Man: The Fallen Ape - Part 3 - The Decline and Fall of Rome

"The fall of Rome must have been caused by the erosion of these pillars."

"A chain of historians accepted Voltaire's explanation that Christianity 'opening the heavens, lost the empire.'"

"With the adolescent revolution in Rome came ambition and pretentiousness. . ."

Rome's greatness was built on the enthusiasm of the Romans in the stage of their pre-adolescence, on Stoicism which appealed to woman's gravitas, on the respect for women and on the respect for work. If my thesis is correct, the fall of Rome must have been caused by the erosion of these pillars.

Any unbiased historian knows that history has never recorded a better world before or since the second century A.D. in Rome. Here I would like to quote the opinion of two great experts on this period: Gibbon and Mommsen.

"If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous," wrote Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, "he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus"(A.D. 96-180). "The vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm and gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws."

Mommsen, in his Provinces of the Roman Empire writes: "Even now there are various regions of the East, as of the West, as regards which the imperial period marks a climax of good government, very modest in itself, but never withal attained before or since; and, if an angel of the Lord were to strike the balance whether the domain ruled by Severus Antoninus was governed with the greater intelligence and the greater humanity at that time or in the present day, whether civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful whether the decision would prove in favor of the present."

One could accuse Gibbon and Mommsen of being nostalgic, but we have a contemporary comment about the same period lauding the present, one of the rarest things for humans. Aelius Aristidas (A.D. 129-81) described the second century A.D. on the following lines: "The whole world seems to be in a festive mood; people have discarded their old garb, which was of iron, to give themselves in full liberty to the beauties and the joy of living. All the cities have renounced their old rivalries, or rather they are all animated by the same emulation: to present themselves as the most beautiful, the most delectable. Everywhere we see gymnasia, fountains, propylaea, temples, workshops, schools."

The great enigma which has intrigued scholars for centuries is why this glorious Rome of the second century A.D. collapsed in the fifth century after having survived the agony and confusion of the third and fourth centuries. Many attributed the fall of Rome to Christianity. Voltaire's explanation that Christianity, "opening the heavens, lost the Empire," was accepted by a chain of historians.

Christianity existed in the first and second century and it was not considered a serious matter. Judging by Marcus Aurelius, Christianity was "sheer obstinacy," greatly despised by the majority of Romans. Why then did Christianity only become popular at the end of the third century? Some historians attribute the reason for the fall of Rome to the barbarians and their invasions, but the barbarians had existed long before without being a threat. The Roman answer to the problem was Caesar's Veni, vidi, vici.

By the end of the second century, and the beginning of the third century the Roman male had passed from pre-adolescence into full adolescence. It was in that period that the adolescent revolution in Rome began.

This new stage in Roman history was accompanied by the following characteristics of male humanity: self-infatuation inspired by the courage to lean on abstract beliefs of the mind, contempt for women and their gravitas, the only way to overcome shame, and despise of work.

The start of the trend of self-infatuation, arrogance, and, above all, the worship of physical strength, was illustrated by the new title of Emperor Commodus (180-93). He called himself Hercules Romanus. It is also characteristic of the new era that Commodus was killed when impersonating a gladiator, the killer's name, Narcissus, reflecting the new atmosphere too. Mitra, this Indo-Iranian male deity, this "warrior" and "victorious god," this sol invictus, attracted the most arrogant element of Roman adolescence.

The adolescent revolution was spurred on by Caracalla's Constitutio Antoniana of A.D. 212. This gave Roman citizenship to all freeborn inhabitants of the empire, and a large number of the new citizens became filled with self-importance. History teaches us that increase of rights or privileges weakens the sense of duty, personal responsibility, and readiness for sacrifice. With full rights, any sacrifice becomes a humiliation.

With the adolescent revolution in Rome came ambition and pretentiousness, which, as in any other adolescent revolution, brought anarchy in which the law of the stronger became the only rule. This atmosphere is best illustrated by the fact that in the second century there were only five emperors, while in the third century and from the death of Commodus in 193 to the arrival of Diocletian in 284, there were among the legitimate and illegitimate emperors, as many as there were years. Lactantius (240-320) in his De mortibus Persecutorum (c. 318), stressed that soon "there will be more governors than governed." He was criticizing Diocletian who, in order to satisfy the new wave of wanting to command, had inflated the civil service and the army.

