A triumph for the new democrats
over the old guard,
Augustus
(27 BC-14 AD) - as Octavian
became known - was the first
true Roman emperor, in firm
control of Rome and its
dominions. Responsible more than
anyone for heaving Rome into the
Imperial era, he was determined
to turn the city - as he claimed
- from one of stone to one of
marble, building arches,
theatres and monuments of a
magnificence suited to the
capital of an expanding empire.
Perhaps the best and certainly
the most politically canny of
Rome's many emperors, Augustus
reigned for forty years. He was
succeeeded by
Tiberius
(14-37), who ruled from the
island of Capri for the last
years of his reign, and he in
turn by
Caligula (37-41),
who was assassinated after just
four years in power.
Claudius
(41-54), his uncle, followed, at
first reluctantly, and proved to
be a wise ruler, only to be
succeeded by his stepson,
Nero
(54-68), whose reign became more
notorious for its excess than
its prudence, and led to a brief
period of warring and infighting
after his murder in 68 AD.
Rome's next rulers, the Flavian
emperors , restored some
stability, starting with Vespasian
(69-79), who did his best to
obliterate all traces of Nero,
not least with an enormous
ampitheatre in the grounds of
Nero's palace, later known as
the Colosseum, and ending with
the emperor Trajan
(98-117), under whose rule the
empire reached its maximum
limits. Trajan died in 117 AD,
giving way to Hadrian
(117-138), who continued the
grand and expansionist agenda of
his predecessor, and arguably
provided the empire's greatest
years. The city swelled to a
population of a million or more,
its people housed in cramped
apartment blocks or insulae;
crime in the city was rife, and
the traffic problem apparently
on a par with today's, leading
one contemporary writer to
complain that the din on the
streets made it impossible to
get a good night's sleep. But it
was a time of peace and
prosperity, the Roman upper
classes living a life of
indolent luxury, in sumptuous
residences with proper plumbing
and central heating, and the
empire's borders being ever more
extended.
The decline of Rome is
hard to date precisely, but it
could be said to have started
with the emperor Diocletian
(284-305), who assumed power in
284 and divided the empire into
two parts, east and west, while
becoming known for his
relentless persecution of
Christians. The first Christian
emperor, Constantine
(312-337), shifted the seat of
power to Byzantium in 330, and
Rome's heady period as capital
of the world was over, the
wealthier members of the
population moving east and a
series of invasions by Goths in
410 and Vandals about forty
years later only serving to
quicken the city's ruin. By the
sixth century the city was a
devastated and infection-ridden
shadow of its former self, with
a population of just 20,000.
