Ancient Rome

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Chapter 12 : The Age of the Caesars - Pre-Christian Rome

ROMULUS AND REMUS

According to Roman legend, the city of Rome was founded around the year 753 BC by the orphaned twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who were saved from death in their infancy by a she-wolf who had sheltered and suckled them.

Whatever the origins of the city, it is so that by the year 700 BC the city had been firmly established on the seven hills around the Tiber River valley, and by the 6th Century BC, the city and surrounding areas were ruled by the Etruscans.

The city of Rome was at this stage ruled by kings elected by the people. The symbol of the elected king of Rome became known world wide as a symbol of power: an axe head bound together in a bundle of reeds, called a fasces.

The rationale behind the symbol was that each tribe was represented by one reed - by themselves they could be easily broken, but bound together they could be a powerful force.


Above: A Roman cavalry officer, from a sarcophagus found in Asia Minor (Turkey) circa 50 AD.

The fasces symbol, which was used by the 20th Century Italian leader Benito Mussolini, can still be seen today reposing under the hands of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial in the capital of the United States of America, Washington D.C., and inside the American Congress itself.

Advising the first Roman kings were the heads of all the leading families gathered together in a group called the senate.

This body remained in place, with varying powers, until the fall of the Roman Empire some 1,500 years later.

The senators and their families became the upper class of Rome, called the patricians, while the common people were known as the plebeians.


Above Roman lictors carrying fasces - reeds bundled together with an ax head fastened in-between. The symbol of authority in ancient Rome, it derived its meaning from the fact that singly, reeds can be broken and bent, but bound together, they are strong. The fasces symbol was taken world wide as a symbol of authority, and can be found in much western architecture the world over. Benito Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party took not only the emblem as their own, but also their name from the fasces.

THE EARLY REPUBLIC (509 BC - 133 BC)

In the year 509 BC, a group of patricians led a rebellion against a particularly unpopular Etruscan king, threw him out and set up a republic in Rome. This rebellion's most famous incident was a battle outside the gates of Rome when the legendary Roman soldier Horatio personally faced off against the Etruscan king's army while the bridge to the city was destroyed, preventing the Etruscans from regaining control of the capital.

The power held by the former king was now passed on to two annually elected rulers, called consuls. Other cities within central and northern Italy formed an alliance and challenged the power of the new republic of Rome, leading to a Roman defeat at the Battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC.

Three years later, in 493 BC, the republic of Rome joined the alliance, and it became known as the Latin League and set about dislodging the last of the Etruscan strongholds.

Although originally not as advanced as the Etruscans, by 400 BC the Latini had adopted much of Etruscan culture and had in all respects surpassed their former masters, both militarily and culturally. The secret of their success - as indeed with the whole Roman Empire - was their astonishing ability to organize on a scale not seen since the days of the first Egyptians.

By 400 BC, the Latin League had successfully overthrown all the last vestiges of Etruscan rule, and from then on the Etruscan peoples were completely absorbed into the Latini, creating a Nordic/Alpine/Mediterranean mix which became characteristic of the early and middle Roman Empire, with Nordic elements tending to form the ruling class.

Rome was acknowledged by all the tribes making up the Latin alliance as the leading city, even though, as it later turned out, they were unhappy with the situation.

It was during this period of nation forming that the Romans wrote their first major legal code: in 450 BC, the Law of the Twelve Tables was laid down, which served as the basis for not only the entire Roman legal system, but also the basis of virtually all modern legal systems in the world today.

(Mirroring the older Greek Spartan tradition, the Twelve Tables specifically called for the euthanasia death of any infant showing conspicuous deformities or retardation - an example of basic eugenics at work amongst these early Romans.)


A piece of painted pottery from circa 350-325 BC, south Italian (Tarentine), showing an actor. Called 'Tragic Actor Holding a Mask', it is a fine example of early Roman racial types, although it is possible that the actor himself is also wearing a mask. Martin von Wagner Museum, University of Würzburg, Germany.

CELTIC ATTACK - THE SACKING OF ROME IN 387 BC

However, the Romans faced another serious crisis. In 387 BC, Gauls, the descendants of Celtic tribesmen who had settled in France, launched an attack on Rome, and eventually sacked the city. They were only finally persuaded to leave by the Romans bribing them with gold.

The Gaulish invasion however showed a serious weakness in the ranks of the Latin League - the other components of the alliance had refused to help Rome against the Gauls.

This was not forgotten by the Romans, who, by 380 BC had not only rebuilt their city and had erected huge defensive walls around it, but had also started preparing a new and more powerful army than before.

In 338 BC, after entering into an alliance with certain smaller tribes around Rome, the Romans turned on their former allies in the Latin League and decisively defeated them, becoming by 280 BC, the dominant force in Italy.

GREEK WARS

Above: An original bust of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who came to Italy and Sicily with his army and elephants to help the Greek cities in those territories. Although gaining an initial victory, it was at such a cost to his forces that he was ultimately defeated. Ever since then, any hollow victory which ultimately leads to a defeat is known as a pyrrhic victory.

As Roman power and influence grew, so it became ever more inevitable that a clash with the Greek settlements in southern Italy would follow. War did indeed break out as the Romans started occupying the southernmost points of Italy.

A Grecian king named Pyrrhus, from the city of Epirus in northern Greece, was hired by one of the Grecian cities in southern Italy, Tarentum, to help ward off the Romans. Pyrrhus managed to inflict a defeat upon the Romans which temporarily stayed the latter's excursions.

However, the cost of the victory - in terms of men and materials - was so great, that it exhausted the Greek expeditionary force, and by 270 BC, all of Italy had fallen to Rome, with the Greeks being unable to maintain the war against Rome. Ever since then, any empty victory - which ultimately leads to a long term defeat - has been called a Pyrrhic victory.

CARTHAGE - A THREAT TO ROME

With the elimination of Greek bases in Italy itself, only the city of Carthage on the north African coast served as a power which could seriously threaten further Roman expansion. Carthage had been founded around the year 800 BC by the Phoenicians, and had become an independent and powerful force in its own right.

Carthage had grown over the centuries, with a large Nordic infusion having taken place after the region's occupation by Alexander the Great, and by the time of the wars with Rome, Carthage was at its peak.

The Latin word for Phoenician was Punicus - from which the word Punic was to derive, hence the Roman wars against Carthage are called the Punic wars.

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR (264 - 241 BC)

In 264 BC, war broke out between Rome and Carthage over possession of the island of Sicily. After suffering initial reverses, the Romans defeated the Carthaginians, who were forced to sue for peace in 241 BC. In terms of the peace treaty, Rome administered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, adding to the growing territorial possessions of the city republic.


The harbor of Carthage


Above: The remains of the harbor of Carthage, as it was captured in a photograph in the early 1920s. When Rome finally overwhelmed Carthage, its soldiers razed the city to the ground. ploughed salt into its fields (so that nothing would every grow there again); killed all the men and took the women and children into captivity.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR (218 BC - 201 BC )

The Second Punic War is also known as Hannibal's war, named after the great Carthaginian general who, after a long epic campaign, very nearly routed the power of Rome. After having lost control of Sicily and other Mediterranean islands, Carthage sent an army to invade and occupy Spain between 237 BC and 219 BC. The original settlers in the region were no match for the battle experienced Carthaginians, and were overrun relatively quickly.

Then, starting in 218 BC, Hannibal led an army of about 50,000 men and a troop of 37 African elephants across southern France, through the Alps in northern Italy (only one of his elephants survived the incredible journey) and attacked the Romans virtually continually for the next fifteen years up and down the length and breadth of Italy.


Above: Hannibal's troops crossing the Rhone River on their way to attack northern Italy. Only one elephant actually survived the crossing of the Alps.

Hannibal had many victories, with the greatest being the battle of Cannae where he defeated a numerically superior Roman force. For a while it appeared as if the Romans had finally met their match - but a Roman general, Scipio, hit upon the idea of repaying Carthage in kind. He invaded north Africa, using the logic that if Hannibal could invade Italy and threaten Rome, the Romans could invade north Africa and threaten Carthage. The tactic worked, and Hannibal was forced to return to defend Carthage, leaving behind much of his army on the European mainland.

Rome was then able to invade Spain and drive out the Carthaginian armies. Hannibal was finally defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, and another peace treaty followed. According to the terms of this treaty, Carthage agreed to disarm, pay an indemnity to Rome and hand over their Spanish colonies to Roman rule.

Hannibal himself was never forgiven by the Romans, who pursued him right into Asia Minor (Turkey) where he committed suicide in 182 BC.




Above right: A silver coin struck at Carthage around the year 220 BC, showing the Aryan face of Hannibal, that city's greatest warrior.
Alongside: A bronze bust of the Roman general, Publius Scipio, who finally defeated Hannibal at the battle of Zama in 202 BC. The Romans called their new colony "Africa" - and in this way the Romans gave Africa (and Africans) the name by which that continent and its people are known today.

GREECE OCCUPIED - 146 BC

The defeat of Carthage left the Romans free to assert their authority in the east. The Macedonians, who had helped Hannibal, were the first to be punished for this deed by the Romans.

The legions of Rome invaded Macedonia in 200 BC, defeating the Macedonian army in 197 BC. The Greek mainland then came under Roman protection, although many city states were allowed self rule.

However, continuous turmoil and infighting between many of these cities eventually compelled Rome to directly occupy the whole region, an operation which was completed by 146 BC (in that year Roman legions destroyed the Greek city of Corinth.)

For 60 years after 146 BC, Greece was almost completely administered by Rome, although some cities, such as Athens and Sparta, retained their free status.

In 88 BC, Mithridates, the king of Pontus, invaded Roman held territories from the east - many cities of Greece supported the Asian monarch with the belief that they would regain their independence.

A Roman army forced Mithridates out of Greece and crushed the rebellion, sacking Athens in 86 BC, and Thebes a year later. Roman punishment of all the rebellious cities was heavy, and the campaigns fought on Greek soil left central Greece in ruins. In 22 BC, the Greek city states were separated from Macedonia and the Romans made these city states into one province called Achaea.

During the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117 - 138AD), many of Athens' famous buildings were restored out of the ruins. The continuing Roman restoration work was however interrupted by an invasion of Goths and Herulians, who in 267 AD and 268 AD, overran Greece, captured Athens, and laid waste the cities of Argos, Corinth, and Sparta.

From the 6th to the 8th centuries, Slavonic tribes from the north migrated into the peninsula, occupying Illyria and Thrace.

After the Goths left, the Grecian peninsula, thoroughly ravaged by centuries of warfare and racial mixing, settled down to obscurity as a province under the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium.

EGYPT

Rome had by this time succeeded in establishing itself as the dominant new power in the Mediterranean, and in 168 BC, Egypt (then still under Macedonian Ptolemaic rule) formally allied itself to Rome. This meant that by 168 BC, most of the Mediterranean - from Spain right around the Mediterranean coast through Greece, parts of Turkey, Egypt and the north African coast up to Tunisia, was either under direct Roman rule or allied to Rome.

