Pax: War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age - THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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In an account of Rome’s frontier wars in Britain by the great Roman historian Tacitus, a Scottish chieftain observes of the Romans that “where they create a wasteland, they call it peace.” This was certainly one experience of Roman warfare, but it was not the only one. As Goldsworthy points out, the long rivalry between Rome and Persia involved many small skirmishes, but remarkably few major wars. “Peace was normal,” he writes, “wary, watchful peace based on a sense of each empire’s military might.” A stunning portrait of Rome’s glory days, this is the epic history of the Pax Romana. Request Desk/Exam Copy Dio goes on to say its purpose was to insult the memory of Domitian’s (deceased) elder brother Titus. I understand those commonalities across time, which is part of why I’m skeptical of the widespread sexual “omnivorousness” that Holland describes, such as the purported rarity of sleeping only with one sex or the other (for a man of status) during this period of Roman antiquity. I’m not discounting the details he cites, but questioning the general conclusions he seems keen to draw.

The nub of Holland’s contention appears it me that Christianity somehow “reimagined” morality, imposing something new on human nature. Having listened to him, and despite having being swayed in his direction by his very readable books (which have influenced my thinking greatly), I have to say I now disagree. I think that Christianity articulated or revealed to people something that is innate to their very humanity – that abusing, raping and murdering fellow humans is just wrong and abhorrent. But it did not *invent* a whole new morality. Whoever you are, whenever you lived, something in you would be disgusted by the witnessing the exercise of raw power in watching someone be ravaged and brutally murdered – Judeo-Christianity or no Judeo-Christianity. I think Holland is essentially right and you are unfortunately wrong! Your last sentence is particularly lame; of course there are big gaps in our understanding of the experiences of Roman subjects (and later) subjects, especially of the plebian and slave majority, but we know a lot about the cultural attitudes of the upper classes. Holland is trying too hard to superimpose his understanding of current issues around sex and gender ( and I say ” his understanding” of them which is itself open to critique) onto ancient Rome. FS: Do you think that the incredible success of the Roman Empire was due to the fact that so much power was concentrated in one person? Thus, from the beginning the churches were an integral part of Roman civic society, not alien to it. They would have been indistinguishable from other clubs. In Paul’s epistles he finds it necessary to correct the mistaken impressions that some have that they have come to dining or debating clubs. Philo writes that the Alexandrian clubs, under the pretext of religion, were merely convivial meetings. Being private, all these clubs were held in suspicion, and subject to persecution, by the emperors until Alexander Severus, who considered them a conservative element.Some of these primitive churches may have been scholae.You sound a bit like one of those Edwardian professors desperately trying to downplay, swerve around or completely ignore the ubiquity of pederasty in Ancient Greek culture, while still putting the same culture on a pedestal. The ‘ability to reason’ also seems to be compromised by those seemingly in denial about some stark cultural differences in sexual practice and gender roles! The narrative features many of the most celebrated episodes in Roman history: the destruction of Jerusalem and Pompeii; the building of the Colosseum and Hadrian’s Wall; the conquests of Trajan and the spread of Christianity. Trajan could nevertheless claim to have upheld the Pax Romana, thanks to his earlier work in Dacia (present-day Romania), which inspired many of the scenes on the Column at the centre of the Forum that both bear his name today. It was his fortune to go down in history as one of the “good” emperors. As Holland explains, however, Trajan’s reputation might have been very different had it not been for his “bad” predecessor-but-one, Domitian, who ruled from 81 to 96 and laid much of the groundwork. According to the later Historia Augusta (an entertaining yet notoriously unreliable source), Trajan ungratefully wrote Domitian off as “a terrible emperor, but one who had excellent friends”. One realises while reading Holland’s book just how much an emperor’s record was determined by the circumstances he inherited.

