Roman civilization and Europe's far right - History Forum ~ All Empires

Originally posted by Felis Lakonia

The original post says the Roman Empire was kept in mind during the synthesis of fascism. I think we need to stop and remember the Roman Republic are very different breeds of polity. Since the Roman Empire was mentioned originally, I'll stick to that.

I agree with Tullyccro to an extent. Romans were not necessarily homogenous in population or culture. Part of what made the spread of Rome during its imperial existence was NOT being ethnically exclusive. It is true that Romans defined them self very specifically. There are plenty of models of idea Romans, male and female alike that are described by ancient sources as ideal Romans exuding the concept of Romanitas. Despite the defined Roman existence, the expansion of the empire required that Romans not be exclusive. They did not say "we're stronger and better than you, you are conquered and will never be as good as us" ... rather, they employed a "we're better than you and we'll give you the tools to be more like us" strategy. Outside populations were offered citizenship and given Roman treats like baths and irrigation systems as they were taken. When you are expanding your boundaries fairly quickly, you have to give people incentives to not revolt. You show them why being Roman is better and give them reason, and above all, resources to be more Roman.

Some situations were a bit more complex. There were pockets of Hellenistic monarchies spread here and there that Rome also gathered as its own territories. Rome allowed these monarchs to keep their position as long as they paid their tribute, were well behaved and didnt cause trouble or revolt. It is better to allow them to keep their bizarre ways of life than to constantly invest legions in snuffing revolts and keeping them subdued. Helenistic monarchies were very dangerous and unpredictable. Its a lot safer to just go off their king and build them Roman stuff than let these kings live. An example can be seen of such a situation in which one of these monarchs did cause trouble. A Dacian king by the name of Decebalus under Roman influence was not happy about being subordinate to Roman rule and decided it would be a good idea to slaughter nearby Roaman garrisons. He was seiged and later killed or commited suicide and was beheaded by an Explorator (legionary cavalry espionage unit) named Tiberius Claudius Maximus. (Amazingly enough, his tomb stone has survived). There is also the example of Mithridates VI or Pontus randomly massacreing Romans (80,000!!), unprovoked. His example was later used to draw parallels with Cloepatra VII making her and easy target for propaganda.

Romans did what they had to do to make the aquisition of territories as smooth as possible. You want the populations of the reaches of your empire to be loyal, not hate you can constantly revolt! I don't the connection with facism is a strong one or even a fair one. If you are planning to make your national entity on to be remembered, it is natural to be inspired by the sucess of the past. You will pick the nations of the past that were on top, not the ones that were getting kicked around. You can adopt a nation's symbolism without adopting it policy or structure. You can even adopt its symbolism without even understanding it's structure or policies. "Hey these guys are cool and they killed a lot of people and stayed on top... they seemed to like birds and waving their hands in the air... that's kind of neat... I guess we should do that too."

You dont have to adopt every aspect of your symbols origin. The lion has been used as a symbol of national strength, ferocity, nobility, and power by many, but that doesnt mean their populations are going to organize themselves into social groups in which one male has an abundance of wives who take care of all of his food and... other needs and then be usurped by the first guy who beats him in a fight. Just becuase facists thought Romans were cool and took some of their stuff, that does NOT mean that these symbols meant the same things to them as they did to Romans, and it does not mean that the facists even knew or cared what these symbols meant to Romans. I like think Rome is cool and an SPQR would be a cool license plate or tattoo or something but that doesnt mean I interpret it like a Roman and it certainly doesnt mean I'm a facists. It is really unfair to relate Romans to a national entity that has pilfered some of their bevavior and automatically parallel them to something that post dates them.

A viev that completelly missunderstood Roman history.

Romans were conquering other people or exterminating them. During the conquest of Italy, quite a few nations were not even enslaved but completelly exterminated and their land was taken by Romans. They in fact did use policy "we're stronger and better than you, you are conquered and will never be as good as us, surrender or die". The way in which Rome treated its conquered nations resulted in many rebellions. Roman citisen in the conqured province could have rape women, kill people, steal goods even from temples and remain untouchable. Even in Italy before it became "Roman" in sence of citisenship, behaviour of Roman people was barbarian and cruel what finally caused social war. Romans never wanted to give its conquered people their citisenship, it was rather the result of social evolution and historical necesity.

But comparing Romans to fascist, nazists or communists I find simply stupid. It was militaristic society that was evolving in time and finally absorbing other people and cultures into their but its hard to say that it was roman intention.