Rome from Octavin Augustus
A little earlier than the beginning of our era. Octavian Augustus and Marcus Antonius divide Rome into the East and the West. Mark falls under the influence of Cleopatra, who does not mind becoming the queen of Rome itself, gets involved in the war with the Senate and Octavian Augustus. Alternating feasts with military preparations, he misses the blows of the metropolis, and, in the end, commits suicide. The charms of the thirty-nine-year-old Cleopatra do not work for the winner, the heiress of the pharaohs has to follow the example of Antony. She has four children; seventeen-year-old Caesarion, the son of Caesar, by order of Augustus, killed, two twins from Antony are brought up by Augustus’s sister, nothing is known about the fate of the fourth.
The emperor Tiberius, stepson and heir of Augustus, is allegedly strangled personally by his great-nephew, his successor, during an attack of illness. Having risen to the summit of power, Caligula builds bridges from ships, luxurious floating palaces, deals with senators – and he is loved by the people for the lack of hypocrisy. Zarezan own bodyguards. The new emperor, Claudius is memorable for Messalina, who has become the nominal image of a lascivious wife. His next wife is Agrippina, the middle sister of Caligula, who already has the son of Nero. Her plot reaches its goal; Nero becomes emperor. However, his reign does not like the mother, who is going to lead to power the son of Claudius and Agrippina, Britannica. Nero in time feeds the opponent with poisoned mushrooms. The mother tries to poison, too, but she takes the invention of the eastern king, Mithradates Evpator, in time, an effective antidote. Unable to drown the mother during the staged shipwreck (in the past hobby of Agrippina – diving for sea sponges), Nero directs the text to order the naval officer to stab it.
Nero’s policy of reducing taxes brought him popular popularity. But, after the death of Agrippina, the emperor falls into depression, loses his former administrative grip. Restoration of Rome after the fire, the construction of the Golden Palace an area of a kilometer and a half (with a giant pool-pond in the middle), digging a canal across the Isthmus of Corinth, as well as constant orgies drain the treasury. Legions rise in the provinces, and on one remarkable morning Nero does not find in his palace any of the Praetorian guards. The emperor runs to the country house, realizing that everything is over, asks a freedman to help him commit suicide. The last phrase of Nero – «what an artist dies» – «Qualis artifeh pere».
Next come the brutal but well-made emperors Titus and his son Vespasian (suppressed the uprising in Judea), Vespasian’s younger brother, Domitian, deified himself and family members, persecuted the Stoics and Christians, killed by his own servant for the execution of Nero’s assistant in suicide.
After the Emperor Galba, the «Golden Autumn of the Empire» comes, five worthy rulers come to power – Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, Lucius Ver and Marcus Aurelius. After them, the epoch of «soldier emperors», chosen by the troops and the Praetorian guard, opens. The coming to power in 323 of Constantine the Great, the victorious competitor, one of such soldiers’ choices marks the transition of the state to Christianity. Forty years later, Julian (the Renegade) is trying to reanimate paganism, he calls on the priests of Jupiter to be as pious as the Christian priests, but these efforts prove to be useless. The last emperor – Romulus Augustul, still a boy, sent to the exile by the German leader Odoakr; He knows little about his fate, except that he may have become a monk. Year 476 is considered the last year of antiquity, although Odoakr ruled the remnants of Western Rome – Italy and part of Gaul by formal permission of the emperor of the Eastern Empire.
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1. The Roman Empire of its heyday (around 177 AD). Since 180, the death of the last worthy emperor of the era of the Golden Autumn of the Empire, Marcus Aurelius, in fact, the era of the legendary Antiquity, spectacular productions, is coming to an end. Rome is waiting for the extinction of the old institutions of power, a series of defeats, the loss of the sense of the existence of a superpower and a change of religion.
…Spartacus (Latin Spartacus), 110—70 years old. BC, the leader of the risen gladiators in the territory of modern Italy. No images; by the decision of the Senate, the Romans tried to forget memory (Damnatio memoriae – damnathio memorial) about such an amazing and unpleasant event for them.
In the youth of great Rome, (fifth-second century BC), slaves (servus) are quite rare, sometimes they have the status of family members. The second-first centuries BC, the beginning of a new era, are marked by an increase in the number of prisoners of war, as well as debtors from provinces unable to pay a high Roman tax, usurious interest, and also receiving an appropriate stigma. Over time, the ratio of the number of free people to servants in Italy is 2.5: 1, in the whole of Rome about 10: 1, and the situation of the latter is substantially deteriorating. Still, in many cases slaves have a hope of improving their situation, a free certificate from the master, his family name and further, practically unlimited movement on the social ladder. At least two emperors of Rome, at the beginning of their career, were ordinary slaves. Such an institution of ascent allows you to cut off unnecessary national ambitions (i-de marcoman, cimbri, volsk, frank, etc., my tribe is the best, the rest are worthless) and create – a trader, architect, military leader, teacher – patriots of great Rome.
The price of a slave in the first century BC. is 4—400 denarii, depending on the degree of success of the last war. At the same time, the daily salary of a legionary is 1 denarius, (otherwise, 4 sesterces or 16 asses at a time), including bonuses; for this amount you can buy 20 loaves of bread, or, at your option, 4 liters of ordinary wine, or a liter of beautiful Falern.
If you count on gold, whose price, as an opportunity to purchase basic material goods, surprisingly, almost unchanged, the soldier earns 35,000 rubles a month (2016).
Gladiator games last until the reign of the last emperor of the integral Roman Empire – Flavius Theodosius (370—395). The very institution of slavery comes to naught gradually, with a general softening of the morals of slaveholders and lawyers – usually taking the side of oppressed servs. But, alas, the baton of this low phenomenon is intercepted by serfdom. Under Diocletian (284—305) a law is issued, attaching peasants – both colonies (tenants) and landowners, as well as artisans (blacksmiths, merchants) or to the place of residence, or to a certain profession that is now inherited.
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