Televised history, at least
in the UK, has a long tradition of throwing up interesting and thought
provoking series, and the recent ‘Barbarians’ by
ex-Python Terry Jones was one such. His central thesis was that we give
the Romans far too much credit as a civilising influence, tacitly
accepting that the ‘barbarians’ they conquered were
ultimately better off due to the benefits of Roman law and stability.
In fact, as he showed in numerous examples, their societies were just
as advanced in many ways as the Roman model which superseded them.
Jones stated that it was purely Rome’s military strength
which allowed them to take over a large portion of the known world and,
having won their wars, they then rewrote history in their own favour.
It was certainly an
entertaining series, which put forward this alternative view of the
Romans with great confidence, but do Jones’ ideas stand up?
Is it fair to single out the Romans for such criticism? After all,
there had been large authoritarian empires before which had crushed
local cultures and brought entire populations under the control of
powerful centralised authorities. There had even been powerful European
empires in the centuries preceding the Romans, most notably that of
Alexander the Great and his successors, though this had looked eastward
into Asia rather than westward into Europe. We might also consider the
Athenian empire of the fifth century BC, which was short-lived and
limited in extent compared to that of Rome, but makes an interesting
comparison. So, given these and other examples, why be so beastly to
the Romans?
In fact, one of the
surprising and depressing aspects of our historical past is how quickly
‘civilisation’ led to the establishment of large
despotic regimes. From the time the first cities started to establish
themselves some five thousand years ago, we have seen the rise and fall
of a succession of empires in different parts of the world. The change
from egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies of the paleolithic era to
the urban-centred hierarchies of the bronze age was both sudden and
dramatic, and the effects are still with us today.
Let us consider that early
transition to ‘civilisation’: the archetypal
hierarchical society of the ancient world was Egypt, and the
outstanding monument to its social organisation – the Great
Pyramid of Giza. Its very construction exemplifies the Egyptian state:
an enormous volume of rock, laboriously collected and positioned with
painstaking accuracy, supports a tiny pinnacle lifted high above the
desert sands. The analogy with the way Khufu, the pharoh, was supported
by the organised toil of his numerous subjects is impossible to miss.
The ultimate irony of this incredible construction, of course, is that
it is ultimately pointless since it was built to facilitate
Khufu’s mythical journey into the after-life. Would his
labourers have laughed or cried had they been confronted with the truth
that their great project was an exercise in futility? Some of them, of
course, may have realised that perfectly well at the time, and have
simply shrugged and pocketed their wages – an attitude not
unknown in our own day and age, of course.
With this in mind, it is
difficult to
see why Jones singles out the Romans as being particularly worthy of
criticism. After all, if the Greeks had not defeated the invading
Persian armies at the start of the fifth century BC, we might not have
had any model of less authoritarian states against which to compare
them. Quite how European history would have unfolded in that
alternative universe is impossible to know, but it is a sobering
exercise to think through the possibilities. And, staying with the
Greeks, let us not forget that it was they themselves who were
ultimately responsible for the withering away of the early shoots of
democracy. The Greek world which the Romans came to dominate had
already transformed into an imperial model – albeit a less
successful one.
On the whole, though, I
think Jones is
probably right to argue for a rethink in our attitude to Rome. Who
knows what we might have been able to learn from the many societies
they conquered, had they not so thoroughly wrote them out of the
records. And Rome itself was not always a good imperial master: those
who lived under Roman rule in the latter days of the republic would
hardly have thought themselves blessed by good governance, and the
later empire – from the third century onwards –
became a
steadily less appealing place in which to live. Even in its better
periods, woe betide anyone who got on the wrong side of the authorities
– particularly if they did not have Roman citizenship.
A good measure of the
intrinsic strength
of the social model which Rome imposed on its imperial territories can
be assessed by comparing it with that of the Greeks. The concept of the
city state largely survived the long period of Roman rule, and Greek
culture remained a strong force within the empire. So much so that when
the empire began to separate into two independent halves under the
strain of coping with endless crises, it was the eastern Greek half
which fared better. Greek culture and society, which had grown up
organically from the people, proved stronger than the top-down model
imposed by the Romans. And to clinch the argument: which language
survived as a living tongue into the modern world? Certainly not Latin,
which as generations of schoolboys would agree is a language
‘as
dead as dead can be’. Taking the long view of history, it has
to
be the Greek model which wins the plaudits.
Which brings us to our own
times, and
the analogy which is often drawn between modern American power and that
of the Romans. It is an easy comparison to make – going back
at
least to Harold Macmillan’s suggestion that the UK should
play
Greece to America’s Rome – but is it accurate?
Certainly
there are aspects of the modern US state which are consciously modelled
on Rome, but that is equally true of, say, France and Britain. The
question is whether the course of American history over the last
hundred years or so parallels that of Rome.
I have to say that I am not
so sure: in
fact I would go so far as to say that current US military endeavours
have more of the feel of the short-lived Athenian empire. Like the
Athenians, and unlike imperial Rome, the Americans have a vigorous
democracy which is (usually) willing to scrutinise the policies and
decisions of the government. Also, like the Athenians the Americans
have an unshakeable belief in their own cleverness. This is not
unwarranted, since they could not have risen to be the sole world
superpower without it, but this same cleverness can sometimes lead them
to overreach themselves – just as it did with the Athenians,
and
with equally disastrous results.
The great strength of Terry
Jones’
book is to make us reconsider these ancient civilisations, and by doing
that we gain new perspectives on our own world.