generally it’s agreed on that there wasin fact a monarchy, and that the last king tarquinius superbus (or tarquin the proud)was expelled upon the founding of the republic roughly around 509 bc. the word 'republic' comes from the latin 'respublica' which literally means 'public matters,' or 'matters of state' – the word “publicâ€was originally “poplicus,†i.e. “pertaining to the people†– but who is and isn’tthe ‘populus’ is another debate entirely. now, just to put things into perspective,the roman republic – brutal and elitist as it was – was a very successful government:it lasted from 510 bc until 23 bc – of course
i acknowledge that this period included civilwars and drastic constitutional reforms (and in practice the republic was totally dysfunctionalfor its final century). but in any case, that’s almost 500 years;so let’s compare that to the united states which banded together in 1776, and that wasless than 250 years ago. anyhow, to start us off on this discussion,i want to jump in medias res – in the middle of things. it’s the year 390bc. rome’s been sticking its nose in other people’sbusiness for some time now, manipulating the affairs of city-state dotted italy, and expandingat the expense of some of their neighbours
(samnites, latins, umbrians, extant etruscans,and even the coastal greeks of southern italy). now, roman hegemony certainly benefited herearly allies, and though their interests sometimes conflicted (which on a couple occasions provokedwar), rome’s growth was made possible by the relative stability and protection it broughtto those it introduced into its fold. many latins, oscans, faliscans, umbrians,greeks, etc. enjoyed positive experiences with rome, in addition to the more sensationalisticwars of early republican expansion. despite their unfair allotment in later years(by the time they felt themselves an integral part of rome), in early years they retainedlocal autonomy while foregoing the negligible spoils to be won against etruscans and otheritalic foes.
and sure… these spoils weren’t considerednegligible at the time, since it was rome’s monopoly over the spoils of asia and the influxof such wealth into the economy that triggered their anger… when you’re a dirt farmer,you can’t afford sudden 50-100% rises in prices. long story short – rome was initially beneficialto its neighbours… until it wasn’t. their willingness to accept rome makes senseif you remember their ideal for local autonomy was largely left uncompromised and nationalismwasn’t yet a thing… despite all this - the romans are about toface some serious setbacks. the senones, one of many gallic tribes hadrecently invaded northern italy from the north,
had just settled on the coast of the adriaticsea. the senones were a celtic people – and thecelts at the time were an extremely large language family, occupying most of north-westerneurope (in regions like modern day ireland, spain, france, england, and so forth), butthey had a penchant for nomadic wanderings into other people’s territories, so forexample, in 279bc a bunch of gauls invaded the balkans, killed some macedonian leaders,nearly destroyed the shrine of apollo at delphi, and from there they maurauded their way intocentral anatolia, near where king midas’ phrygia had been, where they founded the areawe call galatia (after the word gaul - which is a frankish twist on the germanic word “walâ€or foreigner – cf.
walonia, wales, most eastern european vlanames - perhaps itself in origin adopted from the volsci, a gallic tribe that neighbouredthe germans. ) now, these guys weren’t as destructiveas you might imagine, they just became a sort of local warrior elite above the establishedpopulace, and there they engaged in trade, they often became mercenaries, and ultimatelythey sort of conformed to the greek mores of the region. ptolemy i would do battle against them withthe help of those elephants from india i told you about a while back, but their influencein the region would persist. they were defeated, but not crushed, and wouldremain kingmakers of the hellenistic near
east. as far into the 1st century bc, rome wouldlean on them heavily in the mithridatic wars and pompey likewise had a large force of thempresent at pharsalus in any case, the real core of celtic culturewas in southern germany and france (with the british isles being quite peripheral to celticsociety as a whole); here we tend to forget that the celts only arrived there just slightlybefore the romans did! they were certainly in anatolia before theywere in britain. but in any case, germany and southern france,that was really just a hop, skip, and a jump away from central italy, where we’ll befocusing our lecture today.
