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World History Work Packet Checklist: Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire

Rise of Europe - Chapter 7 High and Late Middle Ages - Chapter 8 Byzantine Empire, Russia, & Eastern Europe – Chapter 9

Name: ____________________________________ Date Due: ______________ Period: _______

Directions: Organize and put in order the following items to be turned in by the due date above. (One letter grade off each item for every day late.) Staple all items below in order with this packet checklist as a cover sheet before the due date and have it ready to be turned in on the due date at the start of class.Learning Targets: The student will

Analyze causes of the decline of the Byzantine Empire after its rise Analyze the impact of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire Describe the orders of medieval social hierarchy Describe the rise and achievements Recognize the importance of Christian achievements Explain how Western civilization arose Determine the factors that contributed to the growth Identify key figures, artistic, and intellectual achievements Describe developments in medieval English legal and constitutional history Describe the causes and effects of events that caused crises during the Middle Ages Analyze the causes, key events, and effects of the European response to Islamic expansion beginning in the 7th

century Locate the extent of Byzantine territory Explain the contributions of the Byzantine Empire Analyze causes of the decline of the Byzantine Empire

Grading Rubric:Items Score of 1 Score of 2 Score of 3

Section Summary - Chapter 7, Section 1 & 2Pages 65 & 67Textbook Homework: Note Taking Study Guide Pages 64 & 66

Partially annotated, blue margin partially completed, and/or Review Questions partially complete BUT LESS THAN HALF.

Partially annotated, blue margin partially completed, and/or Review Questions partially complete BUT MORE THAN HALF.

Fully annotated, blue margin completed, Review Questions completed.









100 pointsSection Summary - Chapter 8, Section 3 & 4Pages 77 & 79Textbook Homework: Note Taking Study Guide Pages 76 & 78




Section Summary - Chapter 8, Section 5 & Chapter 9, Section 1Pages 81 & 83 Textbook Homework: Note Taking Study Guide Pages 80 & 82




Section Summary - Chapter 9, Section 2 & 3Pages 85 & 87 Textbook Homework: Note Taking Study Guide Pages 84 & 86




100 pointsCornell Notes: Chapter 7 Partially completed based on a

percentage score of completion.100 % completed in your own words but copied word for word from PPT and did not process notes through deliberate thought processes. (In other words, copied without thinking about them.)

100 % completed in your own words and NOT copied word for word from PPT but has all essential information!!!







100 pointsMap Studies:

1. Rome Divided2. The Barbarian

Invasions

Partially complete, did not follow directions, and/or did not color or label properly.

Fully complete according to ALL instructions and colored and labeled properly

Fully complete according to ALL instructions and added more than required to map. (You stepped outside of the box to add more.)

100 pointsWebquest: Roman Empire Webquest Activity

Partially complete but less than half complete.

Partially complete but more than half complete.

Fully researched and complete with ALL answers.

100 pointsVenn Diagram and Readings on Terrorism

1. Terrorism in the Ancient Roman World

2. Waiting for the Barbarians

Both Readings are partially read and annotated. The Venn Diagram comparing Ancient Rome to America has at less than 10 comparison/contrasts.

Both Readings are partially read and annotated. The Venn Diagram comparing Ancient Rome to America has at least 10 to 19 comparison/contrasts.

Both Readings are completely read and annotated. The Venn Diagram comparing Ancient Rome to America has at least 20 comparison/contrasts.

100 points

Cornell Notes

Lecture, reading/chapter/novel/article during class, power point, movies (if need to collect info.)

Topic: Rise of Europe, Middle Ages, and Byzantine Empire

Questions/Main Ideas:

Name: ___________________________________

Class: _________________ Period: ________

Date: ____________________________

Notes:

Three Reichs

Germanic Invasions and Tribes

Essential Question: How did Europe rise from the ruins of the Roman Empire and lead to the middle and dark ages? How did competing interest of Europe & Asia vie for power and control of Europe including England, France, the Church, and the Rise of Islam?

Charlemagne

Division of Charlemagne’s Empire

Feudalism Pyramid of Society in the Middle Ages

The Manorial System

Role of the Church during the Middle Ages

Attitude towards women

Papal Supremacy

European Jewish Communities

European Agricultural Revolution

European Trade Routes Increase

New Business Practices

Capital Partnership Tenant Farming

Cause & Effect of Agricultural Revolution

Power Struggle between

European Factions

Monarchical Methods

William the Conqueror

Henry II

Common Law

Jury System

King John

Magna Carta, 1215

Due Process of Law

Writ of Habeas Corpus

Parliament

Limited Government

Will eventually lead to the American Revolution away from England and its abusive power of King George III.

