Chapter VIII: The Civilization of the Roman World

STRIFE AT ROME. While the Romans were conquering the ancient world
they had begun to quarrel among themselves. Certain men resolved that
Rome should not be managed any longer by the noble senators for their
own benefit or for the benefit of rich contractors and merchants. They
wished to have the idle crowds of men who packed the shows and circuses
settled as free farmers on the unused lands of Italy.

Among these new leaders were two brothers, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus,
sons of one of Rome's noblest families. The other nobles looked upon
them with hatred and killed them, first Tiberius and afterward Caius.
These murders did not end the trouble. The leaders on both sides armed
their followers, and bloody battles were fought in the streets. Generals
led their armies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an
army into Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on the
republic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city these generals put
to death hundreds of their enemies.

CAESAR RULES ROME. The strife in the city had ceased for a time
when Pompey, a famous general, who had once shared power with Caesar as
a "triumvir," joined the senators in planning his ruin. Caesar led his
army into Italy to the borders of the Rubicon. Exclaiming, "The die is
cast,'" he crossed the sacred boundary and marched straight to Rome.
Pompey and his party fled, and civil war divided the Roman world into
those who followed Caesar and those who followed Pompey, Caesar was
everywhere victorious, in Italy, Africa, Spain, and the East. He brought
back order into the government of the city and of the provinces, but in
the year 44 B.C. he was murdered in the senate-house by several
senators, one of whom, Marcus Brutus, had been his friend.

ORIGIN OF THE TITLE "EMPEROR." Caesar had not been called
"emperor," though the chief power had been his. One of his titles was
"imperator," or commander of the army, a word from which our word
"emperor" comes. He was really the first emperor of Rome. In later times
the very word Caesar became an imperial title, not only in the Roman
Empire, but also in modern Germany, for "Kaiser" is another form of the
word "Caesar."

BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. Caesar's successor was his grandnephew
Octavius, usually called Augustus, which was one of his titles. Augustus
carried out many of Caesar's plans for improving the government in Rome
and in the provinces. The people in the provinces were no longer robbed
by Roman officers. Many of them became Roman citizens. After a time all
children born within the empire were considered Romans, just as if they
had been born in Rome.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The Roman Empire carried on the work which the
republic had begun. It did some things better than the republic had done
them. Within its frontiers there was peace for two or three hundred
years. Many people had an opportunity to share in all the best that the
Greeks and Romans had learned. Unfortunately the peoples imitated the
bad as well as the good.

ROMAN ROADS. As builders the Romans taught much to those who lived
after them. Their great roads leading out from Rome have never been
excelled. In Gaul these roads served, centuries later, to mark out the
present French system of highroads and showed many a route to the
builders of railroads. They were made so solid that parts of them still
remain after two thousand years.

HOW THESE ROADS WERE BUILT. In planning their roads the Romans did
not hesitate before obstacles like hills or deep valleys or marshy
lands. They often pierced the hills with tunnels and bridged the valleys
or swamps. In building a road they dug a trench about fifteen feet wide
and pounded the earth at the bottom until it was hard. Upon this bottom
was placed a layer of rough stones, over which were put nine inches of
broken stone mixed with lime to form a sort of concrete. This was
covered by a layer six inches deep of broken bricks or broken tiles,
which when pounded down offered a hard, smooth surface. On the top were
laid large paving stones carefully fitted so that there need be no jar
when a wagon rolled over the road.

Such roads were necessary for the traders who passed to and fro
throughout the empire, but especially for troops or government
messengers sent with all speed to regions where there was danger of
revolt or where the frontiers were threatened by the barbarians.

AQUEDUCTS. Next to their roads the most remarkable Roman structures
were the aqueducts which brought water to the city from rivers or
springs, some of them many miles away. Had they known, as we do, how to
make heavy iron pipes, their aqueducts would have been laid underground,
except where they crossed deep valleys. The lead pipes which they used
were not strong enough to endure the force of a great quantity of water,
and so when the aqueducts reached the edge of the plain which stretches
from the eastern hills to the walls of Rome, the streams of flowing
water were carried in stone channels resting upon arches which sometimes
reached the height of over ninety feet.

THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT. The Claudian aqueduct, which is the most
magnificent ever built, is carried on such arches for about seven miles
and a half. Although broken in many places, and though the water has not
flowed through its lofty channels for sixteen hundred years, it is one
of the grandest sights in the neighborhood of Rome. If we add together
the lengths of the aqueducts, underground or carried on arches, which
provided Rome with her water supply, the total is over three hundred
miles. They could furnish Rome with a hundred million gallons of water
a day.

