Introduction to Rome and Her Enemies
Rome can be considered the reigning superpower of the ancient world. The civilization of the Romans was fearsome and devoured any state who stood in it’s path, but also shared many resemblances with our own modern day society while at the same time exhibiting things that set it apart. The fact that these contrasting differences exist simultaneously is what perpetuates our interest in the Roman civilization well into our modern times. No other nation came close in terms of the dramatic moments that occurred throughout it’s existence. Gibbon, in reference to it’s legendary historic scenery, defined it’s thousand year rise and fall as such: “The greatest, and perhaps, most awful scene, in the history of mankind.”
The mysterious circumstances surrounding it’s rise baffles both anthropologists and historians alike, who wonder how this city state of cattle farmers originally dwelling along marshes and hills, managed to organize into an empire that eventually ruled a stretch of land all the way from the swamps of Scotland to the deserts of Iraq? The fact that were are mesmerized by the rise of the Roman empire to superpower status we tend to overlook how violent, oppressive and brutish that rise actually was. In our minds, the journey of the Romans has been romanticized, and we do not truly see into their tyrannical nature. Virgil is quoted to proudly exacerbate the Roman people and his perceived purpose of them on this planet: “Your task, O Roman,” writing in a festive tone, “is to rule and bring to men the arts of government, to impose upon them the arts of peace, to spare those who submit, to subdue the arrogant”. Rome’s rivals and competitors, on the other hand, did not see it quite exactly as noble of a purpose as Virgil had described. Mithridates was an Asiatic king who made it his life’s mission to resist Roman rule and oppression and actively engage the Roman legions, remarked about the Romans: “Warmongers against every nation, people and monarch under the sun.”
He went on: “They have only one biding motive – greed, deep-seated, for empire and riches.” And from then on this has been the case throughout much of human history – as the modern adage goes: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Even though if Virgil and Mithridates would’ve been put together to debate Rome’s impact on humanity, and would surely have disagreed as to the finer points made, none could really grasp what it all meant in the slightest. Rome’s gifted prowess rested in it’s ability to conquer. There were other nations in the world that surpassed Rome in arts, philosophy, science and theology, but none at the time were able to match up to it’s armies. It was through this acuity on the battlefield that led to Rome’s legendary expansionism. It is said that this destiny to conquer the world was embroidered in her very start as a nation, as the city was founded by a man so savage he drank milk from the teat of a female wolf. This story was embarrassingly solidified in history, of Romulus’s endeavor, and it would follow Rome so as a symbol, as the Roman legions were so savage, Rome’s enemies nicknamed it “the city of the wolf”.
Foreign cultures who had come in contact with the Romans would often illustrate them as a vicious breed of humans, constantly on the lookout for new prey, a sort of savagery that could be seen in beasts and not men, and from this we can deduce the level of fear they inspired in the hearts of their enemies. It was this depiction of blood dripping from their teeth, that was also privy to the way Romans saw the color red themselves as being the color of war. Despite all these examples of Roman brutality, the legendary nature of Roman prowess for war would need to be balanced by their civility. Selfishness had no place in the ranks of the Roman legions, and to fight for some personal satisfaction was viewed as inappropriate, as it would prevent the Roman soldier from fighting with his team, on behalf of his army and for his army, and was therefore crucial to cultivating a teamwork oriented mindset. From 509 BC and the century onward, up until the rearranging of Rome into a republic, the Romans saw difficulty into putting this theory into practice.
Suffering from a state of internal strife and disputes regarding morality, they would not use this savagery on their neighbors when they should have. In 390 BC, the mighty Roman army was, to many’s surprise, decimated by the Gauls, and the subsequent invasion of Rome itself by the Gauls that resulted with it’s sacking of the city. It was at this pivotal moment that Rome’s spirit was embellished in fire and brimstone, and strengthened to a point where it turned it into the world’s foremost military power at the time, the Roman people vowing never to be disrespected, dishonored or defeated ever again.
The neighbors of the Romans were slow to catch onto this transformation of the Romans into a superpower and the intricacies that came along with it. For this they suffered greatly. Some 150 years after Gallic incursion into Rome, the Western Mediterranean fell to the awesome might of Rome. Even then, it wasn’t through plain victory that Rome was able to exhibit it’s militaristic traits, but through a bout of annihilation and destruction, not from Rome upon others, but upon Rome itself at the hands of Hannibal Barca, which on the 2nd of August, 216 BC, managed to wipe out 1/5 of the Roman army in a single day during the battle of Cannae. Moral fell within the Roman ranks and all would assume that suffering this defeat, in which more Roman soldiers were killed than on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Rome would capitulate to the might of the Carthaginians – Rome set out to prove them wrong. Rome continued to fight instead of surrendering, and even gave human sacrifices to the gods in order to appease them in such a way that would allow the Romans to win the war against Carthage. Bull rushing forward, they managed to defeat the Carthaginians and by 100 BC became the main controlling power of the Mediterranean sea.