French Development of Rule

Louis IX

Philip IV

Estates General Will eventually lead to the French Revolution of 1850.

1st Estate

2nd Estate

3rd Estate

Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Emperors

Otto I

Struggle between Pop Gregory VII & Henry IV

Concordat of Worms

Frederick Barborossa

Pope Innocent III

Crusades

Muslim Civilization in 1050

Palestine

Pope Urban II

Capture of Jerusalem

Failure of the Crusades

Effects of the Crusades

Reconquista

King Ferdinand & Isabella

Spanish Inquisitions

Black Death Notes from Videos

Bubonic Plague

Breakdown of European Society

Schism

The Hundred Years’ War & Impact

Joan of Arc

Byzantine Empire and Location of Constantinople

Justinian and Justinian’s Code

Justinian & Centralized Government

The Great Schism

The Rise of Russia, Geography, and Connection to the Byzantine Empire

Origins of Russia

Byzantine Influences

Russian & Byzantine Alignment

Golden Horde

Princes of Moscow

Mongol Impact on Russia

Ivan the Great

Ivan the Terrible

Oprichniki

The Old Byzantine Empire is known as the Balkan Republics (Where WWI started)

Ethnic Diversity

Influences in Eastern Europe

Jewish Migration to Poland & Expulsion

Magyars

Golden Bull of 1222

The Serbian Empire

Summary:

Instructions: 1. Color Eastern Rome one color and Western Rome another color. (You may outline each Rome two different colors to save

time.)2. Label all the cities, modern countries, and bodies of water. Draw a star for each capital city for Rome and Constantinople

also known as modern day Istanbul, Turkey.3. Draw a shipping route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea and label it the Bosporus Strait (Ancient Greek

strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara) or the modern day Turkish Straits. (Better maps on website.)

The Roman Empire Webquest Activity (Next three pages)

Directions: Visit the following link to explore the interactive map of the Roman Empire: http://www.worldology.com/Europe/roman_empire_lg.htm

As you explore the map, complete the questions. Be sure to read the captions and articles posted on the map (look at the icons in the map key for help).

Early Rome (900-290 BC) *Select dates from the top left corner of map to view this map.

1. How did the Romans establish the city of Rome and come to dominate the Mediterranean Sea?

2. What influenced the creation of the Roman Republic?

Roman Dominance (290 BC - 235 AD) *Select dates from the top left corner of map to view this map.

1. Why is control of the Mediterranean Sea an advantage for the Romans?

2. Explain the distinction between those people considered “British” and those who are Scottish and Irish as it relates to Roman rule.

3. Explain how and why Germanic peoples were able to resist Roman conquest.

4. How did Rome become an empire?

5. How did the concept of “Italy” come about?

6. Who lived in Gaul? What language eventually developed in this region?

7. Briefly explain 3 reasons why Rome rose to dominance.

8. Explain 2 reasons why the Roman Empire is significant in history. Decline of Rome (235-490) *Select dates from the top left corner of map to view this map.

1. Complete the chart with information about the Germanic tribes.

Tribe Time period and place of invasion

Reason for invasion

Outcome of invasion

Visigoths

Ostrogoths

Franks

Vandals

Angles & Saxons

2. What happened during the 3rd century crisis to weaken the empire?

3. East-West split

a. Why was the empire divided into Eastern and Western empires?

b. What was Constantine’s role in the division of the empire?

c. When and how did the Western Empire come to an end?

d. When and why was Italy reconquered?

e. What was the religious effect of the East-West split?

4. Rise of Christianity- Briefly summarize key events from each section (1-2 sentences) to explain the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

Appeal to Lower Classes:

Boosted by Emperor Constantine:

Uniformity of Doctrine:

Status as Official Religion:

Spread Throughout All Europe:

5. Briefly explain 3 reasons for the fall of Rome.

a.

b.

c.

6. Explain what factors led to the beginning of the Dark Ages following the fall of Rome.

Instructions: 1. Color the settlements of each Barbarian Tribe different colors. (You may outline each Barbarian settlement different colors

to save time.)2. Label all the cities, modern countries, mountains, and bodies of water, etc.3. Draw in the invasions of the Huns and label it.4. Draw in the Invasions of the Roman Empire from ALL Germanic Barbarian Tribes with different colors and label each

invasion and make a key color coding each invasion. (Better maps on website.)

