Mary Beard’s Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit-
BBC TV Documentary 2016- episodes 1-4
Of all the creation myths for an empire to have, why was the story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf, so potent? Why did the Roman Empire - so aggressive and expansionist - so mistrust the idea of an emperor? Their most important word was 'citizen'; while 'rex' (or king) was hated as meaning only tyranny. How did they persuade their subject peoples to become Romans and why, to an extent, were they so tolerant of local diversity? And what, in the end, brought about the Empire’s downfall? Was it really rampaging barbarian hordes, or something more complex?
We see how Rome accumulated territory and allies throughout Italy, building an unstoppable momentum, and eventually taking on its great rival – Carthage. As Rome’s territory expanded, Mary explores how Romans dealt with new cultures and ideas, in particular in the Greek East, where Rome came face to face with the sophisticated Hellenistic world. Here, this meant a complex mix of brute force and cultural cringe, whereas in Western Europe, Mary finds evidence of methods akin to outright genocide.
In typical myth-busting style, Mary argues that the period of greatest Roman expansion occurred when Rome itself was little more than a provincial backwater. The marble, monumental Rome we know came about because of imperial conquest – not the other way round. Likewise, the creation and possession of an empire transformed the politics of Rome forever, creating the conditions for one-man rule, and ending the centuries-old Roman Republic.
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