"Violence was increasingly taken for granted as a political tool. Traditional restraints and conventions broke down, one y one, until swords, clubs and rioting more or less replaced the ballot box. At the same time... a very few individuals of enormous power, wealth, and military backing came to dominate the state..."
I picked up SPQR, yet another book on the history of Rome, and I'm really enjoying it.
I've read various books on the Roman empire, off and on over the years, though I by no means claim any real expertise. The similarities (and differences) to today are compelling, as well as the way events from so very long ago can still shape the world as we know it today.
But I will admit, most of my previous reading was more focused on... well, the fall of Rome. Or with a more militaristic focus (like the Ghosts of Cannae, though iirc it covered far more than just a battlefield analysis. As the title implies, it also talked about the impact of that battle on the Roman society as a whole, and especially the veterans.)
I have to admit, we get so focused on why such a large and powerful empire fell apart that we don't always ask "how did it grow so powerful in the first place?"
And, again, the differences and similarities to our own history are... just fascinating. Like, I vaguely knew the myth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome who were suckled as babes by a wolf. I never really looked into it in detail, so I didn't know that Romulus apparently killed his brother nor did I consider the meaning of such a founding story... and it's implications for fratricidal violence. The author seems to do a good job of explaining some of the dissenting historical opinions on various topics, and what evidence is and isn't available, so for the most part this is treated as a story.
And still has interesting implications, in the sense of... "why include that in the story?" Like... stories change to meet the needs of their particular time and place (I've got some interesting thoughts on that, but that's for another time. Maybe.)
So they could easily have dropped Remus altogether - which apparently some Romans did.
or they could have focused on the brothers, and dropped the fratricide... and just indicated that Remus died early. Which, again, some Romans apparently did.
If it was based on any sort of historical incident, (which might have been, but we don't have any evidence for it and can't really say for sure what did or didn't happen) then one would almost expect the victor - Romulus - to try to make the whole thing sound better than it did. After all, victors write the history.
It's interesting, though, because even though the founding stories are completely different, I can see parallels to the way we interact with our own founding story. That is, Romans apparently debated what it meant. Not just the Romulus-Remus event, but the two brothers were apparently outsiders who moved to Rome? So, like, it raised questions about what it means to be Roman, and who is an outsider... much like our own history of immigration, and the questions that raises about what it means to be an American.
I'll admit, though, that this story dovetails quite nicely with some of my own... hmmm... biases? Headcanons? Heuristics about human behavior?
That is - as I've mentioned before, I was raised Catholic. And 'catholic' means universal. So I notice differing trends between exclusion (often tied with a sense of elitism and specialness) and inclusion.
Like, everyone likes to feel like we're somehow better than everyone else. And various organizations tap into that, whether it's secret societies with messages saying "you can be one of the few that really know!", or "you've proven you're smarter", or whatever.
And then there's other organizations that gain power by appealing to the everybody. They can gain a wide following when they don't try to exclude anyone (though it can also be harder to define what you stand for, I think.)
It's sort of that centripetal and centrifugal force I referenced before... pushing and pulling on a social scale. And so, for example, you get fundamentalist muslims who decide that various other fundamentalist muslims are somehow incorrect and even worse than those who don't know any better since they know so much and somehow still believe wrongly, to the point where many of these groups fracture into smaller and smaller groups that are violently opposed to pretty much everyone. (Or, in Christian history, you somehow wind up fighting a war over transubstantiation)
And, on the other hand, you get people broadening the group to the most basic set of beliefs. For Christians, well... belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and all that. Which, if you define things that way, means there really isn't much difference between Catholic or Baptist or Episcopalian. (Or, to continue the Muslim analogy - so long as you believe and practice the Five Pillars, you're Muslim... and the distinctions between Shi'a, Sunni, and all those fractured fundamentalist groups don't amount to much at all so long as the Five Pillars are observed.)
Another personal headcanon is, well...
That oftentimes the side that 'wins' is the one that screws up the least. Like, it's not saying everything they did is right or correct... but they did enough 'right', and whoever the other side is did enough 'wrong', that they came out ahead.
The reason for such a complicated headcanon? We still have to think critically about history, and finding the 'root cause' is darn difficult. Especially since some consequences don't appear immediately, or the responsible party gets lost... particularly in large and complex organizations.