Terrorism in the Ancient Roman World

BY GREGORY G. BOLICH

6/12/2006 • MHQ

In the summer of a.d. 82, three Roman warships were hijacked. The pilots of two were murdered; the third pilot decided to obey his captors. The hijackers sailed along the coast without interference, their crime undetected. They struck port cities unexpectedly and took what they wanted by force. However, local resistance and their own lack of skill eventually brought the hijackers to ruin.

They became so desperately hungry that they turned to cannibalism. They were hunted down, ending the terror they had inspired. Some, sold as slaves, gained notoriety for their incredible tale, recorded a generation later by the famed Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus.

In the late summer of 2001, another incredibly horrific tale of hijacking and terrorism caught the world’s attention. Unfortunately, history is replete with unsettling precedents. Terrorism is probably as old as human society. In the ancient Roman world there were no words for ‘terrorism or terrorists. However, the acts of terrorism inflicted in those days were not unlike those of modern times. Then, as now, there were people willing to employ a calculated use of force and terror to accomplish their ends. Though the ancients may have called them rebels or brigands or tyrants, the motives, the methods, and the outcomes are familiar to people of our era under the collective name of terrorism.

Studying ancient terrorism, though, is hampered by a dilemma that is still with us today: determining exactly what terrorism is. Who decides what constitutes terrorism and who the terrorists are? Is it merely a matter of perspective? Can one group’s terrorist be another group’s freedom fighter? Acts of war also terrify. What differentiates a legitimate act of war from a terrorist attack?

Broadly speaking, those who are terrified decide what qualifies as terrorism. If this is a matter of perspective, it is not just narrow opinion, because most people have a shared sense of what makes for a legitimate use of threats or force. Thus ancient and modern people alike realize that war brings horrific acts, even against civilian populations. Yet people of all eras have a keen sense that as barbaric as war can be, it remains different from mere barbarism.

It may well be that in the Roman world the acceptable limits of warfare were more liberally drawn than today, but even so people sometimes recoiled in shock and horror at acts clearly beyond the pale. War is terror within bounds; terrorism is terror beyond those bounds. Today the Federal Bureau of Investigation defines terrorism as the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives.

The Roman world certainly knew the kind of horror the FBI described as terrorism. On the one hand, Rome could terrify its own people, as well as foreigners. The use of terror by the state already had an ancient lineage by the time Rome rose to dominance. Aristotle reflected on the matter in his Politics, for example. On the other hand, others frequently targeted Romans, both at home and abroad, in terrible and terrifying acts. State terrorism and revolutionary terrorism often followed one another in a vicious reciprocal cycle: Terror begets terror. In other words, little has changed in the pattern of atrocities.

Ancient Rome, like the United States today, was the sole superpower of its world. Rome exercised immense influence even where it lacked outright control. Roman rulers possessed certain advantages over those who opposed them. In their use of power, they could claim to be the legitimate arm of the body politic. Thus Augustus could proudly note in the official record of his acts, I pacified the sea of pirates. He did not note his feat was accomplished against Sextus Pompeius Magnus, son of the renowned Pompey the Great and heir to the leadership of his father’s followers in a great civic struggle. By the time Augustus was finished with him, Pompeius was officially nothing more than a pirate — a terrorist of the seas.

The populace had to choose how to respond to such power. One route was accommodation and sanction: The state is right. Another was avoidance: Right or wrong, it is best to stay out of the state’s way. A third path was resistance: The state is wrong, justifying coercion and overthrow. All three courses had their advocates.

The notion that the state is inherently legitimate in its use of force found expression in the mid-first-century writing of Saul of Tarsus, better known as the Christian apostle Paul. In a letter addressed to Rome’s Christians, Paul wrote, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval.

That strategy may have worked well for many people (though not for Paul himself, who was martyred by Rome). But when the ruler’s notion of what was good for him proved bad for his subjects, what then? In such circumstances, the ruled learned to move to the cadences of the ruler, or suffered the consequences. Many sought to do this by remaining sycophants to the state, no matter what. Tacitus criticizes some earlier histories of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, saying their authors wrote falsified accounts to avoid frightful consequences.

Others could not sacrifice conscience so entirely. Yet while they could not sanction evil, neither could they actively resist, so they stepped away. One who advocated this delicate dance was Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger. After years of practicing politics as adviser to the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar, he concluded in Letters to Lucilius that there were three valid reasons for fear: material want, illness, and the troubles which result from the violence of the stronger. He warned his friend Gaius Lucilius that the wise man will never provoke the anger of those in power; nay, he will even turn his course, precisely as he would turn from a storm if he were steering a ship. Unfortunately, Nero proved to be a hurricane the aged philosopher could not escape; Seneca was forced to take his own life in a.d. 65.