greeks and celts had been in contact fromat least the 600s onwards, particularly around the colony of masillia (or marseille) in southernfrance – there’s an apocryphal story which accompanies this factoid, and that’s thatthe only reason the gauls/celts ever invaded italy was because the greeks had given thema taste for wine, and they couldn’t get enough of it. some of our early sources talk about the celts,but to be honest, most accurate information we have on these folks comes from archaeology,and not, say… julius caesar’s propaganda. the celts had a habit of decapitating peopleand sticking their bodies in peat bogs where
they lay extremely well preserved for modernarchaeologists to dig up and even examine their stomach contents… the celts were by no means a unified people– from ireland to western russia, that whole landmass was dotted with thousands of smalltribes (and these ranged in population from a few thousand people to tens of thousandsof people). a persistent myth from antiquity was thatthese people were, above all, prolific breeders – almost bestial - and this always spurredthem on to new conquests. while this may not be entirely inaccurate,it’s ignoring other pressures that cause mass migrations (particularly given the harshclimate of northern europe).
so… these men and women liked to build up quicksemi-permanent settlements made up from ditches and palisades – they built village-townsof sorts; they often had lots of gardens, animal pens, manufacturing sites, and so forth– these were a very organic, tribally-oriented people. moreover, it’s clear that their more permanentsettlements were not purely supported by subsistence farming, the archaeology bears out that theyhad elaborate trade networks that ran all across europe: flax, jewellery, wine, textiles,salt, lumber, precious ores, furs, slaves, and so forth – these were the kinds of commoditieswhich were traded widely through the celtic
world. they were both imaginative and adaptable – veryskilled in metallurgy and even poetry. they invented the barrel… they even wore pants! an unusual clothing style from a mediterraneanperspective. the celts were masters of the spoked wheel,masters of the cart (in good indo-european tradition); in the celtic version of the afterlife,there’s always a sort of journey of the soul, but here it happened over land ratherthan over sea like in many mediterranean cultures. these were a very sophisticated people – notthe mere hack-and-slash conan-types played
up by the greek and roman sources (and ofcourse, this statement isn’t meant to downplay them as warriors either – they were exceptionallygood infantrymen and cavalrymen – they were said to be very large (“ingens†– huge)in the latin sources; they were mostly blonde or red-haired, woad-covered, and well-armed...some of them fought in the nude, and some of them wore armour. these were intimidating folk, to say the least.) according to the historian livy, who wrotehundreds of years later, during the time of augustus after the republic had fallen, theseceltic senones were summoned to the etruscan town of clusium by an influential young manof that city who wanted to take revenge against
another man who had allegedly "debauched hiswife." now, once the senones actually showed up toanswer to these summons, the clusians got scared dealing with these foreign barbarians,and so quickly sent for rome’s help. the romans sent the three sons of rome’smost powerful aristocrats as ambassadors. once they arrived, the ambassadors warnedthe gauls not to attack clusium and threatened that if they did, the romans come to the town’sassistance and drive them all off. they negotiated a peace deal and the senonesaccepted on condition that the clusians would give them some land – which of course iswhat every wandering tribe of foreign invaders is after from here onto the ends of time.
so… this was no good, since it was tantamountto extortion, and a quarrel broke out, which led to a larger battle. now the roman ambassadors, who as a matterof policy are supposed to remain neutral, joined in on the side of the clusians (justas they said they would), and one of them even slew a chieftain from the senones’party. the gauls withdrew, and plots of revenge beganto brew. they sent envoys to rome, demanding that thethree roman brothers be basically extradited over to them. now instead of handing them over, what theydid instead was shower the brothers with honours.
