A Complete History of the World Part 7: THE POWER AND THE GLORY THAT IS ROME! 753 BC-507 BC

Alright, remember how I said things were about to get complicated? I was really kind of talking about Rome and how pretty much after these guys appear on the scene history kicks into overdrive, and almost everyone has enough stone, paper, papyrus or kiln fired dirt laying around to keep lengthy records of their civilizations. So Lets start with the big guys of the Iron Age, ROME!


So a there isn't a whole hell of a lot of info about the Kingdom of Rome, save that its founding is popularly believed to be around 753 BC. The city of Rome was located on a hill (Palatine) next to the river Tiber. It was ruled by a series of Kings, which in Rome were referred to as Rex.

The most famous of these was Romulus, the founder of Rome...and the ROMULAN STAR EMPIRE. The story goes that a pair of twins were born, Romulus and Remus, who, when they grew up, decided to create a kingdom and asked the local deities to favor one of them to name and lead the settlement. A flock of birds flew over Romulus so he promptly iced his brother with a shovel. with his newly buried brother out of the way Romulus formed the legionary. Now that he had an army as well as a thirst for glory and power he ordered his troops to attack the Sabines. The intent was to capture their women and bring them back to Rome for breeding stock. This event is captured in the musical number 'Sobbin' Women' from the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Great.
So Romulus gets women for Rome, founds the Roman senate in meantime, and as the war with the Sabine men grows a momentous event takes place. As battle is about erupt between the legions and the Sabines, the now totally raped women rush from the city and plead for the fighting to stop and for the two peoples to live in peace as one. Peace is declared and promptly Rome puts out a notice saying that Rome is an asylum for all who dislike where they live, thus murderers, thieves, political enemies and roughnecks from all over the Mediterranean make their way to the new city. They also invent cloaking devices for their powerful birds of prey.


My thoughts exactly. Funny thing about the end of Romulus' reign, it is said that in his 38th year he and the people of Rome went to a large hill, where a storm abruptly sprung up and scared everyone but Romulus away. When the storm passed the people returned and were panicked to find that their fearless leader was missing! The senators quickly called for silence and explained that they had seen Romulus carried away into the heavens to be venerated as a God. This is pretty clearly the Roman Senators beginning the extremely Roman tradition of political assassination and spin doctoring. After the death of Romulus the senate went into a interregnum and elected a new king from the senate...ascended to heaven my ass.


What have I done to history?

Anyway, Rome found a new leader in Numa Pompilius, who had a peaceful reign of 43 years, he was actually rather well liked for managing this. He also created the Vestal Virgins, who watched over the fire of Vesta a protecting spirit of Rome. The virgins were taken at a young age and served 30 years as fire watchers, making sure that the flame never went out. After their tenure was up they could retire and get married, but when your choices in life were either be pampered forever with no sex or consent to the rule of men in Rome most women chose to remain in the 'clergy.'

After the reign of Numa the 'awesome,' Rome went to Tulus Hostilius, whose name is an aptronym. He ignored the hell out of the Gods and fought wars like there was no tomorrow. As he grew old and sick he turned to the God Jupiter for help, Jupiter's response was to drop a lightning bolt on him and his house.



Damn straight.

Because the Romans were worried about their new nation, and because Hostilius was such an enormous cock, the Roman Senate sought out Numas Grandson for the position of Rex. He was much like his Grandfather and ruled Rome with a measured respectful hand. Ancus Marcius, as he was called, adopted a foreign man as son and said that he would take the throne when he died. This man was Tarquinius Priscus, who by all appearance was a great ruler for his time. He expanded the Roman Empire into the Etruria, his birthplace, then gave the Etruscans senate seats. He also created the Circus Maximus where the Roman love of games was finally coming into its own. At this massive stadium chariot races were held, basically ancient Roman NASCAR. I would recommend everyone rush right out and see Ben-Hur as it is famous for its chariot scene, but I haven't seen it. I watched a clip once, but for whatever reason they decided that there needed to be Muslims betting on the race...even though Islam wasn't founded for another 400 YEARS! Damn you movies! Damn you to hell! Anyway Priscus also built the Roman sewer system, which helped him clear out a nearby swamp and expand the city. He was also the first Roman leader to celebrate a 'Roman Victory', wherein large parades and celebrations were held.

