4.2.2 Video在线视频

4.2 Pax Romana 2

Hi, this is the second part of chapter four: Pax Romana, the second part.

1. In the Year of the Four Emperors in 69 AD, Vespasian finally restored the order and became the first Emperor of a new dynasty, the Flavian Dynasty. This dynasty ruled the Roman Empire between 69 to 96, consisting of three emperors: Vespasian (69–79), and his two sons Titus (79–81) and Domitian (81–96).

2. This dynasty experienced some natural disasters. The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 was one of the most catastrophic disasters in the human history. It released 100,000 times of the thermal energy of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings dropped by U.S. during the Second World War. The eruption ejected a cloud of stones, ashes and volcanic gases to 33 km high. The surrounding cities Pompeii and Herculaneum were completely buried. The total inhabitants of the cities were 16,000–20,000; the remains of about 1,500 people have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, but the overall death toll is still unknown.

3. The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Revolt was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire. The Roman army led by Vespasian’ son and the future Emperor Titus besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem in 70AD.

4. The Colosseum

The Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, a huge round building is situated in the center of Rome, just east of the Roman Forum. Construction began under the emperor Vespasian in AD 72 and was completed in AD 80 under his son, the emperor Titus. The Colosseum could hold 80,000 spectators; it was used for gladiatorial contests, animal hunts, executions, and dramas. This is an 1883 historical painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer describes the persecution against the Christians by the Roman Empire. Many Christians were killed by being thrown to the beasts at The Colosseum. What a horrible scene!

5. Nerva–Antonine dynasty

The last emperor Domitian of the Flavian dynasty was assassinated in 96AD by members of the Praetorian Guard and several of his freedmen. Nerva was declared emperor by the Roman Senate. This was the first time the Senate elected a Roman emperor. Nerva was the first emperor of the long-lived Nerva–Antonine dynasty. This dynasty has 7emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Lucius Verus, Marcus Aureliu, Commodus. Lucius Verus was the co-emperor with Marcus Aureliu until his death, and the last emperor Commodus was the co-emperor with his father Marcus Aureliu, after the latter died he became the only one. The first emperor Nerva established this dynasty, and the last one was the son of the former emperor. All other emperors are called Adoptive Emperors. They were all the adopted sons and heirs of the ruling emperors.

6. The Italian Renaissance political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) called the first five emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius "Five Good Emperors". He wrote "all the emperors who succeeded to the throne by birth, except Titus, were bad; all were good who succeeded by adoption, as in the case of the five from Nerva to Marcus". In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, English historian Edward Gibbon (1737– 1794) wrote the time of "Five Good Emperors" is "the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was the happiest and most prosperous”, “the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of wisdom and virtue".

7. Trajan was a successful soldier-commander-emperor who conquered modern Romania, Armenia and Mesopotamia. The Roman Empire reached to its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death in 117AD. It covered 5 million square kilometers, 70 million people, 21% of the world's entire population at that time.

8. Hadrian had strengthened the stability of the Roman frontiers. He spent more than 10 years traveling on the road, visited almost every province of the Empire. He built Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britannia. In 135AD Hadrian put down the second revolt of Jews. 580,000 Jews died, 50 fortified towns and 985 villages were rezed. Many survivors were enslaved or expelled from Judea. Marcus Aurelius was one of the most respected emperors in Roman history. He spent nearly whole of his reign on the Danubian frontier (I mean, the area among Danube River) to the north of the Empire, fighting and repelling the barbarians. He was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family. He was strongly influenced by Stoicism, one school of the Hellenistic Greek philosophy which emphasized fate, reason, virtue and self-restraint. He traveled and fought at day and studied and wrote at night in his soldier’s tent. His famous work was Meditations. Meditation is thinking about something very carefully and deeply for a long time. The central theme of his writing is to emphasize the importance of analyzing one's judgment of self and others and the development of a cosmic perspective. He advocates finding one's place in the universe and sees that everything came from nature. He also emphasized the importance of maintaining strong ethical principles such as "Being a good man". Meditations is the favorite book of our former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and former United States President Bill Clinton.

9. Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius. As a philosopher Aurelius’ judgment of his son was a really terrible one. In 177, Aurelius made Commodus the youngest consul in Roman history at the age of 16, and later that year, he made him the co-emperor with Aurelius. When his father died in 180, Commodus became the only emperor. It seemed Commodus wanted to be a gladiator more than an Emperor. He thought of himself as the reincarnation of the legendary hero Hercules, Greek name Heracles. A reincarnation is a person whose body is believed to contain the spirit of a dead person. He frequently imitated Hercules’s feats by appearing in the arena to fight wild animals. Commodus was assassinated in 192 and this marked the end of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty and the 200-year Pax Romana.

10. Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 120 AD) was a senator and historian during the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. His two major works the Annals and the Histories, recorded the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in 14 AD, to the years of the First Jewish–Roman War in 70 AD. He examined the differences between the public propaganda and the realities of the political power struggles with an irony and sharp sense. His Germania described the lands, laws, and customs of the various Germanic tribes. These descriptions were considered a warning of the Romans’ excessive self-confidence.

Plutarch (46–120AD)

His works were written in Greek. He was born in a small town 80 km east of Delphi, Greece. Later he became a Roman citizen. He had worked as magistrate and ambassador. Plutarch spent the last thirty years of his life serving as a priest in Delphi. He was a biographer and essayist, his most famous work is Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, consisting of 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman like Alexander the Great from Greece and Julius Caesar from Rome. As he explained he was not concerned with writing histories, but with exploring the influence of good or bad character on the lives and destinies of famous people.

11. This is the end of this part. Let’s look at key words: the Flavian Dynasty, Five Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Plutarch.

This is the end of second part of chapter four.