So, like, here's a theory based on that headcanon that I have absolutely no way of testing whether or not it's true. St. Paul had a great deal of influence on the early Christian church, for better or worse. On the one hand, what I would consider some of the worst beliefs about women are attributed to some of his writings. On the other hand, he's also the one who opened up the early church to gentiles... going back to that 'inclusion and universalism' thing.
After all, Jesus was a Jew who taught and preached and had disciples who were all also Jewish, and it was quite a stretch to suddenly say that everything this Jesus guy said and did was relevant to people who were in no way, shape or form Jewish.
Read up on some of the early debates, and there were questions like "do Christians have to observe all the Jewish practices? Like circumcision?"
And St Paul, for better or worse, essentially decided the question in favor of inclusion.
So I, personally, think he showed rather human fallibility with the part about women, but that he probably did well overall because he weighed in on the side of inclusion. (Those who believe the Bible is divinely inspired but written through fallible people would understand that, but this goes in direct contradiction of the notion that every word in the Bible is as God willed it, and that what I just said is cherry-picking at it's worst. To which I say - we're reading a translation of a language most of us don't speak, in a cultural context that tbh is quite foreign to the world we live in today, and we're already cherry-picking what it means. I'm just not fooling myself about it.)
But, you know, I'm not a religious authority figure, so I don't expect anyone else to agree with me here.
Anyways.
Early Rome seemed to grow powerful in part because it was inclusionist... in an ancient world where most cities were xenophobic, Rome seemed to allow pretty much anyone to come. (And, btw, realizing that most of these 'ancient cities' were about the size of a small college town like Bloomington, IN or Champaign, IL, is trippy. Suddenly those grand and glorious battles that helped early Rome become big and powerful were... as though Champaign declared war on Bloomington, IL? Weird... )
That's not to say Rome was all that. Like I said, it's as much about who screws up the least as anything else, and Rome definitely had slavery and developed a history of military aggression. (Though at least most of those slaves had a path to citizenship? Maybe? The way they practiced it was very different from our more recent history.)
Anyways, that's enough babbling for now. I'm enjoying the book, it makes me feel like this was the book on Roman history I've been looking for all along.
Edited to add: inclusion vs exclusion is not just a religious thing. On social media I've seen some posts talking about "terfs", and the word "queer", and whether asexuals should be part of the LGBTQIA thing, and it's the same old thing in a new setting - exclusionists trying to mark boundaries and cut people out, and inclusionists saying "I hated feeling left out, so I'm not leaving anyone else out."
I picked up SPQR, yet another book on the history of Rome, and I'm really enjoying it.
I've read various books on the Roman empire, off and on over the years, though I by no means claim any real expertise. The similarities (and differences) to today are compelling, as well as the way events from so very long ago can still shape the world as we know it today.
But I will admit, most of my previous reading was more focused on... well, the fall of Rome. Or with a more militaristic focus (like the Ghosts of Cannae, though iirc it covered far more than just a battlefield analysis. As the title implies, it also talked about the impact of that battle on the Roman society as a whole, and especially the veterans.)
I have to admit, we get so focused on why such a large and powerful empire fell apart that we don't always ask "how did it grow so powerful in the first place?"
And, again, the differences and similarities to our own history are... just fascinating. Like, I vaguely knew the myth of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome who were suckled as babes by a wolf. I never really looked into it in detail, so I didn't know that Romulus apparently killed his brother nor did I consider the meaning of such a founding story... and it's implications for fratricidal violence. The author seems to do a good job of explaining some of the dissenting historical opinions on various topics, and what evidence is and isn't available, so for the most part this is treated as a story.
And still has interesting implications, in the sense of... "why include that in the story?" Like... stories change to meet the needs of their particular time and place (I've got some interesting thoughts on that, but that's for another time. Maybe.)
So they could easily have dropped Remus altogether - which apparently some Romans did.
or they could have focused on the brothers, and dropped the fratricide... and just indicated that Remus died early. Which, again, some Romans apparently did.
If it was based on any sort of historical incident, (which might have been, but we don't have any evidence for it and can't really say for sure what did or didn't happen) then one would almost expect the victor - Romulus - to try to make the whole thing sound better than it did. After all, victors write the history.
It's interesting, though, because even though the founding stories are completely different, I can see parallels to the way we interact with our own founding story. That is, Romans apparently debated what it meant. Not just the Romulus-Remus event, but the two brothers were apparently outsiders who moved to Rome? So, like, it raised questions about what it means to be Roman, and who is an outsider... much like our own history of immigration, and the questions that raises about what it means to be an American.