THE THIRD PUNIC WAR (146 BC)

The enmity between Carthage and Rome was so deep that it could not however be buried with a mere treaty, and in 146 BC, war between the two powers broke out once again. By this time, however, Roman power was vast - Carthage itself was besieged and destroyed.

Angered at being constantly threatened by the same enemy repeatedly, this time Rome wrote no treaty with Carthage. To ensure that the Carthaginians never threatened them again, the Romans killed or enslaved the population of Carthage, physically destroyed the city and ploughed over the ruins, putting salt into the earth so that nothing would grow there again.

At the end of the Third Punic War, the Romans physically occupied what is today known as Tunisia and refounded a new city of Carthage - a Roman one. They called it the province of "Africa" - a name which later was used to refer to the entire continent. In this same manner, Roman conquests in the east led to the creation of the Roman province of "Asia" - once again a Roman name became the name of an entire continent.

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Chapter 13 : Power and Purpose - The Glory of Rome

The fact that the Roman Empire dissolved into a multi-racial polyglot does not distract from the very many fine cultural and engineering achievements of the original Romans. It is however very noticeable that the greatest Roman achievements date from before the time of the racial dissolution of the empire - once again mirroring earlier civilizations.

ROMAN SOCIAL LIFE

Roman social life concentrated on great athletic and sporting events. The tradition of blood sports - of gladiators killing each other for the amusement of spectators, was not a sport associated with the original Romans.

It only became common once Rome had started to fill up with foreigners, although there was certainly no active resistance amongst the original Romans to the rise of the bloody spectacles. Indeed, the attraction to blood sports was also used as a political tool - very often prisoners who had been guilty of some particularly heinous crime would be fed to the lions, as often happened with the early Christians under the Emperor Nero.

Wrestling and chariot racing were all major amusements. The largest sports stadium in Rome was the Circus Maximus, which could seat approximately 300,000 people and could be filled with water to re-enact sea battles between regular sized ships. The Circus Maximus stood for centuries, but its stone was eventually broken up for use in Christian buildings in the Middle Ages. Virtually every major Roman town, from North Africa right through to the Near East, boasted a theater or amphitheater - some in use to this day.



Above: A reconstruction of the huge Circus Maximus in Rome. This was the greatest Roman entertainment complex of all time, being able to seat 300,000 spectators.

The first parts of the Circus Maximus were built around 600 BC, being substantially enlarged by Julius Caesar, who also added canals which could flood the theater floor upon which ships could be sailed to re-enact sea battles. The Roman general Pompey the Great is said on one occasion (55 BC) to have sponsored five days of circus games during which 500 lions and 20 elephants were killed. The Circus Maximus, which was far larger than the famous Coliseum, did not survive. It was broken up and its stone was used to build Christian churches after that religion came to dominate Europe.

ROMAN RELIGION

The one outstanding feature of Roman religion before the advent of Christianity was that there was no single faith or belief. The religious world of Rome reflected in many ways the actual empire itself: a mix of different cults and beliefs, with influences from Greece, Egypt and the Middle East, all thrown in for good measure.

Many of the oldest Roman gods reflected also the nature of the first Romans - these gods represented the practical needs of daily life and military prowess. Janus and Vesta guarded the door and hearth; Lares protected the field and house; Pales the pasture; Saturn the sowing; Ceres the growth of the grain; Pomona the fruit; and Consus and Ops the harvest.

Many of these gods' names are remembered in modern day names for certain types of fruit and cultivated crops.


Left: A Roman statue of Pomona, the goddess of fruit and autumn. The goddess of the orchards, she was typically depicted with plentiful fruit. Her name is typical for early Roman religion: an extraction from the Latin word for apple, pomum.

Jupiter, the ruler of the gods, was not only credited with bringing rain, but was also known for his weapon, lightning (as was the Greek chief God, Zeus) and was the protector of the Romans in their military activities beyond the borders of their own community.

Mars was a god of young men and war and along with Jupiter, Quirinus, Janus and Vesta, formed the first Roman pantheon of gods.

As part of their policy of absorption, native gods from conquered surrounding lands were usually granted the same honor with which the Roman gods were held. In many cases formal invitations were made to the religions' leaders and their precious objects to take up residence in Rome. This growth in the number of foreign religions had another serious consequence - foreigners were attracted to the city in ever increasing numbers. Gods from neighboring tribes in Italy which became Roman gods included famous non-Roman deities such as Diana, Minerva, Hercules and Venus. The Roman religious calendar also reflected Rome's willingness to absorb foreign cults.

The oldest Roman festivals lasted till the very end of the pagan Roman era, and marked the original Indo-European festivals of Spring and Winter.

One of the most important festivals was the Saturnalia which was celebrated for seven days, from December 17 to 23, during the original winter solstice time. All business was suspended, slaves were given temporary freedom and gifts were exchanged.

Another important festival was the Lupercalia, which celebrated Lupercus, a pastoral god. The festival was celebrated on February 15 at the cave of the Lupercal on the Palatine Hill, where the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were supposed to have been nursed by a she-wolf.

The Equiria, a festival in honor of Mars, was celebrated on February 27 and March 14, traditionally the time of year when new military campaigns were prepared.

The growth in the number of temples in Rome also indicated how willing the Romans were to allow all manner of cults to flourish under their rule. Roman society adopted the fairly liberal approach that each person could conduct their own particular religion as they wished as long as it did not disturb the public order.

This, combined with the huge areas which fell under Roman domination, saw any number of cults and beliefs stream into Rome from all parts of the known world: Mithraism from Iran, Judaism from Palestine, and even the worship of the Isis cult from Egypt proved to be popular after Cleopatra VII visited Rome for a year as the guest of Caesar. Influences from far and wide all competed for converts in Rome.


Octavian Augustus, early 1st Century AD, marble. Vatican Museum, Rome.

Eventually the Romans started to deify their own great leaders after their deaths: in this way a cult around Julius Caesar and Octavian Augustus quickly grew, and temples for these groups were also built. (This is where the Catholic Church inherited the habit of deifying their most famous members, calling them saints).

All the non-Christian religions were prohibited in AD 392 by an edict of Emperor Theodosius after Christianity had become dominant.

ROMAN LITERATURE - MASSIVE HERITAGE

Culturally, the early Romans left a massive heritage, contributing to Western Civilization some of the most famous writers and thinkers outside of Classical Greece.

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Marcus Tullus Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC) was one of the most famous Latin writers, producing texts on a wide number of topics, including analyses and discussions of Greek thought, especially that of Plato and the Stoics.
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Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC) is known as the greatest of all Roman poets, mainly because of his epic poem the Aeneid, which told the story of Aenus, who moved from Troy to Italy and helped establish the Latini people.
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Ovid (43 BC - 17 AD) is most famous for his poem Metamorphoses, which contains stories from classical mythology. He also won renown as a poet of pleasure and love, and after one particularly bad sexual scandal involving a member of an imperial family, he was exiled to an outpost on the Black Sea.
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Livy (59 BC - 17 BC) wrote an immense history of Rome, the first comprehensive history of that type undertaken.
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Tacitus (55 AD - 117 AD) wrote several pieces including Germania and the Annals, which were critical of Roman society and the Emperor system of rule.
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Plutarch (46 AD - 120 AD) is most famous for his biographical work of 46 famous Romans and Greeks, called the Parallel Lives. This work was used some 1,600 years later by the English playwright William Shakespeare to obtain details for two of his tragic dramas, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar.
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The historian Pliny the Elder (23 AD - 79 AD) assembled what can be called the first Encyclopedia, the "Natural History."




Above right: Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC) is known as the greatest of all Roman poets, mainly because of his epic poem the Aeneid, which told the story of Aenus, who moved from Troy to Italy and helped establish the Latini people. Alongside: The great Roman historian Tacitus (55 - 117AD), who, along with Pliny, was one of Rome's greatest historians and social commentators.

Under Roman rule, the remnant Macedonians in Egypt kept up their scientific research work started under the Ptolomies. Under the Romans, Alexandria was once again built up into a huge city, spawning the famous geographer Ptolemy (circa 200 AD) who was the first to draw a map of the world onto a curved surface, working off plans drawn up by the original White Greek Macedonian, Erastosthenes.

Galen (139 AD -200 AD) was another Romanized Greek, who established the principles of medicine used in Europe until the early Renaissance period.



Above: The first map to represent the earth on a curved surface (and hence part of a globe) - devised by the Roman-Greek scientist Ptolemy, working in Roman Egypt during the 2nd Century AD.

ART - SET WORLD STANDARDS

As with many things architectural, early Roman art copied Grecian forms. This was readily apparent in the sculpture style, and indeed many statues of Greeks which have survived to the present day are Roman copies of Greek originals.

Roman art has unquestionably set the standard against which all other art is measured - even to the point where an object or style is known as "classical" or not - an indication that even 2,000 years later, no-one has been able to improve upon the design of the Romans.

ARCHITECTURE

The Romans unashamedly took many building designs from the Greeks (the various column types and the now famous Greco-Roman building style of a triangular roof set atop rows of columns) and perfected and added to them, creating structures which to this very day are awe inspiring and unequaled in sheer aesthetics. The Greek influence went beyond architecture. All educated Romans were bilingual, speaking Latin and Greek.

Many of the buildings in Rome itself date from the height of the Empire, and while most have been abandoned, some Roman structures, such as the famous water aqueduct in Segovia, Spain, are still working today, nineteen centuries after they were built. Roman roads were the autobahns of their day, and the road system set up by the Romans was not equaled until the 20th Century.


Above: The Coliseum, Rome. Completed in 81 AD, it is called the Coliseum after a colossal statue of Nero that once stood nearby - its real name is the Flavian Amphitheater. It was used for staged battles, sometimes between lions and Christians and other heretics, among other spectacles, and is one of the most famous pieces of architecture in the world.


Above: The Roman built aqueduct at Segovia in Spain, still supplies that town's water, nearly 1,800 years after it was built.


Above: A Roman castle on the Rhine River near Cologne. Castles such as this dotted the frontiers of the Empire.


Above: A Model of the city of Rome, showing the Circus Maximus and the Coliseum. In this city with running water, citizens lacked for nothing and the infrastructure equalled any modern city.

The workmanship which went into many of the constructions of the time would be hard to match even in the modern era - and this in spite of the advantage of modern tools. The Romans certainly started town planning as a skill: laying out new cities on a gird pattern for ease of commuting, and their inventions of concrete and the vaulted dome made possible the huge buildings later to become known as cathedrals.

However, this frenzied building activity, like its Egyptian predecessor, had its price. Masses of slaves provided the cheap labor to build these edifices, and the influx of slaves combined with natural immigration to the Roman center was ultimately to provide the demographic shift which brought about the Empire's downfall.

