Alex > Recent Status Updates

"Was Constantine a sincere convert? Although the words sincerity and politician don’t usually go together, there is reason to think that he was. Ancient people took dreams and omens seriously. Previous emperors certainly did, and they consulted astrologers as well. Modern Westerners always look for the “real motive,” but we are often blind to the reality of religious motivation."

"Both Constantine and Maxentius proclaimed religious tolerance in the lands they controlled, stretching from Britain to North Africa, as well as the restoration of Christian property confiscated during the Great Persecution."

"Thanks to Diocletian,Romes army was betterfunded and more thoroughly deployed onthe borders,with a new network of roads and forts. He also bought two generations ofpeace withPersia inthe East. Alsothanks toDiocletian, imperial administration was bigger andmore intrusive than ever.To finance all of this, Diocletian increased the burden of taxation.He strengthened and codified a process that tied peasants tothe land."

"There were not many martyrs, but martyrdom loomed large in Christian consciousness and probably won non-Christian admirers, so that Christianity emerged stronger from the persecution."

"The only thing that made them [the Christians] different from other Romans was their absence from temple and festival ceremonies, their worship in churches (mostly rooms in private houses), and their disinclination to sacrifice to the gods on behalf of the emperor."

Diocletian introduced the Edict on Maximum Prices, court eunuchs, and new standards for sycophancy and vanity.

"As background, consider that during the uncertain times of the crisis years, farmers in various parts of the empire gave up their independence for protection by a local landlord. Formerly freeholders, they became tenants. Now Diocletian codified the situation and tried to tie them permanently to the land as tenants because fixed laborers were easier to tax than mobile ones."

"[...]However, it all played out against the background of a nearly worthless currency. Already, under Septimius Severus, Roman silver coins were only 50 percent precious metal. By the 260s, some coins contained only 2 percent to 3 percent precious metal. Not surprisingly, this led to a financial crisis."

"The number of legions shot up from thirty-three under Septimius Severus to fifty under Diocletian, but with fewer men per legion. Whether Diocletian increased the size of the army is unclear, but he certainly made it easier to reach recruitment goals; he reinstated an annual draft for the first time since the days of the republic. He also required the sons of serving soldiers or veterans to join up."

"Romula was supposedly a very religious pagan. Galerius claimed that she had mated with Mars, the god of war, in the form of a snake, and he was their child. The claim harks back to Augustus’s propaganda that his mother had mated with the god Apollo in the form of a snake."

"The emperor Diocletian was a career soldier. No aristocrat he, Diocletian came up from poverty in the Balkans, and he had the rugged manners to prove it. He once stabbed a rival to death in front of the assembled troops. On another occasion, he threatened to drown a rebellious city in rivers of blood up to the knees of his horse. Yet the most famous thing that he ever said was a tribute to vegetables."

Caracalla extended the citizenship, but mostly to raise the inheritance tax, which only applied to citizens:
"Earlier, Rome had extended its citizenship, as a reward to favored communities and to prominent local officials, but probably only a minority of free people were citizens. Now, all free Romans were citizens. Never in human history had citizenship been shared so widely."

"A Latinized elite governed the town, but many of them, like Severus, had ancestors who spoke Punic, a Semitic language, related closely to Hebrew and Aramaic, and spoken in Carthage as well as Phoenicia. Severus spoke Punic as well as Greek and Latin. In Rome, they mocked his provincial accent."

Marcus' meditations were never meant to be published, they were private notes.

"Because arenas now found it hard to find fighters, the Senate allowed local authorities to purchase condemned criminals to use as gladiators. And how did the Romans increase the supply of condemned criminals? It seems that accusations against Christians increased."

"In autumn 169 Marcus went back north. The next spring he launched a major offensive across the Danube. It began in farce, with the emperor agreeing to put two lions in the river to win the gods’ support; the beasts just swam to the other side and were clubbed to death by the enemy. The battle ended in tears, with the Romans suffering a major defeat, with possibly twenty thousand casualties."

On a less glamorous note, Marcus debased the currency and used auxiliary units made of gladiators, slaves and bandits.

Marcus' wifr Faustina bore fourteen children, although only half of them survived into childhood.

Marcus' politics sound very good. He was also fiscally responsible and did little building, and made gladiators use blunted swords.

"Marcus proved exceptionally careful and judicious when it came to the law. He took special interest in the manumission of slaves, the appointment of guardians for minors and orphans, and the selection of town councilors for local governments in the provinces. He earned a reputation for being firm but reasonable. Like his predecessor, Marcus ruled in favor of a slave’s freedom whenever possible."

"In 148 he [Antoninus] put on marvelous games in honor of the nine hundredth anniversary of the founding of Rome. It was commonly believed at the time that Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC, although we do not know the real date of the city’s foundation. As a result of these costly expenditures, Antoninus had temporarily to reduce the amount of silver in Roman coins."

"Stoicism taught that the world was governed by a rational principle, Logos, that guides all nature. By the pursuit of virtue, a good man would live according to nature. This austere doctrine was softened by a belief in the universe’s goodness and its government by divine providence, as well as in the brotherhood of mankind."

"Elite Romans frowned on homosexual relationships and could even prosecute relationships involving underage Roman citizens. In his Meditations, Marcus favored putting an end to the pursuit of boys."

"In 136, after he suffered a near-fatal hemorrhage, Hadrian named Lucius Ceionius Commodus as his successor and adopted him as his son. The elite expressed universal opposition to this move, as Ceionius, who was thirty-five, had little to recommend him other than being one of the good-looking young noblemen Hadrian liked to have around."

"Hadrian did not hunt down Christians any more than Trajan had, but he remained willing to execute those who openly refused to worship the emperor."

"For all his love of philosophy, the arts, and astrology, Hadrian was ruthless, violent, and unafraid of murder. Yet he was also a politician, and he knew to mend fences. In Rome, Hadrian gave cash to the plebeians, burned the records of overdue taxes, put on splendid gladiatorial games, and started a big building program."

"He [Hadrian] later apologized to the Senate for taking the throne without its consent, but the state, he said, could not be left without an emperor. Meanwhile, like Vespasian, anothe remperor who took power by force, he counted the day of his acclamation by the army as the start of his reign: August 11, 117."