The book that I chose to discuss is Blood of the Caesars: How the Murder of Germanicus Led to the Fall of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins. The thesis of his book is that the murder of Germanicus Julius Caesar led to the eventually fall of the Roman Empire. I believe Dando-Collins decided to write on this particular event in the Roman history because he had a thirst of knowledge to learn more about Germanicus and the mystery began to become solved due to new evidence. This author has also written on various other topics on the civilization of ancient Rome such as: Julius Caesar, Nero’s reign of killing, the kidnapping of Cleopatra, and Mark Antony. This exhibits his experience he possesses of researching and writing about the military and empire …show more content…
His primary argument is that the killing of Germanicus was intentionally murdered, he knows who the killer is and why the act was committed, and the murder of Germanicus led to the decline of the Rome Empire. There are numerous events that directly affected the decline of the Roman Empire and twice as many reasons that added up the fall of Rome. This author is stating that the particular event of the murder of Germanicus is one major reason to the fall of Rome. Even though there are no articles that I could find to directly oppose or agree with this historian’s book; there are several articles to support the thesis found in the Blood of the Caesars. Stephan Dando-Collins structures the book and overall his argument in a chronological order. He begins with the murderous act of killing Germanicus Caesar. The event takes place in Syria in October in the year of 19 AD. “Germanicus fell ill whilst on an unauthorized visit to Egypt” is how the wife of Germanicus, Agrippina, described his condition while on his deathbed and Dando-Collins writes that Germanicus was entirely convinced that he poisoned. While the …show more content…
I’m going to show both sides of the argument. On the side of agreement, the article, “Julians and Claudians”, states that the killing of Germanicus deprived Rome of having a charismatic leader who would be loved by the populace. This article agrees with the book because the article is concentrated on the genealogy of the Caesar bloodline. Any change in the reigns of different rulers could significantly affect the bloodline of the Caesars such as the reign of Germanicus. The other side of the argument is of course the opposition. This source agrees in some aspects such as the fact Germanicus believed that he was poisoned and that Germanicus was one of the most popular Romans to ascend to the throne. The disagreement come with Germanicus believing that Piso had poisoned him not Seneca and Agrippina. While this particular book has yet to be dissected and argued by other historians there are articles to support and fight points that were laid out in Blood of the
Before reading the book, I must admit I did not know very much about the Caesars that ruled Rome. I had only heard of Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, and between the two, I only had a vague idea of what they did. Now after reading "The Twelve Caesars" I have a much clearer understanding of who these men were and what they did. Each one of them impacted the world in different ways, and some of their decisions still echo through the modern world. Suetonius has given me a better understanding of the Caesars and Rome.
...ion this all showed that style of governing and ruling an empire started a century long pattern of events that eventually lead to the fall and destruction of the old oligarchy led by the Senate. The combination of desire for personal gain and glory of a politician or general was what weakened the Roman customs and the Senate. This was a cycle among the Senate, to find themselves stuck in a problem and to find others to fix with of course military means but in turn make everything more corrupt with their disruptive practices such as Pompey and Julius Caesar. But they were not the only ones there were others who were to blame for causing such decay and corruption such as Marius, Sulla, Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus. They were the ones who kept this corruption cycle going and it was Augustus Caesar who finally broke the cycle and brought stability and order back to Rome.
Livy’s The Rise of Rome serves as the ultimate catalogue of Roman history, elaborating on the accomplishments of each king and set of consuls through the ages of its vast empire. In the first five books, Livy lays the groundwork for the history of Rome and sets forth a model for all of Rome to follow. For him, the “special and salutary benefit of the study of history is to behold evidence of every sort of behaviour set forth as on a splendid memorial; from it you may select for yourself and for your country what to emulate, from it what to avoid, whether basely begun or basely concluded.” (Livy 4). Livy, however, denies the general populace the right to make the same sort of conclusions that he made in constructing his histories. His biased representation of Romulus and Tarquin Superbus, two icons of Roman history, give the readers a definite model of what a Roman should be, instead of allowing them to come to their own conclusion.
After the murderous confrontation, it was not too late to prevent the anger of Caesar’s allies and the citizens or, even, to avoid future civil war. But it was here that Brutus made his second and third mistakes. Marcus Brutus rose before the Roman populace and attempted to offer a justification of Caesar’s murder. His flawed judgment came when he deemed Antony trustworthy and allowed him to speak at Caesar’s funeral. Brutus naively let Antony draw the mob in his favor. No one could dare refute Antony’s impassioned pleas in behalf of Caesar.
In the glory days of Rome, the empire was safe. People got along very well, large scale public works including bathhouses and aqueducts were built. A single emperor had control of one of the largest empires in history. Great games and festivities rang throughout the land. But, all glory eventually comes to an end. With the largest empire at the time, Rome had an equal fall from grace. Rome fell because of the political corruption, inflation and the decline in morals of its citizens.