livy wrote that quote "those whose punishmentthey were asked to decide were elected military tribunes with consular powers [heads of state]for the coming year." the gauls were obviously made furious, enragedthat those who had violated the unspoken laws between nations had been given such honours. to avenge this outrage, these gauls took abold step, and marched upon rome, which was 130 km (81 miles) south of clusium, causinga great tumult on the way down. thus began the battle of allia, in retrospectone of history’s most pivotal and definitive moments. now, figures given by ancient historians forthe size of the armies engaged in this battle
are notoriously exaggerated. at that time, the romans probably had twolegions, and this number would not increase until the second samnite war (326-304 bc). now – we shouldn’t envision too much interms of size when we think of this battle – we’re not talking about the grand, heavilyregimented and extraordinarily equipped roman armies of say, the 2nd century ad. the battle of the allia took place in theearly days of rome, at a time when the roman army was much smaller and its command structurewas quite simple. the two consuls (who were elected from thesenate every year) were the sole military
commanders and each of these men headed onelegion (so, one legion per consul). in the early days of rome, a legion probablyconsisted of 4,000 men (whereas later it consisted of 5,200 when at full strength) – so intotal, on the roman side, we’ve got about 8000-9000 men. we’ve got to consider the size rome’spopulace at that time. in the early days of rome, it was still asmall city-state or “polis†of solely regional significance. for some perspective, rome’s territory atthis time didn’t even stretch past thirty miles from the city’s pomerium – the cityof veii they conquered was a mere 11 miles
from rome. these and other considerations make it unlikelythat the size of the population of roman citizens would have been big enough to provide a militarypool of the alleged 24,000+ soldiers for the battle of the allia. so, as i just said, the figures given by ancientauthors are highly exaggerated. so the romans were caught by surprise. they didn’t have much time to prepare forthe battle as the gauls were only a few days’ march away. the roman army in those days were a part-timemilitia made up of peasant farmers who could
be levied for the campaigning season (generallythe winter) before returning to their farms. some soldiers doubtless lived some ways awayfrom rome and would have had needed time to walk there (since walking was really the mainmeans of getting around for most people). now, of course, the size of the senones attackmustn’t be overestimated either: it’s been estimated that 12,000 would have beenquite large for a single roaming tribe. there are only two ancient accounts whichprovide details of this battle – and neither of them are written by anyone who lived evenclose to the date on which it took place. one is by livy and the other is by diodorussiculus. diodorus siculus has a far more unreliableaccount than livy (who remained silent on
figures) – he had a reticence to providenumbers up to and including the sack of rome, putting very little trust the accounts oflater historians. according to livy, the gauls marched uponrome so quickly that quote “rome was shocked by the swiftness at which they moved, whichis shown both by the haste in mustering the army (as if it were meeting a spur-of-themoment emergency) and the difficulty in getting anyone past the eleventh milestone.†the romans were significantly outnumbered. they didn’t set up camp or build defensivestructures, and they didn’t even divine the gods as was customary before battle.
the romans stretched out their wings to avoidbeing flanked. but the downside of this move is that theirline was thin and weak in the middle. on a hill to the right of the battlefield,the romans placed their reserves. brennus, chief of the senones, felt that aruse was afoot and that these reservists would attack him from the rear while he was fightingthe roman army out on the field… so instead of attacking the center line, he attackedthe hill. the romans panicked and their left wing threwdown their arms and fled to the banks of the tiber while the gauls started killing thesoldiers who were blocking one another’s path in a chaotic rout.
those who couldn’t swim or were weigheddown by their armour drowned. the rest of these men fled to veii, a recentlyconquered etruscan city near the other bank. the right wing, however, which was furtherfrom the tiber and closer to the hill, fled back to rome with the gauls in hot pursuit. now the ancient greek historian, diodorussiculus, gives a fairly similar account, saying that the romans marched and crossed the tiber. so he’s the only ancient historian who placedthe battle on the right bank of the river. other than that, most of the story is thesame. now… onto the sack.
most people, when they think of the sack ofrome at the hands of barbarians, they think about the 5th century bc sack of rome underalaric – well here’s one of the most critical moments in early roman history, and it’sseldom discussed because… well, *spoiler alert* they bounce back – but not withoutgreat loss. this would become one of those national traumas– much like pearl harbour or 9/11 – and it would be persevered in rome as a commontopos in oratory for centuries to come. so… the following report comes by and largefrom livy. the inhabitants rome had no clue that mostof their army had fled to veii and so they just assumed that that the only survivorswere those who fled back to rome.