SLAVES

Slavery was an institutionalized part of Roman society. The sheer size of the Empire meant however that many slaves were foreign - Greek slaves were held to be the best type of slave to have (they were of course the Whitest slave, after Gauls or Germans, who were less common as slaves). Arabs, Blacks and others of mixed race from the Middle and Near East also made up a huge number of the slave population.

The importation of these racially alien slaves impacted upon the demographics of Rome over a period of time. The numbers of slaves must have been tremendous: there were enough of them to form their own 70,000 strong army, as happened in 73 BC, when the slave leader Spartacus( Most of the rebel slaves were Germans and Celts) led the famous slave uprising. It took an entire Roman army to suppress that uprising - but still the practice of slavery continued, and was to ultimately cost the Romans their very existence itself.

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Chapter 14: Opponents and Allies - Rome and the Celts


others significant enough to have created regions or states later to be named after them: these included the Britanni, Slavs, Balts, Germans and others.

Despite their differing tribal names, they all shared a common Aryan sub-racial root. Depending on the nature of the original European populations they encountered in the various parts of Europe, they either retained their Aryan characteristics or they were diluted amongst the Alpine or Mediterranean populations.

In this way the population of northern and large parts of Western Europe became more Nordic, while parts of France, Spain, Italy and central Europe became less so.

THE BALTS - RETAINED TRADITIONS LONGEST

The Balts were the northernmost wave of the Indo-European tribes, settling in north eastern Europe around the Baltic sea, to which they gave their name. The Balts were unique in the sense that they were the only original Indo-European tribe not to have had direct military contact with the Romans.

This was due to the fact that once settled in the north eastern reaches of Europe, the Balts never tried to expand further: the only Indo-European peoples not to engage in any further land grabbing exercises.

Probably because of this isolationist policy, they kept to the ancient Indo-European traditions the longest, with even their languages to this day retaining similarities with the Indo-European mother tongue.


Above: Dying Gaul, Roman sculpture, circa 230 BC. An excellent portrayal of the racial characteristics of the Gauls with whom Rome was to do battle.

THE CELTS IN FRANCE AND THE ROMANS

By 600 BC, the Celts had firmly established themselves in France, although those in the southern parts of France were more brunet (because of the greater Mediterranean population originally living there) than those in the northern parts.

These Celtic tribes lived in relative stability in small villages and towns, with a strongly developed sense of social status - the aristocracy were almost always warriors, while the middle and lower classes were the tradesmen and laborers.

As the Celts were not literate, virtually all the descriptions of their lifestyles come from Roman writers, including that of Julius Caesar himself, who was head of the Roman army that occupied Gaul in 54 BC. Caesar wrote an account of his campaign in Gaul, and noted the differences between the Gauls in the north and the south.

GAULS FOUND MILAN AND ATTACK ROMANS

The enmity between Rome and the Celts (or Gauls, to give them the name that they had by the time of the Roman occupation of France) went back to 400 BC, when Celtic armies invaded northern Italy and founded the city of Milan.

In 387 BC, they even occupied the city of Rome, leaving only after the Romans paid them a ransom of gold.

Other Celtic tribes struck further south, with one group, the Galatae, reaching Asia minor, becoming the Galatians mentioned in the Bible. Yet another group settled in what became Yugoslavia, founding the city of Belgrade.


Above: A Roman sculpture of a (French) Gaul chieftain. An excellent depiction of a Gaulish nobleman from the time of the Roman invasion of modern day France.

ROMAN REVENGE

The Romans bided their time and built up their strength. After a series of minor clashes, Roman armies under general Caesar rolled into Gaul in 54 BC and smashed the Celts, enslaving virtually the entire population, over three million by Roman counts.

The cruelty with which the Romans suppressed the Gauls was to trigger one last great uprising. Began by a tribe in central France, the rebellion spread out and carried on for two years, eventually being led by the king of the Arverni tribe, one Vercingetorix.

Spurred on by fresh Roman outrages - when Caesar occupied the Gaulish town of Avaricum, for example, he ordered all 40,000 inhabitants put to death - Vercingetorix and his Gaulish allies very nearly defeated the Roman armies.

For a while the Roman expedition nearly foundered, but eventually superior Roman organization won the day. Vercingetorix and 80,000 of his men were finally cornered in the fortified town of Alesia on the Seine river. Caesar's army settled down to a siege, preparing their defenses well enough to ward off attacks by Vercingetorix's allies outside.

Finally, in an attempt to save his people from extermination, Vercingetorix personally surrendered to Caesar in 52 BC.

Caesar had the Celtic King sent to Rome in chains, where he was kept prisoner for six years, before being publicly strangled and beheaded.


Left: The Gaulish rebellion at an end: Vercingetorix surrenders to Caesar. After conquering modern day France and moving on to Britain, Caesar had to rush back to Gaul to face a full scale rebellion led by the great chief Vercingetorix in 52 BC. After cornering and besieging the Gauls at Alesia on the Seine River, the Gaulish chief personally surrendered to Caesar in an attempt to save his own people. Caesar had the Gaul sent to Rome in chains where he was kept prisoner for six years before being executed.

THE CELTS IN BRITAIN AND THE ROMANS

The island of Britain had in the interim also been settled by waves of Celts, producing the same sub-grouping mix as had happened elsewhere in Europe. Generally though, the Celtic Britons were not as Nordic as their Celtic cousins across the channel in France, this being due to the fewer number of Nordic Celts actually crossing the channel to mix with the Alpine/Mediterranean Neolithic population in Britain.

The Celtic Britons further built up and advanced on many Neolithic structures already existing in Britain.

Many of the ancient hill forts in southern and western England were for example rebuilt and further strengthened, for, like Celts everywhere, they were just as apt to fight with each other as with anyone else.

Yet more Celts moved across to Ireland, taking the ancient Indo-European language with them: the very name Eire is, like Iran and Iraq, derived from the word Aryan. Eire was never settled by the Romans (although they did have one fort outside Dublin, but this appears to have been an emissary party only) and thus remained known as Celtic strongholds.

Pre-Roman Celtic Britain is best described as iron age, although the country was essentially Neolithic with agriculture as its main activity. Contact with the outside more developed world existed, with evidence of trade even with Rome, being fairly abundant.


Above: Reconstruction of the head of Lindow man, the Iron Age body found in a Cheshire, England, peat bog in 1984.(Bruenn phenotype) Dating from around 100 AD, this would have been the typical type of Celt that the Romans would have encountered, fought against, and finally mixed with, in Britain. On display in the British Museum, London.

FIRST ROMAN INVASION - 55 BC

In 55 BC, Caesar, fresh from subduing the Gauls in France, undertook the first Roman crossing of the channel to Britain. He managed to land a sizable army, but his emissary to the Celtic tribes of south eastern Britain, a Romanized Gaul named Commius, was captured by one of the Celtic tribes.

The Romans were also surprised to find that the Britons had war chariots - another skill imported from their Indo-European homeland - and the Roman cavalry, which was the only weapon which Caesar might have been able to deploy against the chariots, had not managed to cross the channel due to bad weather.

For a while it seemed as if Caesar's two legions would be driven out of Britain - but his Gallic emissary (who had been released as part of a diplomatic cat and mouse game) managed to gather together some local horses to whittle down the advantage of the British chariots.

A stalemate was achieved after a particularly inconclusive battle - but it was the respite that Caesar needed, and shortly thereafter the bulk of the Roman legions withdrew to Gaul, with Caesar himself being feted in Rome for the expedition, although it was minor in comparison to the far more significant conquest of Gaul.

SECOND ROMAN INVASION - 54 BC

The following year, 54 BC, Caesar however launched yet another invasion of Britain. This time he landed a force several times larger than his first expedition, including some 2,000 cavalry. He hoped to land his forces and march quickly into the heart of the Celtic territory and inflict a defeat upon the scattered tribes before they could unite into one army.

However, he chose his landing beaches poorly. To compound his problems, a storm forced him to spend ten days dragging all his ships onto the dry land to prevent them from being sunk, giving the Britons enough time to sound the alarm and to draw up their army under a leading tribal chief named Cassivellaunus.

Nonetheless, the overwhelming force which Caesar had drawn into Britain, defeated even the united Celts. The defeat caused the Celtic alliance to wither, and some significant tribes even went over to the Roman side, the most important being the Trinovantes of Essex, who had reason to disapprove of Cassivellaunus because he had, in an earlier skirmish, slain their chief.

Cassivellaunus went on the offensive, attacking a major Roman camp in Kent, but was defeated. Caesar's victories were not however complete. The early loss of time meant that winter was now approaching and he had still not achieved his outright conquest. Even worse, rebellion was brewing in Gaul across the Channel. He and Cassivellaunus then agreed to a peace whereby the Celts would pay an annual tribute to Rome and would safeguard Roman interests in Britain. Thus concluded, Caesar hurriedly left Britain to return to Rome and then back to Gaul, where he had to face Vercingetorix's uprising.


Above: Romans landing on the British shore. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar and a Roman army landed in Britain, and was surprised to find stiff resistance from the Celts resident on that island. Great was his surprise when he also found that the Celts had chariots, and it was only after an inconclusive battle that a stalemate was reached which allowed Caesar to leave without conceding defeat. Caesar launched another invasion of Britain in the following year, and this time managed to subdue a larger number of Celts. Most of the country remained independent however for nearly another 90 years until 43AD when a renewed Roman offensive subdued virtually all of present day England.

Any thoughts Caesar may have had of a third invasion of Britain were shelved by the subsequent events which occupied his life - the suppression of the Gallic rebellion - the march on Rome in 50 BC - his assumption of power and his assassination a few short years later.

CAESAR'S CONQUEST OF SPAIN

Caesar did however manage to conquer Spain in a short six week campaign in 49 BC - bringing virtually all the Celts in that country under Roman rule (previously only a southern part of Spain had been in Roman hands, seized from the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars). The process of Romanization of Spain also began in earnest after this date.

THIRD ROMAN INVASION OF BRITAIN - 43 AD

Caesar's successor, Octavian Augustus, planned a number of invasions of Britain, but all were postponed due to pressures elsewhere in the Empire requiring more immediate action. Thus Britain lived for another 100 years in a state between full Roman occupation and full independence.

It was only in 43 AD, that the Emperor Claudius, finally ordered a full conquest of Britain. Claudius assembled an army of 40,000 men under the command of Aulus Plautius and invaded the island in that year. The overwhelmingly powerful Roman armies quickly swept inland, defeating determined Celtic resistance around present day London. Claudius himself decided to be present at the final victory, and landed in Britain with additional forces and elephants - which must have seemed like dragons to the British Celts - and occupied the main Celtic city of Colchester.

There the Celtic tribes formally surrendered, and Claudius was able to leave after a stay of only 16 days, finally having added the province of Britain to the empire.

The Roman forces spread out from Colchester, employing powerful weapons such as bolt catapults against tribesmen armed with only bows, arrow and slings. Nonetheless, the Celts defended to the death places such as the ancient hill fort of Maiden Castle in Dorset.