As the deaths of both Paul and Seneca illustrate, neither accommodating the state nor avoiding conflict with it is entirely free of danger. But the third course, resistance, has proven to be the most perilous.

Resistance to a ruling authority in the Roman world took various forms. Most prominent in the minds of Romans themselves were the civil wars whereby all too often one bold group replaced another. A second kind of resistance came in provinces and foreign lands where rapacious Roman governors drove their subjects to desperation. Both sides might resort to acts of terrorism to impose their will.

The Romans themselves were always more distressed by terror at home than by horrors in distant lands. The accounts of the Late Republic and the Early Empire are depressingly full of atrocities committed through naked power but cloaked in the guise of state authority. Rulers used terrifying acts for various objectives, including maintaining their own power, generally at the expense of political opponents. For the masses, civil conflict was a matter of being caught horribly in the middle while powerful men and their allies attacked one another. Picking a side was often tantamount to choosing life or death. Unfortunately, not picking a side could prove just as fatal.

If Rome was no safe haven from terror, neither was any other place. In 88 b.c., Mithridates VI Eupator Dionysus, King of Pontus, took advantage of Roman problems at home by sweeping through the Roman province of Asia Minor. So swift and successful was his conquest that many thousands of Roman citizens and their Italian allies were unable to escape. Mithridates solved the problem expeditiously. He ordered that every one of them should die at an appointed hour on a single day, throughout the province.

That Mithridates was successful in having his order carried out is testimony to the hatred that the Roman conquerors had earned during their administration of what is now Turkey. As the slaughter proceeded, it did not matter whether the victims had sought refuge in temples or tried to escape by swimming into the sea; all were ruthlessly murdered. An estimated eighty thousand Romans perished that day.

Roman leaders often suffered for what they had inflicted on others. State terrorism was a controversial tool but hardly an unknown one, used with varying degrees of success in lands Rome either controlled or sought to control. The rapacious nature of many provincial governors was a steady source of scandal, as many were brought to trial after their terms in office expired. Frequently, officials resorted to making threats and setting examples to keep the provincials in line — and quiet.

The Greek biographer Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus — Plutarch — makes a telling comment in his study of Marcus Junius Brutus. Plutarch contrasted the good fortune of those who had been under Brutus’ provincial government with that of people in other provinces [who] were in distress with the violence and avarice of their governors, and suffered as much oppression as if they had been slaves and captives of war.

The situation for ordinary people could be even worse in lands not yet fully under the Roman thumb. Notable examples are afforded from both the eastern and western sectors of the Roman world. In the east, the land of Judea was a source of near unending irritation for the Roman authorities. Of course, from the Jewish perspective the situation was far more than irritating. One Roman procurator after another oppressed the people.

The Jewish historian Joseph ben Matthias, more commonly known by his Roman designation, Flavius Josephus, recorded the dismal state of affairs that slowly spiraled downward into a disastrous war in a.d. 66-73. It culminated in ancient history’s most notorious terrorists. Though they were Jews, their conception was from Roman seed, and their birth was nursed along by Roman politics. As Josephus tells it, the situation in the Jewish homeland grew worse and worse continually; for the country was again filled with robbers and imposters, who deluded the multitude. The Roman procurator Claudius Felix, appointed to Judea in a.d. 52, continually labored to quell these troublemakers, putting many of them to death.

Felix also harbored a grudge against the high priest, Jonathan, who freely offered Felix his advice on governing the Jews. Felix resolved to remove Jonathan, but needed to do so discreetly. He bribed one of Jonathan’s friends to arrange for an assassination, but did not reckon on the terror that would be unleashed by brigands brought into the plan.

Certain of those robbers, Josephus writes in Wars of the Jews, went up to the city, as if they were going to worship God, while they had daggers under their garments; and, by thus mingling themselves among the multitude, they slew Jonathan; and as this murder was never avenged, the robbers went up with the greatest security at the festivals after this time; and having weapons concealed in like manner as before, and mingling themselves among the multitude, they slew certain of their own enemies, and were subservient to other men for money; and slew others not only in remote parts of the city, but in the temple itself also; for they had the boldness to murder men there, without thinking of the impiety of which they were guilty.

The Sicarii — named after the daggers they concealed — had arrived. In his history of the Jewish War, Josephus further details their method and its effect: [They] slew men in the day time, and in the midst of the city; this they did chiefly at the festivals, when they mingled themselves among the multitude, and concealed daggers under their garments, with which they stabbed those that were their enemies; and when any fell down dead, the murderers became a part of those that had indignation against them; by which means they appeared persons of such reputation, that they could by no means be discovered. The first man who was slain by them was Jonathan the High Priest, after whose death many were slain every day, while the fear men were in of being so served was more afflicting than the calamity itself; and while everybody expected death every hour, as men do in war, so men were obliged to look before them, and to take notice of their enemies at a great distance; nor, if their friends were coming to them, durst they trust them any longer; but, in the midst of their suspicions and guarding of themselves, they were slain.