PUBLIC BATHS. The Romans used great quantities of water for their
public baths, which were large buildings with rooms especially made for
bathing in hot or cold water and for plunges. They were also, like the
Greek gymnasiums, places for exercise, conversation, and reading. Many
were built as monuments by wealthy men and by emperors. A very small fee
was charged for entrance, and the money was used to pay for repairs and
the wages of those who managed the baths.

TWO FAMOUS BUILDINGS. Many of the Roman temples, porticoes, and
theaters were copied from Greek buildings, but the Romans used the arch
more than did the Greeks, and in this the builders of later times
imitated them. Among their greatest buildings were the amphitheaters,
from the benches of which crowds watched gladiators fighting one another
or struggling with wild beasts. The largest of these amphitheaters was
the Colosseum, the ruins of which still exist. Its outer walls were one
hundred and sixty feet high. In one direction it measured six hundred
and seventeen feet and in another five hundred and twelve. There were
seats enough for forty-five thousand persons. The lowest seats were
raised fifteen feet above the arena or central space where men or wild
beasts fought. Through an arrangement of underground pipes the arena
could be flooded so that the spectators might enjoy the excitement of a
real naval battle.

Another great building was the Circus Maximus, built to hold the crowds
that watched the chariot-races, and at one time having seats for two
hundred thousand persons. In their amusements the Romans became more and
more vulgar, excitable, and cruel. Some equally splendid buildings were
used for better things.

THE PANTHEON. One of these was the Pantheon, a temple which was
afterward a Christian church. It still stands, and is now used as the
burial-place of the Italian kings. The most remarkable part of it is the
dome, which has a width of a little over one hundred and forty-two feet.
No other dome in the world is so wide. The Romans were very successful
in covering large spaces with arched or vaulted ceilings. All later
builders of domes and arches are their pupils.

BASILICAS. The Romans had other large buildings called basilicas.
These were porticoes or promenades, with the space in the center covered
by a great roof. They were used as places for public meetings. One of
them had one hundred and eight pillars arranged in a double row around
the sides and ends of this central space. The name basilica is Greek and
means "royal." Some of these basilicas were used as Christian churches
when the Romans accepted the Christian religion. The central space was
then called the "nave," and the spaces between the columns the aisles.

TRIUMPHAL ARCHES. The Romans built beautiful arches to celebrate
their victories. Several of these still remain, with sentences cut into
their stone tablets telling of the triumphs of their builders. Modern
people have taken them as models for similar memorial arches.

ROMAN LAW. The Romans did much for the world by their laws. They
showed little regard for the rights of men captured in war and were
cruel in their treatment of slaves, but they considered carefully the
rights of free men and women. Under the emperors the lawyers and judges
worked to make the laws clearer and fairer to all. Finally the Emperor
Justinian, who ruled at the time when the empire was already half ruined
by the attacks of barbarian enemies, ordered the lawyer Tribonian to
gather into a single code all the statutes and decrees. These laws
lasted long after the empire was destroyed, and out of them grew many of
the laws used in Europe to-day. They have also influenced our laws
in America.

QUESTIONS

1. In the political strife at Rome what did the brothers Tiberius
and Caius Gracchus try to do?

2. What did Julius Caesar do when a party of senators tried to ruin
him? What was the result of his war with the other Roman leaders?

3. From what Roman word does "Emperor" come? What is the origin of
the word "Kaiser"? How did Caesar die?

4. Who was Caesar's successor and the first one who organized the
Roman Empire?

5. Why were the Romans such great builders of roads? How were their
roads built? Do any traces of them still remain?

6. How did the Romans provide the city with a supply of pure water?

7. What was a Roman bath?

8. Were the Romans as famous as the Greeks for their buildings? Name
the largest buildings in Rome. What was a basilica? Of what use were
basilicas to the Christians later?

9. Do you remember the earliest form of the Roman law (Chapter
V)? What did Justinian do with the laws in his day? Are
these laws important to us?

EXERCISES

1. What emperors are there now? Are they like Caesar and Augustus?

2. Find out if our roads are built as carefully as the Roman roads
and if they are likely to last as long. What different kinds of
roads do we have? Can any one in the room construct a small model of
a Roman road?

3. Find out how water is now carried to cities. Are cities provided
with great public baths like those of the Romans?

4. Ask a librarian or a lawyer to show you a copy of the revised
statutes of your state. This is a code somewhat like the code of
Justinian, only not so brief.