Ancient Rome: A Military And Political History – Christopher S. Mackay

Vespasian’s seizure of Imperial power is the culmination of the process by which the aristocracy of the cities of Italy came to dominate the government under the Julio-Claudians, Vespasian’s unprepossessing nature is clear in this portrait, yet his comparatively humble background and lack of dynastic legitimacy forced him (and his sons) to pile up civic honors in a way that had been unnecessary for the descendants of Augustus.

(Museo Nazionale Romano delle Terme, Rome. Photograph: Scala/Art Resource, NY.) Figure 19. The Arch of Titus, voted to him by the senate to commemorate the triumph (victorious entry into the city of Rome) that he celebrated after his capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. (Photographs: main view; © Scott Gilchrist; details, courtesy of Steven E. Hijmans.) (Continues Overleaf ) Figure 19. Continued. The details show Titus in his triumphal chariot and the great menorah that had adorned the temple of Yahweh being carried in the pro- cession.

(Photographs: main view; © Scott Gilchrist; details, courtesy of Steven E. Hijmans.) Figure 20. The Flavian Amphitheater (also known as the Coliseum, after a colossal statue of the sun god that stood nearby). Mostly built by Vespasian, this was the venue for the bloody spectacle put on by emperors for the entertainment and edification of the populace of Rome.

Many thousands of animals and men would die during special events like the games commemorating Trajan’s conquest of Dacia, but considerable (though smaller) numbers were slaughtered every year. (Photograph courtesy of Steven E. Hijmans.) Figure 21. Trajan’s Column was a novel form of monument, whose height in- dicated the amount of the Quirinal Hill that had to be excavated during the construction of the forum that the emperor built out of the proceeds of the conquest of Dacia. (Continues) Figure 21. Continued. The column was covered with a spiraling visual documen- tary of the campaign, which could be viewed from the surrounding porticoes in the forum.

To what extent this visual narrative would have been comprehensible to the average viewer is open to question. (Photographs courtesy of Steven E. Hijmans.) By | ae ” wes 4a ; : iota te Figure 22. The Pantheon (top), the temple to all the gods that was the brainchild of the amateur architect Hadrian.

This book provides a short but comprehensive political history of ancient Rome from the origins of the city in the Italian Iron Age to the deposition of the last emperor in a.D. 476. The reasons for Rome’s conquest and absorption of Italy, and how this gave the Romans a manpower reserve that allowed them to conquer the Mediterranean in half a century, are described. The military responsibilities attendant upon these conquests undermined the political in- stitutions of the Republic, with the Emperor Augustus managing to set up surreptitiously a monarchical form of government, in effect securing two cen- turies of peace.

New military pressures then caused a significant change in the structure of the Imperial government, which eventually succumbed in the west to invasion. The influence on the Imperial government of the adoption of Christianity as the state religion is also discussed. Christopher S. Mackay is Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. He has published numerous articles on all periods of Roman history, is associate editor of the American Journal of Ancient History, and is the author of a forth- coming book containing the only modern Latin text and English translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, a fifteenth-century handbook on witch-hunting.

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MACKAY University of Alberta ES] CAMBRIDGE |) UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 4843/24, 2nd Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi – 110002, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521711494 © Christopher S$. Mackay 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History” by Christopher S. Mackay, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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• Unique ID: bf8d2073f01be77f
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• Title: Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History
• Author: Christopher S. Mackay
• ISBN: 9780521711494, 9780521809184, 0521809185
• Pages: 466
• Language: English (en)
• Digital Edition Created: 2024-04-09T08:27:07+00:00

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