by Bill Fawcett
The history-changing difference was that the new path went through the densest part of the Teutoburg Forest. This was important because the Roman army’s strength was fighting in formation with coordination between units. The German warrior was unskilled at fighting in any formation, but he was brave and very effective among the thick trees and broken terrain.
As soon as the march started, Arminius rode ahead to scout the way. In reality, the deceptive German went out to command an ambush by more than 25,000 German warriors. They were swarming toward the narrow paths the Romans would have to take and waited ready to pounce. When they did, the legionnaires were unable to move into their familiar, cohesive formations. Also burdened with defending the thousands of civilians cluttering their column, the three veteran legions were torn apart in hundreds of small ambushes and attacks. Even their cavalry was unable to fight its way clear of the woods, and they were eventually surrounded by an ever-increasing number of German fighters. Varus was wounded and committed suicide, almost every man in three legions was lost, and never again did a Roman army try to occupy any land beyond the Rhine River.
The disaster of Teutoburg Forest marked the end of Roman expansion. Augustus was said to have panicked. He forced conscription of enough men to form legions to meet a German invasion that never came. Arminius was unable to get the extremely independent and proud Germans to cooperate, unless a Roman army actually invaded Germany itself. Eventually, Arminius was assassinated by other Germans in 21 CE. But Augustus did not know this and spent months fearing the barbarians were coming. He is said to have not cut his hair or shaved, often calling out in frustration for Quinctilius Varus to give him back his legions.
Rome never returned to Germany. Germania remained unique, and German culture was never Romanized like those of France and Britain. Would the steppe barbarians have been able to sweep through a Germany that combined German courage with Roman military skill? If Varus had not lost the province, would Rome still stand today? Certainly the entire history of Europe would be totally different if Quinctilius Varus had ruled Germany well. But he did not, and Caesar Augustus lost a province and his legions.
15
THE HIGH COST OF THE EASIEST WAY
Leaded
30
Sometimes, a mistake, even one that changes history, comes from ignorance, not stupidity or bad judgment. But even with that said, in this case, the difference between intent and ignorance does not make the consequences less disastrous.
A simple and economical decision made by the city planners of Rome may well be the most important cause for the fall of the Roman empire. The mistake happened because the magistrates who ruled the city of Rome found what appeared to be the ideal solution to a problem. That problem was how to supply water to all the buildings and fountains in the city.
As the city of Rome grew, eventually surpassing a million residents, the water problem grew acute. The majestic aqueducts, which still thrill twentieth-century tourists, could carry plenty of water from the mountains to the city. The problem was how to spread that water out among its users. A solution was found: an ideal metal that was malleable and easily made into pipes. These pipes could be made cheaply enough to allow their use all through the seven hills.
The problem was that this metal was lead. Yes, it’s the same material that requires tearing down walls in houses or apartments if a few flakes of lead-tainted paint are found there. But back then, lead looked like the perfect choice. It was relatively inexpensive (always a bureaucrat’s concern), could be easily rolled flat and then curled into pipes of all sizes, and its low melting point meant that the joints could be welded shut with nothing more than a good campfire. Lead pipes seemed the ideal solution to getting the water from the aqueducts to the people. The problem was that these same pipes were effectively poisoning the entire population of Rome. More important, they were extensively used in the palaces of the major Roman families and the emperor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) description of the symptoms of lead poisoning pretty much says it all:HOW CAN LEAD AFFECT MY HEALTH?
The effects of lead are the same whether it enters the body through breathing or swallowing. Lead can affect almost every organ and system in your body. The main target for lead toxicity is the nervous system, both in adults and children. Long-term exposure of adults can result in decreased performance in some tests that measure functions of the nervous system. It may also cause weakness in fingers, wrists, or ankles. Lead exposure also causes small increases in blood pressure, particularly in middle-aged and older people and can cause anemia. Exposure to high lead levels can severely damage the brain and kidneys in adults or children and ultimately cause death. In pregnant women, high levels of exposure to lead may cause miscarriage. High-level exposure in men can damage the organs responsible for sperm production.
Organ failure, brain damage, a lower birth rate, anemia, and weakness—quite a list. Now, when a good portion of the population of the capital of an empire suffers from mild to severe symptoms, you have a crippled population. Remember all those mad emperors from Caligula on? Drinking lead-contaminated water has to have contributed to their cognitive problems. So what appeared to be the ideal solution to a practical problem most assuredly weakened Rome and the other major Roman cities.
16
... AND DENARII FOOLISH
Destroying Your Economy
55
This mistake is one made over and over by great nations and empires. It is hoped that our current leaders have learned from history. The mistake here is using inflation to pay the bills. Now, before the use of paper money, which was introduced hundreds of years ago by Muslim rulers to great success, all money was in coins. Today when we work with coins, the pureness is guaranteed and enforced, but it is easy to forget that this was not always the case. This is a mistake that history has seen time and time again. Perhaps the temptation is just too great. Recently Zimbabwe printed itself into a situation in which there were days when the value of its currency would halve every hour. The Weimar Republic, in post-World War I Germany, created hyperinflation by just printing all the money they needed and hence decreasing the deutschemark until it was effectively valueless. Weimar’s government was voted out of office, and the Nazis were voted in on the promise to fix the economy. We all paid a high price for that inflationary spiral. The caliphs made this same error, and it crippled Islam, ending its most vibrant and expansive period. But if you go even further back, you will find that this mistake was yet another factor that brought down both the original and later the Eastern Roman empires.