The Sicarii were such a plague that Josephus attributed the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple to their foul deeds. He also claimed that as they fled the carnage of the war, they spread trouble abroad. In Alexandria, Egypt, the Sicarii promoted rebellion and assassinated the Jewish leaders who opposed their counsel. Similarly, under the leadership of a man named Jonathan, the Sicarii fomented rebellion in Cyrene. Neither Roman nor Jew could feel completely safe walking a crowded street as long as the Sicarii survived.

At the western end of the Roman world, Britain was a trouble spot as well. Though nominally conquered in the mid-first century, many tribes remained restless. However, the king of the Iceni, Prasutagus, pursued a policy of appeasement toward the Romans, going so far as making the emperor co-heir with his daughters. By this policy, he hoped to retain some measure of independence. It was a vain hope. Tacitus reveals that the Romans reduced his kingdom to provincial status. Romans flogged his wife, Boudicca, and raped his two daughters. Rome then annexed the lands of the Icenian chiefs and treated members of the royal household like slaves.

Encouraged by his success, in a.d. 60 the Roman governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, mounted a campaign against the island of Mona, a rebel stronghold. In his absence, many Britons were emboldened to murmur among themselves concerning their situation. As Tacitus frames it, they had plenty to complain about. Whereas once they had had a king to please, now they had to please two masters — the Roman legate and the procurator — and those officials might as easily quarrel as get along, leaving the people caught in the middle. In either instance, the Romans were trouble: Their centurions and slaves alike inflicted insults and violence. The people’s homes were robbed, their children were kidnapped, and their young men were taken and sent far away to serve Rome’s interests. How could war be any worse? As a result, they revolted. Led by Queen Boudicca, the Iceni, Trinobantes, and other tribes roamed the country and destroyed three towns: Camulodunum, Verulamium, and Londinium. Tacitus reports that they targeted the retired Roman military veterans whose settlement at Camulodunum had displaced the Trinobantes. To add insult to injury, the Roman settlers — urged on by the Roman troops — had further outraged the Britons by deriding them as prisoners and slaves. Taxes were

imposed on the local economy to support a temple to Emperor Claudius. Humiliated and angry, the Britons not only swept down on the scattered outposts and attacked the forts but also ravaged the colony that had come to represent their oppression. Tacitus writes that in their fury, they were unrestrained in their cruelty, permitting themselves every form of barbarity imaginable.

Suetonius Paulinus returned to restore order. Assessing the situation, he sacrificed Londinium after evacuating those who could keep up with him; the rest, including the elderly and women, he left to be slaughtered. While the Roman governor awaited his opportunity, the victorious Britons continued their campaign, which became ever more wanton. It increasingly took on the character of terrorism rather than traditional war. They avoided Roman strongholds and concentrated on destroying the weak. They took no prisoners. They slaughtered every Roman or Roman sympathizer they encountered, slitting the throats of some, hanging some, burning others, and even resorting to crucifixion in some instances.

The later historian Cassius Dio Coeccianus supplements the historical record with his own account of the horrors. He recounts the Britons’ most bestial atrocity: the practice of hanging up noble women naked, cutting off their breasts and sewing the flesh to their mouths to make it appear as though they were eating their own breasts, and then skewering them on stakes. Tacitus reckons some seventy thousand Romans and provincials were executed in the rampage.

Suetonius Paulinus engaged the enemy at the time and place of his own choosing. The Britons were so confident of victory that they brought their wives to witness their triumph, arranging them about the battlefield in wagons. Though the Romans were outnumbered, Roman discipline prevailed. Thousands of Queen Boudicca’s warriors were slain, and she committed suicide. The rout of the Britons and their consequent slaughter worsened as the Britons had difficulty fleeing a field hemmed in by their own wagons. The triumphant Romans spared neither women nor animals.

The next few years were marked by unrest but not by military action. It was only after the civil wars ended the Julio-Claudian dynasty that Romans could again devote serious attention to their problems in Britain. The new emperor, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, fresh from his successful war against the Jews, sent capable military men to Britain to quiet the province. In a.d. 71, Vespasian designated Quintus Petillius Cerialis Caesius Rufus as the new governor. Petillius Cerialis may have felt he had something to prove; though he had enjoyed some military success in Lower Germany (today’s Rhine Valley, including Belgium and the Netherlands), a decade earlier he had been humbled when Queen Boudicca’s forces had routed his Ninth Legion. He mounted a campaign against the Brigantes, Britain’s largest tribe. This calculated move succeeded, says Tacitus, in striking terror throughout the land.