CELTIC REBELLION UNDER BOADICEA

In 47 AD, there was an increase in Celtic resistance which simmered on until 61 AD, when it finally erupted into open revolt under queen Boadicea of the Iceni tribe in Norfolk. The death of the Iceni king brought a Roman unit into their territory, which, after engaging in a bout of looting, then publicly whipped the king's widow, Boadicea, and raped her daughters.

This public shaming proved too much. The Iceni and many other Celtic tribes broke out into open revolt, and took several Roman strongholds, including Colchester and London, both of which were sacked and burnt down with 70,000 Roman and Romanized Celtic fatalities. Shaken, the Romans drew together their forces and met Boadicea's army in the middle of Britain, where, through superior organizational ability and better training, the Romans were able to inflict a massive defeat upon their numerically superior enemy, slaughtering, the Roman version says, some 80,000 Britons on the field for the loss of only 400 Roman soldiers.

The Boadicean revolt was the last major native rebellion the Romans experienced in Britain for the next two hundred years.


Above: Queen Boadicea of the Iceni in her chariot leading the Celtic rebellion against Roman rule in 61 AD. At first she won some great victories, overrunning the Roman towns of Colchester and London. Noted as having long blond hair by the Romans, the Celtic queen was finally defeated by superior Roman organization at the battle of Loughton. Retreating to the great forest today known as Epping to the north east of London, she took poison in order to avoid capture.

From then on the military conquests of other parts of the island, reaching north into lower Scotland continued without major interruption until by 80 AD they had pushed the most rebellious Celts up into the Scottish Highlands. (The Scots themselves were originally an Irish Celtic tribe who crossed the Irish sea at a later date).

One of these rebellious tribes, the Caledonians, nearly defeated the Roman legions pushing north at the battle of Mons Grapius in 83 AD, but once again the Romans prevailed, and the Caledonians vanished into the Highlands. However, the ferocity of the far northern Celtic defense meant that the Romans never pushed home the advance (although they did sail a fleet round the top of Scotland) and slowly withdrew southwards.

By 122 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, had not only visited the province of Britain but had also ordered the building of a fortified wall across the north of England to keep the tribes to the north out. Many parts of this wall, named after Hadrian, can still be seen to this day.


Above left: Hadrian's Wall, northern England. Built by the Romans to ward off the incessant attacks by the Picts whom they had been unable to subdue in the far north of that country. Right: Emperor Hadrian, upon whose orders the wall was built.

By 212 AD, the Romans were firmly entrenched in England (as opposed to Britain) and the process of Romanization was well under way. This was speeded up by the edict of Caracalla in 212 AD granting Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Empire, and the resultant legalization of the already de facto situation of soldiers taking wives from the local population.

This policy, implemented throughout the Empire, did not have the same effects on the Romans in Britain or France as what it had on the Romans in the Middle or Near East - the mixing of Roman, Celtic and original European sub-groupings did not disturb the racial homogeneity of either the conquerors or the conquered peoples - they remained overwhelmingly White, while in other territories the local non-White populations soon swallowed up the White element.

In 287 AD, a revolt once again broke out in Britain, even though by this stage many Romans had become Britons and vice versa. In fact the rebellion was led by Romanized Britons and Romans who disliked the emperor of the time, Maximian (appointed as co-emperor by Diocletian). A specially dispatched Roman army had to subdue the Britons and the Roman rebels by force in 296 AD.

According to the Roman records, the rebels employed a large number of German mercenaries - ironically, many of the newly arrived Roman legionnaires were also German mercenaries. This rebellion was the last major armed action undertaken by the Romans in Britain.

ROMAN CONTROL LOST DE FACTO CIRCA 400 AD

While not mirroring the racial situation in Rome (which had by the 2nd Century AD become quite mixed with a substantial non-White influx into the Roman bloodline), Britain did however experience political instability caused by the infighting and squabbling amongst the slowly darkening Romans in Rome itself. Control over the far flung empire became more remote, till finally around 400 AD Rome had de facto lost control over their northernmost province. By this time Britain was experiencing a new wave of Nordic invaders - the Saxons and other Teutonic peoples sweeping in from Northern and Central Europe.

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Chapter 15 : The Useful Foe - Rome and the Germans



The Germans settled in what is now called Germany and Scandinavia. They lived a lifestyle very similar to that of the Celts - working iron, textiles, semi-precious stones, ceramics, pottery and gold, and living in villages rather than great towns. Also, like all their Aryan cousins bar the Balts, the Germans continually made land grabs whenever the opportunity arose.

By 300 BC, they had advanced westwards as far as the Rhine river, and shortly thereafter advance tribes crossed the Rhine and settled what is today Belgium (the Romans called these tribes the Belgae, hence that country's name).

These advances invariably brought the Germans into conflict with the Celts in France, and after the Romans occupied Gaul, with the Romans themselves.

GERMAN ATTACKS ON ROME

Although a German invasion had passed through northern Italy some years before - in 113 BC (and had been eventually been overwhelmingly defeated by the Romans) they still dared from time to time to launch raiding parties into Roman occupied Gaul. In 57 BC, a German tribe, the Saubians, defeated a Celtic tribe in present day Alsace-Lorraine in France, and occupied their territory.

Julius Caesar was forced to intervene to prevent further German incursions. He defeated the German invaders, with the few survivors just managing to escape back across the Rhine River, which was becoming the firm border between Roman Gaul and Germania.

FIRST ROMAN INVASION

In 55 BC, Caesar built a wooden bridge across the Rhine, near to the present day city of Cologne, and over this first ever bridge over that river, he took the war to the Germans in their own territory. Having been beaten several times in a row by the Romans, the Germans withdrew eastward into the forests, leaving the Roman force a virtual free hand to destroy the settlements on the eastern bank of the Rhine river. After just over two weeks of plundering, the Roman army withdrew back over the bridge, declaring all of the western bank of the Rhine to be officially Roman territory.


Above: The Germans proved to the be the only people who were subject to a Roman invasion who actually managed to fight off and defeat the Caesars. Both these reliefs are from the Antoine Column, and show first a Roman unit engaging a German army, and then captured German chiefs being forced to behead each other by Roman soldiers.

SECOND ROMAN INVASION AND THE USE OF GERMAN MERCENARIES

Some two years later, in 53 BC, Caesar again crossed the Rhine and broke the threat of German tribes in Westphalia, eventually even recruiting some German mercenaries to fight with his army which he used to subdue Vercingetorix the Gaul in France.

When Caesar finally subdued the Celts, he then marched on Rome in response to Pompey's call for him to disband his army. Some 6,000 German mercenaries marched with Caesar's army to Rome - the forerunners of many thousands more who would serve in the Roman armies.

This development - the use of German and Celtic mercenaries - would play a hugely significant role in both keeping the Romans out of Germania; and in keeping the Roman Empire alive long after the majority of the original Roman stock had vanished.

After taking power in Rome, Caesar started to try and subdue the still rebellious Celts who lived in the Alps to the north of Italy. It took some 30 years for the Roman legions to finally quell these hardy mountain dwelling people, and afterwards their lands were formally annexed to Rome.

THIRD ROMAN INVASION

By 15 BC, the formal Roman border extended as far north as the Danube River and as far east as the Rhine - but over that river, still hostile Germans lurked. In 12 BC, the Romans launched a new attempt to invade the German heartland under general Drusus. Although the Germans put up stiff resistance and managed to inflict some major defeats upon the Roman forces, Drusus defeated the major German tribes and in three years managed to reach the Elbe River in central Germania.

Drusus however fell off his horse and died: he was replaced by general Tiberius (who was later to become emperor) and by 7 BC, the new commander of the Roman forces had conquered most of the territory between the Rhine and Weser rivers, and part of the lands beyond the Weser river, inhabited by a tribe known as the Cherusci. The Roman military machine rolled on, unstoppable.

On all fronts, the Germans were either forced to fall back towards the east, over the Elbe River, or faced subjugation by the Romans. It seemed that only a matter of time would pass and the Germans too would suffer the fate of the Gauls in France. Indeed, many of the tactics employed by Caesar in France began to be used against defeated German tribes under Roman control.

HERMANN CHERUSCI - TRAINED BY THE ROMANS

However, the by now established Roman policy of drawing subjugated peoples into the administration of their own territories, thereby not only Romanizing the population but also going a long way to subduing the new colonies, was also implemented in Germania. In this way two young Cherusci princes, the sons of the king of the Cherusci, were selected to be Romanized. Both young princes were sent to Rome in 1 AD.

One of the brothers became completely Romanized and took on the name Flavius, while the other kept his German name, Hermann, although the Romans gave him a new name as well: Arminius. Hermann served five years in a Roman legion, becoming a Roman citizen and employed on active service in two expeditions against other rebellious colonies. But all the while, he always retained his German roots, unlike his brother.

When Hermann was returned to his native area in 8 AD, he was employed by the Roman administration as one of their most senior soldiers and administrators in the region under the Roman general Varus: never once did the Romans suspect Hermann's true intentions, which were to throw the Romans out of his homeland.


Above left: The famous "Praying German" - a Roman statue of a German tribesman, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. It shows very clearly the Nordic sub-racial characteristics of the Germans who fought the Romans. Alongside: A Roman bust of Hermann Cheruscer: the German prince who defeated Rome.

BATTLE OF TEUTORBURGERWALD - DECISIVE DEFEAT FOR ROME

As soon as he was in a position to act, Hermann immediately set about organizing a rebellion amongst the Germans against Roman rule. Using his position as a German prince to influence a large number of German tribes, Hermann secretly began preparing his own great German army - no doubt using much of what he had learned during his training in the Roman army.

In 9 AD, Varus' Roman army was encamped west of the Weser river in the modern day German state of North Rhine, Westphalia. Hermann arranged to have a diversionary battle erupt to the east, and Varus immediately set off in that direction.

Hermann put his plan into action. Gathering up the German troops in the Roman army upon whom he could rely, and combining it with German tribal warriors, he set out in pursuit of Varus, catching up with the unsuspecting Roman in the thick of the Teutoburger forest, near the present day town of Detmold.

In the forest, Hermann's forces ambushed the Romans. For three days the battle raged, with Hermann employing unusual guerrilla tactics, attacking and then suddenly withdrawing into the forest before the Romans could create their set battle formations, and then attacking again a while later from a completely different direction.

Hermann knew from his training in the Roman army that the Romans did not have an adequate defense against this tactic, and after three days the Romans were exhausted. No sleep, constant attacks by German raiders and unfamiliar territory took their toll and the Roman lines broke.

Only a handful of Romans escaped from the forest to tell the tale. Most were killed in combat and those who were captured suffered the fate of many Germans and Celts who had earlier fallen into Roman hands - they were killed on the spot. News of the victory spread throughout occupied Germania, sparking off a rebellion which saw the Romans having to retreat all the way back to the western side of the Rhine river once again.


