Empire on holiday
It was artfully contrived by Augustus that in the
enjoyment of plenty the Romans should lose the memory of freedom.' When he
delivered himself of this judgement, Gibbon may have done an injustice to the
first emperor's aims, but as the historian of Empire he did not mistake the
consequence of his actions. Internal war was at an end; and not only Rome but
the whole Empire came to look to the Palatine as the source of all govern/ ment.
Thanks to what the Greeks had done, the Empire as a political unity was not so
much a collection of provinces as a vast network of cities whose status was that
of municipalities. The cities were the centres of education and culture; and to
a large extent they relieved the imperial government of the bur/ dens of
administration and assumed responsibility for security, communications and
tax/collection. As a way of life the Greek city triumphed; indeed, it was so
self/assured in its cultural heritage that practically speaking no Greek ever
heard the names of Horace or Virgil. But politically it had to stomach the loss
of the independence it had so long fought for; and there was perhaps a certain
wryness in the remark of the unctuous Aelius Aristides that 'of course, it is
more blessed to pay taxes to Rome than to receive tribute from others.'
Publius Aelius Aristides was the spokesman for the Greeks of his age. Born in
the Mysian backwoods where city life was introduced about the time of his birth
by the emperor Hadrian, he settled at Smyrna and with the help of a strong
constitution devoted himself to the care of his health. He nevertheless found
leisure for rhetorical exercises, and the address that he delivered to the
Romans about ad 143 strikes the keynote of the 'Golden Age': 'As though on
holiday,' he tells the Romans, 'the world has shed its burden of arms and
devotes itself freely to beautification
and festivity of every kind. The cities have relinquished their old feuds; and a
single rivalry possesses every one of them -to be the best and most beautiful of
all. Everywhere are gymnasia,
fountains, arches, temples, town halls and schools. The ailing world has been,
so to speak, scientifically restored to complete health. Donations flow
perpetually from you to the cities; and no one can tell who gets the largest
share because your bounty is so impartial. The cities positively gleam with
radiance and charm, and the whole earth is a pleasure garden. The smoke of
burning homes and warning beacons is gone with the wind from the face of land
and sea; instead we are confronted with spectacles of manifold charm and an
infinitude of public games. Thus, unquenchable like a sacred flame, the fair
never stops but passes on from place to place; and it is always continuing
somewhere, for the whole world has quahv fied for these blessings.'
They had never had it so good. 'There is no need of garrisons in the cities,
because in each one the greatest and most powerful of the citizens act as Rome's
guardians. . .. The masses are protected from the powerful ones by the authority
of Rome, so that rich and poor are equally contented and equally benefited.'
This amicable concord was part of the system that Roman rule had built up in the
provinces. The wealth became concent trated in the hands of a few leading
families. These were Rome's friends; they acquired Roman citizenship and, like
Aristides himself, two Latin names; and local government was firmly placed in
their hands. They did not always exert their
introduced about the time of his birth by the emperor Hadrian, he settled at
Smyrna and with the help of a strong constitution devoted himself to the care of
his health. He nevertheless found leisure for rhetorical exercises, and the
address that he delivered to the Romans about ad 143 strikes the keynote of the
'Golden Age': 'As though on holiday,' he tells the Romans, 'the world has shed
its burden of arms and devotes itself freely to beautification and festivity of
every kind. The cities have relinquished their old feuds; and a single rivalry
possesses every one of them -to be the best and most beautiful of all.
Everywhere are gymnasia, fountains, arches, temples, town halls and schools. The
ailing world has been, so to speak, scientifically restored to complete health.
Donations flow perpetually from you to the cities; and no one can tell who gets
the largest share because your bounty is so impartial. The cities positively
gleam with radiance and charm, and the whole earth is a pleasure garden. The
smoke of burning homes and warning beacons is gone with the wind from the face
of land and sea; instead we are confronted with spectacles of manifold charm and
an infinitude of public games. Thus, unquenchable like a sacred flame, the fair
never stops but passes on from place to place; and it is always continuing
somewhere, for the whole world has quahv fied for these blessings.'
They had never had it so good. 'There is no need of garrisons in the cities,
because in each one the greatest and most powerful of the citizens act as Rome's
guardians. . .. The masses are protected from the powerful ones by the authority
of Rome, so that rich and poor are equally contented and equally benefited.'
This amicable concord was part of the system that Roman rule had built up in the
provinces. The wealth became concent trated in the hands of a few leading
families. These were Rome's friends; they acquired Roman citizenship and, like
Aristides himself, two Latin names; and local government was firmly placed in
their hands. They did not always exert their powers for the benefit of the whole
community. Those who wielded power in the cities must often have been torn
between two conflicting ambitions - to use the public funds to make their cities
more impressive, or to enlarge their own private fortunes. We occasionally read
of popular indignation against magnates who contributed too little for
improvements or entertainments in their cities; and though public works and
spectacles were not the only legitimate objects of expenditure, the surviving
remains and inscriptions of the cities are often a good index of the social
conscience that prevailed.
