Civilization and Beyond - Scott Nearing

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conquest increased the influence of the military at the expense of the civilian administrators. The consequent burdens of militarism reached from the bottom to the top of Roman society. Eventually, under the Caesars, the military selected emperors from among the rivals for the purple of imperial authority, and used the legions under their command to protect and promote their own political fortunes, thus maintaining a form of latent and frequently open civil war.

      Colonial unrest and provincial self-seeking were promoted by conspiracies among Rome's less dependable allies.

      Wars of rivalry between Roman candidates for top preferment shifted the power-balance out of civilian hands into the grip of the military. Step by step and stage by stage the Roman Empire became a warfare state maintained at home and abroad by the intervention of the military. Wars of rivalry at home in Rome were paralleled by wars of rivalry abroad.

      During the Era of the Caesars Rome became the Eurasian-African honey pot. Wealth centered there. Authority was enthroned there. Power was generated there. Throughout the sphere of Roman political influence, of trade and travel, the central position of Rome was recognized and acknowledged. Not only knowledge and authority, but folklore mushroomed, with Rome as its central theme. Asian nomads, searching for grass, Asian potentates seeking new worlds to conquer and plunder, heard of Rome and finally went there. All roads led to Rome. Thousands of miles of stone roads were built as binding forces to hold the Empire together and defend it against all possible enemies. It was along these roads that the legions marched as they pushed back potential invaders and extended the frontiers. It was these same roads and bridges that made easy and sure the advance of the Asian hordes that would one day occupy and loot the home city. Roads and bridges enabled Roman authority to maintain and extend itself. The same roads and bridges provided a freeway that led into the citadel of Roman power.

      Under the Caesars the Roman Empire achieved its greatest geographical extent and exercised its widest cultural influence. The city of Rome was the capital of the western world. There was one state, one law, one economy, one official language, one military authority.

      Despite its apparent massiveness, Roman civilization was not a monolith. Rather it was a conglomerate, consisting of many parts held together by connecting social tissues which Rome and Italy alone supplied. In the first instance there was a division into provinces, colonies and newly acquired territories. The provinces, under their Roman appointed governors, enjoyed a large measure of economic and cultural self-determination within the Roman Empire. Beyond the Roman Empire lay territories and peoples associated with Rome by treaties, bound to Rome by trade and travel, in some cases paying tribute to Rome, but enjoying sufficient autonomy as peoples, nations and empires maneuvering for position and advantage, frequently allying themselves with non-Roman areas and occasionally conspiring to by-pass Roman authority and even to challenge Roman supremacy.

      This political diversity along the defense perimeter of the Roman Empire existed in a chaos ranging from questioned authority to open defiance and military challenges to Rome and the threat of Romanization. Along this defense perimeter were stationed the legions that guarded the frontiers. Across it moved trade, travel, incursions, invasions and periodic reprisals as a result of which the more turbulent neighbors were brought within the sphere of Rome's influence or, in cases of extreme dissidence and resistance, were depopulated, colonized and added to the Roman conglomerate.

      It goes without saying that the influence of Roman culture extended far beyond the Roman defense perimeter, reaching peoples, nations and empires to which Rome was little more than a name. The no-man's land between what-was and what-was-not Rome not only existed in a state of perpetual uncertainty, but provided a battle field for the smuggling, brigandage, the periodic border clashes, the migrations, incursions, invasions and punitive expeditions that are the characteristic features of every ill-defined political boundary.

      Roman civilization under the Caesars was a centralized absolutism with a large measure of peripheral deviation and autonomy. It was directed by a central oligarchy and patrolled, defended and extended by a military force unified in theory but in practice grouped around the outstanding personalities and subjected to the vagaries and upsets always associated with power politics in the hands of military backed political despots.

      Roman civilization, like all social organisms, came into being, moved toward maturity, reached a plateau of fulfillment from which it declined, broke up and eventually disappeared into the interregnum known as the Dark Ages. The entire episode occupied a dozen centuries. Its beginnings were unimpressively local. At the height of its wealth, power and cultural influence it bestrode the Eurasian-African triangle. Its decline and disappearance were no less spectacular than its meteoric rise to fame and fortune.

      I would like to summarize the Roman experiment and some of its lessons by listing and commenting briefly on the forces that built up Roman civilization and those forces which resulted in its decline and dissolution.

      Primary up-building forces in the Roman experiment:

      1. Establishing the city of Rome as a stable, defensible center of merchandising and commerce, transport, finance, population, wealth and power with a hinterland of associates and dependencies. As it turns out, the city of Rome has outlived both the Roman Empire and Roman Civilization.

      2. Steadfast dedication to Roman interests first, by all necessary means and despite costs which at the time seemed to be excessive.

      3. A recognition of that which is possible, especially in political relationships. The acceptance with good grace of a half-loaf where no more was available.

      4. Consistent, persistent aggression and expansion where such policies were beneficial to Rome, with little or no regard for their effects on Roman associates, allies, friends or enemies. Studied ruthlessness.

      5. Rewarding Rome's friends, allies and associates with economic, political and cultural advantages. Implacably punishing and where necessary exterminating Rome's persistent enemies.

      6. Wide tolerance of local cultural variation in matters that did not conflict with the major principles and practices of Rome's central authority.

      7. Taking defeats in their stride, paying the price, and recovering lost momentum. Again advancing along avenues which led to Roman success and aggrandizement.

      8. Indomitable persistence in the pursuit of major objectives.

      9. After the reigns of Julius Caesar and Augustus, concentrating power in a single person and his chosen brain trust, using that power to further aggrandize the Roman Empire and Roman Civilization.

      This category is not complete. It aims to answer the basic question: In a situation where a thousand contestants entered the knock-down and drag-out struggle, first for survival and then for supremacy, what qualities or qualifications enabled Romans to win the laurel crown of victory?

      Paralleling the up-building forces that established Roman supremacy were counter-forces which undermined and eventually destroyed the Roman Empire and Roman civilization:

      1. The growth of city life at the expense of rural existence. At the outset of its life cycle, Rome was essentially rural. At the end of the cycle Roman culture was turning its back upon ruralism and moving into a culture that was to be chiefly urban during an entire millennium. In that millennium Rome, her associates and dependencies, experimented with a culture that was essentially urban, but encircled, dependent and eventually replaced by a culture that was essentially rural.

      2. During the millennium between 600 B.C. and 500 A.D. the Romans and their associates succeeded in bringing large parts of Europe, Asia and Africa under their control, but the control was so rigid and temporary that tribalism and local nationalisms broke loose from the fetters of central authority and coercive integration, shattering the structure of Roman civilization and its structural core—the Roman Empire. Instead of resulting in closer cooperation, the strategy and tactics of the Roman builders and organizers led to contradictions, bitter feuds, civil strife, independence movements which combined with expansionist diplomacy and periodic wars to discourage, frustrate and eventually to eliminate peace, order and planned progress.

      2. The spread of chattel slavery had a profound effect upon

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