Above: A skirmish during the Battle of Teutoburgerwald, where the Germans under Hermann Cherusci defeated a mighty Roman army. This 9 AD battle marked the turning point of the Roman Empire in the West. Hermann was a Romanized German who, once appointed to a senior post in the Roman army, used his position as a German prince to organize a rebellion against Roman rule in Germania. After creating a diversion and tricking the main occupying Roman army into penetrating a forest near the present day city of Detmold, Hermann's forces ambushed the Romans in the dense woods. The Romans were crushed, and retreated west over the Rhine river. That river then became the German/Roman border. 15,000 Roman troops were killed in the battle and their remains were only buried long after by a new Roman army sent on a punitive mission - their accounts tell of piles of bleached bones and skulls nailed to trees as macabre warnings to other Romans.

Although the wars with the Germans dragged on for eight more years, by 17 AD, the Romans formerly accepted the Rhine as the border between Germania and Rome. Germania was never invaded again.

Hermann had also succeeded in at last uniting the German tribes against Rome. This unity was however short lived and once the Romans had been driven from their land, the German tribes lost little time in launching into one another again. Hermann himself was assassinated in 21 AD - by a German.

Thus Germania once again became a land of fierce and warlike tribes, all battling with each other for territory as they had done before the advent of the Roman incursions.

"A PURE AND UNMIXED RACE" - THE GERMANS

The Roman historian Tacitus, writing during the First Century AD, included the following insightful remarks on the racial nature of the Germans:

"I concur in opinion with those who deem the Germans never to have intermarried with other nations but to be a pure and unmixed race, stamped with a distinct character.

"Hence, a family likeness pervades the whole, though their numbers are great. Their eyes are stern and blue, their hair ruddy, and their bodies large..."



Above: Original Roman statues of Germans, displaying Nordic and part Nordic part Alpine characteristics.

In what became a major twist of irony, Rome itself from the first century onwards began to rely more and more on German and Celtic mercenaries to fill the ranks of its armies.

The cause of this reliance on mercenaries is directly related to the demographic changes at work within Italy itself. Rome, with its status as capital of the Empire, had acted as a magnet for not only slaves but also immigrants from all over the world, and particularly from the Middle and Near East.

ROME INCREASINGLY MIXED

Although the Roman nobility still to a large extent maintained its original racial heritage (mixed Nordic/Alpine/Mediterranean), their numbers began to decline significantly. This was due in part to their use of lead water pipes and sapa (lead acetate) as a skin lightener - a valuable racial indicator in itself. The high lead intake had the side effect of sterility, an issue which is noted as having plagued the Roman upper classes.

The lower classes of Roman society - Rome was very class conscious - had by the end of the 2nd Century AD, reached a point where a significant number had been replaced by what were in effect mixed or non-White racial types gathered from the four corners of the empire.

In his book, the Gallic Wars, Caesar, compared the Romans of that time with the Gauls, remarking how blond the Gauls were and, in comparison with the Romans, how tall they were. (Caesar went on to describe Celts in Britain as being blond, but not as much so as their Celtic brethren in Gaul). This is not to say that Rome of this time was a completely non-White city - there remained of course a large number of Whites in the city, but the demographic trend was most certainly against them.

By the end of the first century and the beginning of the 2nd Century AD, the Roman army found the number of recruits from these "new" Roman residents drying up. A huge number of residents of Rome were after all foreign, even though they had taken on the ways of Rome, and either refused to serve in the army; or were simply not up to the exacting physical demands - or, more likely, preferred mercantile pursuits rather than the rigor of a military life.

GERMAN AND CELTIC MERCENARIES FILL THE RANKS OF THE ROMAN ARMY

The Germans and Celts ended up therefore being the primary source of recruits for the Roman armies - not surprisingly so, as in racial terms they were much closer to the original Romans than the majority of inhabitants of Rome itself, particularly from the 2nd Century AD onwards.

By the time of the end of Caesar's conquests of the Celts, the Roman records show that the average height of the Roman soldier had been lowered to 1.48 meters.

As the numbers of German and Celtic mercenaries increased in the Roman army, the average height began to rise - by 300 AD it had risen to 1.65 meters - an indication that the racial types of the average soldier had changed fairly substantially.

So it was that the Roman armies began to fill up with non-Roman soldiers, with Romanized Germans and Celts forming a significant - if not the majority - of not only the foot soldiers but also of the commanding officers. These Romanized Germans and Celts were to play a significant role in the remaining years of the Western Roman empire: and it was they, predictably, who formed the backbone of the resistance to the last German invasions which saw the final physical fall of Rome.

A Romanized German soldier was in fact the last (self declared) Emperor in Rome. By that date (476 AD) the last true original Romans had to all practical purposes disappeared, having been swallowed up in a mass of immigrants from the non-White regions of the empire.


Above: German mercenaries in the Roman army, as depicted on the Colonna Antonia in Rome. Within a relatively short space of time the Roman army began to rely heavily on German mercenaries to fill its ranks as White Roman numbers declined.

NEW GERMANIC INVASIONS - FRANKS, SAXONS

In the second century AD, German tribes went on the offensive against Rome and crossed the Danube. They were however bloodily defeated by a Roman army which had a significant number of these German and Celtic mercenaries in it, led by Marcus Aurelius. During the third and fourth centuries, German tribes called the Franks and the Saxons raided Roman settlements in France and Britain respectively. These smaller incursions continued until the final chapter in the saga of the Germans - Roman wars was to be written by the last of the Germanic tribes to enter Europe - the Goths.

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Chapter 19 : The Fall of Rome- Triumph of the Slaves

For centuries, scholars have debated how the Roman Empire - once so mighty and powerful - could have come to an end. The explanations have ranged from a lack of morals right through to the sheer size of the Empire becoming too unwieldy to administer - but all of the explanations have ignored the real cause of the dissolution of Roman power - namely the fact that the Romans themselves disappeared. Simple demographics was the cause of the collapse of Rome.

From 193 AD, Roman history is known as the time of the Dominate. From this time on the Roman emperors made no attempt to disguise the fact that they were absolute rulers, with the Senate serving an advisory role only.

25 OUT OF 26 EMPERORS DIE UNNATURALLY

The stress and strains of trying to run a polyglot Empire began to take its toll. For the fifty year period between 235 AD and 285 AD, there were twenty six different emperors, with only one of them dying a natural death. During this period of anarchy Rome was wracked by civil war and intrigue, and foreign invasion.

THE EMPIRE DIVIDED BY DIOCLETIAN

Emperor Diocletian took the throne in 285 AD, and reigned until 305 AD. His reign was marked by a period of relative stability and his reorganization of the Empire's administration.

In 286 AD he divided the Roman Empire into two, realizing that it was impossible for one man to rule the vast territory and all its peoples. He cut the Empire into East and West - the Western Empire having as its capital Rome, and the Eastern Empire having as its capital the city of Nicomedia in Asia Minor (Turkey).

Diocletian created a post of co-emperor to rule the West (Diocletian himself chose to rule the East). Each Emperor was called an "Augustus" and each had an assistant, called a "Caesar." The Caesar was supposed to succeed the Augustus, thus solving the problem of secession.

CONSTANTINOPLE - CAPITAL OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE

The Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity gave the Christians the upper hand in their battle against other religions. Constantine decided that he needed a new Christian capital, and selected the ancient site of the city of Byzantium, situated on the Bosporus straight connecting the Mediterranean with the Black Seas.

Constantine called the city New Rome, but it soon became known as Constantinople, and is today known as Istanbul. The new capital soon became more important than Rome itself, and only 50 years after Constantine's death in 337 AD, the split between the Eastern and Western Empires became total.

From the year 395 AD, the Roman Empire was never again governed as a single unit. This had an important spin off in that it played a role in slowing down the masses of immigrants from the mixed race Middle Eastern territories - although the number already in Rome and southern Italy had by this stage reached the point where the fate of Rome was sealed. However, there can be no doubt that the creation of Constantinople served as a destination for many who otherwise would have emigrated to Rome.


Above: The Emperor Diocletian - a military genius who became one of Rome's greatest latter rulers. The spreading empire and the inclusion of all sorts of nationalities into its ranks was reflected in this man: actually born of obscure origins in the Balkans, he became Emperor in 285 AD. The fact that people born outside of Rome could settle in Rome and even become Emperor meant that the original Romans themselves soon became outnumbered - by either non-Roman Whites like Diocletian, or by non-Roman non-Whites from the Middle East.

THE GOTHS ATTACK

The Western Empire remained threatened by the new invaders from the north. Even during the height of her power, Rome had never been able to penetrate north, and now new invaders, called Goths, seemed even more ferocious than their German cousins.

The Goths were one of the last waves of Aryan invaders to enter continental Europe.


Above: A Roman army unit is ambushed along the Danube River by a ferocious Gothic assault in this painting which accurately captures the dress, weapons and racial types of the two armies. Many of the Roman soldiers were in fact German mercenaries.

OSTROGOTHS AND VISIGOTHS

The huge geographical distance between the various Gothic tribes led in time to a division into two main sections: the Visigoths, or West Goths, who settled the territory from the Danube River to the Dniester River - and the Ostrogoths, or East Goths, who settled in the region eastward from the Dniester River to the Volga River in present day Russia.

The Visigoths then started pressing westwards. The Romans first recorded encountering them around 250 AD, when they invaded the Roman province of Dacia in southern central Europe near the Danube River. Roman reports mention the Goths to be the tallest of the German tribes, with their hair ranging from red to almost white.

The Romans and Visigoths soon set to a fight. After several initially inconclusive skirmishes, the Visigoths inflicted a massive defeat upon the Romans in 251 AD, wiping out an entire Roman army and killing the then Emperor, Decius, in the process. Soon thereafter the Romans abandoned Dacia, a province which they had conquered and held for 150 years. From then on the Danube River once again formed the border between Germania and Rome.

The Visigoths also captured and plundered Athens in 267 AD and for almost 100 years loose bands waged incessant and uncoordinated warfare in the Balkans with the Romans.

40,000 VISIGOTHIC MERCENARIES RECRUITED

For approximately 150 years after the defeat of the Roman army in Dacia, an uneasy co-existence was established between the Romans and Goths, with the latter occasionally raiding Roman cities along the Black Sea coast at will. However, as in Western Europe, the Romans were forced to start recruiting Goths as mercenaries for their armies - the Romans themselves being unable to recruit soldiers from the increasingly mixed population in Rome itself.

In this way the Roman records show that during the reign of Constantine alone, 40,000 Goths were recruited into the Eastern Empire's army. Indeed, they formed the bulwark of the Eastern Roman Empire against the huge masses of mixed race invaders pushing against the eastern reaches of the empire.

THE HUNS PUSH THE VISIGOTHS INTO ROMAN TERRITORY

From early in the first century AD, the frontier division between Germania and Rome had been increasingly maintained by Gallic mercenaries along the Rhine-Danube River. The static nature of the border was helped by the relative geographic stability of the Germanic tribes. This was however to change dramatically in 374 AD. In that year an eastern tribe started attacking Europe out of the East - the forerunners of the great Hun invasion under Atilla.

