Welcome to Neo-Roma
As we move forward into the new millennium, we find that history is repeating itself, with both positive and negative results for humanity…
There was a time when Rome was the most powerful city in the world. Having defeated its rival Carthage three hundred years previously, and having dissolved the Roman Republic in favour of an Empire, it had risen to giddy heights of riches and glory.
Right around 100AD, its empire spread from Scotland in the North West to Iran in the South East, and beyond those borders, its wielded significant political and economic power as far east as India and south to Sudan and Nigeria. Its power was absolute, consisting of an unelected Emperor, a Senate and a variety of Quaestors, Prefects and other regional governors.
Despite this dictatorial power, the culture of the Roman Empire was relatively libertarian in some respects. Granted, it could also be incredibly brutal and repressive, but in terms of religious history, it was comparatively non-invasive. All one had to do to become one with the Empire was to accept that the Emperor was a living God and include some reference to him in the local religious liturgy. One’s local religious rituals could then continue unimpeded.
In this kind of cultural environment, religion began to flourish and spread along well-walked trade routes, and very quickly, syncretism began to occur.
Alexandria in Egypt was largely the centre of this syncretism. Known as a city of philosophers and mystics, Alexandria allowed numerous religious groups to prosper – old Egyptian mystics, Jews, Greek-speaking pagans and philosophers – and it was from here that numerous belief systems (including, some argue, Christianity) spread across the whole Empire.
The Roman Empire circa 100AD was a vast market of competing religions, mystery cults and belief systems.
Take Mithraism, for example. The origins of this mystery cult religion based on worship of the God Mithras are fairly obscure, but it is likely to have come from Persia, and it spread rapidly through the Roman military troops. Mithraic temples, or Mithraeums, have been found from Palestine to Northern Britain, along with inscribed prayers to Mithras from numerous soldiers. As it passed across Europe, it began to coalesce with local cults whose beliefs were along the same lines, and a kind of syncretic Mithraism, which could be understood by all peoples across the Empire, began to arise.
If it hadn’t been for Emperor Constantine converting to Christianity in the fourth century, many historical commentators believe that much of Europe would have become Mithraic instead. This isn’t to be wondered at, because as stated above, before Constantine all Rome required for conformity was a statement of loyalty to the God Emperor.
Coupled with this religious freedom, however, was a vicious military brutality which sought to subjugate and divide the native peoples of vast swathes of the European continent. In many ways, the rise of the Roman Empire spelt misery and poverty.
Thus, we can model the Roman Empire at the height of its glory as a power and riches-hungry imperial machine which nevertheless granted religious freedom and provided an environment in which syncretism and indeed a relatively ‘modern’ way of thinking could flourish.
But does this not all sound rather familiar? Can we not model America in particular and Western civilisation in general as the ‘new Rome Repeated’?
Having just ‘defeated’ (ideologically at least) the Communist bloc of countries, and ushered many of them into its sphere of influence, it is rising on a wave of optimism and military conquest to increase its economic power, spelling relatively poverty to many of the affected nations (such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam).
On the other hand, there has been for the last fifty years a dissolution of the old ways of religious thinking, and a rise in syncretic religious thinking. A quick glance over the Internet will see the rise of the old pagan cults, many of them a mixture of the very old and the very new.
Is it not the case that history is repeating itself? Let’s look at the evidence:
3rd century BC – Rome defeats the city of Carthage and removes its influence from the Mediterranean. Carthaginian territories in Spain and North Africa are absorbed into the Roman Empire.
20th century AD – Western ‘capitalist’ civilisation score an ideological victory over communism and the falls of numerous communist states is followed by the absorption of many of those states into Western economic and military blocs such as the European Union and NATO.
1st century AD – Centred on Alexandria but also elsewhere, new religions and syncretic cults begin to arise, including Christianity and Mithraism, and spread across the Empire. Philosophy and new ways of thinking flourish. Atheism is also common among the educated classes.
20th century AD – Revolutions in sociology, psychology and anthropology are followed by a fall in Christian attendance in churches and a rise in syncretic cults, new belief systems and atheism.
1st-3rd century AD – Rome consolidates its military hold on its Empire and spreads its influence beyond its borders. Much of the initial push to gain the Empire is followed by waves of poverty and social breakdown in the subjugated peoples. Most notably, the Jewish people in Palestine are expelled from their homelands.
20th and 21st century AD – The increase in Western economic power following the Second World War begins to be protected by increasing military action. Ideologically the Cold War is fought in Eastern Europe and South and South east Asia , as well as Latin America . Poverty results in most of these areas. This is then followed by ‘The War on Terror’, fought largely (so far) in Islamic Asia.
The parallels are somewhat disconcerting, given that the Roman Empire eventually suffered a catastrophic fall and the greatest social and ethnic upheaval that Europe had seen for perhaps 2000 years.
But what can we learn from this understanding of Western civilisation as the new Rome?
Well, firstly, we must come to terms with our history, and make sure we do not make the same mistakes the Romans did. This is difficult, since no matter what period of history we look at, powerful people are always wont to be greedy and anxious, and thus be very willing to use military might to protect what they see as theirs.
As the world’s only superpower, America (and the West in general) must begin to see that it has a responsibility to the world, not just to ensure that poverty is minimised as it tries to maintain its own economic power, but also that it delivers social justice and true freedom. This is the great failure of the Romans – the ‘freedom’ they delivered was at the point of a sword. We need only look at current events in Iraq to see the similarity.
The consequences for continuing the way we are, with the new war on Terrorism and the rising lack of freedom and militarization of the West, may be catastrophic. We need only look at how the Roman Empire ended to learn one possible outcome.
In 435AD, one group of people who had always been outside the borders of the Roman Empire stormed past the gates of Rome and sacked the city. These were the Germanic tribes, and they constituted a wide sphere of influence completely independent of Roman thought and lifestyles. They had been at constant war with Rome for hundreds of years, and fought hard to keep Roman soldiers out of their countries. Impoverished but prideful, they’d always been on the outside, and had been subject to endless attempts at control and subjugation.
Their countries and tribal lands ranged across the whole northern border of the mainland Roman Empire , and it was them who finally brought it down.
The thing that the West really needs to think about is this: who are the people who are currently outside the borders of the Western sphere of influence and who have suffered almost constant war for the last hundred years at Western hands?
Perhaps, now finally, it is time to become not Rome Repeated, but neo-Roma, and instead of invading and subjugating, to come to terms with and offer the true hand of free friendship to that other great sphere of influence – the Islamic World.
Then, just where the Romans failed, the West and Islam could go forward into the new millennium without fear and in true freedom to create new ways of thinking and eradicate poverty and increase prosperity throughout the world.
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