panic rushed through the city. the senones reached rome, saw the city wallsunmanned, and decided to set up a siege camp for the night. meanwhile, the romans sent the able bodiedto defend the fortress of the capitoline hill while most people fled to other towns andinto the countryside. even the priests and the vestal virgins abandonedtheir sacred hearth, taking religious relics along with them. people left in such haste that the elderlyand invalid were abandoned; the story goes that whereas the poor barricaded themselvesin their houses, the nobles donned their best
clothes and sat defiantly chairs before theirhouses. uh… how very roman. anyhow, the senones entered the city thoughan unguarded gate, and began their plundering and livy lovingly describes their encounterwith the old patricians: quote “the houses of the plebeians were barricaded,the halls of the patricians stood open, but the gauls felt greater hesitation over enteringthe open houses than those which were closed. they gazed with feelings of real venerationupon the men who were seated in the porticoes of their mansions, not only because of thesuperhuman magnificence of their apparel and their whole bearing and demeanour, but alsobecause of the majestic expression of their
countenances, wearing the very aspect of gods. so they stood, gazing at them as if they werestatues, till, as it is asserted, one of the patricians, marcus papirius, roused the passionof a gaul, who began to stroke his beard - which in those days was universally worn long - bysmiting him on the head with his ivory staff. he was the first to be killed, the otherswere butchered in their chairs. after this slaughter of the magnates, no livingbeing was thenceforth spared; the houses were rifled, and then set on fire.†after a few days of looting and raping, thesenones attacked the capitoline hill, but unable to overcome the defenders, they seta siege around it.
some gauls, having been sent to the countrysideto pillage for food, came upon the town of ardea. in this town, there happened to live a mannamed camillus. this camillus was a great roman military commander,but he had been exiled on account of embezzlement allegations. nevertheless, with the remaining gravitasand auctoritas he possessed, camillus organised the town’s inhabitants into a fighting forceand he attacked the gallic camp. in the meantime, the survivors of the initialbattle who had fled to veii began to regroup. they chose a centurion named quintus caediciusas their leader.
caedicius believed it would be in rome’sbest interest to call back camillus to lead the regrouping army. however, the approval of the senate was requiredto have him reinstated as a commander. so a messenger was furtively sent to rome,where he managed to climb up the capitoline hill unseen by anyone. the senate then decreed that the popular assemblywas to recall camillus and appoint him “dictator†(that is, commander-in-chief). and so it was done: camillus was escortedfrom ardea to veii. this little tidbit is probably apocryphal– like a myth used to legitimize camillus’
force and to delegitimize other self-appointments;overall, this narrative seems a bit too complex for emergency councils and it also assumesa functioning senate… but that’s neither here nor there. the story goes that the gauls found the footprintsthat the messenger had left by the capitoline hill and discovered where it could easilybe climbed. during the night, they snuck up to the summitof the hill and were undetected by both the guards and the dogs. however… there were atop this hill, a numberof geese sacred to the goddess juno… and when these felt threatened they honked andquacked to high heaven and gave away their
position to the romans. immediately, they pushed the gauls back downthe hill. following this episode, a pestilence brokeout among the senones caused by diseased cattle. this led to a truce. but the gauls intimidated the starving romansto surrender. the roman leaders, who had received wind ofthe army gathered at veii, refused. nevertheless, the exhausted men of the capitolinehill pleaded for some kind of peace negotiations, and the gauls agreed to leave in return fora thousand pounds of gold. in weighing out the ransom, the gauls cheatedout the romans using heavier weights to weigh
the gold, and when the romans protested, livytells us the famous line when quote “brennus tossed his sword on the scale, uttering wordsintolerable to the roman ears, vae victis! ‘woe to the vanquished!’†to remindthem that those defeated in battle are entirely at the mercy of their conquerors and shouldnot expect—or even request—leniency. obviously this was a great humiliation forthe romans. however, as livy put it, “god and man forbadethe romans to be a ransomed people.†and so fortuitously, just as the weighingof the gold had been completed, camillus and his forces from veii reached rome and orderedthem to drop the gold. the gauls protested, saying that an agreementhad been made, but camillus claimed that the
agreement had been struck by a lesser officialand was thus invalid. they fought, and the senones were easily defeated. livy states that the "slaughter was total:their camp was captured and not even the messenger survived to report the disaster." now we get a number of reports from otherancient historians, but they aren’t much different from livy’s accounts, and theyprobably drew upon similar sources/traditions in composing their narrative. whether the fate of the gauls is true, wejust don’t know - there is no other source. it’s very probable that later storytellerswanted rome to save face and have the last
laugh. this sack at the hands of the gauls was anunimaginable humiliation for burgeoning rome – where they had largely been on the offense,this sack forced rome back into a defensive position. up to this point, rome had spent a large portionof the 5th century fending off assaults by neighbouring tribes and city-states. first it was the etruscan cities to the north,then the sabines to the east, then other latin cities which had formed the so-called “latinleague.†after these came threats from the volsci andthe aequi to the south, who attacked both
rome and the other latin towns (ultimatelyleading to an alliance between rome and the latin league). closer to the end the century, there weresome attempts launched toward roman territorial expansion. lastly, there had been three wars againstthe neighbouring etruscan city of veii, which the romans destroyed and took over not longbefore the gallic sack (this is where the romans performed an ‘evocatio’ ritualto “call out†the goddess juno from the etruscan city, and bring her cult to rome– also where camillus had earned his embezzlement accusations).
