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240 The Origin of Civilisation

Civilisation Under Romę

As the Babylonians inherited the manile of Sumerian culture, so Romę can be seen to have adopted much that epitomised Greek excellence. Romę's standing as a new civilisation is enigmatic when evaluated by the criteria in use here. Is it, perhaps, a classic example of a dissipative structure? for the upheaval of prolonged cieli war must surely rank as the most destructiwe social phenomenon yet dewised by man. The disintegration of Rome's oligarchy, springing from the power lust of her noble families,⁶² was unintentlonelly triggered by Tiberius Gracchus, with ciuil strife returning to Roman streets after an interlude of 400 years. From these simmering origins many decades of bitter struggles ensued, with the unparalled traumatic conwulsions of the savage 'Social War' (90-87 BC), threatening the Hediterranean empire as well as the Capital city itself. A subsequent smouldering reaction and ultimate breakdown engulfed the regime, until, finałly, the Senate ceased to be the effective government of the empire. Most power passed firmly into the hands of Pompey, Crassus and Caesar.¹⁴

Nichael Grant obseryes that because the oligarchy never again recoyered its power, later historians mark this period as the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic.⁶⁵ His description of its last days add weight to the concept of an old order irretrievably break ing down in total disarray, and is quoted here to illustrate that point:

And so, as Caesar himself declared, the die was cast, and the Crossing of this little stream (the Riyer Rubicon ¹) was one of the tuming-points in Roman history. For it meant the nation was plunged into an empire-wide civił war for which neither side was ready. Yet, in a sense, the real turning-point had corne a decade earlier, when the republic was already, to a large extent, superseded by the autocratic triumyirate. During the intervening years, its inevitable disintegration had accelerated; and now it had entered a catastrophic terminal phase.⁹⁶

In many ways Caesar foreshadowed Augustus, being an inspired administrator in addition to his gifts as a great generał. He established numerous colonies, (three-quarters of them in the west), for his retiring yeterans, which, for the first time also included ciwilians. In the following centuries they acted as key Instruments for expanding Romenisation, by ektending the potential actiue sphere for Romę ¹ s cultural influence. Howewer, they further serwed as an imaginative solution for an obstinate problem, the 'army' of impoverished unemployed?¹ He madę a bold attempt to solve another persistent dilemma of four centuries duration - the burden of accumulating dębi. The harsh laws of

the extant regime threw many debtors into total destitution. He extended the original republican Forum, (the land alone cost him 100 million sesterces), althouqh these buildings were completely reconstructed by Augustus after a fire.⁷⁰ In his lifetime, two of the world¹s major poets were composing their great works; Lucretius, an audaciously original intellectual, and Catallus, who wrote some exquisite miniaturę epics and profoundly influenced futurę poets through an intense clash between his agonised emotions and technical brilliance.⁷¹ Another art, depiction of Caesar's head on the coinage, marked the dawn of a personelity cult, reinforced by prolific distribution of his portrait busts around Italy and the provinces. Grant sees this as a piuotal stage in the deuelopment of one of Romę*s outstanding art-forms; sculptural portraits.⁷² Wtulę its origins lay in the earlier Hellenistic world, it came decisiuely to prominence after 44 BC, with the skillful rendering of Caesar's head on coins and in sculpted busts. These art traditions continued under Augustus; epic poetry revived in the work of Virgil, and the propaganda value of the imperial image madę an enduring impact.

Caesar¹s murder testifies to the intractable dilemma then facing Romę. The Republic had become so impotent that one-man rule was the best wiable solut-ion, but this, snathema to Roman nobility, had been the motiue for Caesar's assasination. The problem looked insoluble, but the arrival of Caesar's grand-nephew, 19-year-old 0ctavian, (known to posterity as Augustus) resolved the impasse. At this crucial juncture of treachery and crisis, he proued to be the instrument that, quite miraculously, madę the impossible possible!⁷⁴ That the Roman people were, by this time, aching with the weariness of ciwil war, can in no way diminish the quality of his superlative achiewement. Although no less an autocrat than Caesar himself, Augustus was evidently a master of patrent, undercouer diplomacy, cloaking "his absolutism in guises which looked old fashioned enough to pass muster."⁷⁵ One further quote from Michael Grant's "History of Romę," assessing the transmutation from Republic to Empire, evokes the language of dissipatiue structures, as he describes Augustus' penchant for reorganisation:

By his reorganisation .......,of the entire machinery of civilian

government, he had proued himself one of the most gifted administrators the world has ever seen, and the most influential single figurę in the history of Romę. The gigantic work of reform that he carried out in euery branch of Itslian and prowincial life not only transformed the decaying Republic into a new regime with many centuries of existence ahead of it, but also created a durable, efficient Roman peace. It was this Pax Augusta which ensured the survival and euentual transmission of the classical heritage, Greek and Roman alike, and madę possible the diffusion of Christianity, of which the founder, Jesus, was born during this reign.⁷®

Couched in these terms, Augustus's achiewement was far morę than a modest re-vival of a former glory, although it still encapsulates much of the essential

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When Caesar crossed the Rubicon on the night of January lOth 49 BC, taking a single legion across the bridge marking the border between Cisalpine Gaul and eastern Italy, he was breaking a law of treason formulated by Sulla, which forbade a gowernor to lead his troops outside his proyince.®⁰