Regrettably Priscus suffered a true Roman fate, he was assassinated by one of Ancus' sons, you know, the real ones...the ones who weren't getting to rule Rome. Fortunately, just like in a good movie, the wicked sons of Ancus were thwarted when the throne went to Prscus' son Servius Tullius. He changed up the Roman's civics system, making a more rigid class system and giving more power to an elite few. However as he grew older he began to view the poor of his nation as important, because there was a lot of them, and they could stab him just as hard as anybody. Hilariously he was assassinated by his own daughter Tullia, who got her husband Tarquinius Superbus to the position of Rex.



That would be funny if it weren't true. You see Superbus was a brutal leader, who destroyed shrines dedicated to the Sabines ( who were now largely integrated into all of Roman society), murdered his opposition and threatened the well being of the whole of Rome. Finally he was ousted after an incredibly famous event. In 507 BC Superbus was besieging a distant city and needed to make contact with the Roman city of Collatia. He sent his son Sextus to visit the Governor's mansion, which belonged to a man away at the siege as well. The house invited him in with all kinds of kindnesses and flattery. In attendance at the mansion was the Prefect of Rome's daughter Lucretia, whose husband was the wayward governor. Sextus was quickly enamored with the beautiful Lucretia and that same night he crept into her bedchamber and woke her to give her two choices. She could either sleep with him and be his future Queen, or he could kill her and one of her maids and claim that she was dishonoring her husband by having a lesbian affair. Lucretia opted out of either choice and was summarily raped by Sextus, who quickly returned to the front lines pleased as punch. Lucretia, devastated, went to her father and wept, when he asked her why she was so distressed she said that she wanted witnesses. Once a crowd had been gathered she told the story of her rape at the hands of the King's son, how this was an affront to all Roman's, and that action must be taken, as soon as this message escaped her lips she drew a dagger and stabbed herself in the heart.. The Roman people were infuriated with their ruler and promptly called in the senate to oust him and end the line of kings.

Lucretia was the catalyst needed to finally end the rule of the Rex in Rome, with her death the senate raised an army and barred the gates to the city. Sextus and Superbus quickly heard the news and raced to Rome, leaving the army under the command of two patricians (Roman aristocrats). Discovering that they could not enter the city they returned to the besieged city of Ardea. Little did they know that while they were off running all over the country side a message had arrived declaring Superbus and his kin outlaws, a vote was held amongst the soldiers and a call to revolution accepted. Superbus was driven from Rome and all her territories, eventually ending up in Etruria, where he rallied the Etruscans and Latins behind him to defeat Rome. Sadly for Superbus it just didn't work out and Rome became a Republic, creating the position of consul to replace the king. You are probably thinking that simply having a kingly position under a different name wouldn't really make the situation any better, but the solution to this was to have there be two consuls who would need to agree over courses of action.

So in 507 BC the Kingdom of Rome was at an end and the era of the Republic of Rome was beginning!

A Complete History of the World Part 6: Greece 1100-500 BC, China 2100-480 BC, Japan 13,000- 300 BC, Meso America 1000 BC

We need to keep this ball rolling, because we're getting to some very lengthy and important periods in the development of everything, so we're going to leap to the next phase in Greek development.


So after the terrible Trojan War, which took up quite a few years after 1100 BC the Greeks moved into a period known as the Greek Dark Ages. The reason for the name is less because of some kind of loss of quality in Greek living, but rather because we simply have extremely little record of what precisely they were doing. So we'll skip the next few hundred years and go to the Archaic period roughly 800 BC to 480 BC.