I'll admit, though, that this story dovetails quite nicely with some of my own... hmmm... biases? Headcanons? Heuristics about human behavior?
That is - as I've mentioned before, I was raised Catholic. And 'catholic' means universal. So I notice differing trends between exclusion (often tied with a sense of elitism and specialness) and inclusion.
Like, everyone likes to feel like we're somehow better than everyone else. And various organizations tap into that, whether it's secret societies with messages saying "you can be one of the few that really know!", or "you've proven you're smarter", or whatever.
And then there's other organizations that gain power by appealing to the everybody. They can gain a wide following when they don't try to exclude anyone (though it can also be harder to define what you stand for, I think.)
It's sort of that centripetal and centrifugal force I referenced before... pushing and pulling on a social scale. And so, for example, you get fundamentalist muslims who decide that various other fundamentalist muslims are somehow incorrect and even worse than those who don't know any better since they know so much and somehow still believe wrongly, to the point where many of these groups fracture into smaller and smaller groups that are violently opposed to pretty much everyone. (Or, in Christian history, you somehow wind up fighting a war over transubstantiation)
And, on the other hand, you get people broadening the group to the most basic set of beliefs. For Christians, well... belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and all that. Which, if you define things that way, means there really isn't much difference between Catholic or Baptist or Episcopalian. (Or, to continue the Muslim analogy - so long as you believe and practice the Five Pillars, you're Muslim... and the distinctions between Shi'a, Sunni, and all those fractured fundamentalist groups don't amount to much at all so long as the Five Pillars are observed.)
Another personal headcanon is, well...
That oftentimes the side that 'wins' is the one that screws up the least. Like, it's not saying everything they did is right or correct... but they did enough 'right', and whoever the other side is did enough 'wrong', that they came out ahead.
The reason for such a complicated headcanon? We still have to think critically about history, and finding the 'root cause' is darn difficult. Especially since some consequences don't appear immediately, or the responsible party gets lost... particularly in large and complex organizations.
So, like, here's a theory based on that headcanon that I have absolutely no way of testing whether or not it's true. St. Paul had a great deal of influence on the early Christian church, for better or worse. On the one hand, what I would consider some of the worst beliefs about women are attributed to some of his writings. On the other hand, he's also the one who opened up the early church to gentiles... going back to that 'inclusion and universalism' thing.
After all, Jesus was a Jew who taught and preached and had disciples who were all also Jewish, and it was quite a stretch to suddenly say that everything this Jesus guy said and did was relevant to people who were in no way, shape or form Jewish.
Read up on some of the early debates, and there were questions like "do Christians have to observe all the Jewish practices? Like circumcision?"
And St Paul, for better or worse, essentially decided the question in favor of inclusion.
So I, personally, think he showed rather human fallibility with the part about women, but that he probably did well overall because he weighed in on the side of inclusion. (Those who believe the Bible is divinely inspired but written through fallible people would understand that, but this goes in direct contradiction of the notion that every word in the Bible is as God willed it, and that what I just said is cherry-picking at it's worst. To which I say - we're reading a translation of a language most of us don't speak, in a cultural context that tbh is quite foreign to the world we live in today, and we're already cherry-picking what it means. I'm just not fooling myself about it.)
But, you know, I'm not a religious authority figure, so I don't expect anyone else to agree with me here.
Anyways.
Early Rome seemed to grow powerful in part because it was inclusionist... in an ancient world where most cities were xenophobic, Rome seemed to allow pretty much anyone to come. (And, btw, realizing that most of these 'ancient cities' were about the size of a small college town like Bloomington, IN or Champaign, IL, is trippy. Suddenly those grand and glorious battles that helped early Rome become big and powerful were... as though Champaign declared war on Bloomington, IL? Weird... )
That's not to say Rome was all that. Like I said, it's as much about who screws up the least as anything else, and Rome definitely had slavery and developed a history of military aggression. (Though at least most of those slaves had a path to citizenship? Maybe? The way they practiced it was very different from our more recent history.)
Anyways, that's enough babbling for now. I'm enjoying the book, it makes me feel like this was the book on Roman history I've been looking for all along.
Edited to add: inclusion vs exclusion is not just a religious thing. On social media I've seen some posts talking about "terfs", and the word "queer", and whether asexuals should be part of the LGBTQIA thing, and it's the same old thing in a new setting - exclusionists trying to mark boundaries and cut people out, and inclusionists saying "I hated feeling left out, so I'm not leaving anyone else out."
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