Why We’re All Romans Why We’re All Romans The Roman Contribution to the Western World Carl J. Richard ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Distributed by National Book Network Copyright © 2010 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Richard, Carl J. Why we’re all Romans : the Roman contribution to the Western world / Carl J. Richard. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7425-6778-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7425-6780-1 (electronic) 1. Rome—Civilization—Influence. 2. Civilization, Modern—Roman influences. 3. Rome—History. I. Title. DG77.R53 2010 937—dc22 2009043889 ™ ϱ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America In memory of the great Meyer Reinhold Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface xi 1 Roman History in Brief 1 2 Administration and Law 43 3 Engineering and Architecture 55 4 Epic and Lyric Poetry 83 5 Speeches, Letters, and Agricultural Manuals 111 6 Philosophy 135 7 Historical Writing 165 8 Comedy and Satire 195 9 Greek and Jewish Contributions in the Roman Era 223 10 The Rise and Romanization of Christianity 251 Epilogue 283 Suggestions for Further Reading 285 Index of Translations for Long Quotations 289 Index 293 About the Author 301 vii Illustrations Roman Italy xvi The Roman World, 133 B.C. xvii The Roman Empire to A.D. 180 xviii Photo 3.1. Via Appia (Appian Way) 56 Photo 3.2. Pont du Gard, Nimes, France 61 Photo 3.3. Reconstruction of the Theater of Marcellus 66 Photo 3.4. Interior of the Roman Colosseum 67 Photo 3.5. Reconstruction drawing of the Roman Colosseum at the time of Hadrian (A.D. 117–138) 68 Photo 3.6. Interior of Trajan’s Market 71 Photo 3.7. Façade of the Pantheon 72 Photo 3.8. Interior of the Pantheon 74 Photo 3.9. Arch of Titus 78 Photo 3.10. Relief from the Arch of Titus, triumphal procession 79 Photo 3.11. Arch of Constantine 80 Photo 9.1. Laocoön 225 Photo 9.2. Augustus of Prima Porta 227 Photo 9.3. Ara Pacis (Altar of the Augustan Peace) 228 Photo 9.4. Detail from the Ara Pacis, procession of the imperial family 229 Photo 9.5. Trajan’s Column 230 Photo 9.6. Relief from Trajan’s Column, Roman legionaries crossing the Danube on a pontoon bridge 231 Photo 9.7. Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius 234 ix Preface W hen the British poet Percy Shelley wrote, “We are all Greeks,” he was certainly correct. The Greeks deduced the core of modern scientific and mathematical knowledge and developed the very method that has allowed modern scientists to surpass them. They established the Western forms of drama, poetry, art, and architecture. By articulating all of the principal meta- physical and ethical problems and proposing a dazzling variety of solutions, their philosophers set the terms for subsequent philosophical discourse. They invented research-based historical writing. Most important, they formulated the theories of popular sovereignty, natural law, and mixed government that undergird modern democratic government. Yet it has often been noted, with equal justification, that we are all He- brews too. The Judaic concept of a single, omniscient, omnipotent God who was not only ethical Himself but who also demanded ethical behavior from His human creatures, a concept unique to the Hebrews in the ancient world, has become so much a part of the Western mind that even the unorthodox or irreligious can only challenge it, not escape it. Combined with the related Hebraic doctrine of the spiritual equality of all people, it forms the core of Western consciousness. Thus, we Westerners are all Hebrews in the crucial areas of ethics and spirituality, Greeks in nearly everything else. What is noted far less frequently is that it is the Romans who made us Greeks and Hebrews. From the Middle Ages on, most Westerners learned of Greek art from Roman copies, not original works; of Greek mythology from Ovid, not Hesiod; of Stoicism from Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, not Zeno or Cleanthes; of Epicureanism from Lucretius, not Epicurus; of Greek comedy from Plautus and Terence, not Aristophanes and Menander; of the Greek novel from Apuleius, not its forgotten originators; of the Greek xi xii Preface conception of history from Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, not Herodotus or Thucydides; and of the Greek theories of popular sovereignty, natural law, and mixed government from Cicero, not Plato or Aristotle. It was the Roman republic, not Athenian democracy, that most Westerners long regarded as the greatest model of government. Not until the Renaissance were many of the original Greek texts re- covered