from this point onward, the conquest of veiiwas the greatest roman conquest to date and rome seemed to be on the ascendancy. now it probably goes without saying that afterthe sack of rome, foreign attacks on rome’s territory resumed. now, here’s the part i really want to stressin all this… livy tells us how the city was burnt to theground, and what this all included were the records from which the romans wrote theirhistory. if you want to know why even the most rigorous,hardline, materialist, historians start talking about roman history with the legendary figuresaeneas, romulus and remus way back in the
8th century – well it’s because romanhistory doesn’t actually go further back than the sack. history had to be rewritten from the groundup. rome itself, in so far as its layout, hadto be hastily rebuilt, leading to a sort of chaotic and haphazard layout. as for diodorus sicculus and polybius, theymade very limited references to this period. now… just a word on livy’s approach torome’s mythic history: his preface essentially calls it the right of a victor to assert theirown history, then in the preface to book 6 he calls literature unus testis fidelis, theone faithful witness, (which by our standards
is perhaps a bit uncritical), but in any event,it underscores the lack of records for the earlier period – whatever the cause of thattruly was (whether it was widespread illiteracy, or gallic vandalism). rome did bounce back, of course, and its recoverywas assisted by cementing that freshly occupied territory of veii – they granted its inhabitantscitizenship (without the right to vote). after these initial setback, rome ultimatelyresumed her expansionism of the late 400s – early 300s. the conquest of veii provided rome with bettermaterials for construction. a few years after the sack, rome decided itwould never suffer this indignity ever again,
and so they pulled a trump and began to buildnew city walls using ashlar masonry – a real massive undertaking. this wall was 11 km/7 miles long and tooktwenty-five years to complete. the new rock was harder and therefore harderto work. the original wall had been built in from arather crappy local stone which was very soft, so the new wall was rebuilt with yellow tuff,which was much better stuff. marcus furius camillus, who was mentionedearlier, thought it best to introduce changes in heavy infantry formation – this was toaccommodate the rigidity of the hoplite phalanx, which was still the dominant method of warfarein this period.
in camillus’ new system, soldiers linedup tightly in ranks, locking their shields together to form a human wall. this system relied soldiers holding the shield-walltight, even under pressure. to add flexibility to this system, however,the soldiers (who still fought in the hoplite way), were divvied up into three classes basedon wealth: the hastati, the principes, and the triarii. this threefold division of troops based accordingto social status would have a profound effect on the roman military, and by extension, romansociety. the logic of this, of course, was in accordanceto what kind of equipment you can afford (and
generally, how old you were). the hastati were less well-off, generallyyouthful conscripts who formed the first line. the roman system was a real trial-by-fire. hastati were equipped with light bronze breastplatesand helmets, swords, shields, and hastae (spears about 6 feet long). the principes made up the second line; theywore better armour and carried two javelins, a large one and a thin one with a hook usedto disable enemy shields. the triarii formed the third line, and thesemen, on average in their 40s, had the best equipment and spears.
the default strategy was that hastati attackedfirst, and if they did not break the enemy line, they fell back through the cracks ofthe rank behind them and the principes took over the fight. now, if the principes could not break theenemy they, too, would fall back and let the triarii took over. over the centuries, these three classes startedto be less and less about wealth, and more and more about age. this really was the system to have if youwanted the versatility to fend off the charge of a celtic army, or go toe to toe with a3rd century greek phalanx.
