The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire on Superphysics

The Infancy of Rome and the Wars it sustained

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The city of Rome, in its infancy, was used for stowing and securing of plunder, cattle, fruits, and other produce of the countryside. This is similar to the cities of the Crimean Tartars.

How the Romans Raised Themselves to Empire

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Modern Europeans have very near the same arts, the same arms, the same discipline, and the same manner of making war.

The prodigious fortune attained by the Romans seems incredible to us.

The Science of War of the Romans

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Romans devoted themselves entirely to war, and considered it as the only science. Vegetius says that this inspired them with the idea of the legion.

They judged that it would be necessary to arm the legion’s soldiers with weapons stronger and heavier than those of any other nation.

The Gauls and Pyrrhus: Parallels between Carthage and Rome. The War of Hannibal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

THE Romans had several wars against the Gauls. Both nations had:

a thirst of glory
a contempt of death
an inflexible resolution of conquering

But the weapons they used were different.

The State of Greece, Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt after the Depression of Carthage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hannibal did not abound in witticisms, especially in favour of Fabius and Marcellus against himself.

I am sorry to see Livy strew his flowers on these enormous colossuses of antiquity: I wish he had done like Homer, who neglects embellishing them, and knew so well how to put them in motion.

The State of Greece, Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt after the Depression of Carthage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The greatest part of Macedonia was surrounded with inaccessible mountains. Its inhabitants were formed by nature for war: courageous, obedient, industrious, and indefatigable.

These qualities must necessarily have been owing to the climate, since the natives of it are, to this day, the best soldiers in the Turkish empire.

How the Romans Conquered all Nations

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

DURING the course of so mighty a prosperity, in which it is usual for mankind to forget themselves, the senate continued to act with the same depth of judgment.

While their armies were spreading an universal terror, they would not suffer those to rise who were once depressed.

Augustus

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Sextus Pompeius:

possessed Sicily and Sardinia
was master at sea
saw himself at the head of many fugitives and persons devoted to death by proscriptions, whose last hopes depended on their valour.

Octavius contended with him in 2 very laborious wars.

How Mithridates Could Resist the Romans

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

AMONG the several kings whom the Romans invaded, Mithridates was the only one who made a courageous defence, and exposed them to danger.

His dominions were situated to wonderful advantage for carrying on a war with them.

The Corruption of the Romans

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The sect of Epicurus began to be propagated at Rome towards the end of the republic. It think that it was very prejudicial to the minds and genius of the people.

The Divisions which always in Rome

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

While Rome was conquering the world, a hidden war was carrying on within its walls.

These fires were like those of volcanos, which break out the instant they were sed by some combustible substance.

Changes in the State

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

To prevent the continual treasons of the army:

the Roman emperors associated into the government proper persons in whom they might confide.
Dioclesian, under pretext of the weight and multiplicity of the public affairs, established a law, that there should always be two Emperors and as many Cæsars.

He judged that this would make the four main armies being possessed by the partners in the empire, would naturally intimidate one another, and that the inferior armies being too weak to have any thoughts of raising [124] their chiefs to the imperial dignity, their custom of election would be gradually discontinued, and entirely abolished at last.

Disorders in the Eastern Empire

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

THE Persians, during this period, were in a much better situation than the Romans.

They had little reason to fear the northern people because mount Taurus, which extends between the Caspian and Euxine seas, separated them.
They effectively closed a very narrow pass which was the only way for the cavalry.

In every other part, the Barbarians had to descend from frightful precipices and leave their horses.

Justinian's Conquests and Government

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The barbarians broke all at once like a flood into the empire. They fought each other. The politics of those times set them against each other. This was easy to accomplish becaus of their avarice and fierce dispoposition.

Some new maxims received by the Romans

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

SOMETIMES the pusillanimous spirit of the emperors † , and frequently the defenceless state of the empire made the people employ their money to appease the nations that threatened to invade them.

The Emperors From Caius, Calicula, to Antoninus

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CALICULA succeeded Tiberius.

He was said to be the best slave and the worst master.

This is correct because the same turn of mind which inclines a person to be strongly affected at unlimited power in his sovereign, makes him to be no less in love with it, when he rises to empire himself.

The Grandeur of Attila and Why the Western Empire was overturned before the Eastern

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Christianity was established when the empire was declining.

The Christians reproached the Pagans for that decay. The Pagans retorted the charge on Christianity.

The Christians replied that Dioclesian ruined the empire by having 3 emperors.

The Iconoclast

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In the Glorious Revolution, Cromwell’s army resembled the Arabians, while the Irish and Scottish forces were like the Greeks.

A gross superstition which debases the mind as effectually as true religion exalts it, had reduced all virtue and devout confidence in the deity, to a stupid veneration for images.

The State of the Empire from Antoninus to Probus

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

IN this period, the Stoics propagated their doctrines in the empire with great popularity.

It seems as if nature herself had been industrious to produce this admirable sect, which resembled those plants the earth causes to spring up in places never visited by the sunbeams.

The Wars that Rome Sustained

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Another consequence of the maxim of waging perpetual war was that the Romans only made peace when they were victorious.

Why would they make an ignominious peace with one nation, and afterwards go and invade another?

The Weakness of the Eastern Empire

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Amidst the general confusion of affairs, Phocas became unsettled in his new dignity.

Heraclius came from Africa and murdered him.

He found the provinces invaded and the legions destroyed.

As soon as he remedied these disasters, the Arabians extended the Islamic empire founded by Mohammed.

Tiberius

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A river sometimes, slowly and silently, undermines the banks that restrain its current. When it succeeds, it floods the fields they formerly preserved.

In the same way, the supreme authority, which gained an insensible growth under Augustus, bore down all before it in the succeeding reign of Tiberius.

Trajan

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nerva adopted Trajan, who proved the most accomplished prince in all history.

His reign blessed the empire with more prosperity and true glory than it had ever enjoyed before.

Two Causes which destroyed Rome

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

While the sovereignty of Rome was confined to Italy, it was easy for the commonwealth to subsist.

Every soldier was also a citizen. Every consul raised an army, and other citizens marched into the field under his successor.

Rome after the Death of Cæsar

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It was impossible for the republic to be re-established. There was no longer any tyrant, and yet liberty was extinguished because the causes of its destruction still continued to prevent its revival.

The Destruction of the Eastern Empire

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

How could the Greek empire possibly subsist so long?

The Arabs invaded the empire and conquered several provinces. Their chiefs became competitors for the Khalisa, and the flame of their first zeal only burst out in civil dissensions.

Sylla, Pompey, and Caesar

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I will not discuss the horrors of the wars between Marius and Sylla. Appian has collected all the dreadful particulars into this history.

Both chiefs were jealous, ambitious, barbarous, and furious. The new citizens, and the ancient, no longer considered each other as members of the same republic, but gave a loose to a series of hostilities, so peculiar in their nature, as to comprehend all the miseries of a civil and foreign war.