and studied in the West, and even thereafter, Latin continued to dominate the Western educational system at both the grammar school and college levels until the nineteenth century. The most influential of the Greeks—Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Polybius, and Plutarch, for instance—owed their survival and influence largely to their translation into Latin (and later into the vernacular languages), translations that long contin- ued to be read in preference to the original texts. After a brief heyday during the philhellenic movement of the first half of the nineteenth century, the Greek language resumed a subordinate role to Latin in Western curricula. Despite the general decline of classical education in the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of Americans continued to study Latin in high school each year until the 1960s. Likewise, when the Western world adopted the ethical monotheism of the Hebrews, it did so at the instigation of a Roman citizen named Paul, who took advantage of the peace, unity, stability, and roads of the Roman Empire to proselytize the previously pagan Gentiles who quickly became a majority of the religion’s adherents. Though the Roman government of the first century crucified Christ and persecuted Christians, its descendant of the fourth and fifth centuries encouraged the spread of Christianity throughout the Western world. The three greatest of the so-called Early Church Fathers, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, were all Roman citizens. For over a mil- lennium, most Westerners who read the Scriptures read them not in their original Hebrew and Greek texts but in the Latin Vulgate Bible of Jerome. “Jesus” became known by his Latin name, not by his Hebrew or Greek names (“Yeshua” or “Iesous,” respectively). Latin continued to be the language of the Catholic Mass until the 1960s and continues to be the official language of the Roman Catholic Church, whose billion members constitute the largest Christian denomination in the world. If the Romans were not as innovative as the Greeks or Hebrews, it is partly because their civilization reached its zenith at a later time. All Western- ers who came after the Greeks and Hebrews were, and continue to be, inheri- tors and adapters. But great ingenuity is required to adapt what is inherited to one’s own historical context successfully, and the Romans certainly succeeded in that endeavor. What is most remarkable about the Romans is that, unlike so many other imperial peoples before and since, they did not dismiss the past Preface xiii and present civilizations of the peoples they conquered as inherently inferior. This willingness to adapt elements of other civilizations to their own needs was the product of self-confidence rather than humility. Immensely proud of their enormous empire, and convinced of its divine destiny, they felt little need to denigrate other civilizations or to forgo the advantages of borrowing their best aspects, a practice that also appealed to their renowned pragmatism. Virgil was not ashamed to learn from Homer, nor Cicero from Plato, nor Au- gustine from the psalmist. Even as proud a Roman as Horace acknowledged, “Greece, the captive, held her savage victor captive.” What the Romans assimilated they also modified and often improved. Though Virgil learned epic poetry from Homer, his gods were more dignified and ethical than Homer’s. The greatest didactic poem ever written, Virgil’s Georgics, far surpassed its Greek models. Ovid developed an imaginative and playful way of presenting classical mythology that was worlds apart from, and far more influential than, the somberness of Hesiod. The Roman agricultural writers Cato, Varro, and Columella took the bare shell of a genre begun by the Greek Xenophon and converted it into an effective means of transmitting sound, useful information concerning the most vital of subjects, the produc- tion of food. Roman architects used the Greek column as an ornament to decorate the far larger spaces they were able to enclose with their own inven- tion, the concrete dome. Lucretius presented Epicureanism in a poem whose elegance and passion proved essential to the philosophy’s enduring influence on Western intellectuals. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius ensured the survival of Stoicism by bringing it down to earth through the employment of direct, colloquial language and through a greater emphasis on ethics. Plautus revived the Greek New Comedy, which had grown stale and formulaic, by lampoon- ing its conventions and introducing an ironic self-awareness in its characters.