alright, so in conclusion, it’s safe tosay that the gallic sack of rome led to a widespread fear and distrust of gauls in romeproper for centuries to come – and by “led to†i mean “intensified†the fears whichhad already been in place before the sack. while the institutionalized “other†ingreece lay over the bosphorus to the east, for now the romans would find their “otherâ€to the north. the pomerium provided a core, and for now,the rest of italy was rome’s periphery. fast forward by about a century and we caneven see the romans performing human sacrifices to ward off the punic terror – this theydid by burying alive a pair of gauls and a pair of greeks, despite the fact that humansacrifice wasn’t something the romans had
ever really done. fear of the barbarian was seared into romanconsciousness. it was this trauma – this traumatic sack– which informed much of the policy developed to deal with the issue of barbarians. to survive, the romans invested themselvesinto their brand: the spqr and citizenship therein, and the more and more they stressedthe value of this citizenship, the more and more the immediate periphery would seek away to get in on it. some 40 years later, around the middle ofthe 4th century bc – the romans get roped into supporting the greek colonists settledat capua against their native italian neighbours,
the samnites. the romans themselves actually didn’t initiatethe first samnite war (343-341) – rather, it was initiated by the samnites in theirattack against the greeks, who then called in the romans to help them. this practice would become routine for theromans. rome often expanded her borders in a sortof offensive defence – they defended and defended and defended, and by the end of itthey controlled the entire mediterranean basin. in this samnite war, the romans would defeatthe samnites and many of their confederates. after it, once the romans had solidified theircontrol over the region of campania, they
would ultimately decide to extend the romancitizenship to the inhabitants of capua and cumae. this was the first step in a very, very longand drawn out process by which roman citizenship (with all its rights and privileges) beganto be progressively cheapened, because it was being extended to groups who were nottechnically “roman†– by the 4th century ad, roman citizenship would become so universallyextended across the empire that it wound up meaning virtually nothing. throughout the republican period of its history,the romans created for themselves a sense of false superiority, which provided thema lens through which they could see all their
expansionism as an act of liberation ratherthan conquest. all our history of rome comes from roman eyes,and so every act of aggression perpetrated by rome is framed as a defensive necessity. not long after the first samnite war, theromans drop out of the latin league and start fighting their former allies, the latin states. technically, they started it, and so… thesethe romans reduce to subordination. that, in two sentences, was the latin war. not long after this, the romans lay siegeto the greek colony of naples. just because cumae and capua have been extendedcitizenship doesn’t mean that the romans
don’t have beef with the greeks of naples. the greeks, as you should all know by now,were never really unified. here the samnites get involved with this conflict,and they trigger the second samnite war. so between 326 and 304, the samnites bringin the umbrians and the etruscans as allies to fight the romans in a unified front whichwrapped almost entirely around them. i won’t get into the details here, but let’sjust say the romans act perfidiously against the samnites after having been forced to agreeto a number of terms, and this prompts the 3rd samnite war (298-290), which is reallyjust an extension of the 2nd. so the romans and the samnites, by this point,have been at each other’s throats for around
75 years – that’s a really long time tohold a grudge. a point to make here is that although theromans experience all sorts of defeats and set-backs, they keep bouncing back relentlessly. it’s worth mentioning here that a not insignificantpart of roman manpower at the time was not just coming from rome proper and roman latincolonies, but also from neighbours who were not long ago absorbed. rome’s generosity to the conquered city-statesin early years (perhaps not by our standards) was a much greater source of power than greekpotentates could ever come to depend on. to their neighbours, rome was stability andprotection.
one common fate of the conquered was no secretin antiquity: rape and plunder. women and children were enslaved, men, theinfirm and the elderly were all put to the sword and their culture would be forgottenwithin a generation… now all while this is happening, the gaulswho had sacked rome in 390 and thereafter been beaten back, well these guys start tomake a comeback at the edge of the roman world. so now the romans aren’t only fighting thesamnites and the greeks to the south, the umbrians to the north east and the etrustcansbeyond them…. but they’ve also got to deal with the gauls coming from the north! so where do they concentrate their attention?
well, instead of spreading themselves thin,the romans concentrate on their southern frontier – where they were (and here comes the magicword) *invited* by the greeks of thurii to assist them against the lykaneans. in turn, the lykaneans get tarentum involved(which is a city-state on sicily), and they bring in their famous general pyrrhus of epirus. for the first time ever, the romans are facedwith not greek colonists on the italian peninsula, but with well-established “mainland†greeks(and that means advanced hellenistic armies with professional siege engineers, importedwar elephants, and highly mobile, heavily armoured and disciplined phalanx.)