Now, to our way of thinking, that would be grooming, pure and simple. But that’s not how the Romans saw it. It’s not how the Greeks saw it, either, because they recognised that Hadrian was behaving like a Greek. He wears a beard, like a Greek philosopher. He was known as a young man as Graeculus, the little Greek. There’s a sense in which Hadrian’s adoption of a beautiful Greek boy is like Zeus sweeping up Ganymede to be his cup bearer — or like Hercules and Hylas. Tom Holland has written a magnificent, richly detailed and always fluently readable book. He modulates the pace of his narrative excellently and I have read nothing which gives such a detailed and compelling account of the political and administrative life of the provinces and their relations with the imperial government. A better history for the general reader could not have been written." Indeed, he is in the grip of a new gnosis: not the religious sort, but that of the historicist, who believes nothing exists until it is theoretically defined in writing; and that therefore (as an example), Christianity “invented compassion”. In the same way, idiotic wokesters pretend that because some Europeans expressed the universal human weakness called racial prejudice in print, they must have brought it into being. Pax, the third book in a trilogy telling the story of the Roman Empire by award-winning historian Tom Holland, has been unveiled by Abacus.TH: The Romans didn’t care about that. In fact, if you were at the top end, they were all in favour of it. Roman society was founded on the principle that you defined yourself against the people who were below you socially. Right from the beginning, the Romans had an obsession with identifying where they stood in the social spectrum. They had a censor. A censor wasn’t someone who went around cancelling people or closing down newspapers; a censor was someone who, every few years, would go around, working out how much money each individual citizen had, and also his moral worth. And then kind of calibrating, and assigning them to a social class. All in all, a glimpse of Rome’s future. A rich and fascinating period of history requires a companionable guide. Holland’s erudite and irresistibly readable account amounts to a marvellous vademecum. The imperial throne wasn’t the only goal for ambitious Romans in this relatively fluid society. Holland’s account is filled with local merchants who prospered on the edges of the imperial government. Nigidius Maius, “owner of a whole range of high-end rental properties” in Pompeii, gained public esteem by sponsoring gladiator battles. Umbricius Scaurus made his way by managing a local fish sauce factory.

Before this separation, Greek converts to the Way were made in the synagogue (Acts. xviii. 4). The Apostles also attempted to make converts in the Temple. After disputes over alms (Acts. vi. 1) and, especially, circumcision (Acts. xv. 1), the separation, when it comes, is mutually acrimonious (Revelation. ii. 9). The Roman Empire, an enormous multiethnic state that controlled Western and Central Europe, the Near East and portions of North Africa for 500 years, has been on some people’s minds lately. Why? Perhaps it has fired the imaginations of so many sons, fathers and boyfriends because it represents a kind of antediluvian ideal of masculine potency and strength — “gladiators, legions, warfare and imperial eagles,” as one article recently put it. But while the image of this empire in the modern world is of an immutable military might, in reality the imperial system survived because it was flexible. It was far more adaptable than the flailing democracy it replaced in the first century B.C., or the modern British and French empires, which later claimed Rome as a model. TH: The Roman historian Livy says of his people: “We are known across the world as having the justest punishments.” This is a society that flings people to the lions, sponsors gladiatorial combat and stages crucifixions. But the Romans don’t think what they’re doing is in any way morally depraved; they think it’s absolutely justified. While some were specifically religious, all had a religious element. Some clubs had a meeting hall, and almost all had a chapel or at least an altar to the presiding god. Gods not recognised by the Roman State were accommodated in them. In the Roman world a person could have two religions; one they professed and one they believed. Admitting women and slaves, some clubs were formed exclusively for slaves on large estates.But authenticity could take many forms in Rome. When Vespasian’s second son Domitian succeeded to the throne after Titus’ premature death, having hitherto acted, arguably, like the archetypal spare, his approach was to style himself as censor. This was a time-honoured role in Rome that encompassed not only morals (though he did bury alive a Vestal Virgin convicted of adultery) but also enhancement of the physical city (‘a lunatic desire to build’, as one author described it), and increasing the silver content of the coinage. As well as being an impeccably traditional office, the censorship was an ideal vehicle for an emperor whose talent was micromanagement. Domitian was also an emperor, it is fair to say, who had little time for the polite fiction, maintained since the first emperor Augustus, that any institution other than the army (the Praetorian Guard in Rome and the legions scattered around the Empire) was necessary for establishing and maintaining imperial authority. About the Author Tom Holland is an award-winning historian of the ancient world, a translator of Greek and Roman classical texts, and a documentary writer. He is the author of six other books, including Rubicon, Persian Fire, and Dominion. He contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He co-presents the podcast The Rest Is History. He lives in London. Once removed from the synagogue, the followers of the Way had to hold meetings elsewhere. A model for the required organisation was at hand in the free associations that honeycombed the Roman world. While the social purposes of these clubs were extensively varied, all had the same organisation. The Roman slave system was brutally exploitative, but, unlike the North American slave system, it was not based on racist assumptions and, as Holland shows, it did offer those enslaved in the households of the rich and famous a path to prominence. Two ancient sources, Suetonius and Cassius Dio both claim that the Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD) brought in the prohibition.