roman empire

The Enduring Legacy of Roman Roads

~ matthewjordanstorm ~ Leave a comment

Perhaps one of the most obvious and most enduring signs of Rome’s legacy lies underfoot in its network of roads that stretch from Scotland to north of the Danube, east to the Crimea and south to the Red Sea.

This article in Atlas Obscura has some fine pictures (including that of the Pont du Gard in Nimes, France pictured above) and highlights some of the more remarkable, and obscure bits of the Romans highway system that still exists across Western Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-beautiful-network-of-ancient-roman-roads

Justinian Era Church Found in Israel

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In another recent sign of Rome’s daunting reach in the Justinian Era, workers expanding a highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem recently discovered remains of an ancient Roman church from the 6th century.  Its a reminder of Justinian’s efforts to revive Rome’s presence in what was then part of the Palaestina Prima province, including a massive building campaign in Jerusalem (continuing earlier efforts begun by the Emperor Hadrian).

For more on this recent discovery see this link:

http://www.haaretz.com/life/archaeology/1.660496

Writing Rome Out Of Istanbul’s History

~ matthewjordanstorm ~ Leave a comment

History has always  been written by the victors.

But what is it about the lingering power of Rome’s legacy in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople – Nova Roma – Byzantium), that 600 hundred years after Mehmed the Conqueror breached Constantinople’s walls, the modern Turkish government finds the Roman Empire to be such a threat?  Or so it would seem given the resources that Turkey (led by Prime Minister Erdogan’s party) has devoted to programs to eliminate Rome from the archaelogical record by selectively restoring Roman monuments and buildings in Istanbul to emphasize their Ottoman influences at the expense of their Roman origins.

Perhaps the headline from this recent piece in the Financial Times should have read (encouragingly) as follows: “Rome Still Matters.”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e697a0b2-0a97-11e5-a8e8-00144feabdc0.html#

Roman Glass in Ancient Japan

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Roman Glass in Japan

ROMAN GLASS has been found in a recently opened Japanese tomb dating to the 5th century, as per an article in this week’s Asahi Shimbum (courtesy of Adrian Murdoch’s fine blog).

Read the original article on this stunning discovery here: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201411130064

map japan

The ornamental glass (a beautiful cobalt blue plate and a delicate golden bowl seen above) is believed to have made it’s way to Japan through Sassanid Persia.  Scientific analysis suggests that both items were created by Roman artisans working within the Empire at some point in the 3rd century.  While it’s unknown precisely when and how they made their way to Japan, they were buried along with the denizen of tumulus #126, within a cluster of ancient graves dating to the late 5th century.

Niizawa Senzuka burial mounds

So what does it have to do with the Age of Justinian, this turbulent time when the light of Rome still shined in the East as darkness fell in the West?

In these fragile pieces of blue and gold glass, fantastically preserved, we have an example of how far Rome reached even in an era in which common wisdom says Rome had already “fallen”.

The truth, as found in this burial mound in Nara Prefecture suggests something very different.

While Roman trade with Japan was indeed rare, the Romans (and their trading partners and sometimes enemies, the Persians) traded actively with the East. Most of this trade centered around silk that could only be sourced from China at this time. Roman gold moved east, and Chinese silk moved West. That river of gold sustained the Persians.

But there would come a day, not long after our blue glass plate was buried in Japan, when an exceptional man, a missionary, took an extraordinary risk by smuggling silk worms out of the Forbidden City in a hollow-tipped cane. When he arrived at the Emperor Justinian’s court in Constantinople he irrevocably changed the course of history….

– Matthew J. Storm

The Conundrum – Rome Entering the Dark

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Many books of fiction, academic studies, dry histories, shoddy blogs, shoddier movies and cheap soaps have been devoted to  that abstraction called ROME.

They devote themselves to the common questions we have been told that matter most, the “serious” questions.

Who were the Romans?

Where did they come from?

How did they achieve dominance over the classical world?

And most importantly in the eyes of many – what caused “THE FALL”.

The latter question is one that interested me as well, a great deal, until I understood a basic historical fact – a truly heretical historical fact.  That fact stunned me, blew me away really, fascinated me from the get-go and it hasn’t let go of me since.

ROME DID NOT FALL.

Or put more specifically, when Romulus Augustulus abdicated in favor of the Goth warlord Odoacer, he formally ended the Western Roman Empire.  Yet this apocryphal collapse was really just a historical asterisk.  Why?  How could I be so flip with the seminal event of modern western civilization.

The year was 476.  The “end” came in 476.

But the reality is that for another thousand years – until 1453 – a Roman Emperor continued to rule in the ancient Byzantium, the capital of the Roman Empire since Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Empire from Roman to the newly christened Constantinople in 330CE.

It is accurate to say that the Western Empire ceased to exist in 476, while in truth it had ceased to exist several decades before as an independent entity.  It is equally true, stunningly accurate, to assert that the Eastern Empire lived until it fell to Mehmed “the Conqueror” in 1453, on the eve of Columbus’ trip to the new world.

Assuming that what I have just abruptly foisted upon you is true, it begs the following questions.  I trust they will pique your interest as they have held me hostage since childhood,

– Why do Western school children know nothing of this “other Rome”?

– What is the missing history, these thousand years that is not taught?

– What debt do we owe to this Rome – how would our world be different if Rome hadn’t continued in the East?

– Who were these “other” Romans?  How did they perceive the falling darkness, the barbarian invasions, the retreat of classical civilization?

– How did they navigate the Dark Ages?  How did civilization survive in their hands when the West lived in darkness, ignorance, brutish squalor?

– What was the role of this forgotten Rome in the reawakening of the West in the Renaissance?

These are the basic questions that have kept me occupied for many years – they are obviously far greater than I.  But I’ve delved into these things in a very small way, pursuing my obsession and attempting to share a germ of this fascinating world with others in the form of my novel, FROM AFRICANUS, and it’s sequel, AVENGING AFRICANUS that will be released in the summer of 2014.

Please stay tuned, share your thoughts, your passion, and curiosity, for the forgotten Rome.  Not to say that the story of the Republic and early Empire isn’t worthy – it is most worthy of study and discussion but it’s not neglected.   The same can’t be said of the Rome of Justinian the Great.