At the middle of the third century, the insecure mediocrity, the main victim of the disorder in which the stronger dominated the weaker, slowly started to revert to a father-protected infancy, the strong, omnipotent Christian father. Christianity promised them a privileged position in the next world, it promised them immortality. What is more, it threatened punishment in hell to the successful, the fitter and the stronger, the envied.

This lost mediocrity discovered abstract thinking, the Greek philosophy. (Previously Greek philosophers had been a mocking stock, often expelled from Rome.) This increased even more the contempt for the work, and the enthusiasm for Christianity. Christianity glorified idleness - passivity was a virtue. The Christians considered work a punishment for original sin.

It is interesting to note the origin of the word Pagani, pagans. Today it means non-Christian. Originally it meant working people from villages. With Christianity it became an expression of contempt, a derogatory term for the working people. In the agricultural industry, where woman's influence was felt more strongly, work remained more highly esteemed than in towns or in other industries. Female deities of agriculture remained worshiped long after Christianity took full power.

With the first Christian communities, St. Paul was in fact faced with a serious problem of laziness among the members. We see this from his epistles addressed to the Community of Thessalonica. He was so disappointed by life in the first communities that he proclaimed, "Who does not work has no right to eat." (When the Russians formed their Communist State in 1917, after many unhappy vicissitudes, brought about by idleness, their leaders fixed, in Article 12 of their Constitution of 1936, still in vigor, the following rule for Soviet society: "Work in the USSR is the duty of every citizen able to work, following the principle: 'Who does not work, does not eat.'")

Greek ideas about work, particularly those of Plato and Aristotle, became popular with the Romans in their adolescent phase. Plotinus, who launched Neoplatonism in Rome, considered work "a shadow of contemplation," and the main obstacle to his doctrine of ecstasy, to the elevation of the mind. Ex-stasis meant for Plotinus and his times a state outside reality, a life without any responsibility. Plotinus started the fashion for hermits and vagabonds.

The glorious Roman roads, now served only vagabonds or military gangs, the former in search of alms, the latter of power and pillaging.

There was a pathetic appeal to work by the Emperor Septimius Severus, the successor of Commodus, who, with the help of the learned jurist Papinian, tried desperately to reverse the rising tide of the adolescent revolution. His dying message to the empire was: Laboremus (Let us work!). It was the plea of someone who felt that the era whose motto was Ego, ergo ago, meaning that the dignity of ego implied work, was over forever.

In many books we read that with the coming of Christianity, work began to be honored. This is not true! We have seen the high esteem for work in pre-Christian Rome. I have also mentioned St. Paul's efforts to force the first Christians to work. Life in monasteries before the reform of Benedict of Nursia (sixth century) and the reform of Colomban (seventh century) gives us the sad picture of idleness and contempt for work among the Christians. For the Christians, work was always an expiation.

Work lost its value and esteem with the fall of Rome, and only started regaining them in the nineteenth century in North America.

I must now explain why fallacies concerning pre-Christian Rome are still part of Western belief. The answer can be found in the fact that the teaching of ancient history has for centuries been the monopoly of the Christian Church.

The Christian Church explained Pro domo sua, the past. It was explained in the way that suited the Church. It was all started by St. Augustine of Hippo with his dangerous legacy to the world, his so-called Philosophy of History. Between 415-17 St. Augustine gathered around him Orosius and other learned Christians with the purpose of writing a history of the past from the Christian point of view, for Christian use. The main idea was to denigrate pre-Christian Rome, emphasizing the negative side of ancient Roman life. In fact their work was called Historiae adversum Paganos, stories against Pagans.

The adaptation of the past to the needs of the present, started by Christianity, was followed by other religions and ideologies. It has now become a part of the spiritual patrimony of mankind.

One might ask oneself whether St. Augustine was to blame when he changed the facts of history, or was it the people who wanted to be deceived. Why did the leaders of Christianity in the first and second centuries not succeed where St. Augustine and St. Ambrose did? One has the impression that the people at a certain moment wanted to be seduced by fallacies. The Roman cardinal Carlo Caraffa said to the religious or political leaders: "Vulgus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur [the masses wanted to be deceived, therefore let them be deceived]."

When Christianity came to power, the Christians adapted every thing to their way of thinking. They kept the same terminology for many things, simply perverting their meaning. With Christianity, Roman virtue became a religious virtue which, as I have already stated, is a contradiction in terms.

