How did the Roman Empire get from Nero to Marcus Aurelius? Tom Holland, in his new book “Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age,” takes the reader on a winding, bloody, chaotic, treacherous, perverse, and superstitious journey through the rise and falls of the 1st and 2nd century emperors.
Rome had experienced a century of peace after Caesar Augustus cleared away his enemies. This peace was internal, rather than external. After approximately a century of internal strife from Sulla’s civil war to Julius Caesar’s civil war to Augustus’s, the battles waged against outside forces certainly resembled peace for those inside Rome. But just as any country that endures civil war, much less multiple civil wars, Rome had changed. It had changed from a republic to an autocratic tyranny with a republican facade.
Mr. Holland speeds through the immediate and early change initiated by Julius Caesar and quickly transitions through the emperors between Augustus and Nero. It is with Nero that the book slows down and thoroughly discusses the rule of a specific emperor.
Despite Nero’s military inexperience, his love of acting, his obsession with his dead empress that resulted in “fashioning an empress out of a boy,” and his actions when Rome caught fire, Mr. Holland argues that Nero maintained the peace nonetheless. Maintaining power, however, proved more difficult, as Mr. Holland demonstrates how paranoia (though rather justified) led to Nero’s suicide. His suicide left the empire without a successor, an empire up for grabs, and caused Rome to convulse with chaos and confusion. A century of “peace” was at an end.
Emperors and Enemies
Mr. Holland shines in his telling of the Year of Four Emperors (A.D. 69). He covers much ground, presents many figures, and provides much detail, yet does so with such poetic prose that the violence, perversity, and political intrigue leap from the pages. Every so often, though, readers may have to revisit a line, as the prose sacrifices clarity at times.As chaos and power grabs engulf Rome, Mr. Holland takes us outside of the Eternal City to the far reaches of the empire, such as to Jerusalem. There, a Jewish revolt offers an opportunity to introduce two future emperors: Vespasian and Titus. Holland discusses the siege of Jerusalem, how a misinterpreted prophecy resulted in the destruction of the city and the ensuing diaspora, and why Vespasian chose to keep a Jewish sage who prophesied his eventual reign. Mr. Holland orchestrates one of the best character reveals concerning this sage.
Along with the Judaeans, “Pax” presents other formidable foes, like the Germanians, Britons, and Dacians. Mr. Holland makes a point throughout the book, however, that these enemies posed more than a military threat. When the Romans conquered nations and tribes, the pursuit of peaceable relations often resulted in the infiltration of foreign cultures not merely into the empire, but into Rome itself.
Cultural Questions
“Pax” exemplifies the course of corruption. There is much to argue about foreign cultures corrupting a great power, even a power that supposedly dominates those foreign cultures. It begs the question of how far can an empire stretch and conquer before it loses its own identity, its own culture? Even if portions of the original culture remain, how much cultural dilution can a nation or empire endure before its people no longer care about the portions that survive?Mr. Holland’s has written a span of Roman history with varying themes, and sometimes they are too loosely organized to suggest that the book promotes any one specific theme. If one stands above the rest, it regards the clash of cultures and the risks of adopting foreign ones. This risk can result, as the book demonstrates in the end, in diluting a nation or empire’s greatest cultural norm: its religion.
“Pax” ends with a brief mention of Aurelius’s arrival. But as those who know the history of the Roman Empire are aware, he was the last of the Five Good Emperors. What comes after is the inevitable: not the end of peace, but the end itself. That’s a frightening consideration for any country or empire that has endured significant change and cultural dilution.
