The imagination of generations on various historical subjects, in this case the Roman Empire, has been built on interpretations that come not only from literature or school history, but also from Hollywood cinematic visions, many of them based on books read and reread (for my generation, Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, Spartacus, Julius Caesar, among others).
This work by British historian and academic Mary Beard, a specialist in the classical world, is attractive not only because it is very well written, but also because it is entertaining; its chapters allow us to see and experience certain events of this great epic – nothing less than the creation of an empire that lasted five centuries – intertwined with everyday life. It is certainly a history of power, present several centuries earlier in the so-called ‘civilizations’, such as Egypt and Greece.
Surely, most of those who read or will read this book have seen the map of what was the Roman Empire more than once, but observing its dimensions today leaves us speechless, beyond rethinking a past of which we are also heirs, as we recognize ourselves as mostly close to Western culture.
Once again, one of the great powers of reading is its ability to bring into play the words of others, one’s own, those remembered from previous readings, and to become a door-opener that shows us that language, thought and imagination are in permanent construction and allow us to travel through unknown times and spaces, past and future, real or imaginary.
In its more than 500 pages, arranged in 10 chapters, there are nearly thirty emperors, their daily lives, their meals, the paths to power that usually required the elimination of those who could be an obstacle, since the succession was not exclusively consanguineous. Religious themes, the perception that all this required creating norms, social and legal structures, codes, creating an image of what an emperor should be like, were essential requirements to control an empire whose extension must have been the largest known, at least in the West.
Between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, from the time of (Octavian) Augustus as emperor, the empire lasted for nearly five centuries, becoming the great power of its time. According to data provided by Mary Beard, the empire – outside Italy – reached 50 million inhabitants!
Chapters 1 and 2 describe how the image of the emperor was constructed, in accordance with his obligations and the progressive need for an order that prefigures the beginning of bureaucracy. From what to say, how to say it, how to dress, how to refer to him, his functions, legacies, basic principles; nothing less than a way of being and doing politics that is still in force several centuries later, since we recognize its traces in various places on the planet.
Chapters 3 and 4 describe life behind closed doors in an imperial palace: its construction (with secret passages for escape or hiding), meals, guests, real dangers. Chapter 5 delves into the court, who was in it, freedmen and slaves, cooks, doctors, wives, an inseparable part of the imperial figure.
Chapter 6 tells us about the work of being emperor, including his tasks, responding to the countless requests of his subjects and concerns about advancing towards concepts of citizenship not only for those who were “Romans,” but for those who were part of territories conquered by the empire, who were not transformed into slaves. A quote from this chapter, regarding a radical reform: “In the year 212 CE, [d. de C.] The Emperor Caracalla granted Roman citizenship – with the status and legal rights that this entailed, from inheritance to contracts – to all inhabitants of the Roman Empire who were not slaves, probably more than 30 million.” (p. 286)
Chapter 7 opens the doors to well-deserved leisure, with various forms of entertainment, beyond the fighting shows between gladiators and slaves and, of course, always with the presence of the emperor.
Chapter 8 shows us the imperial visits to the provinces, a mixture of rest and responsibilities, part of the role and his active presence in the armies as just another soldier.
Chapter 9 deals with representation, especially for those who would never see it; hence the importance of sculptures throughout the empire. Beyond the actual resemblance to the emperor in question, they are all very similar, as they are images of how they must have looked. Chapter 10 and the last shows their death and preservation for those who shared at least some characteristics with the gods.
The epilogue focuses on Alexander Severus, murdered along with his mother in 235 and which, according to Beard, marks the end of an era.
At its core, it is a reflection on POWER: how it is constructed and exercised, roles and images for others, but also for one’s own, more limited -without a doubt- to the Western world. There are principles and obligations, but there is also room for whims and excesses and eccentricities that can easily occur when one perceives that there is a form of power that has no limits when one is an emperor.
It is a very entertaining book, which is read with interest and reflection, because its author is not only a specialist in this world, but also makes cross-references and analyses that allow us to relate that past with our present and ways of governing and shaping policies that remain in force as long as they have been adapted to new contexts.
For those who are more professionally interested, there is an excellent bibliography. On the other hand, I suggest paying special attention to the illustrations; they are never mere decoration, but here they play an especially valuable role, as they are paintings, statues (of emperors and some empresses), maps, inscriptions, family trees, tombstones, reconstructions of architectural plans, coins, chronological tables, reproductions of jewelry, which reinforce this construction of the image of an Empire and of those who were part of it.
Of these illustrations, I include a painting that is not only wonderful, but is inspired by a fact attributed to this emperor, whether it is real or imaginary: The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888), by the notable Lawrence Alma-Tadema (p. 225), part of a private collection, on Wikimedia Commons and free of rights.
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