Essay: Why was it possible for Rome to become an empire and last so long. What were the reasons for it's fall?
Heather, Peter. The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford UP, 2005.
The people of Rome quickly began to realize that the young man they thought he was be was not the man he was becoming. His behavior was highly disliked by Rome’s elite, and conspiracies were soon to be made against this tyrannical ruler. On January 24th of 41 A.D., four months after he returned from Gaul, Caligula was murdered by members of the Roman senate and officers of the Praetorian Guard and one well known man, Cassius Chaerea. Caligula’s wife was stabbed to death and his infant daughter’s head was bashed against the wall. This opened the way for Caligula’s uncle, Claudius to succeed him and become Rome’s next emperor.
In conclusion, it is clear that the conspirators made a wrong decision to assassinate Caesar because of the following reasons: Caesar recreated Rome, conspirators had personal motives in his assassination, he did not force the Romans to give him honours, the conspirators' failure in gaining freedom for the Romans, Caesar's position as the Chief Priest, monarchy was the best government available, the conspirators' wrong judgement in killing Caesar, and Caesar was a consummate statesman. Caesar's death caused cataclysm in Rome and made the Romans suffered more.
There were many reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. Each one interweaved with the other. Many even blame the initiation of Christianity in 337 AD by Constantine the Great as the definitive cause while others blame it on increases in unemployment, inflation, military expenditure and slave labour while others blame it on the ethical issues such the decline in morals, the lack of discipline of the armies and the political corruption within the Empire. Three major contributions that led to the collapse of the once great empire were: the heavy military spending in order to expand the Empire, the over-reliance on slave labour which led to an increase in unemployment, and the political corruption and abuse of power by the Praetorian Guard leading to the unfair selection of many disreputable emperors and the assassination of those not favoured by the Guard.
The Roman Republic began in 509 B.C.E. with the overthrow of the Etruscan monarchy. In 27 B.C.E the Roman Empire began with Octavian Caesar becoming the emperor, this ended almost 500 years of republican self-government. There is much debate over why Rome became so powerful so quickly. Many think it had to do with Rome’s military strength. Others think that it was because Rome knew of and controlled most of the trade routes. Still others believed it had to do with the technology that was advanced during the Roman Republic. All of these factors played significant roles, but which one played the most important role?
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire is a scholarly article written by Justin Ott about the Roman Empire and the events leading up to its fall. The article mostly focuses on the military and economy of Rome in the third century A.D. It lists in the beginning a few of the different theories people have of how Rome fell, including led poisoning and the spread of Christianity. The article seems to want to disprove these theories, showing how they are not the main causes for the collapse of Rome. “Gibbon’s arguments in these sections can be accurately summarized as “the insensible penetration of Christianity in the empire fatally undermined the genius of a great people.” The problem with this conclusion is two-fold. First of all, this explanation is too narrow as it is difficult to believe one single factor brought down the empire. More importantly, it is clear that the Eastern Roman Empire was by far more Christian than the West, therefore if Christianity was behind the fall, the East should have fallen first.” The article’s audience appears to be historians, or those who are interested in history, or just the Roman Empire. It
By the 1970s, Historian Peter Brown sparked an interesting debate about the Roman civilization. He dubbed a period in Roman history, ‘The Late Antiquity’, starting around 200 AD and lasting up until the eighth century, marking this was a period in time where the Roman civilization was not in decline, but in a state of transformation due to religious and cultural revolution, and causing many historians to agree or debate about this matter. Bryan Ward-Perkins, author of The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, critique the theory of ‘The Late Antiquity’ and firmly believe the decline of Roman civilization instead of its transformation influenced by its barbaric invaders. He supports his position of Rome’s Fall with evidence from the diminishing
Debates of the cause of the Roman Civil War are numerous. Historian and author Erich S. Gruen, in his book The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, implicates the desire “to maintain dignitas” on the part of both Caesar’s opponents and Caesar himself as one of the primary catalysts to the strife. However, Aulus Hirtius, Caesar’s biographer and comrade, tells a different story. In chapter 8 of Caesar’s biography De Bello Gallico, Hirtius uses biased language to suggest that the events leading up to the Roman Civil War were primarily due to the puerile pride and emotions of Caesar's opponents, and to suggest that Caesar’s side was the more justified one, but neglects to recognize the similar pride of Caesar.
The fall of the Roman Empire happened after a extensive history of power. History’s biggest empire collapsed after about 1000 years. This occurred because Rome changed for the worst during the end of its time of power. Rome had 147 emperors throughout its time in control. There were also the good and corrupt times of Rome which all happened before the unexpected fall of the biggest empire in history. There are precise reasons for why the Roman Empire fell. The reasons the Roman Empire fell are that Christianity became the religion in Rome, the empire became too big, and overtime the empire decayed.