AGE OF THE EMPERORS

Cue (NZERS), 1 June 1944, Page 5

AGE OF THE EMPERORS

On the fall of the republic, all power of the - magistrates, jpro-consuls, censura and the Pontificate were vested in the Emperor. An age of external peace commenced, which, together with the recently acquired wealth of the new provinces favoured a • tremendous resurgence of art and architecture, literature and civil development. ;

Military roads were restored, the army reorganised and given a good medical service — mostly Greek — and • the fleet efficiently equipped. Rome was transformed by its greatest building programme and became the centre of the classical world in a way no other city had done before. All roads then led to Rome.

Despite this activity, the economic basis was still _ unfortunately that of the citystate.. This fatal flaw led . within 250 years to the’ complete economic stagnation of the classical world which found it easier to export an industry rather than increase the size. of manufactories and find transport for a mutual exchange of goods. The full effects however, were not immediately apparent. The Provinces were temporarily revived by the cessation of war and the sudden access of wealth to the Roman city in its turn caused temporary prosperity. This expressed itself in public buildings, private luxury, and the establishment of those innumerable resorts of the wealthy along the coast from Anzio to

Sorrento. With the added ease and innumerable slaves, moral decadence also set in.

. It should not be forgotten that about that about this time and .in : an obscure province of the peaceful empire, Christ was born and crucified without one historian .either recording the event or taking cognisance of his followers until after some 30 years they attracted unwelcome attention by their obstinacy in failing to comply with what, the Roman authorities demanded of every citizen or subject — nominal respect to the divine genius of the Emperor.

The Emperors, continued at first by dynastic succession. When the Octavian line ceased, the army found it more profitable to support the lavish and easily controlled rule of an Emperor, than to take its orders and pay from a parsimonious senate. A succession of mad, bad, or .weak rulers followed Tiberius. Of these Nero is known to all, more by his later misdeeds than by his excellent earlier beginnings. . • . , x ...

In a.d. 69, Vespasian restored the line of greater Emperoys. Under his later successors, Trajan (98-117) and Hadrian, who built the Roman walk in Britain, the Empire reached its greatest extent.