The Huns quickly decimated the easternmost Aryans, the Ostrogoths, situated to the west of the Vistula River, and proceeded to attack the next Gothic tribe in the line, the Visigoths. The Visigoth leaders, fearing that they too were going to be destroyed, petitioned Rome itself for help and permission to enter Roman territory to seek safety inside the official borders of the Empire. This permission was granted in 376 AD and the Visigoths formally crossed the Danube River south into Roman territory.

The arrangement did however not last long - the long standing enmity between the Romans and their Germanic foes soon broke out into a localized war, despite the closeness of their common threat, the Huns. Finally a Roman army was specially sent to subdue the Visigoths - and was defeated at the battle of Hadrianople in 378 AD. The defeat shattered the belief in Western Roman invincibility and ushered in a century and a half of chaos. Soon other Gothic tribes also began to invade the Empire's frontiers at will - all the while with Atilla and his Huns pursuing them from the east.

GOTHS SACK ROME FOR THE FIRST TIME

For a few years the Emperor Theodosius held off the Goths. After his death however, the Visigoths regathered their strength under a capable leader named Alaric and invaded Italy itself, sacking the city of Rome in 410 AD. A peace treaty was struck between city leaders and Alaric, in terms of which the Visigoths were given a large piece of land in southern France in order to placate their territorial demands.

Above: How the Goths conquered the city of Rome in 410 AD: The immense aqueducts which carried water to Rome from distant hill sources were the weakness of the Imperial city. Attacking Goths cut off the water supply by destroying several arches of the aqueducts. The ruins of the aqueducts still stand to this day.

ROMAN BORDERS COLLAPSE

By 408 AD, the recruitment of soldiers from Rome itself into the Roman armies had virtually dried up - a good indication of the change in the racial balance in Rome, and although Gothic and Gaulish mercenaries now made up the vast majority of the soldiers in the Roman armies, the huge numbers of Germans and Goths pushing against the Roman defenses along the Rhine River were overwhelming. By 410 AD, waves of Germanic tribes were streaming into France.

THE VANDALS SACK ROME - 455 AD

One of these tribes, called the Vandals, marched right through Gaul into Spain, in 409 AD. They were followed by Visigoths about ten years later, sparking off further disputes over territory. The Vandals then sailed across the Straits of Gibraltar and conquered the Western Roman Empire's provinces in North Africa. Under their able leader, Gaiseric, the Vandals soon established themselves as a major power. In June 455 AD, a naval borne Vandal army invaded Italy and sacked Rome itself.

The ease with which this was accomplished serves as an excellent indicator of how the power of Rome had declined along with its original population. The city, populated by large numbers of mixed race and Middle Eastern types thrown in amongst the remnants of the original Roman people, were either unwilling or simply unable to put up a defense in the tradition of the past glories of Rome. The city of Caesar became a stamping ground for anyone who wanted to try their luck at a bit of looting.

Gaiseric managed to repulse a few attempts by the Eastern Roman Empire to exact revenge for this raid, and achieved a notable end by becoming one of the very few kings of his time to die of old age in 477 AD. The Vandal kingdom lasted until 534 AD, when a surprise attack by a Gothic manned Roman Eastern Empire army defeated them. This was the last time that the Vandals appeared as a power in the Mediterranean - after their defeat at the hands of the Eastern Roman Empire, they collapsed into obscurity in North Africa.

Having settled in modern day Algeria, the Vandals were quick to mirror Rome's decline - far more quickly. It was a matter of two hundred years and the Vandals were absorbed into the already mixed race inhabitants of North Africa, once again contributing to the maelstrom of genes which today makes up the North African Mediterranean basin.

THE BURGUNDIANS AND FRANKS

Yet another Germanic tribe to move across the Rhine River into France were the Burgundians, who settled in the Rhone river valley - but by far the most important Germanic tribe to move into Gaul were the Franks, who quickly fanned out across Northern Gaul, quickly assimilating the already predominantly Nordic type Gauls in the region.

ROMAN ARMIES LEAVE BRITAIN - 407 AD

With the decline of the Western Empire becoming all the more obvious, Rome withdrew the last detachments of its army from Britain in 407 AD (leaving behind those who had already assimilated into the local population), advising the Britons that they now had to protect themselves.

GERMANICS INVADE BRITAIN - ANGLES AND SAXONS

Within fifty years Germanic tribes did indeed invade the island - the Angles and Saxons, from whom the modern term Anglo-Saxon originated. These original Angles and Saxons were predominantly Nordic tribesmen who came from the Germanic reservoir in northern Germania, Denmark and southern Scandinavia which had been established at the time of the Aryan invasions into Europe.

The Angles and the Saxons quickly dominated the Britons by force - although some British tribes, notably the Bretons, fled across the channel to France, where their name still exists as a geographical term (Brittany) and people from this region are still called Bretons.

In this fashion the Western Roman Empire was steadily broken up piecemeal by the Germanic/Gothic/Aryantribes.

ROMAN UPPER CLASSES BUY BLONDE WIGS

By 400 AD, within a short space of less than 500 years from the time of Julius Caesar, the inhabitants of Rome were barely a pale shadow of the race who originally created the Empire. Immigrants from all over the Middle East and North Africa had turned it into a multi-racial melting pot made up of a mixture of Middle Easterners (Canaanites,Edomites, mixed race Egyptians, Syrians and Africans) and original remnant Romans, with no national sense of identity or common purpose.

This integration process had reached such levels that the Roman writer Juvenal recorded the increasing habit of many wealthy Romans of buying blonde wigs to cover their dark hair - the blonde hair being purchased from Germans and transported south to Rome.

The following extract from Juvenal's Satire 6, exc. L, Book 4 of his De Rerum Natura, vi. 120, tells of how the emperor's wife, Messalina, put on a blond wig to disguise herself to visit houses of ill repute:

"Do you care about a private citizen's house, about Eppia's doings? Turn your eyes to the gods' rivals. Hear what the Emperor Claudius had to put up with. As soon as his wife thought that he was asleep, this imperial whore put on the hood she wore at night, determined to prefer a cheap pad to the royal bed, and left the house with one female slave only. No, hiding her black hair in a yellow wig she entered the brothel, warm with its old patchwork quilts and her empty cell, her very own.”

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica adds the following:

"The fashionable ladies of Rome were much addicted to false hair, and we learn from Ovid, Amores, i. 14. 45) and Martial (v. 68) that the golden hair imported from Germany was most favored. Juvenal (vi. 120) shows us Messalina assuming a yellow wig for her visits to places of ill-fame, and the scholiast on the passage says that the yellow wig was characteristic of courtesans."

Ovid also mentions the custom of blonde wigs and Pliny went as far as to give details of the different methods of dying hair blond.

In their mania to conceal their increasing "non-Whiteness", the inhabitants of Rome used sapa, or lead acetate, as a skin lightener to pale their complexions - and paid a heavy price by unwittingly poisoning themselves at the same time.

The Emperor Caracalla - who, as son of a Roman official stationed in Africa and having a Persian mother, could certainly have been at least partly racially mixed, was famous for wearing a blond wig.



This mixed polyglot itself was divided into two economic classes, a very wealthy minority and a desperately poor mass. The wealthy minority - many of whom had made their money out of the flourishing slave trade - lived in relative luxury, while the masses lived in frightful urban squalor.

From this population the Roman army was unable to raise the enthusiasm or quality of man needed to man the frontiers: and so the wealthy ruling classes of Rome paid huge amounts in bribes and mercenary fees to keep their enemies at bay.



Rome precariously survived on money rather than physical strength. Germanics threatened Rome's borders, and Germanics made up the armies defending the same borders. This tactic was employed by both Western and Eastern Roman Empires, with the Western Empire using Germans, and the Eastern Empire using Goths. In what was ironic but nonetheless predictable, the last battles in Italy fought under Roman banners were between armies of German Romans, Gothic Romans and Frankish Romans.


The infiltration of Roman society by individuals born in all corners of the world was exemplified by the emperor Philip (244 - 249 AD). Born in the Roman province of Arabia, in what today is the village of Shahba, roughly 55 miles south-southeast of Damascus, Philip's father was a prominent local man, Julius Marinus, who had been awarded Roman citizenship and was thus not a native born Roman. Nothing is known of Philip's mother. Known as 'Philip the Arabian', Philip was an emperor who was clearly not of pure European descent: this bust accurately captures his short 'peppercorn' hair, an obvious sign of non-White ancestry. Vatican Museum, Rome.

ABROGAST - FRANKISH EMPEROR DEFEATED

A Frankish Roman army general, Abrogast, was the chief adviser - and effective master - of the Western Roman Emperor Eugenius in 394 AD, having assassinated a previous emperor. Abrogast retained control through his Frankish army group which he brought with him into Italy.

The Eastern Emperor, Theodosius, unhappy with the blatant manipulation of the Western emperor by Abrogast, sent an army comprised of Germanic Goths and Vandals, under the leadership of the Gothic prince, Alaric, and the Vandal, Stilicho, respectively.

The two sides: a Frankish Roman army against a combined Gothic and Vandal Roman army - both of Germanic origin but being paid by different Roman remnants - met in battle near the modern day city of Venice. Abrogast's army (the Franks) were defeated.

After the battle, in accordance with Theodosius' instructions, Stilicho became effective master of the Western Empire. Alaric was in the interim chosen king of the Visigoths by his tribe (it was common amongst the Germanic tribes to vote for their kings).


MASSACRE OF THE GERMAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN - THE REVENGE OF 408 AD

The partly mixed inhabitants of Rome, rich and poor alike, resented both Visigoths and Vandals alike, and in 408 AD, Stilicho was assassinated. This was immediately followed by a massacre of thousands of the wives and children of the German soldiers in Italy.

It was easy to pick out the Germans - their light coloring and light hair stood out in marked contrast to the vast majority of the inhabitants of most of Italy of the day.

THE GERMAN COUNTER REVENGE UNDER ALARIC

This foolish act drove the Germanic tribes into taking reprisals. For two years Alaric led an embittered combined army of his men, Stilicho's soldiers and even remnants of the defeated Frankish army, up and down the Italian peninsula, exacting a terrible revenge for the massacre of the Germanic women and children.

During this time the marauding Germans took a heavy toll of the local population - countless numbers were killed, considerably thinning out the largely mixed race population. Alaric demanded a huge ransom from the inhabitants of Rome and forced their slave traders to release some 40,000 German slaves from captivity.

ROME SACKED AGAIN

Then Alaric's Goths sacked Rome itself on 24 August 410 AD. This date is marked as the official end of the Roman Empire in the west, although of course the vast masses of true Romans had long since vanished.

Even after the sacking of Rome in 410 AD, and the Vandal invasion of 455 AD, a semblance of an imperial line of emperors was maintained in Rome, although the emperor was by then little more than a puppet.

