A Brief History Of The Roman Empire, Part 1: The Founding Of Rome

Perhaps more than any other culture, Rome was the seminal civilization of the West. Over the centuries, a tiny town on the banks of the Tiber would be transformed into the beating heart of the greatest empire of antiquity — a shining city of marble that housed over a million souls with architectural marvels that could not be equalled for over a millennia.

For context, the population of London, the capital of the British Empire, the greatest imperial power of all time, did not reach one million until the early 19th century, decades before they mastered indoor plumbing.

The Romans had both in the 1st century.

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Our political, legal, religious and linguistic traditions all have their roots in Rome: Republics and dictators, civil and common law, the Roman Catholic Church and its Protestant offshoots, and the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian … even English, that bastard mutt of a tongue, did not emerge unscathed.) Latin was the West’s liturgical language until the 16th century and the language of science for centuries after that. It’s only within the last century or so that Latin has declined as the international language of educated people.

People have often wondered how such a mighty empire fell, but in many ways the more interesting question is — why did it rise in the first place, and why didn’t it fall far sooner? Why didn’t it collapse in the face of centuries of crises that would have brought most self respecting civilizations to their knees?

All empires crumble, yet from their legendary founding the Romans lasted for over a millennia (two if we count the Byzantines), and their legacy is still going strong. It is the exceptional, above all, that requires an explanation.

Ignoble Origins

The Romans were a martial, legalistic people who forged an empire through conquest. Their distant ancestor, Aeneas, was a refugee from the Trojan War, and the founder and the first of their mythical kings, Romulus, was supposedly the son of Mars, god of war, who slew his twin brother for daring to challenge his city’s borders. 

Roman marble relief AD140-150 showing the Trojan Aeneas and his son Ascanius landing on the shores of Italy. The sow is telling him to found the city of Rome. Getty Images.

Archeological evidence shows the site that would become Rome was intermittently inhabited as far back as 12,000 BC, although none of these settlements were cities. By the early first millennia BC small villages of Latin speakers across the many hills of Rome had begun to coalesce into a larger urban settlement sometime around the city’s mythical founding in 753 BC.

According to Rome’s own telling, its first inhabitants were brigands, runaways, and the castoffs that no respectable people would deal with — Romulus could supposedly find only 100 out of the entire lot pious enough to perform religious duties without angering the gods — the first patriarchs of what would become the patricians, and the first members of the city’s senate. The sex ratio of the new city was rather lopsided, and no father would ever marry his daughter to a Roman, so Romulus staved off a demographic crisis by luring the nearby tribes to the town for a festival, ambushing the lot of them and kidnapping as many of their daughters as they could.

Not the most flattering of origin stories.

Their neighbors, of course, took exception to this, the Sabines especially, and peace was only achieved when the captured Sabine brides begged their husbands, brothers, and fathers not to slaughter one another, and the Sabine tribes were integrated into the state and senate, doubling its number. The early Senate was responsible for choosing and advising the Kings, and after Romulus’s death — and a year of deadlock — the Sabines were granted a concession: a Sabine would be king, but the Roman senators got to pick.

They chose Numa Pomilius, an ascetic who did not want the job, who proceeded to found most of Rome’s important religious institutions and elevate the city to semi-respectable status among its neighbors.

In the heart of their city stood one of his most famous creations, the temple of Janus, god of beginnings, endings, doors and change, namesake of the month of January. In the heart of that temple there were the Gates of Janus. When Rome was at peace, the gates were closed, but when the city was at war they were flung open. Supposedly, for the entire reign of Numa, those gates were proudly sealed shut, but in the years to come they would be open ever after.

Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Most early Roman records are at least semi-mythical and probably wrong — no comparable kingdom ever had a stretch of seven kings reign for an average of 35 years, but there are helpful clues within the myths. Rome lies smack dab in the middle of the Italian peninsula, and was an important trading post between the Greek colonies in the south (Magna Graecia) and the powerful Etruscan city-states to the north.

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The bloodline of Aeneas connected the Latins to the greatest work of Greek mythology, as Rome would borrow much of its religion from the Greeks. We can’t say much about the Etruscans — we can’t even read all of their language, but the last three kings of Rome came from an Etruscan family so it’s safe to say that the city fell under their dominion at some point. Whether or not its final king, Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud) actually murdered his brother, executed political opponents, and drained the treasury dry is up for dispute, but whatever Rome’s experience with monarchy actually was by the end of the ordeal they were good and through with it.

Thus, in 509 BC (one year before Athenian Democracy was born in 508, conveniently) the world’s first Republic was created — “res publica,” the public thing.

Democrats And Republicans Fire First Shots In Debt Limit Showdown

The showdown over the future of the federal budget is taking shape as President Joe Biden releases his fiscal year 2024 spending proposal and House Republicans prepare to leverage their new majority to block the plan.

The White House suggested an increase in the federal budget from $5.8 trillion to $6.9 trillion over the next fiscal year while reducing cumulative deficits by $3 trillion over the next decade through a number of tax hikes on businesses and wealthy individuals. Households with more than $100 million in wealth would be subjected to a 25% minimum tax, while the top marginal tax rate would also be increased to 39.6% from the current 37% rate. Businesses would see an increase in the corporate tax to 28%, which would split the difference between the current 21% rate and the previous 35% rate that was in effect before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

The proposal, which also suggested new health care and education subsidies, largely adheres to the Democratic emphasis on redistributive fiscal policy. “This budget builds on our economic progress by making smart, fiscally responsible investments, which would be more than fully paid for by requiring corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. “The budget’s growth-enhancing investments will continue the economic progress of the last two years and further boost the economy’s productive capacity.”

Republican officials, who have not yet countered the budget with a proposal of their own, meanwhile contested various elements of the plan. “President Biden just delivered his budget to Congress, and it is completely unserious. He proposes trillions in new taxes that you and your family will pay directly or through higher costs,” remarked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”

The release of the budget proposal coincides with negotiations between Biden and McCarthy over the debt ceiling, a measure established by Congress that disallows the federal government from spending beyond the predetermined statutory limit of $31.4 trillion. Yellen warned lawmakers that the Treasury Department was forced to implement “extraordinary measures” earlier this year to fund the government until early June, after which the government will default.

The House Freedom Caucus, which withheld votes from McCarthy at the beginning of the present Congress until he committed to negotiating with Biden on efforts to reduce the national debt, announced that members would likewise refuse to support raising the debt ceiling unless various White House policies are rescinded.

Among the initiatives that the Republican lawmakers want to repeal are the $400 billion student debt cancellation executive order, the $80 billion allocation to the IRS enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act, and all unspent stimulus funds earmarked during the lockdown-induced recession. Votes in favor of raising the debt limit are also contingent upon capping discretionary spending at fiscal year 2022 levels for the next decade with a 1% annual growth allowance.

Business leaders and government officials have cautioned that a default would likely induce a worldwide financial crisis. Increases in the national debt, however, are unsustainable: the federal government’s obligations surpassed $31.5 trillion, equivalent to roughly 120% of the nation’s gross domestic product. Maintenance costs are meanwhile increasing due to the present rise in interest rates.

An analysis from economists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School recently concluded that a 30% decrease in spending or a 40% increase in taxation would be necessary to handle current deficit spending and future obligations. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have overseen surges in debt over the past several decades.

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