During this innovative time the Greeks began to build small kingdoms around large towns, the most prominent feature of which was a spot called the Acropolis. The acropolis in Greek city design was a large hill centered in the heart of a city, surrounded by walls, rather a lot like later castle designs. Funny thing about this period is that Kingship was not passed from father to son, but rather from father to son-in-law. Thus disputes and lineage focused on the Queens of these towns. As the Archaic period ended the Kings were deposed by tyrants, another Greek invention. At this time a tyrant was an elected leader (the Greeks invented democracy as a means of bettering their fledgling 'city states') who had absolute authority to run the city as they saw fit, until the next election.

During the next few hundred years the Greek city states we are all familiar with become more defined, and of course wars break out between them. Such as the Messenian War in which Sparta, upset after the raping of some virgins, attacked Messenia, Messenia on the other hand swore that the virgins were soldiers, and that Sparta was simply being rude. This was promptly followed by a second Messenian War, because if Sparta ain't figthin' Sparta ain't livin'.


This sadly pretty much wraps up Greece until we jump up to everything after 500 BC.



Anyway, because Greece is done we can leap over to another part of the world ASIA! Starting with China in 2,100 BC. This was the time of the Xia dynasty, which could have ruled all the way to 1600 BC, but then again NOBODY KNOWS! Because although there are some records of the Xia dynasty existing and a few artifacts, there's no concrete history to speak of, so we'll jump ahead to the Shang Dynasty which ran from1600 BC to 1046 BC. During the Shang period the Chinese worshiped a pantheon of Gods all under a single supreme God Shang-Ti, as well as their ancestors, who after death ascended to a state of God hood as well. The Chinese also started using divination and the reading of bones to predict the future. Leadership at this time was dictated by the 'Mandate of Heaven' which was the will of the greater whole of the universe, if you were leading the country and everything was all right then you possessed the mandate, if however there were natural disasters and the people were unhappy then the mandate was no longer with you and you were fair pickin's for removal. After the Shang gave way a new Dynasty was founded titled the Zhou, which ruled China from 1046 to 221 BC. This transition was actually achieved after the Shang dynasties vassals in the West, the people of Zhou, turned on their masters and declared that they possessed the Mandate of Heaven, and were thus the new rulers of China. Incidentally the constant declarations of possessing the Mandate of heaven will be extremely common in dynastic cycles from here on out pretty much, but then again you knew that already if you happened to play any games made by Koei.


After a fashion the Zhou rulers lost control over the various feudal lords in China and by 480 BC hundreds of small kingdoms all vied for power while claiming loyalty to the Zhou. During the lead up to this there was also the beginning of large migrations of Chinese from the North to the South. In the background to the upheavels of the period Confucianism and Taoism both spring up and become dominant religious doctrines of the period. In recognition of this I'll give them each an opportunity to offer some advice. First of lets chat with Confucius...


Fascinating, thanks for that...all right, let us ask Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism a question, Lao Tzu! What's the purpose of life?



Outstanding, I have made a mockery of these two sacred traditions.

Anywho, lets move to Japan and see what they're up to between 13,000 BC to 300 BC


Stupendous, you venerate that bear carcass! We'll check back in with Japan in a few hundred years.

So where else can we visit? Let's see, in Central and South America the Olmec Civilization appears, along with the Mayans, this taking place around 1000 BC. The Olmec were known primarily for their art work, most notably their giant stone heads.


Exactly like you! Though eventually the Olmec were destroyed by violent insurrections...and by popular Nickelodeon game shows.


The Maya on the other hand would reach prominence a little later, so we'll need to be patient with them. Europe was wearing furs and eating meat nearly raw at this point, so picture early civilization with snow.

Under These circumstances it appears that we've managed to cover history all the way up to 500 BC, so be prepared, because this is where things start getting complicated.