Sextus Julius Frontinus succeeded Petillius Cerialis in the governorship, and pursued war against the Silures in southern Wales. Despite Roman success in war, there was too little corresponding Roman justice. Unrest remained, Tacitus reports, because of numerous abuses of power. Taxation was unequal, people had to pay inflated prices for corn, and other Roman practices also made life difficult. In sum, wrote Tacitus, the inhabitants of Britain could rightly fear peace as much as war because of either the arrogance or arbitrariness of the Roman administration.

Fortunately for those living in Britain, not all Romans were rapacious tyrants. Tacitus praises his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who learned from earlier examples that force of arms cannot quash rebellion if conquest is followed by unjust rule. His leniency did not, however, spare Agricola from troubles. His governance of Britain grew so vexing, in fact, that even Agricola resorted to terror. Grieving over the death of his infant son in the summer of 83 a.d., Agricola began his summer war campaign by sending his fleet ahead of the ground troops for the express purpose of plundering and inspiring terror and uncertainty among the Britons.

Britain’s circle of terror was renewed. Responding to Agricola’s provocation, a tribal leader named Calgacus exhorted his fellow Britons to resist Roman oppression. The speech, as Tacitus relates it, presents a perspective many people in the ancient world must have held on their Roman masters. Calling the Romans deadlier than the coastal waves and rocks, Calgacus said they possess an arrogance which no reasonable submission can elude. Brigands of the world, they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder, and now they ransack the sea. The wealth of an enemy excites their cupidity, his poverty their lust of power. East and West have failed to glut their maw. They are unique in being as violently tempted to attack the poor as the wealthy. Robbery, butchery, rapine, the liars call Empire; they create a desolation and call it peace.

Late in the days of the Republic, Rome faced a daunting dilemma. Two of her greatest leaders, Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, stood pitted against each other. In unprecedented fashion, they brought their political quarrel to Rome’s streets in armed conflict. Sulla marched on Rome and prevailed at first. Marius later succeeded in seizing a seventh term as consul, where he introduced a reign of terror. He put political opponents

to death, placed their heads on public display, and plundered their belongings. The historian Appian of Alexandria believed he did these deeds to inspire fear or horror. The breathtaking acts of terror inflicted on the city’s residents appalled later writers. Plutarch observed how the people considered the evils of wartime a golden age in comparison. Velleius Paterculus depicted Marius’ return as being as destructive as a pestilence and commented that no victory would have exceeded his in its inhumanity had it not been followed by Sulla’s.

For Sulla marched again on Rome. His second triumph was punctuated by his seizure of power as dictator. He issued proscriptions against his opponents, posting rewards both for informers and those who murdered his enemies. After publicly killing Quintus Lucretius Ofella, an accomplished and ambitious man, in the open Forum, Sulla justified himself simply on the grounds that Ofella would not obey him. Sulla then told the assembled people this story: Lice troubled a farmer plowing his field. Twice he stopped work to shake them out of his tunic. However, when the biting continued, he burned his tunic to not lose any further time. With this anecdote, Sulla warned a people he had already defeated twice not to try his patience further. Few dared.

Then things got worse. Armed with the lessons of the recent past, Gaius Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and won for himself the position of dictator for life. It proved a short life, as people who feared living under a despot assassinated Caesar. Heedless of the warnings of his own day, Caesar would have done well to attend the warning of Aristotle: Those to be watched and feared most among potential assassins are they who are heedless of their own life in their desire to take life.

These exemplars of terrorism during the Late Republic were often faithfully followed in the Empire. Perhaps the one thing these various figures shared in common was the belief that their objectives justified the use of terror. Where a ruler was simply brutal or capricious by nature, the idea of divine right became a pretext to do whatever he could get away with. Roman historians tended to find a common thread in their studies: Power illuminates character but can also corrupt it. The most ferocious emperors invariably started out far less evil than they became after years of absolute rule. They learned what they could get away with, and then their own characters determined the limits and uses to which they put their power.

The speech Tacitus attributes to Calgacus climaxes in an insight any entity, whether sovereign state or disaffected terrorist cell, ignores at its peril: Apprehension and terror are weak bonds of affection; once break them, and, where fear ends, hatred will begin. The choice to embrace terrorist acts as an instrument of rule has always been costly. Terror inevitably engenders more terror — and hatred. Not even the might of Rome could protect the republic or the empire from paying that price. Whenever Romans indulged in state-sponsored terrorism, subjugated people responded in kind.

