Rome - Urbs Roma: city of patricians and plebeians, emperors and
gladiators, slaves and concubines - was the epicentre of a far-flung
imperium whose cultural legacy is incalculable. How a tiny settlement,
founded by desperate adventurers beside the banks of the River Tiber,
came to rule vast tracts of territory across the face of the known world
is one of the more improbable stories of antiquity. The epic scale of
the Colosseum; majestically columned temples; formidable legionaries
marching in burnished steel breastplates; and capricious Caesars clad in
purple robes who thought themselves gods: all these images speak of a
grandeur that continues to be associated with this most celebrated of
ancient capitals. The glory of Rome is further underlined by enduring
monuments like Hadrian's Wall, holding the line as it did against
ferocious Pictish barbarians thought to be from Hyperborea: the mythic
Land Beyond the North Wind. This book vividly recounts the
rags-to-riches story of Rome's unlikely triumph.
Perhaps the most famous example in history of modest beginnings rising
to greatness, Rome's empire was never static or uniform. Over the
centuries, under the 'boundless grandeur of the Roman peace' (as the
Elder Pliny put it), imperial law, civilisation and language vigorously
interacted with and influenced local cultures across western and central
Europe and North Africa. Provincial subjects were made Roman citizens,
generals and senators. In AD 98 Trajan became the first of many Romans
from outside Italy to assume supreme power as Emperor. Poets,
philosophers, historians and legalists - and many others besides - all
participated in the brilliant intellectual constellation secured by the
pax Romana.
However, as Dexter Hoyos reveals, the empire was not won cheaply or
fast, and did not always succeed. The Carthaginian general Hannibal came
close to destroying it. Arminius freed Germania by brutally annihilating
three irreplaceable legions in the Teutoburg Forest - a disaster that
broke Augustus' heart. And the Romans themselves, in expanding their
empire, were often ruthless. Caesar boasted of killing a million enemy
fighters in his Gallic Wars, while the accusation of a Caledonian lord
became proverbial: they make a desert and call it peace. Yet at the same
time the Romans strove to impose moral and legal principles for
directing their subjects as much as themselves, and laid down standards
of government that are still valid today. Rome Victorious is a
masterful new treatment of the rise of Rome - from the viewpoints both
of the city itself and the people it came to rule and make its own.
