How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  The rise of the Sassanids had profoundly shifted the balance of power on the frontier. Part of the Arsacid family held on to the throne of Armenia and, faced with the threat of invasion, they turned to an ever closer alliance with Rome. Hatra, the desert city that had defied both Trajan and Severus in turn, repulsed a Persian attack in 229, and at some point accepted a Roman garrison. A year later Ardashir attacked the Roman province of Mesopotamia. It was a very tempting target. The twenty-year-old Severus Alexander was seen as weak and under his mother's thumb. Still worse, the Roman troops in this and the neighbouring provinces were not in a high state of readiness. In the last twelve years they had taken part in a civil war and several failed usurpations. Inevitably, discipline had declined, and with it levels of training. Dio mentions that the soldiers in Syria had recently murdered their governor in a mutiny. The Persians easily broke through and raided in Mesopotamia and perhaps beyond.'

  At first Alexander tried to negotiate, prompting the Persian envoys' boasts about reviving the old Persian Empire as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. Ardashir was not the first to make such claims - in 35 a Parthian king had done the same during a dispute with the emperor Tiberius. Then as now, it was clearly little more than diplomatic bluster to help secure far more modest objectives. When talking failed, Alexander gathered a large expeditionary force from all over the empire and went east. Morale was still a problem and there was at least one mutiny before the campaign began. The details of the operations that followed are hazy, and the Persians had probably already retreated from the Roman province. If not, then they were promptly expelled. Three Roman columns then invaded Persian territory, one being led in person by the emperor. There seem to have been some Roman victories, before Alexander retreated prematurely and allowed the Persians to maul one of the other Roman columns.7

  The outcome was an uneasy stalemate, neither side mounting any major operations for several years. Alexander left to celebrate a triumph in Rome and then move to the Rhine frontier. The Persian army had dispersed when the Romans withdrew, the feudal element returning home and leaving Ardashir with only his immediate retinue and professional mercenaries. Yet the king was probably content, as raiding will have produced plunder for his nobles and their retainers. There was also glory from winning victories and avoiding any serious defeat. Having strengthened his position on the throne, for the moment he was satisfied.

  The Death of an Emperor

  In 236 Ardashir launched another attack on Mesopotamia, capturing the cities of Carrhae, Nisibis and Edessa. Again, this may essentially have been a raid aimed at winning glory and gathering plunder. The new emperor Maximinus was too preoccupied with campaigns in the west to respond. He was already facing growing internal opposition. Short of money, his representatives were ordered to be especially rigorous in their collection of taxes, adding to his unpopularity. In March 238 an imperial procurator was lynched in Africa by the tenants of some landowners he had been squeezing for money. They quickly proclaimed the proconsul of the province as emperor. His name was Gordian (fully, Marcus Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus Romanus) and he was senator of good family, but modest talent. He was also extremely old - Herodian says he was eighty. However, his son was with him in the province and was quickly named as co-emperor as they set up court in Carthage. When the news reached Rome the Senate rejoiced and immediately pledged its loyalty, declaring Maximinus a public enemy.'

  However, they were premature. Africa was not a military province and had no significant garrison. Neighbouring Numidia contained a full legion - IIIAugusta- as well as auxiliaries. Its governor was also a senator, but he had a personal grudge against Gordian and chose to stay loyal to Maximinus. The legion marched on Carthage. The Younger Gordian led a volunteer army against them, but the enthusiasm of peasants was no match for properly equipped and trained soldiers. The army was routed and its commander killed. His father hanged himself when he heard the news.'

  The rebellion had been crushed after a few weeks, but it was too late for the Senate to change its decision and so a new emperor needed to be found. A board of twenty ex-consuls was given the task of picking out men suitable for the job from amongst the senators' peers. They selected two of their own number, Balbinus and Pupienus, both of whom were probably at least in their sixties. On the day they were proclaimed there was rioting and they were forced to take another colleague, the grandson of Gordian - the child of his daughter and not his recently killed son. Gordian III was just thirteen and the disturbances had almost certainly been orchestrated by senators and senior equestrian officials, who felt that they could gain power through this puppet.'°

  By this time Maximinus had marched on Italy, but became bogged down in the siege of Aquileia. It was there that his officers grew tired of him and killed him. The army then declared its support for the three emperors named by the Senate. It is quite possible that they are the three armoured figures receiving the offering of Terentius and his men on the painting at Dura. However, from the very beginning Balbinus and Pupienus were unpopular with the praetorians and after a couple of months the guardsmen murdered the two men. Once again the empire was ruled by a boy in his early teens - or rather by the people who could control him. The most important of these was Praetorian Prefect Caius Timesitheus, who married his daughter to the young emperor. Although he appears to have been reasonably competent, this was not the way the empire was supposed to work. There were also major problems, not least the same shortage of funds that had caused Maximinus to resort to desperate measures."