This article was written by Gregory G. Bolich and originally published in the Spring 2006 edition of MHQ.

Waiting for the barbariansA once-great empire, Rome fell into catastrophic cultural and economic decline. Morris Berman on chilling parallels with modern AmericaMorris BermanFriday 5 October 2001 21.18 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 31 August 201611.57 EDT

When I wrote my recent book, The Twilight of American Culture, my focus was on what might be called "inner" barbarism, the structural factors endemic to American society that were, I believed, bringing about its disintegration.

The contemporary American situation could be compared to that of Rome in the Late Empire period, and the factors involved in the process of decline in each case are pretty much the same: a steadily widening gap between rich and poor; declining marginal returns with regard to investment in organizational solutions to socioeconomic problems (in the US, dwindling funds for social security and Medicare); rapidly dropping levels of literacy, critical understanding, and general intellectual awareness; and what might be called "spiritual death": apathy, cynicism, political corruption, loss of public spirit, and the repackaging of cultural content (e.g. "democracy") as slogans and formulas.

What I overlooked, however, was perhaps the most obvious point of comparison; obvious, at least, with the benefit of hindsight. This is the factor of external barbarism, destruction from without. The events of September 11 brought that possibility home, in stark relief.

In the case of Rome, the historical outline is clear enough. The Goths began pressing against the border of the Roman Empire from the late third century, and scored a decisive victory in AD 378, when Roman legions were resoundingly defeated at Adrianople.

"The battle", wrote historian Solomon Katz, "did more than expose the weakness of Rome to the barbarians and encourage them to return to the attack again and again, for never afterward did they leave Roman soil".

From that time on, siege and potential invasion became facts of Roman life. The Visigoth leader Alaric invaded Italy in 401, and finally captured and sacked Rome in 410. The city was further sacked by the Vandals in 455, and in 476 barbarian mercenaries deposed the last Roman emperor and put the Germanic chieftain Odoacer on the throne, making him king of the western empire.

America, too, now has barbarians at the gates, and also, it would seem, within them. It, too, is committed to a war to the finish, "total victory", defined by President Bush as the point at which there are no longer any terrorist organizations capable of international reach - which some would say is a formula for permanent war.

One photograph of the shell of the World Trade Centre eerily resembles pictures of the Roman Coliseum. But there are many more concrete similarities between the invasion of Rome and the attack on America. As American military personnel have recently suggested, September 11 is not likely to be the end of it. The US can expect further terrorist attacks on its soil.

More poignant, the destruction of the WTC showed that America is not invincible. In the case of Adrianople, things were never the same thereafter. The sharks smelled blood, and they kept coming back. America can expect something similar. (Note also that just as the barbarians used Rome's excellent network of roads to mount their invasions, so did the terrorists of September 11 use America's aviation schools, banking systems, internet accessibility and the like to mount theirs.)

The response of the empire is to regard the attackers as the ultimate other. ("Barbarian", comes from an ancient Greek anecdote, that those who couldn't speak Greek just uttered strange sounds - "bar bar" - that didn't amount to a real language.) In the main, the Romans had no understanding of non-civilization: of different values, nomadic ways of life.

Similarly, America views Islamic terrorism as completely irrational; there is no understanding of the political context of this activity, a context of American military attack on, or crippling economic sanctions against, a host of Arab nations - with unilateral support for Israel constituting the central, running sore.

Instead, the enemy is characterized as "jealous of our way of life", "hateful of freedom", and so on. Hence President Bush, no less than the Islamic terrorists, uses the language of religious war: we are on a "crusade"; the military operation was initially called "Infinite Justice"; and the enemy is "evil itself".

Along with this is the belief that the Pax Romana/Americana is the only "reasonable" way to live. In the American case, we have a military and economic empire that views the world as one big happy market, and believes that everybody needs to come on board. We - that is, global corporate consumerism - are the future, "progress".

If the "barbarians" fail to share this vision, they are "medieval"; if they resist, "evil". Most historians see a relationship, in the case of Rome, between its internal decay and its susceptibility to invasion. By the fourth century, if not much before, Rome had lost its central value, the legacy of Greek culture, and was effectively existing for the sake of military and administrative purposes.

As it overextended itself, creating a huge standing army and a bloated military budget, the middle class began to disappear, and there was a reciprocal, reinforcing interaction between internal decadence and instability on the one hand, and external vulnerability on the other. I n the case of the United States, the nation no longer stands for the enlightenment tradition, but rather for military-political hegemony and the total commodification of life.