the macedonian tactics devised by phillipii and developed by alexander, the sarisa-based phalanx and such, were very much in vogueto greek warfare at the time. they used long spears and these were mostuseful against other phalanx-type units with spears, but against the romans, these long-spearsand the formations necessary for their usage were definitely not optimal. romans had smaller maniples which were farmore mobile, and these could be used to flank phalanx, eventually rendering them useless. nevertheless, between 280 and 275, epiruswas consistently successful against the romans… but at every battle he fights, he sustainssuch huge losses that the fights become hardly
worth it at all. so this is where you get the term “pyrrhicvictory†– a victory which is about as good as a loss. in light of all these "pyrrhic victoriesâ€,pyrrhus flees the region, leaving behind a power vacuum at its southern frontier thatrome rapidly fills up. in retrospect we can say there was a fairdeal of foolishness governing the minds of greek city states around italy – it washabit for the poleis to squabble with one another over petty rivalries, all the whileignoring the threat of “lesser barbaroi†– had the greek states in italy banded together,history might have taken a totally different
direction, but that alas was not the case. they all acted alone as individual entities,and so each in turn would fall alone as individual entities. the exhibition of this type of behaviour wouldreally start to shape roman cultural consciousness – greeks at this point begin to be conceivedof as shiftless, dishonest, opportunistic folk, rather than people of principles – morelike actors than real soldiers. by about a generation after pyrrhus has setsail in 275 and rome has come to dominate the entire peninsula, the elements which buildup that “roman republic†brand are finally firmly in place.
then, from the middle of the 200s to about133bc, we’ve got a status quo being more or less upheld (and by status quo, i meanthe silent revolution of small cabals of powerbrokers taking over rome with power being centralizedin extraordinary offices with greater frequency, largely without issue). by 133bc, we start seeing the stirrings ofrevolution and a real crisis for the state… then from 133bc to the end of the republic,we hop from one crisis to the next – but i’m not going to get into this stuff today. now what allowed for this century long statusquo to emerge, was the integration of law and religion, combined under the aegis ofroman virtues (clementia, auctoritas, gravitas,
prudentia, pudicitia, and so on and so forth). these we discussed briefly in the last lecture. now, i want to say something about roman identityand culture, and really this can be said about all identities and cultures, and that’sthat “roman identity†is not a fixed, timeless and eternal platonic form up in theheaven of ideas… no – roman identity was formulated over time – it was a combinationof elements borrowed from the local greek, latin, sabine, samnite, gallic, and etruscancultures. rome – from its inception – was a compendiumof identities, not a perfect, timeless and immutable object, as so many nationalist historianshave tried to argue in the past.
that being said, the whole military projectof the 4th and 3rd centuries bc was to cut off the points of entry for these “non-romanâ€groups, and stem the tide of invasion. it was only after these peripheral groupswere subdued that rome could turn its eyes southward to carthage (against whom they’llbe forced to build a navy, but that’s a story for another time). now, i had a chat with brett bartlett beforegiving this lecture, and what he had to say about all this is the following: “there’sa fair bit of controversy between this idea that, on the one side, the romans were a naã¯verepublic getting itself pulled this way and that by foreign entanglements, and on theother the other hand, that they really had
a passion for machiavellian power-play. to this i say that rome was never of one mind. i think rome had a recent trauma that favoredhawkish security measures. they spent the last couple centuries fightingfor survival, which would create a bit of tunnel vision where the military solutionseems more appropriate than it would otherwise [when all you have is a hammer, every problemlooks like a nail], but i think all that discounts just how effective roman diplomacy reallywas in the period between the 4th century until the time of the early empire. they were amazing.
the amount that rome accomplished outsideof battle is vastly overshadowed by more sensational military deeds.†alright, so with that said, that about doesit for what i want to say for today… this puts us in a good position for launching offinto a number of new subjects – you may have noticed i’ve said nothing about thedruids while discussing the celts, and that’s for good reasons – i’ll have to come backat some point to discuss them all on their own because this term “druid†is increasinglyproblematic in light of the archaeology... long story short, “druid†is a reductionistterm for a great number of “religious functionaries.†but we’ll get back to that when it becomesincreasingly important.
for now, this is dan attrell signing off,and you’re listening to encyclopedia hermetica: a big history.
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