The original economic strength of Rome was built on land. As the empire conquered more countries, more land was available to produce more goods, and the economy grew in proportion. Adding to the empire’s coffers was the sale by the state of captured soldiers or even families from newly conquered areas as slaves. Then the empire stopped expanding, and most of the land was already owned by the major families. With no more slaves or land to sell or grant, the wealth of the government had to come from taxes. Initially, being able to tax the rich families suited most emperors well. Those rich and influential noble families were the only real counterbalance to his power as emperor. So being able to tax them into poverty reinforced his own position by eliminating any competition. It was not too subtle economic warfare. And, of course, as always, the poorer classes much preferred the rich and noble families carry all of the tax burden.
But by the time of Emperor Nero, the well was running dry. The rich weren’t very rich anymore, and without them to create new income, by hiring the workers and buying from artisans, the entire Roman economy was slowing down. So to raise the money needed for the army and his court, Nero had to start taxing the poor and middle classes. This action slowed the economy even more, and it did not make the leader very popular with the masses, and that was even before the fire.
Nero, though, had grand plans for rebuilding the city of Rome in marble and erecting a palace for himself that wo
uld embarrass a modern Dubai emir. But with tax income down, there just weren’t enough coins—or silver to make new coins—to pay for all of his plans. Nero’s solution was to mint silver coins that weren’t all silver. This practice is called “debasing the currency.” This policy caused some inflation and unrest during his reign. Soon the older, undebased coins were being treated as more valuable, and they were. Nero’s debasing of the Roman currency set a precedent that many future emperors were happy to follow. By the reign of Claudius II Gothicus in 268 CE, the actual silver content of a “silver” denarius was less than 1 percent. There was not enough silver in a Roman silver coin to mine it if it had been ore. In value, the debased coins were the same as that of paper money today. They were a promise and symbol of wealth, but they had no intrinsic value. And the emperor found himself in a never-ending loop. With the coins worth less, the emperor needed more to pay for his army and bureaucrats. But if he minted more debased coins, the value of each coin was less. So he had to create even more coins with even less silver, and so it goes. The ever-creative Romans had managed to find a way to have both useless coins and runaway inflation.
The long-term effect on Rome of three centuries of gradual, and occasionally not so gradual, inflation was that the empire could afford to support fewer soldiers who were less well trained. It meant that governors had to press their provinces even harder to produce ever-increasing demands for more of ever-less-valuable coins to fill their treasury. The collapses of the Western Roman empire and, a thousand years later, of the Eastern or Byzantine Roman empire were not caused directly by debased coinage, but the practice certainly contributed.
It would be nice to think that knowing all of this might mean that modern governments would not make the same mistakes. Here is some food for thought: Seventy years ago the U.S. dollar was first devalued when the Federal Reserve Bank decided to raise the cost of an ounce of gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce. Then thirty-five years ago, the value of gold or silver was totally detached from the U.S. dollar. That was called “going off the gold,” and later the United States went off the silver standard. It was then that the bills marked as silver certificates were withdrawn from circulation. That was because technically they could be turned in at a Federal Reserve Bank for silver coins or bars. Since then, nothing has actually supported the U.S. dollar, or most other currencies, beyond the faith and promise of each government.
Just like the Roman denarius, the gradual debasing of the value of the U.S. dollar has continued without slowing. With inflation and the growing price of gold, the dollar can buy only 10 percent as much gold as it could have in 1971. That means in terms of hard exchange, the United States has debased its currency 90 percent in the last forty years. With the deficit increasing, the spiral of inflation threatens. It seems we may have learned the wrong lesson from Nero.
17
OVERCONFIDENCE
Destroyed by a Victory
70
What have the Romans ever done for us? The Jews of the first century CE asked themselves that very question. Despite the obvious benefits so aptly pointed out in the opening scenes of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, the Jews were not willing to give up all they held sacred for the sake of progress and profit. All the roads, running water, education, and medical attention in the world could not take the place of their religion. But for a time, it seemed that even a 3,000-year-old religion might not be able to withstand the might of the Roman empire.
Judea during the time of the early Roman empire was a volatile place. In addition to being inhabited by a people dead set on removing the Roman occupants, it was also filled with opposing factions within the Jewish community. One of these factions in particular used radical and violent means to try to push out the occupying forces. These Zealots grew tired of the religious leaders like the Pharisees and the Sadducees playing puppet to the Roman rulers. They also resented the corrupt reigns of incompetent political hacks who were the procurators that Rome had chosen to rule over Judea. Tensions came to a head around 66 CE, when the procurator, Gessius Florus, took seventeen talents of gold from the Temple treasury. That was a massive amount of wealth. Public outcry from both within the walls of Jerusalem and outside spread like wildfire. Florus answered this outcry by allowing his soldiers to pillage part of the city. In response, the city’s masses rose up against their Roman leaders and drove them out of Judea. Gessius Florus fled to the protection of another Roman garrison on the coast in Caesarea.