It is hardly an accident that the terrorists' targets were the WTC, symbol of American global finance, and the Pentagon (although the White House was apparently the original target in this case). Consider how remarkable, even bizarre, it would have been if the terrorists had selected instead the Jefferson memorial and Columbia University.

But the latter no longer represent the United States; Wall Street does. What is likely to happen, as obtained in the case of Rome, is increasing budgetary appropriations for military expenditures, leaving (in the American case) fewer and fewer funds for education, the rebuilding of cities, health care and social welfare. As in the case of American involvement in Vietnam, this could eventually bleed the country morally and financially.

In addition, military action versus Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Arab nations will sow the seeds of more intifadas. By the third century, nearly every Roman denarius collected in taxes was going into military and administrative maintenance, to the point that the state was drifting towards bankruptcy. The denarius, which had a silver content of 92% in Nero's reign (AD 54-68) was down to 43% silver by the early third century.

The third century saw even greater increases in the size of the army and the government bureaucracy, followed by further debasement of the coinage and enormous inflation. The standing army rose from 300,000 troops in AD 235 to about 600,000 a mere 70 years later. By the time the fifth century rolled around, Rome was an empire in name only. Spiritual and intellectual collapse were unavoidable in such a demoralized context, especially because the economic life of the cities was virtually destroyed.

For centuries, the aim had been to Hellenize or Romanize the rest of the population - to pass on the learning and ideals of Greco-Roman civilization. But as the economic crisis deepened, a new mentality arose among the masses, one based on religion, which was hostile to the achievements of higher culture.

In addition, as in contemporary America, the new "intellectual" efforts were designed to cater to the masses, until intellectual life was brought down to the lowest common denominator. This, according to the great historian of Rome, MI Rostovtzeff, was the most conspicuous feature in the development of the ancient world during the imperial age: primitive forms of life finally drowning out the higher ones.

For civilization is impossible without a hierarchy of quality, and as soon as that gets flattened into a mass phenomenon, its days are numbered. "The main phenomenon which underlies the process of decline," wrote Rostovtzeff, "is the gradual absorption of the educated classes by the masses and the consequent simplification of all the functions of political, social, economic, and intellectual life, which we call the barbarization of the ancient world."

Religion played a critical role in these developments. By the third century, if not before, there was an attitude among many Christians that education was not relevant to salvation, and that ignorance had a positive spiritual value (an early version of Forrest Gump, one might say).

The third century saw a sharp increase in mysticism and a belief in knowledge by revelation. Charles Radding, in A World Made By Men, argues that the cognitive ability of comparing different viewpoints or perspectives (quite evident in Augustine's Confessions, for example) had disappeared by the sixth century.

Even by the fourth century, he says, what little that had survived from Greek and Roman philosophy was confused with magic and superstition (much as we see in today's new age beliefs or in the so-called philosophy section of many bookstores). Only a warped version of the classical culture of antiquity remained.

"Short of the mass destruction of the libraries", writes Radding, "a more complete collapse of a classical civilization is hard to imagine." And so the proverbial lights went out in Western Europe. The parallels with contemporary America are not identical, but they do seem disturbing. The factors of hype, ignorance, potential bankruptcy and extreme social inequality are overwhelming, and they make a kind of spiritual death - apathy and classicist formalism - ultimately unavoidable.

The phrase "Twilight of American Culture", however, implies an eventual dawn, and at some point we are going to emerge from our contemporary twilight and future darkness, if only because no historical configuration is the end of history. After centuries of stagnation, the culture of the Latin west became a viable option once more, thanks to the medieval monasteries, especially Irish ones, which began to stow away nuggets of intellectual achievement from Roman civilization.

That, however, is a whole other story. In terms of the current American situation, recovery at the external level probably depends on a reconsideration of American foreign policy but also a reconsideration of internal purposes. The United States does not seem to grasp the impact of its current foreign policy on the have-nots of this world. Without such an understanding, an Israeli-style scenario would seem to be inevitable: a garrison state, and a condition of endless siege. It is a chilling thought, the possibility that for the remainder of the new century, America will be waiting for the barbarians.

Venn diagram Instructions: After annotating each of the readings above, complete the Venn diagram below with a minimum of 20 comparison/contrasts between Rome and the Modern World. (If you need more room on another Venn diagram, use loose leaf and draw another one.)

Ancient Roman Invasions from Other Groups Terrorism on America & Western CivilizationBarbarian Groups and Events Fundamentalists Terrorist Groups

both Domestic & Foreign

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