A Brief History of the Private Lives of the Roman Emperors by Anthony Blond Read Free Book Online Page B

one each but they decided to combine.) The Roman Triumph was a triumph of organization and glory.
Every stop was pulled out. By AD 71, the end of our period, the choreography, as it were, was fine-tuned. The Triumph was an amalgam of display, religiosity, terror,
feasting and debauch. Only the Romans could have invented it. It was also a superb instrument of foreign policy, demonstrating to client kings, allies and potential enemies the power and the
generosity of Rome – and the cruelty, for the Triumph ended with the execution of the principal enemies, who had formed part of the procession.
    Mark, the youngest of the Gospel writers, is said to have witnessed the Triumph for the Jewish War. If he did he would have seen the treasures of the Temple, the richest in the world, paraded
through the streets of Rome: the golden vessels and the golden trumpets, the altar of solid gold, the five scrolls of the Pentateuch, the
menorah
in solid gold with its seven branches
– the latter two the most holy objects in Israel: Also in the procession was Simon the Zealot, the invincible hero of the Siege of Jerusalem, in chains, walking to his execution. Mark must
have decided that a new religion could not succeed if it offended Rome.

ROMAN LAW
    Roman Law bound Rome like Roman cement. Its genius was its complexity and its fairness, which gained it acceptance for thirteen centuries by millions of people. It lasted from
Romulus in 753 BC to Justinian in AD 535, when 3 million judgements were finally consolidated into sixteen volumes by sixteen commissioners. In the
realm of jurisprudence, Roman Law is rivalled only by the English and the First World still responds to one or other of these systems.
    The power of Rome grew through conquest, followed by treaties, and a process by which local gods and local laws were subsumed by Rome. The British, when collecting their Empire through
annexation and the spoils of war, were not so respectful of ‘native’ rights; for instance, after a career such as his in Africa, Cecil Rhodes would have been prosecuted for
extortion 12 had he been a Roman. Indeed it was with thischarge that Cicero, champion of the Republic in its dying days, leapt into
Roman history to prosecute Verres, a governor of Sicily.
    Cicero, darling of Classics masters, is most eloquent in his analysis of Roman Law – whose twelve tables schoolchildren had to learn by heart – and in the preaching and practice of
the Republican virtues of dignity, probity, industry, virtue, respect (for authority) and prudence, which are all Latin words and Roman concepts. He could also be a thumping bore and wrote the
worst hexameter extant:
    O fortunatam, natam me consule Romam
    which has been neatly translated as, ‘How fortunate of Rome to date/her birthday from my consulate’, and his penchant for self-congratulation and his long letters
of advice must have contributed to his being purged, after the
coup
which brought Octavian (later Augustus), Antony and Lepidus into power as dictators.
    The establishment of that triumvirate was, in typical Roman fashion, enacted by the Senate with 400 centurions and soldiers hovering around to help them make up their minds; for the seizure of
power in Rome was always cloaked with legality, and the Senate, which finally disposed of Nero, remained an institution respected by tyrants, until the arrival of the ‘African’ Emperor
Severus.
    Roman Law, in the beginning, was based on the authority of the
paterfamilias,
the head of the family, who had the right, until the end of the Empire, to sell his children. It was he who
insisted on
boni mores
– dutiful service, chastity andrespect for superiors. He could and did punish adultery in his children with death. The Romans were always
monogamous, though later divorce was easy. Strangely, there is no trace of primogeniture, although a Roman must ensure his posterity, otherwise enjoy no happiness in the grave. Hence the frequency
of adoption,