  Wracked by civil war and once again ruled by a mere boy, the Roman Empire seemed weak and vulnerable to its neighbours. Therefore the Persians pressed their attacks, taking Hatra in 240. By this time Ardashir had died and been succeeded by his son Shapur I, who had shared power with his father in the last few years and already proved himself a formidable soldier. Even so, by 243 the Romans had recaptured Carrhae, Nisibis and Edessa. The army then marched against Ctesiphon - formerly the Parthian capital and still the main seat of government for the new regime. Before it arrived Timesitheus died of natural causes. Early in 244 Shapur met the Roman army in battle near the city and claimed a victory. Roman sources deny that they were defeated, but Gordian certainly did not win and the army soon began to retreat."

  At the very least it was a strategic victory for Shapur, reinforced by the death of the nineteen-year-old Gordian. How he died is unclear. The Persians claimed to have killed him, and some of the Roman accounts say that he received a wound that proved mortal. The darker tradition, which says that during the retreat he was murdered in a conspiracy led by the two praetorian prefects, is generally preferred by historians. Certainly the young emperor had presided over a military failure. The two new praetorian prefects had been close associates of Timesitheus and were also brothers - the first time this had ever happened. The younger of the two, Philip (fully Marcus Julius Philippus), was proclaimed emperor by the army. His older brother may simply have been less forceful, but the key factor was probably that Philip had a son, who in due course was made co-emperor. Once again the emperor was an equestrian, and like Macrinus, Philip had risen through the imperial household. By now probably in his forties, he came from an obscure town in southern Syria, which he would later rebuild at massive cost as the grand city of Philippopolis. Later historians dubbed him Philip the Arab, but there is no reason to believe that he was not fully Roman in all important respects.

  New emperors were always vulnerable to challengers and Philip wanted to return to the heart of the empire as soon as possible. He made peace with Shapur, giving him 500,000 gold coins and conceding that Armenia lay within Persia's sphere of influence. No Roman territory was ceded, but the Persian king kept Hatra and had won a degree of dominance over the border regions. He also gained a huge amount of glory and was not hesitant in celebrating this. In a victory monument he is depicted on horseback trampling the corpse of Gordian while Philip begs for mercy. The success greatly strengthened his grip on the ki
ngdom."

  Philip returned to Europe. Later he would send back his older brother to take charge of the eastern provinces with the title `commander of the east' (rector orientis), watching the uneasy peace with Persia. In 245-246 Philip himself campaigned on the Danubian frontier, which had come under heavy attack from the tribes beyond. A year later he was in Rome, where he celebrated the one thousandth anniversary of Rome's foundation with a great festival. Most of our sources are hostile to Philip, but as far as we can tell he seems to have done his best to rule well. At this period, however, this was seldom enough. Like all recent emperors he was desperately short of money, not helped by his lavish expenditure. Heavy taxation provoked a rebellion in Syria in 248 and at the end of that year the army in Moesia on the Danube proclaimed a rival emperor. The latter did not last long before his own men turned against him and killed him.14

  There was soon more trouble on the Danubian frontier, perhaps provoked by the reduction or cancellation of subsidies paid to the tribes to keep the peace. Philip sent an experienced senator named Decius (fully, Caius Messius Quintus Decius) to the region to restore order. In 249 the army there proclaimed Decius emperor and he promptly led a force back to Italy. Philip was defeated and killed in battle near Verona, and his son was murdered immediately afterwards. The fate of Philip's brother is unknown, but he was probably also killed. Decius was soon back on the Danube, fighting against groups of barbarians who had overrun the frontier. From the very beginning he knew that his grip on power was precarious. Probably for this reason one of his first measures was an edict commanding the entire free population of the empire to sacrifice on his behalf. The ritual was to be performed by a set date and had to be witnessed by a local official. Perhaps unintentionally, this decree provoked a crisis for one group within the empire, the Christians."

  An Enemy Within?

  The first discovery at Dura Europos was a temple and more were found in the subsequent excavations. Like every other community in the polytheistic empire, many different cults seem to have happily coexisted. Decius' decree was quite vague when it commanded people to make an offering to the `ancestral gods', allowing individuals to address their worship to whatever deities they preferred. More spectacular than the temples at Dura was the uncovering of a synagogue dating to the third century. Its walls were covered in paintings showing scenes from the scriptures, including the Exodus and the arrival in Canaan. This in itself is highly unusual, for normally the Jews of this period were reluctant to represent the human form in art. The style is very similar to the Terentius painting and suggests local taste.'6

  Around the same time that the synagogue was built at Dura, some rooms in a private house were converted into a baptistry by local Christians. Once again, its walls were painted in the same local style, this time with scenes including Adam and Eve, Jesus as the Good Shepherd and with Peter walking on water. In contrast to the later tradition, Jesus is shown as beardless. Another poorly preserved scene seems to have depicted the women going to the empty tomb after the Resurrection. In many ways this discovery was even more surprising than that of the synagogue, for Christianity is almost invisible archaeologically until the fourth century. It did not set up monuments or build distinctively shaped churches, since groups tended to meet in private houses or outside. Without the wall paintings, archaeologists would have been far less confident in identifying the room as a baptistry.17

  Christians did not sacrifice, something which made them very different from the bulk of the population of the empire. They also denied the existence of any god other than their own, a position which was seen as akin to atheism. The Jews had a similar view, and were seen as perverse by many outsiders, but at least they were a distinct people, whose religion was traditional. For a long time the Christians were seen as just another Jewish sect and it was probably not until the end of the first century that there was a wider perception that the cult stood outside Judaism. Christianity was new, and Christians were drawn from all nations and every level of society. This made many especially suspicious of the religion, since it was hard to be sure how many Christians there were. Critics claimed that converts were usually the vulnerable, poor and ignorant, often slaves or women - groups that educated men felt were by nature illogical. Rumours also spread of terrible secret rituals. The communion service, with its talk of eating flesh and drinking blood, fuelled tales of cannibalism."

