But one big change was of truly world-shaking importance: the adoption of Christianity by the Roman state. Much imperial propaganda consisted of traditional themes endlessly repeated. The arena offered a pageant of 'the war on terror' Roman-style. Rebels and outlaws were burnt at the stake. Christians were eaten alive by half-starved beasts. Gladiators fought to the death dressed to mimic historic enemies like Samnites, Gauls and Britons. And in the very fact of its existence, it redounded to the credit of the regime whose guiding hand had made it possible.Īnd in the amphitheatre, dramas of life-and-death were acted out which symbolised the gulf between friend and enemy, citizen and barbarian, freeborn and slave, loyalist and dissident. Through images on fresco, mosaic and sculpted panel, it promoted a cultural identity and shared values. In its towering size and richness, it spoke of the wealth and success of empire. In its functionality, it helped define the Roman lifestyle and what it meant to be 'civilised'. Most of the ruins we see today visiting the great classical cities of the Mediterranean are of public buildings erected in the second century golden age of imperial civilisation inaugurated by Hadrian.Įach one made a set of statements. Instead of trophies, temples and theatres. Instead of battles, he gave the empire bath-houses. Everywhere - in Rome, France, Spain, Africa, Greece, Turkey, Egypt - he raised great monuments. Hadrian's travels took him across the empire. It was a symbolic statement of Roman grandeur and technique at the empire's furthest limit, and a marking out of the point in the landscape where civilisation stopped and the barbarian wilderness began. ![]() The Germans say that they serve to keep young men in training and prevent them from getting lazy.' No discredit attaches to plundering raids outside tribal frontiers. They hold it a proof of a people's valour to drive their neighbours from their homes, so that no-one dare settle near them. 'The various tribes regard it as their greatest glory to lay waste as much as possible of the land around them and to keep it uninhabited. Julius Caesar, in his famous account of the Gallic Wars of the 50s BC, provided readers at home with a blood-curdling description of the Germanic tribes he encountered in battle: The societies with which Rome was in conflict were caricatured as barbaric, lawless and dangerous. ![]() Perhaps the most important of the latter was the idea that Rome represented peace, good government, and the rule of law. Some elements of this world-view evolved during the existence of the empire, most notably with the adoption of Christianity in the early fourth century AD.
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