Romans on Romans
elfkat brought up a good point. A lot of what I know about Romans I know from people who they conquered. I have spent a good deal of time, for example, studying 1st century Jerusalem, the birth of Christianity and the Fall of the Second Temple. I see the Romans as the instigator of much of the tragedy that took place there (although, let me just say, not all of it.... Jewish infighting and power struggles within the Temple also played a big part). I have also read quite a bit about the Gauls, and about the Romans occupying Britain, as well as the aftermath of their leaving.
So, I decided to look into my personal library and see what I had actually BY ROMANS. One of the things that I have was this passage by Tacitus:
The first Roman to subdue the Jews and set foot in their temple by right of conquest was Gnaeus Pompey;29 thereafter it was a matter of common knowledge that there were no representations of the gods within, but that the place was empty and the secret shrine contained nothing. The walls of Jerusalem were razed, but the temple remained standing. Later, in the time of our civil wars, when these eastern provinces had fallen into the hands of Mark Antony, the Parthian prince, Pacorus, seized Judea, but he was slain by Publius Ventidius, and the Parthians were thrown back across the Euphrates:30 the Jews were subdued by Gaius Sosius.31 Antony gave the throne to Herod, and Augustus, after his victory, increased his power. After Herod's death, a certain Simon32 assumed the name of king without waiting for Caesar's decision. He, however, was put to death by Quintilius Varus, governor of Syria; the Jews were repressed; and the kingdom was divided into three parts and given to Herod's sons.33 Under Tiberius all was quiet. Then, when Caligula ordered the Jews to set up his statue in their temple, they chose rather to resort to arms, but the emperor's death put an end to their uprising. The princes now being dead or reduced to insignificance, Claudius made Judea a province and entrusted it to Roman knights or to freedmen; one of the latter, Antonius Felix, practised every kind of cruelty and p193lust, wielding the power of king with all the instincts of a slave;34 he had married Drusilla, the grand-daughter of Cleopatra and Antony, and so was Antony's grandson-in‑law, while Claudius was Antony's grandson.
I tend to think of Caligula as one of the more unbalanced emperors, and Antonious Felix sounds like a lovely man. Tacitus goes on to talk about the Fall of the Second Temple in ways that makes me think that he was drawing on the eyewitness accounts of Josephus (of course, Josephus is a controversial source because of his sudden change of sides).
One of my favorite passages by Tacitus is his reference to Christianity after the Burning of Rome (This is the famous event that is being referred to when people say "Nero fiddled while Rome burned)
"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind".
Nero, I would say, is another not-so-balanced guy.
But, to be fair, I am certainly aware that not every Roman was Caligula or Nero just as not every American is Dubya. What I am most fascinated by, however, is just how the sequence of events transpired, because what happened there seems to still have profound effects on this time.
So, I decided to look into my personal library and see what I had actually BY ROMANS. One of the things that I have was this passage by Tacitus:
The first Roman to subdue the Jews and set foot in their temple by right of conquest was Gnaeus Pompey;29 thereafter it was a matter of common knowledge that there were no representations of the gods within, but that the place was empty and the secret shrine contained nothing. The walls of Jerusalem were razed, but the temple remained standing. Later, in the time of our civil wars, when these eastern provinces had fallen into the hands of Mark Antony, the Parthian prince, Pacorus, seized Judea, but he was slain by Publius Ventidius, and the Parthians were thrown back across the Euphrates:30 the Jews were subdued by Gaius Sosius.31 Antony gave the throne to Herod, and Augustus, after his victory, increased his power. After Herod's death, a certain Simon32 assumed the name of king without waiting for Caesar's decision. He, however, was put to death by Quintilius Varus, governor of Syria; the Jews were repressed; and the kingdom was divided into three parts and given to Herod's sons.33 Under Tiberius all was quiet. Then, when Caligula ordered the Jews to set up his statue in their temple, they chose rather to resort to arms, but the emperor's death put an end to their uprising. The princes now being dead or reduced to insignificance, Claudius made Judea a province and entrusted it to Roman knights or to freedmen; one of the latter, Antonius Felix, practised every kind of cruelty and p193lust, wielding the power of king with all the instincts of a slave;34 he had married Drusilla, the grand-daughter of Cleopatra and Antony, and so was Antony's grandson-in‑law, while Claudius was Antony's grandson.
I tend to think of Caligula as one of the more unbalanced emperors, and Antonious Felix sounds like a lovely man. Tacitus goes on to talk about the Fall of the Second Temple in ways that makes me think that he was drawing on the eyewitness accounts of Josephus (of course, Josephus is a controversial source because of his sudden change of sides).
One of my favorite passages by Tacitus is his reference to Christianity after the Burning of Rome (This is the famous event that is being referred to when people say "Nero fiddled while Rome burned)
"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind".
Nero, I would say, is another not-so-balanced guy.
But, to be fair, I am certainly aware that not every Roman was Caligula or Nero just as not every American is Dubya. What I am most fascinated by, however, is just how the sequence of events transpired, because what happened there seems to still have profound effects on this time.