The Roman auctoritas (*), the moral influence, became Christian auctoritas, dogma, the dogmatic influence. Roman humanitas became Christian humanity, meaning the persecution of non-Christians. In fact the victory of Christianity marked the end of religious tolerance in the Roman world. With Christianity, amor dei became timor dei.

St. Augustine gave a new meaning to sapientia. It was no longer knowledge and understanding of reality, but a mystical state of mind. It was becoming part of le milieu divin, an expression so dear to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Justice was no longer a virtue, it was no longer guided by equitas. With Justinian, justice was codified in his Corpus Juris Civilis. The Justinian code kept the same terminology and the same laws of Ulpianus, Paulus, and Papinianus, but it had a different meaning and a different interpretation. Roman law served the people. With Christianity the people served the law, and the law served the Christian doctrine. With Christianity judges are watched, and judged too by the office of the Holy Spirit.

Prudentia or providentia, wisdom shown in the exercise of judicious forethought, became providence with the Christians, or the divine guidance of a lost and frightened being. It had to keep hope and faith alive, the supreme virtues of the Christian Church.

With Christianity, Roman equality became an equality of sinners; what is more, of sinners responsible for an inherited sin. The paradoxical idea of inherited sin, inspired the paradoxical law of the Christian Emperor Arcadius, which punished even the children of a guilty parent, guilty of crimes against the State, the Christian State.

Charity, which in Rome contrasted with dignitas and sublimitas, became a Christian virtue which encouraged idleness and "contemplation."

The Christians painted a distorted picture of the Roman familia. It was distorted to serve the Christian idea of a family dominated by the father.

Every scholar agrees that the Romans, before the Neoplatonism of the third century, were disinclined to be seduced by abstract thinking. If this is so, then we must accept that Roman men had nothing to lean on in their behavior but maternal common sense. Without abstract thinking, the Romans could have had no ideas of their own on which to base their behavior.

We know that the familia was the center of Roman life. The familia was a typical Roman institution which died with Rome. It cannot be equated with the family in the modern sense, the family created by Christianity. Familia was an institution which embraced the family in the strict sense, slaves, clientes and above all, the lares and penates, the cult of the dead and the cult of the deities of the familia.

The Roman familia was a mater familias institution. It had existed in Rome from prehistoric times. With the evolution of time the mother slowly became physically substituted by the pater familias, who continued to exercise the functions inherited by the mater familias. He exercised his functions in the way a mother would have done.

Bachofen, in his The Right of the Mother, explained that Rome had a promiscuous life in her prehistory. In that period, judging by Cicero's words in his De inventione, "No one knew of lawful marriage, no one had seen legitimate children of his own." Out of this promiscuity, Bachofen explained, emerged matriarchy and then patriarchy. This patriarchy, in Rome, must have been an imitation of matriarchy. The real patriarchy came with Christianity when the pater familias assumed an abstract role dictated to him by the Almighty God, the Father. Only an abstract idea like Almighty could have inspired an abstract role like the omnipotent father in the family. In the human species the omnipotent pater familias is not a natural phenomenon but an invention of religions dominated by an Only and Almighty God.

We have been taught that the pater familias, with his patria potestas, dominated the Roman familia like an unscrupulous despot. We are also told that the life or death of the members of his family depended on his mood.

But was this really so? Or was it invented by Christian scholars in order to justify the medieval pater familias, the feudal, ruthless, barbarian despot? Was the Roman pater familias really that absolute ruler?

Christianity depicted the Roman pater familias to suit her cause. Christianity decided to build her empire on the family. This Christian microcosm had to be ruled by the same rules as the Christian macrocosm, by Almighty God. The pater familias of the Christian family, or of any family in any culture which is dominated by an almighty male deity, is an abstract creation molded on the image of the Supreme God - the Supreme God created by man's mind. In this highly artificial position of the Christian pater familias, one can find the source of men's neuroses, increasing with the liberation of women.

First of all, there are very few cases of the Roman pater familias killing members of his family in the name of patria potestas. The last known case was in 65 B.C. when Aulus Fulvius was killed by his father when he was discovered participating in the Catiline conspiracy. But his father obtained the permission of the Roman Senate before doing this.

Above the pater familias there was a domestic council composed of the main members of the family which in reality, decided any question concerning the familia. It must be stressed that whenever there was a decision to be taken about the wife, her kith and kin had to be a part of the domestic council.

