Rome In The Beginning
...see in such a story something of our own times. But of all the empires that have come and gone, none has more immediate appeal than the Empire of Rome. It pervades our lives even today: Its legacy is everywhere to be seen. Of all the peoples of the ancient world the Romans can the most easily be understood, for we are not looking just at dead ruins or serried ranks of dreary pottery in museum showcases but at real people- at intimate emotions, conflicts of loyalty, and incredible bravery; at ambition, naked power, and human failing When William Shakespeare wrote of Brutus (one of the assassins of Julius Caesar), "the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up, and say to all the World, This was a man,'" he was indirectly emphasizing just this point. We are able to distinguish and examine the complexities of Brutus's character and to appreciate him as a human being. In such intimacy lies the real excitement of the Romans. The scale of the Roman achievement is both staggering and difficult to comprehend. One could say that at its height the Empire extended across a territory 3,200 miles east to west and 2,000 miles north to south, but these mere figures mean little. The identification of individuals, famous and humble alike, and an appreciation of the scale upon which they lived, provides one theme for our study. But the essence of the story we have to tell is change.
From the very beginning the fortunes of the Roman people were inextricably bound up in a complex web of dynamic change. "Progress" is too emotive and imprecise a word to use. Psychological make-up, economic constraints, social systems and a degree of random chance- all combined to force Rome forward. The Roman genius was that it could adapt quickly to each new situation as it arose. It was for this reason that the city of Rome, which began to emerge from obscurity about 500 B.C., could...
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