2020-12-18 - Dynasty - by Tom Holland

Ch. 1 - Children of the Wolf

The myth of Rome's founding was that Mars raped a virgin who bore Romulus and Remus who in turn were raised by a she wolf. In founding Rome, Romulus sacrificed his brother and spread his blood about its fortifications to sanctify it. Five kings followed. The sixth, Tarquin the Proud, became a tyrant who was killed ending the monarchy in 509 BC. Virtue became the highest good. In 362 BC a fissure opened up at the Forum and a man named Marcus Curtius rode his horse into it fully armed at speed and the chasm closed up behind him, the gods honoring his "res publica", sacrifice for the public good. By 200 BC the Macedonians encountered the indomitable Romans and the Greek's expanding empire was halted. Just 2 years earlier Rome had vanquished its rival Carthage under a young prodigy, Publius Scipio. But honor him as they did, Scipio was humbled in his later years as the Romans remained vigilant against potential tyranny. By 67 BC Pompey the Great had gained immense power by raising an army and conquering much of the Levant for Rome. Still he desired legitimate rule validated by the Senate. Due to envy he didn't get it. Instead two other ambitious Romans, Julius Caesar and Crassus Caesar, sought status and power for themselves via military conquest. Julius Caesar gained his power by assuming governorship over Gaul, Northern Italy and the Balkans. He waged terror on the barbarians killing perhaps a million of them in their subduction. His exploits were illegal, but admired in Rome. Meanwhile, Crassus went after the Parthians, a wealthy empire stretching from India to Mesopotamia, but suffered a humiliating defeat at Carrhae, was killed and his standards captured. In the turmoil that followed, Julius refused to submit to Senate rule and crossed the Rubicon to challenge Pompey and take Rome for himself.

In victory, Julius declared himself dictator, a temporary emergency office under the Republic, that he modified by making the term for life. He also promoted himself as the heir of Aeneas, a hero of Troy. And he slept with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, the only remaining Greek ruler permitted to hold over from Alexander's time. Presiding over an ancient Roman rite with Mark Antony his chief lieutenant he refused Antony's offering of the fasces, the symbol of kingship, twice sensing the crowd would not applaud it. A month later he was assassinated by republican minded senators.

Ch 2 - Back to the Future (2020-12-20)

Livia of the long esteemed Claudian line married into the equally esteemed Nero family just before the civil war. Her father fought alongside Brutus against the murdered Julius' army in Macedonia. Both died in the battle there. Livia's husband, Tiberius Nero, sensing the change in fortune, switched his loyalty to Julius' side. He still had to decide which of Julius' three heirs to power he would ally with. He chose Antony, but it was Octaviun who proved the stronger. Livia and Tiberius divorced and she wed Octavius who was seeking to buttress his claim to patrician respectability.

After Octavian's victory at Phillipi he marched his soldiers down the Appian way south of Rome to confiscate lands as their reward. Famine in central Italy ensued as the rebels of Sicily lead by Pompey's son, Sextus, blockaded the grain ships. Octavian's prestige rose 2 years later at 28 yoa when his forces destroyed Sextus' navy and ended the famine. Now that Sextus was vanquished, only Antony, luxuriating with Cleopatra in Egypt remained. Octavion launched a gossip campaign against Antony accusing him of falling to Cleopatra's wiles. That Antony's wife, virtuous Ocatvia (Octavian's sister) was shipped back to Rome was salt in the wound. With the help of his general Agrippa, Octavian launched an assault on Antony in the guise of destroying Cleopatra and defeated him at Actium 13 years after the murder of Julius thus finally bringing a hope for peace, even at the loss of the republic, in a war weary empire.

Ch 3 - The Exhaustion of Cruelty (2020-12-24)

Back to Basics

Rome regarded libertinism as a vice and Augustus helped encourage virtue via gossip. As Augustus reign began, he reduced the size of the Senate, thus increasing the prestige of its members. To help him govern, the class of private knights was enhanced. He propagandized that the early upper class was identified with horse ownership, and that he was restoring some past glory in empowering a private class in public life. Augustus stood for an older more conservative morality. Libertines grew underground during his reign, represented particularly by Ovid, rather a playboy of a poet.

Family Trees

Augustus prestige rose with time. A story was told of an eagle dropping a chicken with a laurel in its beak in Livia's lap. Both the chicken and the laurel flourished and soon the custom of triumphant generals sporting laurels in victory parades petered out. Laurels became identified with Augustus alone (much aided by the great general Agrippa's deference to Augustus). The last private triumph happened in 19 BC. In securing a successor, Augustus was in a bind in that Livia was proving barren after mothering two girls. He married one, Julia, off to Agrippa who bore two sons, solving Augustus' problem. Following Agrippa's death in 12 BC, Augustus' grandsons, Gaius (8 yoa) and Lucias (5 yoa) became the hope of Rome. Yet Agrippa's death played hard on him and he turned to his step sons, Tiberius and Drusus,by Livia's previous marriage for a successor with more seasoning and experience. To that end Augustus directed Tiberius to divorce and marry the newly widowed Julia. But

Tiberius was loathe to trade a wife he loved for one he didn't and preferred the authentic life of the frontier to the courtier's lot in Rome. Julia likewise was not enamoured of the match. Tiberius brother died on the frontier and Tiberius returned to Rome depressed and rebellious to Augustus control of his life.

The Arts of Love

Around 2 BC Julia became more and more flaunting of her disdain for Augustus morals. She openly had affairs with married men. She worshiped the Cleopatra's liscentious god. Augustus orated against her in the Senate and drove one of the husbands to suicide. Julia he banished to a remote island devoid of pleasure and amusement. Augustus fought for most of his reign against the ever renewed villany of the Roman public. Towards the end he exiled Ovid, the playboy poet, and Julia's epynomous daughter, an adulterer like he mother. His prospects for an heir kept faltering until he finally had to settle for Tiberius.