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Civilization and Beyond. Scott Nearing
Читать онлайн.Название Civilization and Beyond
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isbn 4064066180676
Автор произведения Scott Nearing
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
In the brief period of maximum territorial expansion following the defeat and destruction of Carthage, the frontiers of the Roman Empire were pushed out ruthlessly, North, East, West and South. In the hurly-burly of rapid expansion individual rights were ignored, local communities and entire regions were overrun, depopulated and resettled with the tough disregard of individual and local interests that must characterize any quick, general movement—economic, sociological or military. If the expansion, expulsion and rehabilitation had produced greater degrees of stability and security for individuals and social groups they might have been tolerated and assimilated by the diverse populations caught up in the maelstrom of drastic expansion. But rapid, coercive social transformation produces neither stability nor security. Its normal consequence is chaos, conflict and further change. In the course of these internal conflicts the Roman Republic was gradually phased out. In theory it persisted until the establishment of the military dictatorship of Julius Caesar. Practically, while many of its forms remained, the conduct of public affairs passed more and more into the hands of political leaders who were able to command the backing of the legions.
When the first war against Carthage was launched in 265 B.C., Carthage was at the height of her power. Situated on the North African Coast almost directly across the Mediterranean from Italy, the Carthaginians were in effective control of the western Mediterranean. Carthage was firmly entrenched in Spain. It was trading extensively with the British Isles. Fleets of Carthaginian war ships patrolled the Mediterranean guarding against piracy and economic or political interference by rivals.
Roman political and business leaders, inexperienced in international political dealings and the promotion of international trade, found their further expansion to the west blocked by Carthaginian political, economic and military installations. The result of the confrontation was a series of three wars that began in 265 B.C., and ended in 146. During these 119 years an established power, Carthage, struggled to preserve its position against aggressive Roman efforts to take control of the West Mediterranean basin. The Carthaginians, under the able generalship of Hannibal, mobilized a military force (including elephants), marched from Spain over the Alpine passes into Italy reaching the gates of Rome. Romans countered with the slogan: "Carthage must be destroyed!" When the third Punic war ended in 146 B.C., with the defeat of the Carthaginian military forces, the city of Carthage was leveled.
The defeat of Carthage gave the Romans control of the western Mediterranean. During the same period Roman interests were pushing into East Europe and Western Asia. In 214 B.C., Philip of Macedon had made an alliance with Hannibal, directed against Rome. Consequently, three wars between Rome and Macedonia followed, the third ending in 168 B.C., with the defeat of the Macedonians and their subordination to Roman authority in the form of a Roman governor.
When opposition to Roman influence developed in Greece in 148 B.C., a commission of ten was appointed by the Roman Senate to settle affairs in the Greek peninsula. The city of Corinth was burned to the ground and its lands were confiscated. Thebes and Chalcis were also destroyed. The walls of all towns which had shared in the revolt against Rome were pulled down. All confederations between Greek cities were dissolved. Disarmament, isolation and Roman taxation were imposed on the Greek cities and the oversight of affairs was assigned to the Roman governor of neighboring Macedonia.
Successful wars against Syria and Egypt extended Roman control over additional territory in West Asia and North Africa. A map of Italy at the time of the Roman Federation in 268 B.C. shows Rome as the most powerful among two score minor associates in the federation. A map of the Roman Empire at the death of Augustus in 14 A.D. shows a Roman Empire extending from the Atlantic seaboard on the west to Central Europe on the north, the Black Sea on the east and a generous strip of Africa on the south.
Within three centuries Rome had expanded from its position as a minor state in Italy to the effective control of those portions of three continents which bordered the Mediterranean. Conquests during the following century further extended the Roman frontiers.
Under the Caesars Rome was a society in the throes of political transition. Roman Emperors, backed and frequently selected by the military, were exercising despotic power. They still paid lip service to the Constitution, an instrument that had relevance during the life of the defunct Republic. In the era of the Caesars the law slumbered and might ruled. The turbulent masses were fed and housed by the Roman Oligarchy to which the Emperors were ultimately responsible. The far flung territories conquered by military power and held by military occupation were subject to the authority of the same Roman Oligarchy.
Behind the shams, frauds and tyrannies of a political dictatorship paying lip service to the corpse of a defunct Republic lay the stark realities of a bankrupt economy. Throughout the era of the Caesars the Roman Empire continued to expand geographically. It also came into contact and conflict with peoples so remote from Italy that for them Rome was only a name for tyranny, extortion and exploitation. Julius Caesar and his immediate successors penetrated these remote territories, subjugating them, levying tribute, appointing governors and other officials, policing them, pretending to rule over them. To do this soldiers were marching on foot into regions that lay thousands of miles from the mother city. To be sure, they marched over Roman roads and bridges so well constructed that some of them are still being used at the present day.
But the excellence of Roman engineering could not match up to the implacable limitations of time and distance. Nor could they overlook the need for building the physical structure of Roman economy as they advanced into enemy territory. Equally decisive were the political consequences of the property confiscation and forced labor required to establish and maintain Roman power and enrich greedy Roman officials and their lackeys and overseers.
Rising overhead costs, with no corresponding growth of income, an empty treasury in Rome, and a persistent policy of fleecing the provinces to pay for the normal costs of bureaucracy, plus its extravagances and excesses, could lead to only one possible outcome. Higher taxes and more ruinous levies in the newly conquered provinces could not fill the insatiable maw of deficit spending.
Inflation was the immediate result, accompanied and followed by the debasement of currency and new expropriations of private property. Government expenses consistently exceeded income. The situation was aggravated by the growth of parasitic elements which persistently produced little or nothing and as persistently multiplied their luxuries and extravagances. The parasites grew richer. The impoverished masses suffered the normal deprivations of poverty plus the weight of steadily rising over-head costs. As Roman authority extended farther from its center, the chasm between its income and its out-go widened.
Slave labor aggravated the situation. There was a time when Roman farmers and craftsmen did their own work. That time ended with the enslavement of war captives who swamped the labor market. Like any parasitic growth, slavery and forced labor destroyed the fabric of a largely self-contained economy based on peasant proprietorship.
Roman economy was honey-combed with problems created by deficit spending, currency devaluation and exploitation. At its base was a foot-loose urban proletariat made up largely of refugees from a countryside given over increasingly to the employment of military captives as slave labor. The city masses at the outset were extensively unemployed. Increasingly they became unemployable, parasitic, restless, demanding.
At the outset the slave revolts were local and occasional. As the slaves
grew more numerous unrest spread and hardened into organized resistance.
Spartacus, a slave, led a revolt which mobilized armies, defeated the
Roman legions in a series of battles and ended only with the death of
Spartacus and the dispersal of his forces.
Local and provincial affairs under the Roman Empire were administered by a self-seeking corrupt bureaucracy.
Expansion by means of