Above the pater familias there was that important institution in Roman life, Censorius. Through this important Roman institution of censorship, public opinion exercised its power. The spirit of the famous Cato the Censor dominated Roman life until the end of classical Rome. He received the place of honor from Virgil in The Aeneid and from Dante in his Divina Commedia.

The pater familias, in exercising his patria potestas was specially influenced and guided by the spirit of the household deities. The guardian and interpreter of the spirit of the household deities was the Roman matrona. Through her interpretation of these spirits, dreams, and omens, the Roman matrona exercised influence over her husband. Classical Rome emphasized the stupidity of Caesar in not listening to the advice of his wife, Calpurnia, when she told him not to go to the Senate on the Ides of March.

Many writers, influenced by the Christian interpretation of Roman life, explain that the wife in the Roman familia was an object at the disposal of her husband; that she was in manu mariti, under his total power. These writers failed to point out that this form of marriage was already in disuse by the third century B.C. Roman marriage, the most solemn moment in their lives, was the union of two free wills, based on affectio maritalis - mutual respect. The marriage lasted as long as the mutual respect lasted. We read in W. G. de Burgh's The Legacy of the Ancient World, the following: "As time went on, the advance of public opinion, the gradual disuse of the old forms of marriage which placed the bride in her 'husband's hand,' (manus), and the introduction of new methods of evading the law of tutelage, combined to secure for Roman women a freedom and independence hardly paralleled in ancient or modern society."

Cicero's sentence in De officiis: "Prima societas in ipso conjugio est," meaning the first society is marriage, can only make sense if the woman is free and independent, before, during, and after marriage.

Scholars interpret the famous words, Quando tu Caius, ego Caia, pronounced by women concluding marriage by Confarreatio, as an agreement of the wife to blindly follow her husband for better or for worse. It was not in the nature of Roman women to follow any man blindly. Taking into consideration the freedom of the Roman woman and her dominance in Roman life, the above sentence accompanying the marriage can only have one meaning: admonition by the wife to the husband. It is "as long as you behave like a good husband, I will be a good wife." Roman history is filled with examples of wives ceasing to behave like Caia when the husband was not behaving like Caius, meaning with dignitas and auctoritas.

The Roman matrona was the real domina of the familia and was addressed by this title by all members of the family including the husband. "Before the Roman matron, nothing could be said which was disgraceful, nothing could be done which was dishonourable," stressed Tacitus in his Dialogue on Oratory.

A Roman woman, dressed in her stola matronalis, took precedence and inspired respect. Even the Praetorian guard bowed to a pregnant domina.

The position of women in Roman life is best explained by the famous sentence of Cato the Elder: "All nations ruled their wives, we rule all nations, but our wives rule us."

As far as adultery is concerned, we have seen that a husband had the right to kill his adulterous wives in male-dominated cultures, as in Mesopotamia and Israel. In Greece, Draco authorized the offended man to kill the adulterer of even his sister or his mother. He deprived a man of citizenship if he forgave the adultery of his wife. In Rome, before Lex Julia (18 B.C.), adultery was a private affair judged by the domestic council of the family or by Quaestio, a special court presided over by the Praetor in cases when the domestic council could not agree. With Lex Julia, the Praetor was authorized to inflict on adulterers, relegatio, permanent or temporary banishment. As soon as Christianity was in power, the Draconian laws were reapplied to adulterers; they were sentenced to death. In ancient Rome, a non-married woman was freer in her sexual behavior than ever before or since.

One of the reasons why the Roman matrona held such power was that her husband was seldom at home. He was either in the Forum, or the thermae, or in administration in the provinces, or he was at war. The Roman matrona was the real administrator of the household.

The Roman matrona's great influence over Roman life, lay in the fact that it was she who was in charge of the education of the children, choosing their tutors. Here we can understand why Stoicism was so successful in Rome. The Stoics were the Roman matrons' favorite teachers. Their attitudes and their teachings were in accordance with the matrona's way of life. Greek philosophers, or preachers of abstract philosophies, were despised by Roman women. When they were employed by Roman families they were treated as servants by the matronae, Lucian, a Greek philosopher, complained in his Nigrinus. Often, wrote Lucian, the Greek philosophers had to carry the matrona's dog, who "licked his beard and peed on his cloak." Lucian also complained that Roman matronas, before taking a Greek into service, would thoroughly investigate his background, views, and references, and even invite him to a grand feast to see what his table manners were like.