In Bithynia and Pontus very little trace survives of the famous cities - even of
Nicomedia and Nicaea which kept up a bitter rivalry for precedence in the
province. As against this, we have an authoritative record of conditions there
in the correspondence of Pliny the Younger, who was sent out by Trajan in the
year in as a special commissioner to correct abuses. Before Pliny's arrival,
public works had been sanctioned on a considerable scale in several cities and
the money had been paid out from the city treasuries; but there was surprisingly
little to show for it all. Nicomedia had spent the equivalent of some tens of
thousands of gold pounds on two successive schemes for an aqueduct, and both had
been abandoned. At Nicaea the substructures laid for a theatre were condemned as
unsound after £100,000 had been spent on them. Leading citizens were owing large
sums to the treasuries, and they had been refusing to pay the fees due from
them. There was a reluctance in some places to submit accounts for scrutiny; and
from Pliny's ingenuous statement the experienced emperor had no difficulty in
surmising that money paid out for public works had been going into private
pockets. We have also an interesting sidelight on imperial policy in the
correspondence. A fire had raged unchecked in Nicomedia and destroyed many
buildings, and Pliny recommended that a fire brigade should be formed. But
Trajan forbade this on grounds of public policy; for he feared that - as
happened in American towns of the nineteenth century
- the fire brigades would develop into well-organised political clubs. On the
other hand the practical emperor, who was so much concerned with waterways, was
gready interested by the Nicomedians' project of cutting a canal to connect
their lake by locks with the sea.
In Bithynia we see the evil effects of the Roman system. By way of contrast, the
public buildings and civic munificence of the cities of the south coast of Asia
Minor cannot fail to excite our admiration. The cities there had handsome
shopping avenues flanked by broad side/walks under the shelter of colonnades.
They had grand theatres and vaulted stadiums, ornamental gateways, and
monumental buildings inside the wall circuit. Here, as in the leading cities of
Ionia, Aelius Aristides' sermon is not belied; and granting that the southern
cities have been fortunate in the chances of survival, it seems nevertheless
true that the very ruins of a place like Pamphylian Perge amount to more than
the magnates of Nicaea ever erected. At the neighbouring site of Aspendus, which
was never a city of much consequence, a theatre over 300 feet across was built
out at the foot of the citadel hill in the second century after Christ; made of
local stone by a local architect, it has successfully withstood time and the
elements; and only the loss of the marble facing of the stage background mars
the clean lines of the original construction.
Haifa mile away, the ruined aqueduct, with its single tier of arches, still
courses for many hundreds of yards across the plain. As it approached the
citadel, the water was piped up to a tank raised on arches 100 feet above ground
level, and from there it was carried by normal flow into the town.
Cyprus and Phoenicia flourished under Roman rule. Egypt, won from the Ptolemies,
was the emperor's special domain. Never at rest, Judaea blew up in the time of
Hadrian. South of the Dead Sea, in the region of the rift valley that extends to
the Gulf of Akaba, the wilderness had once been awakened to agricultural and
industrial life by Solomon. After the time of Alexander the Great it was brought
to life again by the Nabataean Arabs, who commanded the caravan routes centring
on Petra and by their works of water conservancy made the desert habitable.
Allied to Rome, they were only brought inside the Empire in ad 106.
Coele Syria between the Orontes and Jordan valleys belonged to the Ituraean
Arabs and had relatively little urban development. But in Roman times a colony
was formed at Ba'albek, whose Greek name was Heliopolis (City of the Sun); and
here on the watershed between Lebanon and Antilebanon a huge sanctuary was
built. In terms of sheer acreage, weight of stone, dimensions of individual
blocks, and the amount of carving, this precinct can scarcely have had a rival
in the GraecoRoman world.
The sacred enclosure of Ba'albek measured about 300 yards in length, the whole
forming a great platform. At the east end stood a propylaea between two towers,
approached by a stairs-way 150 feet broad. Inside this was a hexagonal forecourt
giving access to the main temple court. The latter was surrounded by a
colonnade, behind which the wall was diversified by alternating semicircular and
oblong bays fronted by columns. The west side of this court was closed by the
great temple of Baal, which was 100 yards long and stood on a podium 45 feet
high. A row of half a dozen columns 65 feet high still stands in position, and
the entablature over them is elaborately carved; but so little else remains of
this gigantic structure that the visitor is left wondering whether it was ever
more than a fragment. Alongside this podium a smaller temple was erected at a
lower level; and this second building, itself no smaller than the Parthenon, is
still standing almost intact. Its spacious interior is articulated by engaged
Corinthian columns; they carry a complete entablature on which the ceiling
rested, and between them were arched and gabled niches which will have enshrined
statues of deities. Finally, outside the precinct stood a little temple which
consisted of a circular cella entered through a normal porch. This little
building shows some architectural subtlety; the outer columns of the rotunda
carried a lunate entablature which helped to take the thrust of the dome; and
the capitals, cut with five sides to conform to the unusual design, reproduce on
a smaller scale the arcs of the entablature above.
The architects employed at Ba'albek were no doubt skilled in their profession;
indeed, the neighbouring city of Damascus produced the most famous architect of
Trajan's reign. The workmanship at Ba'albek was equal to the best of its time;
and the architectural facades will have been enlivened by innumerable statues in
the niches. Yet the sheer opulence and endless repetition of the same motifs of
imperial baroque induce in the spectator a feeling of satiety. The Roman world
was incomparable in its engineering; but in its artistic sensibility, as in its
taste for food and literature, it had a unique immunity from any feeling of
indigestion. Magnificence was an end in itself, irrespective of what might lie
behind; and it is characteristic of Roman imperial architecture that the same
grandiose facade, with its ornate composite or Corinthian order and two/storeyed
bays and niches, could with scarcely any modification serve for a gateway, a
theatre scene, a city fountain, a public library, or simply as a screen to
exclude the outer world.