  Jesus was crucified sometime around 30, during the reign of Tiberius. Although the main charge was one of opposition to Roman power - the claim made that he was king of the Jews - there was no attempt by Roman authorities to suppress his followers. However, in 64 after fire had swept through the heart of Rome, popular opinion turned against Nero and accused him of exploiting the destruction for his own advantage and perhaps even of having arranged it in the first place. In response, the emperor blamed the Christians for starting the blaze, hoping that this unpopular group would make good scapegoats. Many were arrested and executed, some being burned alive as punishment. Both Peter and Paul were said to have been killed during this purge, the former crucified, but the latter beheaded because he was a citizen."

  Nero's persecution seems to have focused on the Christians in Rome, but even there it is unclear how long it lasted. The principle was established that being a Christian was a crime against the state, but afterwards the authorities showed little interest in actively suppressing the Church. At the beginning of the second century Pliny the Younger was governor of Bithynia and Pontus, touring from city to city within the province to deal with appeals and dispense justice. At one place people arrested by the city authorities on a charge of being Christians were brought before him. After investigation Pliny concluded that there was no truth in the wild stories of crimes and deviant behaviour, simply of `excessive superstition'. Those who denied that they were Christians - even if they admitted that they had been in the past - were released. All they had to do was perform a sacrifice and revile the name of Christ. Pliny gave each suspect three chances to escape punishment in this way. If they refused then he had them executed, feeling that they deserved it for their 'stubbornness and rigid obstinacy' as much as anything else."

  Emperor Trajan approved Pliny's actions as the correct procedure. The crime was simply being a Christian when questioned by the authorities. Past, and even future, beliefs did not concern the empire, especially if they were kept private. At the end of the second century the Christian author Tertullian, himself a lawyer, claimed that no other crime was treated in the same illogical way. He also emphasised that Christians were model citizens, found in almost every walk of life. The refusal to sacrifice was simply a mark of their integrity, that they could not bring themselves to act out a ritual they knew to be wrong. Yet they were loyal subjects who would obey all other laws, pay their taxes and pray for the emperor and the good of the empire."

  After Nero, persecutions of Christians were sporadic and local. They tended to occur at disturbed times or in the wake of natural disasters where people wanted some group to blame. Tertullian claimed that almost any misfortune prompted the cry of `Christians to the lion!' - lion singular, rather like `the Hun' in the First World War. Trajan's advice to Pliny was highly revealing, for he stressed that a governor should not hunt out Christians, but merely try those arrested by local authorities. Emperors were not worried by Christianity, but they were concerned to keep individual communities happy. Under Marcus Aurelius there was a large-scale persecution of Christians at Lugdunum (modern Lyons) in Gaul around the year 177. The continuing outbreaks of plague may well have had something to do with creating the nervousness that found this outlet. More immediately, it meant that there was a shortage of suitable criminals to provide victims for the arena."

  Even so, there are few signs of a systematic hunt for suspects. The lawyer who came forward to defend those arrested was himself accused of being a Christian during the trial. He confessed and joined the defendants and died in the arena. Later, when a well-known doctor was thought to be en
couraging the Christians as they went to their deaths, he too was arrested and sent off for execution. Sometimes arrest and execution were prompted by entirely personal motives. In another account we read of a wife who was converted and subsequently divorced her husband. He in turn publicly accused her and the preacher he blamed for her conversion. On another occasion a recently promoted centurion was reported to the authorities by a colleague who had hoped to gain the same post. Many people seem to have been known to be Christians without this becoming an issue until another dispute arose."

  Christian accounts of martyrdoms often emphasise the efforts made to persuade suspects to abandon their faith and go free. Governors are represented taking considerable time and using both threats and reason to convince them. In another case we read of a father begging his Christian daughter, `have pity on my grey head - have pity on me your father ... think of your child, who will not be able to live once you are gone. Give up your pride!' She refused and was killed in the arena. Not everyone was so determined. On another occasion we read of a man `who had given himself up and had forced some others to give themselves up voluntarily. With him the governor used many arguments and persuaded him to swear by the gods and offer sacrifice.' Martyrs were revered by the Church, but there was often suspicion of those who volunteered to be punished. Some members of the local church seem to have survived each persecution, and accounts depict them as able to visit and support those held awaiting trial and punishment. The impression is that normally the aim was to arrest some prominent Christians and so deter the others. Governors and even local magistrates seem far more concerned with public displays than private belief.