The women of ancient Rome were always respected. Following one of the most popular legends, Rome's independence started with the virtue of Lucretia, the model wife of Tarquinius Collatinus.

We meet the glorification of the independence and freedom of Roman woman in the story of Virginia, told by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Her father preferred to kill her than give her to a rich man, who was infatuated by her beauty, against her will. "My child," said Virginia's father, stabbing her to death, "I send you free and chaste to your ancestors in the world of the dead; for while you live the tyrant allows you to have neither freedom nor chastity."

Livv tells the story of Veturia who, when she heard that her son Coriolanus was at the doors of Rome with an army of Volsci, enemies of Rome, intending to occupy the city, went to see him in his camp and saved Rome, addressing her son with the following words: "Tell me, before I accept your embrace, whether I have come to see my son or an enemy, whether I am your prisoner or your mother in this camp" . . . "When you came in sight of Rome, did you not think, within these walls are my home and my household gods, my mother, my wife and my children? If I had never been a mother, Rome would not now be suffering the attack of an enemy; if I had no son, I would have died a free woman in a free country." This happened about 491 B.C.

We know that girls were given the same education as boys. The only exception was that girls were not taught rhetoric. It may have been for practical reasons, judging by Juvenal's explanation that rhetoric was insufficient for a livelihood.

There have never been, before or since the days of ancient Rome, so many outstanding women. Cornelia influenced her sons, Gaius Gracchus and Tiberius Gracchus. Her house at Misenum was a meeting place for learned people, including Cicero. Sempronia was an influential ally of Catiline. Caesar was influenced by his mother, Aurelia. Augustus owes his greatness to the education he received from his mother, Atilia, and to the help and understanding of his wife, Livia. Everyone knows the influence exercised on Nero by his mother, Agrippina, and by his mistress and subsequent wife, Poppaea. Tiberius had to move to Capri in order to escape from the influence of his mother, Livia, and her powerful salon. Caracalla was dominated by his mother, Julia Domna. Mark Antony, judging by Plutarch, allowed his wife, Fuliva, "to rule a ruler and to command a commander."

From St. Augustine on, one of the means of denigrating Roman civilization by Christian writers has been by stressing the cruelty of Roman games. Actually Roman games were inspired by the Stoic attitude toward death. Stoicism attempted to liberate man from his hysteric fear of death, preaching that death should be faced with dignity and equanimity. Seneca was clear when he said, "Qui mori didicit, servire dedicit," meaning that those who do not fear death will never become slaves, that only by liberating oneself from the fear of death can one live a life of true freedom and dignity.

The collapse of the Roman Empire began with the collapse of the Roman familia, the stronghold of the empire, caused by the adolescent revolution. Christianity helped the destruction of the Roman familia by the attack on its backbone - woman. The strongest weapon in the hands of Christianity in denigrating women was its emphasis on Eve's responsibility for the lost paradise. "You destroyed so easily God's image, man," was the motto of Christianity in their policy of the denigration of woman. Christianity also started denigrating women by emphasizing the myth that she was created from one of man's ribs.

"Every woman should be ashamed of the thought that she is a woman," was early Christianity's attitude.

In the end Christianity succeeded in destroying the Roman familia, replacing it with the Christian family in which the woman was reduced to being her husband's slave.

The status of women in Rome changed radically in nine centuries. ". . . and three kings, namely Tatius, the elder Tarquin, and Servius Tullius, were succeeded by their sons-in-law. . . . Thus it would seem that among Aryan people, at a certain stage of their social evolution, it has been customary to regard woman, and not man, as the channels through which royal blood flows," wrote J. G. Frazer in The Golden Bough. But with Christianity, the notion of Genio urbis Romae, sive mas sive femina (To the genius of Rome be it male or female) disappeared.

Only in 1950 the Catholic Church officially raised to "heavenly glory," the "Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary." The Protestant attitude towards women is still based on the teachings of Martin Luther in his Vindication of Married Life where he writes: ". . . man is higher and better than she; for the regiment and dominion belong to man as the head and master of the house as St. Paul says elsewhere: Man is God's honor and God's image. Item: Man does not exist for the sake of woman, but woman exists for the sake of man and hence there shall be this difference, that a man shall love his wife but never be subject to her, but the wife shall honor and fear the husband."

PART 3

The Mind in Search of a Pattern

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ROME