The people of Judea had more to contend with than corrupt government officials. Herod Agrippa the younger, who was king of Judea, had the right to nominate the high priest in Jerusalem. The Herod dynasty is sometimes a confusing one to follow, as they weren’t very innovative in naming their heirs. So, just to clear things up, this particular Herod was the nephew of Herod of Chalcis, the one mentioned in the Bible in Acts 25 and 30. Although he claimed to live by the laws of the Jews, Herod Agrippa lived with his uncle’s widow, and he spent most of his time in Rome, relishing the pagan lifestyle within the capital city.
The Zealots despised Agrippa and believed the only way to counter his oppressive regime was to start an open revolt. The Zealots demanded three things. All sacrifices to appease the emperor had to stop because they were in direct conflict with God’s law, the sanctity of the temple had to be preserved, and—most important—Judea had to have its independence. These were the only acceptable terms, and to show they were serious, the Zealots took control of the Temple in Jerusalem, while the less fanatical Jews held the rest of the city. The rebels immediately refused and forbade others to make the sacrifices required by Rome. Agrippa attempted to put the revolt down with the forces he had on hand. The Zealots led a Jewish army that first defeated Agrippa’s force of 3,000 horsemen and then later took the fortress of Masada.
Rome could not let any revolt go unpunished lest other provinces follow suit. They sent in the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus. He tried and failed to quell the rebellion. When Gallus saw how heavily defended Jerusalem was, he hurried back to Antioch. On the way, rebel forces ambushed the unsuspecting governor and his escort. The last part of Gallus’ return to his capital was more in the form of a panicky rout.
With each Roman defeat, the rebels grew in strength and number. The Zealots, under command of John of Gischala, soon controlled most of Jerusalem. Josephus commanded the forces of Galilee. This is the same Josephus who would later write Bellum Judaicum (The Jewish War), giving us our main source of information about the revolt. Josephus gathered and trained troops, fortified cities, and set up an administrative body in Galilee, which was able to operate separately from Jerusalem.
The previous failure of Agrippa and then Cestius Gallus embarrassed Rome, so Flavius Vespasian was sent in to squash the rebellion once and for all. Vespasian was an experienced field commander who had been ousted from Rome for falling asleep during one of Nero’s infamous poetry readings. Apparently the general’s lack of couth in court did not carry over into his military career. He massed troops in Antioch while his son, Titus, brought in more troops from Alexandria. The two forces met and merged on the way to Judea in Ptolemais. The news of the approach of a large force of Romans reached Josephus, and he fled to the fortified city of Jotapata with his followers. The unprotected land outside of the cities fell into Roman hands without a single blow being dealt.
Vespasian focused his attention on Jotapata. The siege lasted forty-seven days. Josephus, along with forty of his men, took refuge in a cave. When their position was revealed to the Romans, Josephus decided to surrender; however, his companions did not allow it. So, Josephus had another idea. Every third man would kill his closest neighbor. When the last two men were left standing, they would draw lots to decide which man would kill the other. The last man would kill himself. This meant that only one man would break Jewish law by committing suicide. Of course, Josephus was one of the last of two men left alive. He stated in his writing that it was God’s will, but it could have simply been the result o
f someone who could perform simple mathematics. Josephus was taken prisoner but was later released. He lived out the rest of his life in Rome.
After taking the city of Jotapata, Titus also captured the cities of Tiberius, Taricheae, Gamala, and the Zealot base of Gischala. John of Gischala fled, and by 67 CE all of Galilee was back in the hands of the Romans. Most of Judea was also now under Roman control, leaving the holy city of Jerusalem as the final key to crushing the rebellion. But Jerusalem would not be an easy nut to crack. The fall of Galilee gave the Zealots a stronger position within the Jewish community. They assumed control of all of the city as well as the Temple. That wasn’t the only obstacle the Roman general faced. Troubles in Rome and infighting among the would-be emperors meant Vespasian would delay attacking Jerusalem for the better part of a year. Only after he had secured his place in the Roman hierarchy was he free to deal with Jerusalem.
Vespasian had to stay in Rome, so he sent his son, Titus, to retake Jerusalem and so finish what he had started. In April 70, Titus began his direct assault on Jerusalem. He stunned the Zealots by breaking through the first wall in a mere fifteen days and the second after only eight days. The third wall was quite another matter. Fifteen feet of stone separated the Roman troops from the inhabitants on the other side. Titus built massive siege towers, seventy-five feet tall, in an attempt to send his men over the top. Each tower could carry dozens of troops. The Jews answered this new threat by tunneling under the walls of the city to attack the troops inside the great towers.