Roman armies were no longer Roman at all and consisted for the overwhelming part of Germanic troops. The result of this Germanization of the Roman army was that a large number of generals were also Germans. This ultimately had to have a political impact, as the armies had long decided the fate of many the Roman emperor.

THE FIRST GERMAN ROMAN EMPEROR - 475 AD

Finally in 475 AD, one such German born general, Orestes, forced the Roman Senate to elect his son as emperor. In the following year, another German general Odovacar killed Orestes and, seeing no reason to continue the appearance of an imperial secession, simply declared himself head of state.

This first Germanic emperor not elected by the Senate is regarded by some historians as the proper end of the Roman Empire in the West, although in reality the Western Empire had ceased to exist many years before, being held together only in name by the recruitment of mercenaries into the imperial armies.

THE LOMBARDS - IMPETUS FOR RENAISSANCE

Following the death of the Western Roman Emperor Theodosius in 526 AD, civil war and anarchy broke out in Italy, lasting until the Eastern Emperor Justinian's invasion of 554 AD.

In 568 AD, the third most significant population shift in Italian history occurred (the first was the invasion of the Indo-European Latini - the second was the filling up of Rome with non-White races) - another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, poured over the Alps into Italy, establishing a new kingdom, replenishing the Nordic racial stock in northern and central Italy. It was the Lombards who provided the impetus for the later north Italian based Renaissance.

THE VISIGOTHS HEAD FOR SPAIN AND SOUTHERN FRANCE

After sacking Rome in 410 AD, a large number of Visigoths moved across the Pyrenees mountains into Spain. From 415 AD to 418 AD, the Visigoths created a new state encompassing north-eastern Spain and the territory in southern France given to them as a tribute by the inhabitants of Rome. Toulouse was established as the Visigothic capital. Eventually the majority of the Visigothic part of Gaul (France) was conquered by another Germanic tribe, the Franks.

The last Visigothic King, Roderick, was defeated and killed during the non-White Muslim invasion of Spain at the Battle of Rio Barbate in 711 AD.

Thus, in less that 100 years after the Germanic tribes had first crossed the Roman Empire's borders in 406 AD, the mixed race remnants of the Western Roman Empire in Northern Italy had to the greatest part been driven into southern Italy by a wave of new Germanic blood, which in many other areas also swept away other traces of the 1,000 years of Roman integration.

THE REAL REASON FOR THE FALL OF ROME - FEWER THAN 5 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION WERE ROMANS CIRCA 50 AD

Above: A coffin portrait of a Roman Egyptian from the 3rd Century AD, found at Hawara (on display in the Egyptian museum, Berlin). The clearly mixed racial type found here was slowly to dominate - and ultimately weaken - Roman society to the reaches of Rome itself.

For centuries historians have endlessly debated the reasons why the power of Rome waned. Most explanations have centered on arguments that the civilization's morals collapsed - that the Empire "exhausted itself" due to over exertion - or that it declined economically.

The truth behind the disappearance of the Roman Empire is in fact much simpler and stunningly obvious - the facts are that the people who created the Empire, the original Romans, mainly Indo-European tribes, vanished, absorbed into the masses of non-Aryan peoples they conquered.

In the West, the Romans were absorbed by the racially similar White and numerically superior Celts, Gauls and Germans.

In the East the Romans were absorbed by the racially dissimilar non-White mixed race Middle Easterners and North Africans, who also immigrated in massive numbers to Rome itself, filling the city and the southern parts of Italy with their numbers.

The noted British historian, Edward Gibbon, in his monumental work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, estimated the numbers of people within the borders of the Empire during the time of the Emperor Claudius (43 AD) as some 120 million people - and of this amount only some 6,945,000 were proper Roman citizens.

The twin effects of the opening citizenship to all in the empire and the toleration of unrestricted immigration into the city of Rome, does therefore not have to be speculated upon - the 7 million original Romans were overrun within a relatively short space of time by the 113 million foreigners.

In a nutshell, the truth is that the Roman Empire disappeared because the Romans themselves disappeared. It is as simple as that.



Above: The effects of racial mixing are evident on the face of this baker (left) in Pompeii, Italy. The fashion at the time was to have one's portrait painted on the walls of one's house. The eruption of the volcano Vesuvius preserved a great number of the houses in Pompeii, including these portraits from circa 50 AD. Compare the features of this baker to one of his neighbors, a still Nordic woman (alongside) whose house portrait was similarly saved. Eventually the "baker" types were to dominate Roman society. This change in racial make up of Roman society was the reason why the Roman Empire vanished.



From defeated foe to citizen. The pictures above show how the racial makeup of Rome changed in less than 400 years. On the left, Roman soldiers carry Jewish treasures seized during the Roman-Jewish War of AD 68 - 73. The scene is from the Arch of Titus, erected by the emperor of the same name to commemorate his victory over the Jews. Right : A sarcophagus from 300 AD in the city of Rome showing the very same symbol - the Jewish menorah - combined with classical Roman scenes. This illustrates well the extent of how assimilated the various peoples of the world became in that city. Within 350 years the Jews had moved from a defeated and hated enemy of Rome, into being wealthy citizens of Rome itself.


Above: Black slaves in Rome picking grapes, a mosaic in the Church of Santa Costanza, Rome, 4th Century AD. Hundreds of thousands, if not several million, non-Whites were imported into Italy as slaves. Eventually they mixed with large numbers of the Romans themselves, producing the mixed race types as in the "baker" of Pompeii. (See above).

The change in the make-up of the Roman population from the original Nordic/Alpine/Mediterranean into a mixed White/non-White racial group was the real reason why Rome "fell". This is also the reason why today some Italians, particularly in the south of that country, have a distinctive "olive" appearance.

Italy was later invaded by a new wave of Germanics, the Lombards, who brought a fresh infusion of Aryan blood into the Italian peninsula - and today the vast majority of White Italians are descendants of the Lombards, not of the Romans.

The Fall of Rome - Before and After:

How a Change in the Racial Composition of a Nation changes that civilization's outer physical manifestations



How the racial makeup of a civilization changes the outer manifestations of that civilization is superbly illustrated in these two pictures. The first, above, is a reconstruction of the Palatine Hill - one of the centers of ancient Rome - as it looked like in the heyday of the Roman Empire; and then alongside is the exact same view, only this time how the modern visitor may view the Palatine Hill: a few crumbling ruins, with only the Arch of Titus still remaining more or less intact.

As with the case of the rise and fall of all civilizations, the physical manifestations of any given civilization change along with the people. Once the original Romans had vanished, so did their civilization, even down to their buildings.

This process can be seen once again in the two pictures below: the Roman Forum, then and now. In the photograph, even the column visible in the center of the picture dates from a later time.



The crumbling ruins of what was once the greatest power on earth carry a message to modern society, which is often regarded as irreversible and permanent. Civilizations can and do fall, and the mightiest of buildings can and do crumble in a few short centuries. This happens when the people who originally made that civilization become a minority or are totally wiped out by either invaders, immigrants or are assimilated into new racial elements.

This then is the great lesson of history - the disappearance of a people, or race, leads to the disappearance of all aspects of their civilization, even the physical manifestations.

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Appendix 10: CLASSICAL ROMAN WRITERS ON RACE MIXING IN ROME



Racial mixing was noted as a phenomenon by numerous Classical Roman authors.



Interracial unions were common enough in the time of the Roman satirist Juvenal (55-27 AD) for him to make specific mention of them. In his Satire VI, Juvenal, while discussing the advisability or otherwise of abortions, warns husbands that their wives may bear mulatto children:

“Grieve not at this, poor wretch, and with thine own hand give thy wife the potion whatever is be for did she choose to bear her leaping children in her womb thou wouldst, perchance, become the sire of an Ethiop, a blackamoor would soon be your sole heir.”



- Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 596 – 600



The Roman writer Martial (38-104 AD), in attacking misconduct by Roman wives, mentions a Roman woman who bore her husband seven children, none of whom is of his ‘race.’ Marital says:





“One of them, with wooly hair, like a Moor, seems to be the son of Santra, the cook. The second, with a flat nose and thick lips, is the image of Pannicus, the wrestler . . . of the two daughters, one is black . . . and belongs to Crotus, the flute player.”



- Martial, VI, 39.



Roman women who had mulatto children were often charged with adultery in Roman courts, with the accusation being that the mixed race nature of their children was evidence of their adultery with slaves or non-White males other than their husbands. A common defense used in Roman courts was that of “maternal impression” which claimed that babies in the womb could be affected by the mother merely viewing, or being close to, non-Whites.



As ridiculous as this defense is, it was used by the famous orator Quintilian (35 – 96 AD) to successfully defend a Roman woman on an adultery charge (Liber Hebr. Quest. In Genesim. Ed Migne: Lat. T. 23, p 985.)



Another famous Roman orator, Calpurnius Flaccus, (circa 2nd Century AD) also discussed the issue of “maternal impression” as an explanation for mulatto children, writing in a work entitled “De Natus Aethiops” (‘Of Ethiopian Birth’) he makes the white wife of a mulatto child say:



“Tell me then, did I love a Negro?” she says. She did not, and asserts that “the element of chance may effect a great deal within the womb.” Of the child’s color, she says: “You see there the skin scorched by an imperfection of the blood.”

- Bibloteca Latina, Vol. 80





Plutarch (De sera numinis vindicta 2I [563]) tells the story of a woman who gave birth to a black child and was accused of adultery, but subsequent investigation revealed that her great grandfather was an Ethiopian.



The Roman scholar Pliny (23-79 AD) mentioned yet another example of mulatto children:



“One certain example is that of the renowned boxer Nicaeus, born at Byzantium, whose mother was the daughter of adultery with a Negro. Her complexion was no different from that of the others [other white women], but her son Nicaeus appeared like his Negro grandfather.”

- Naturalis Historia VII.12.51





THE 'HIDEOUS HYBRID" - CLAUDIAN



Racial mixing also took place in the Roman colonies, and specifically the colony they called ‘Africa’ (this was then what is now known as North Africa, and the Roman name was then given the entire continent).



Claudian (365 – 408 AD) raged against the racial mixing taking place under the ‘Moor’ (‘Maur’) Gildo, who had been appointed to be ruler of the colony of Africa by the emperor Valentian.



Claudian wrote:



“When tired of each noblest matron, (Gildo) hands her over to the Moors. These Sidonian mothers, married in Carthage City, must needs be mate with barbarians. He thrusts upon me an Ethiopian son-in-law. This hideous hybrid affects the cradle.”

- De Bello Gildonico I, 189

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Chapter 20 : Byzantium - The Eastern Roman Empire

Constantinople, situated on the Bosporus Straits at the mouth of the Black Sea, became a capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD after Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, refounded the city of Byzantium. Although the city was called Constantinople until its fall, the Eastern Roman Empire became known by the classical name of Byzantium, and often the city was called by its old name as well.

