Rome = Roam
Legend tells us as Troy fell, through trickery and deception of the Trojan horse, one of its greatest heroes and princes so beloved by the God’s with their aid escaped the doomed city.
Aeneas
Aeneas would make his way from Troy via Carthage, to Italy where his descendents Romulus and Remus would found on seven fabled hills along the Tiber a city named Rome.
Rome though would be like no other city or nation before it. It would not be dependent upon just one philosophy or one way, instead, it would learn to incorporate the best of them all, into an ever evolving system, meant to constantly and progressively be superior to all that stood before it and all that opposed it.
The Gods of Troy would have their place, the Wisdom and Democracy of Athens would fit right in to, and so would the insatiable desire for conquest and more, and the courage of Sparta.
Rome would become the first multicultural state. As it expanded rapidly it did so with an inviting and almost irrepressible entreaty.
“Rome offers you War or Peace; it matters not to Rome which you decide”
The Romans would in fact travel far and wide, allowing the neighboring kings, kingdoms and peoples to join it willingly, and to then incorporate the best of those new ideas, and sciences, into their own, along with their Gods and religious beliefs, or if they failed to join willingly, Roman would conquer them by force of arms and do the same.
The more Rome expanded, the more it incorporated, the more diverse it became, the more unstoppable it became.
As its stature and legends and power grew, so too did its enemies in their determination to not be swallowed by it.
A Second Tale of Three Cities, the Evolution of the Trinity of City-States
While Greece, Sparta, Egypt and others would fall relatively easy under Roman hegemony two other City States would pose problems for Rome in at times exasperating and costly ways.
Carthage
Carthage and Rome were on a collision course practically from the beginning. When Aeneas fled Troy he took refuge at first in Carthage, where its princess and then queen would fall in love with him, and beg him to marry her. Aeneas though rescued by the Gods from death at Troy had a destiny to Roam and to Rome and would reject her, leaving her a spurned woman who would burn herself alive on the pyre she had built to burn all her gifts to him left behind when he set off for Italy.
The enmity between the Carthaginians and the Romans was a particularly bitter one, made all the more bitter as Rome having taken over all of the Italian boot, and Greece and portions of Egypt and Africa became a true sea power.
The Carthaginians were first and foremost merchants, masters of the seas, and the trade routes, and the competition Rome was now providing as it sought to emulate this new aspect of trade, international trade and profit through it, was galling and profit robbing for the Carthaginians.
Rome was learning a new trick, vying competitively for the same lucrative markets, and building a fleet and navy to rival Carthage’s.
Rome was determined to roam to wherever fortune might take it, to display the courage and cunning of the Spartans to dominate and conquest those that stood in its way, to use the wisdom of the Athenians in incorporating them productively into their system.
In this process Rome would establish one of many enduring things that still affect the world to this day in controlling ways.
The Laws of the Sea!
Maritime and Common Roman Laws are the basis of the laws that bind us all into a governing system still to this day.
Maritime Law
Jerusalem
Jerusalem, would pose another challenge for Rome in serious ways. The Hebrews had for centuries been wandering in and out of Middle Eastern Kingdoms from Babylon to Egypt, as Slave Traders, Mercenaries, Artisans and Craftsman, Masons, and Political Advisors and Financiers.
There unnamed God(s) were associated with magical and mystical celestial events, and generally feared, as they earned a Separate but Equal status for their race.
Unlike the Semites who populated the area, the Hebrew too, were from the Anatolia region of Armenia and Turkey, fair skinned and light eyed. They too like the Trojans dated back to the time of the great flood, and in their wandering they had amassed great riches through their wheeling and dealings, machinations and sometimes outright thievery.
Above all Rome’s desire to roam and conquest required gold, gold to equip men and armies, gold to build ships, gold to build roads, gold to bribe Kings into submission when it was cheaper than the cost of armed conflict. Gold to feed the hungry citizens of Rome whose birthright was free bread and circuses.
The Hebrew Tribes had Gold to lend, and Gold to tax, and like the smart business people they were, they recognized they had a real leverage in that. A leverage that would tax Rome itself at times, as it sought to borrow, what it could not tax or steal to finance its expansion.
The Hebrews would teach the Romans the principles of usury, loaning money, and gaining power as a lender and creditor and how to leverage these things.
Wikipedia Usury
Jewish Encyclopeida Usury
Part of today’s system of fractional reserve banking and fiat de facto instrument of debt currencies, run by central banks, are all regulated through the International Monetary Fund, and institution created by the United Nations at it’s birth, to principally enslave nations to debt, and to control them through debt.
International Monetary Fund
Bread and Circuses
Bread and Circuses
As Rome expanded it was by and large a very good place to live for its day. The Roman Republic had developed a system of representative democracy very similar to our own, the Laws were précise and fixed, judgments were not arbitrary nor capricious and Roman Citizens had extreme privileges and rights in this system.
One of them was Bread and Circuses, poor Roman plebes of the common class who could not feed themselves were guaranteed free bread by the state, and sundry entertainments from theatre and plays, to music to gladiatorial combat and other forms of sports.
It was a costly system, but a system that served Rome’s Patrician Senatorial and Political Class citizens well. Power and position meant opportunity for more wealth in the Roman Republic, much like it does in our Republic.
Citizen’s votes were highly sought after and many Patricians were all too happy to buy them.
Rome’s citizens enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world, fresh running water, free baths to stay clean and sanitary, medicine and sciences and technologies unrivaled anywhere else.
Yet it came at a price. The price of constant conquest, to rob the less organized kingdoms of their gold and wealth and enslave their citizens into the service of Rome, to constantly build and expand and pay for these amenities and luxuries.
Slavery would defer the cost, but at the expense of jobs, jobs for the citizens, so keeping the increasingly unemployed Roman citizen fed, and entertained and happy with their state in life was paramount.
In time this would prove to be a great problem.
A problem both in cost and control, at one point the slaves’ outnumbered free citizens of Rome two to one. One Senator famously proposed placing armbands on the slaves so all could tell the difference between who was free and who was a slave on Rome’s teeming streets, to which the other Senators replied are you mad, and have them know how many of them there are?
Eventually a new system of slavery would be required, one that allowed the slaves to think they were free so they would never have a need to rebel.
Taxation as Slavery
[edit on 25/4/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]














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