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The Pax Romana GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE THE PAX ROMANA “Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.” — Tacitus “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 753 BCE April 21: The founding of Rome (which is to say, this is the year which would later be regarded as Year 1 in the 10- month solar calendar of Rome, known as AUC or Anno Urbis Conditae — the explanation was that in this year Romulus the son of Mars, brother of Remus, had founded the city — and April 21st was the perhaps arbitrary date that would at some point be selected, purportedly the 18th birthday of wolf-suckled eponymous founding daddy Romulus, on which this would be celebrated). From this year until 510 BCE, the Laws of the Seven Kings1 of Rome. READ THE FULL TEXT In central Italy were the Italic peoples, embracing Latins, Umbrians and Oscans (Samnites), and Etruscans. To the south of them were Lucanians, Bruttii, Siculi, and Greeks. To the north of them were Ligurians, Gauls, and Venetians. NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE APRIL 21, 753 BCE AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST). 1. The average reign length of these seven legendary kings, 34 years, is surely ahistorical. Even the British monarchy has achieved an average reign length of but 21 years and there aren’t any historical records of a track record better than that. Historians therefore guesstimate this “kings” period of Roman history as about 625 to 500 BCE, for an average reign length of a more realistic 18 years. HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 509 BCE On the Capitol Hill of Rome, dedication of the Temple of Jupiter. Traditional date for the founding of the Roman Republic (Res Publica), subsequent to the death of their Etruscan monarch Tarquinius Superbus. For the initial period, until 350 BCE, these Romans would be at war with adjacent tribes (Etruscans, Latins, Gauls, what have you) and there would be no hint that they were anything other than clueless. The first capital punishment enactments of which we have written record date to the legal code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, in the 18th Century BCE, which had specified the penalty of death for 25 distinct offenses. This had been carried forward in the 14th Century BCE in the Hittite code of laws, which also made use of capital punishment, and in the 7th Century BCE, in the legal code implemented by Draco of Athens, which had specified that the penalty was to be the same, capital punishment, for any crime just about irregardless of what it was (this had been, of course, truly Draconian). In this century, the Roman Law of the Twelve Tablets would also be making use of death, which might be induced through crucifixion, through being burned alive, through being beaten, by drowning, or by means of impalement — whatever seemed most handy. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 394 BCE Rome made her initial great stride in the career of conquest they would term the Pax Romana, by the capture of Veii. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 390 BCE July 18:After a battle at Allia at which the Gauls led by Brennus defeated the Romans led by Q. Servius Fidenas, Q. Sulpicius, and P. Cornelius Maluginensis, they sacked and burned Rome — greatly disrupting the Pax Romana. Rome would recover from the events of this occupation of the region by the Gauls — but her old enemies, the Aequians and Volscians, would never recover from this. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 350 BCE From about this year until 338 BCE, Rome would be subduing the Latin League. THE PAX ROMANA THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 343 BCE Rome began her wars with the Samnites: they would extend over the following half a century. The result of this obstinate contest would be to secure for this city the dominion of the Italian peninsula. THE PAX ROMANA NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 341 BCE From this year until 264 BCE, Rome’s conquest of Italy. THE PAX ROMANA THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 310 BCE The town of Pompeii was first mentioned in written history at this point, during the 2d Samnite War when a Roman fleet landed at a nearby port, Sarnus, in order to stage an unsuccessful attack on the neighboring town of Nuceria. THE PAX ROMANA NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project A Roman Piece of Sword HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 280 BCE Another altercation involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Heraclea and Tarentum and Epirus, the forces of Pyrrhos of Epeirus defeated the Romans led by P. Valerius Laevinus, disrupting the Pax Romana. Pyrrhos brought war elephants into Italy. Despite the notorious cost of his victories, these war elephants would impel the Carthaginians in about 262 BCE to replace their war chariots with African forest elephants (as elephants were becoming extinct in Morocco and were expensive to obtain from India, the animals would not figure in European warfare after Hannibal’s defeat in 168 BCE). HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 279 BCE Yet more battles involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Asculumno and Tarentum and Epirus, the forces of Pyrrhus defeated the forces led by C. Fabricius Luscinus, disrupting or enhancing the Pax Romana depending on your point of view. HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 275 BCE Yet another altercation involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Beneventum the legions of Rome led by M. Curius Dentatus inflicted such a serious defeat on the forces of Tarentum and Epirus led by King Pyrrhus of Epirus that he abandoned his involvement in the Tarentine region of the lower Italian peninsula. Rome had become dominant over the entire peninsula, from the Rubicon River to the Straits of Messina, enabling the creation of the Pax Romana. HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 264 BCE The 1st Punic war, a long struggle between the Romans and the Carthaginians over the grainfields of Sicily. Forming a fleet, the Romans successfully competed with the marine power of Carthage. (There would be, in June 1851 in the great Exhibition at Hyde Park, London, a model of a piratical galley of Labuan part of the mast of which could be let down on an enemy vessel, to function as a bridge for boarders. This was reminiscent of the account by Polybius, of boarding bridges fixed to the masts of the Roman galleys by which the Roman admiral Duilius would win his great victory over the Carthaginian fleet.) During the latter half of this war, the military genius of Hamilcar Barca would sustain the Carthaginian involvement in Sicily. After 24 years of hostilities the Carthaginians would sue for peace even though their aggregate losses in ships and in men had been lower than those sustained by the Romans. Sicily was to become a Roman province, part of the Pax Romana. When fights between gladiators were staged at the funeral ceremonies of Decimus Brutus Pera, this marked the inauguration of the tradition of Roman gladiatorial combat in honor of the dead — another important element in the Pax Romana.2 2. In the 4th episode of the TV series “I, Claudius,” the young Claudius and his buddy Herod Agrippa I, deeply in debt and a prisoner in Rome under Tiberius, were attending the games in the Flavian Amphitheater when Claudius attempted to explain to the Jew that the purpose of all this brutality was “to honor the dead.” “By rendering more men dead?” Herod inquired incredulously (which evades, of course, the fact that King Herod Agrippa I died in 44 CE while the site that eventually was to become Rome’s “Colosseum” was still beneath the waters of a lovely lake). HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE HDT WHAT? INDEX A ROMAN PIECE OF SWORD GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 256 BCE Yada yada yada yet another battle involving our favorite pushy people, the Romans: at Ecnomus the Romans led by M.
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