The city's status as residence of the Eastern Roman Emperor made it into the premier city in all of the Eastern Roman colonies in the Balkans, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, Egypt, and part of present day Libya. A good indication of the degree to which the Eastern Empire was not made up for the greatest part of original Romans, can be seen in the official languages of the Byzantines: Greek, Coptic, Syriac and Armenian, with only a very few mainly Christian priests actually speaking Latin.




Above right: Constantine, the bringer of Christianity to the Roman Empire, and therefore also ultimately to Europe. The city he was to found, Constantinople, would last until 1453, when it was overrun by the non-White Muslims. Above left: A view of the Haga Sofia - the Christian church built in Constantinople by the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian in 537 AD. When Constantinople was overrun by the non-White Turks, four Muslim towers, called minarets, were added to the corners of the building. In this photograph, the minarets have been removed to present the building as it was when it was built.

THE EFFECT OF THE FALL OF ROME

The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths and Vandals, and then the de facto collapse of Roman power in the west, was felt throughout the Eastern Roman Empire like a thunderclap. The impossible had happened - the power which had held sway in the known world had vanished.

Due to the immense symbolism of Rome, Eastern Roman emperors made two attempts to recapture the west, once ironically using Romanized Germans. This use of Germanic tribes such as the Goths and eventually even Vikings (in the Varangian Guard in Constantinople) was the major reason why the Eastern Empire lasted as long as it did.

Surrounded by huge walls, defenses erected by the Romans at the height of their power, and defended by armies of Germanic mercenaries, Constantinople ended up surviving as a city virtually besieged for the greater part of its life, its territories eventually restricted to the direct area of the city.

THEODORIC THE OSTROGOTH SEIZES THE WESTERN EMPIRE

The first attempt to re-establish the Western Empire by the Eastern Empire came with the invasion of Italy by the Romanized king of another Gothic tribe, Theodoric of the Ostrogoths, soon after the sacking of Rome. Having been educated in Constantinople, Theodoric saw it as his mission to restore the Western Empire.

After much heavy fighting between the Ostrogoths and their racial cousins who had moved into Rome with Odovacar, the two sides reached a stalemate and negotiations were started. However, Odovacar was assassinated and Theodoric seized his chance - taking advantage of the confusion in Odovacar's followers, he established the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy - significantly not choosing Rome as his capital, instead making the northern Italian city of Ravenna the capital of his revived Western Empire.

Theodoric did his best to restore the outer trappings of classical Rome, even adopting Latin as the language of his court. However, when he died in 526 AD, the temporary order imposed upon Rome and southern Italy once again collapsed, descending into anarchy until the second attempt to restore the Western Empire, made by the famous Eastern Roman Emperor, Justinian, in 554 AD.

JUSTINIAN - LAST EMPEROR TO UNITE THE EMPIRE

Justinian, who reigned from 527 to 565 AD, had been able to seize a large slice of North Africa from the remnants of the Vandals in 533, and thus had a good base for an invasion of Italy.

After many years Justinian was able to capture not only Italy, but also Spain and the Aegean coast, for a while almost re-establishing the Roman Empire's borders before it had moved north of the Alps. It is of significance that the army which Justinian sent to conquer these lands, was under the leadership of a general Belisarus - who was a Romanized Slav (and thus an original Indo-European).


Above: Belisarus, the Romanized Slav who served the Eastern Roman Empire. Sent by the Emperor Justinian to reconquer the lands of the western empire from the Germanics, the Aryan Slavic general did in fact manage to capture almost all of the former Western Empire territories - including much of Italy, Spain and the North African coast. Belisarus' most astounding feats were the 40 successive victories he obtained against the (by then mixed race) Persians and the (Germanic) Vandals over a thirty year period. In all but a few of these battles Belisarus' army was hopelessly outnumbered, and he won the day by ingenuity rather than weight of numbers. His greatest triumph was in 559 AD, when he drove off thousands of attacking Bulgars from Constantinople itself, using a mere 300 well trained cavalry, supported only by a few hundred untrained citizen conscripts.

Justinian is also known for his codification of Roman Law, and the erection of the Christian Church of the Haga Sofia in Constantinople.

In 528 Justinian appointed a commission of scholars to gather, classify and summarize the huge mass of laws created by centuries of Roman government. The result was a massive large work known as the Justinian Code and formally titled the Corpus Juris Civis.

The Church of the Haga Sofia was completed in 537 AD, and became the spiritual capital of orthodox Christendom (until the city was attacked and conquered by the non-White Muslims in 1453 AD, when it was converted into a mosque, a purpose it still serves today).

With Justinian's death in 565 AD, his successors were confronted with a renewed military threat from the ever adventurous Persians (who by this stage showed only very slight traces of their original Aryan ancestry). The Persians were only defeated in 628 AD.

THE LOMBARDS INVADE ITALY, DRIVE THE BYZANTINES SOUTH

In the west, Germanic tribes were once again on the offensive, and soon after Justinian's death, had recaptured most of the territory which had been retaken under the Eastern Roman emperor.

What must have seemed like an endless wave of warlike Germans swept down from the north, sweeping masses of mixed race Roman remnants into the south of the country, helping to create the distinctive "olive" south of Italy visible to this day.

In 568 AD, the most significant event in post Roman Italian history occurred: a new Germanic tribe, the Lombards, invaded the peninsula in such numbers that only Sicily and parts of southern Italy were left under Eastern Roman rule.

This large infusion of Aryan blood into the Italian population in Rome and northern Italy, combined with the original European remnants in northern Italy and with admixture from the mixed race remnants in Rome (many of whom had died in a great pestilence which swept through the city during the years of anarchy following the final collapse) together created the present day racial makeup of Italy - the further north in that country, the lighter the population, while the further south, the darker.


Above: The Emperor Justinian, center, surrounded by attendants. The greatest of the early Byzantine rulers, Justinian succeeded in not only recapturing much of the old Western Empire, but is also famous for the codification of laws in the empire, which today serves as the basis for many of the world's legal systems. This mosaic is a detail from the Church of San Vitale, which Justinian had built at Ravenna in Italy after his armies had reconquered Italy itself.




ISLAM THREATENS CONSTANTINOPLE

Around this time the first waves of non-White Islamic armies came sweeping up out of the Saudi Arabian peninsula, fired up by a new powerful religion which urged its supporters to convert the "kafirs"- or non-Muslim infidels - by force if necessary, through the "Jihad" or Holy War.

The Eastern Empire soon began losing its eastern most territories before the Islamic armies, most being impossible to defend with the limited resources available to Constantinople. This non-White racial invasion would be the spark for the Second Great Race War - the Crusades.

EASTERN EMPIRE COMPRESSED BY INDO-EUROPEAN SLAVIC INVASIONS

Originally Indo-European Slavic tribes also invaded the Balkans at this time, stripping away these western territories from the Eastern Roman Empire, even threatening Constantinople itself. Byzantium barely survived the main Slavic invasions, when a new Asiatic invasion by a tribe called the Avars took place during the 6th Century AD. (The Avar invasion is considered in greater depth in a following chapter). This invasion was also beaten off, with uncoordinated help being given by the Slavic tribes.

However, it quickly became impossible to hold on to all of the former Roman provinces - apart from the loss of northern Italy to the Lombards, the Byzantines were also forced to concede much of the Balkans to the non-White armies of Islam. The by now thoroughly mixed race Persians then launched an attack of the easternmost reaches of the Byzantine Empire - only with a superhuman effort were the Persians beaten in 628 AD, leading to the recapture of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.

Despite this victory, the writing was on the wall for the Eastern Empire - a rapidly growing mixed race population, a small White minority, threatened from the west by the Slavs, and from the east by the Turks and Persians - there seemed to be no way out. Between 634 AD and 642 AD, the Islamic armies invaded Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, finally besieging the city of Constantinople itself three times, in 670 AD, 717 and in 718. After this year, the Islamic armies launched new invasions virtually every year.

NEW WHITE ARMIES - PAID WITH LAND

In a desperate attempt to shore up its collapsing frontiers, the Byzantines launched a massive recruiting drive amongst the Germanic tribes, offering not pay this time, but lands in areas marked for reconquest from the Muslims, at the same time reorganizing the structure of their army dramatically. A wave of new European soldiers then took up the offer, and although heavily outnumbered, these new armies launched a major campaign against the Muslims during 9th Century, which stabilized the Muslim threat until the beginning of the 12th Century.

Bulgaria was reconquered in a campaign lasting much of the decade following 970 AD, a victory which was followed up by the re-seizure of parts of northern Mesopotamia and northern Syria.

However, by the end of the 11th Century, the continual wars had once again sapped the strength of the Byzantine armies, increasingly fewer volunteers came forth from the Germanics, as the chances of actually being rewarded with land became less and less.

A new Muslim power, the Seljuk Turks, launched a series of murderous raids into Byzantine territory in the early part of the new millennium, and then defeated a Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD, occupying most of Turkey (Asia Minor) as a result. At the same time as the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantines lost their last foothold in Italy and further split from the Christian West by a division in Christianity in 1054 AD - a split which led to the creation of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

THE EASTERN EMPIRE APPEALS FOR HELP AGAINST MUSLIMS

On all fronts the Byzantines were once again in retreat - as the Muslim armies prepared for a final assault on the city of Constantinople, the Eastern Emperor, Alexius I, appealed to the Pope in Rome for aid against the Turks. This appeal was acceded to: the result was the start of one of the longest running race wars in history, between the Whites in Western Europe on the one hand and the mixed race Arabic/Black armies of Islam on the other hand. The battlefield raged around Constantinople - that city's Christian status in the face of Islam led generations of White Christians in Europe to physically prop up the city, artificially prolonging its life-span by centuries.

This race war was fought under the guise of a religious battle to be known as the Crusades, and would last 275 years, from 1095 to 1270 AD. (The full story and impact of the Crusades is reviewed in a following chapter).

CRUSADER RACE WAR ULTIMATELY FAILS

Although Byzantium initially benefited from the Crusades, recovering some land in Asia Minor, the Crusader race war ended ultimately in defeat for the Whites, and by 1354 AD, the Turks had occupied much of the Balkans, cutting off Constantinople from the West. The city finally fell to the Muslim armies in 1453 AD - the date which formally marks the end of the Eastern Roman Empire. Once again, like the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire was, by the time of its fall, Roman in name only. The original Romans who had established the city had also long since disappeared, and it was only through repeated White armies rushing to the city's aid because of its Christian status, that is was not overrun centuries before its final collapse.

THE BYZANTINE LEGACY - CYRILLIC ALPHABET

The early Byzantines did however leave a rich legacy, many outer manifestations of which have remained as part of the greater White civilization to this day.

The Byzantines developed the Cyrillic script, still used by many Eastern European countries, and also played a crucial role in preserving many ancient Greek works which later were used in the west to aid the return to Classical values known as the Renaissance. In addition to this, the tradition of Eastern Orthodox Christianity came to dominate much of Eastern Europe, leading to the establishment of the two largest such church groupings: the Greek Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church.