Are We Rome? by Cullen Murphy

Author:Cullen Murphy [Murphy, Cullen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2008-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

A German is not so easily prevailed upon to plough the land and wait patiently for harvest as to challenge a foe and earn wounds for his reward. He thinks it tame and spiritless to accumulate slowly by the sweat of his brow what can be got quickly by the loss of a little blood.

And so on. But let it not be said that the Romans thought themselves superior only by comparison with the defectives all around. Cicero was quick to point out good qualities in non-Romans, and to suggest that the Romans had risen to the top because they enjoyed the sanction of heaven itself: “Spaniards had the advantage over them in point of numbers, Gauls in physical strength, Carthaginians in sharpness, Greeks in culture, native Latins and Italians in shrewd common sense; yet Rome had conquered them all and acquired her vast empire because in piety, religion, and appreciation of the omnipotence of the gods she was without equal.” Call it the idea of “Roman exceptionalism”—a shining city upon seven hills. You can’t miss an echo in the religious righteousness of our own day—in the words, for instance, of Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, explaining the American capture of a Muslim warlord in Somalia in terms of Christianity’s superiority to Islam: “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”

You hear modern chords not only when the Romans speak about non-Roman peoples, but also when non-Romans speak about Rome. It was not all negative: Rome had plenty of Alistair Cookes. There would always be rebellions—they are as prominent a feature of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as the elegant rumble of Gibbon’s jokes—but Rome brought unprecedented peace and stability to the lands it ruled. The advantages of the imperium were undeniable, and in many ways Rome’s yoke was light. Most religions were tolerated, as long as proper sacral obeisance was paid to the emperor (a problem for Jews and Christians). The local ruling class usually remained the local ruling class. Piracy was suppressed, and commerce flourished. Water flowed to areas that had once been dry. Strabo and Plutarch, in the first century A.D., were Greeks who traveled within the highest social circles. Both had visited Rome; Strabo actually lived there for many years. You’ll find plenty of trenchant criticism of Rome and Romans in their writings, but the overall assessment is positive: Strabo and Plutarch bought into the Roman system. So did Appian, another Greek, from Alexandria. In his Roman History he extols the pluckiness of the Romans, marvels at their willingness to lavish wealth on godforsaken places (“on some of these subject nations they spend more than they receive from them”), and sums up two centuries of imperial rule as follows: “In the long reign of peace and security everything has moved toward a lasting prosperity.”

Since the middle of the twentieth century, America has been seen by many outsiders as playing much the same role—perhaps to their annoyance, but also to their relief.

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