Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python

“Romanes Eunt Domus? People called Romans they go the house?” – Life of Brian

Okay, you could argue that the last R should be a W.  But I need all the exposure I can get.

“Delenda est Carthago.”

Cato the Elder was a Roman Senator during the time of the Roman Republic.  Every time Cato spoke in the Senate he ended his speech with that phrase (or some variant, I don’t want to get into an ancient Latin grammar slapfight).  Translated, Cato meant:  “Carthage must be destroyed.”  Since I knew that fact when I was in high school also directly led to the loss of my virginity (really), but that’s a much longer story for another day . . . .

“Romans go home . . . “

The Punic (yes, that’s spelled right) Wars were the wars that Rome fought against Carthage.  In the First Punic War, (264-241 B.C.) there were 400,000 or so Carthaginians killed to 350,000 Romans.  The Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) is the one most people know about, where Hannibal (a Carthaginian) took his elephants through the Alps to sneak into Rome via the back door.  Sneaking with elephants is quite an accomplishment, and Hannibal roamed around Italy, destroying over 400 towns before he (and Carthage) were defeated again.  The Romans lost 300,000 dead, but the Roman general Scipio Africanus finally defeated Hannibal when he was forced to withdraw to Carthaginian territory after years spent ravaging Italy.

Is it just me, or could they have made it easier for the ten guys rowing if they got off the elephant?

It was after this war that Cato just wouldn’t stop talking about Carthage.  Eventually, he got his way and the Romans made an excuse and started the Third (and final) Punic War.  When the war was over, Carthage had been destroyed – and not destroyed just a little, but destroyed – the Romans burned the town for 17 days.  The few people that survived were sold into slavery.  Salt was plowed into the ground at the site of the city so that nothing would ever grow there again.  Despite all of this, they still couldn’t manage to cancel their FaceBook© account or get rid of their tracking cookies.

Part of me thinks that the Carthaginians just pissed the Romans off, even more than trade or greed would account for.  It’s now certain that Carthaginians burned their children alive as sacrifices to Baal.  Yes.  Alive.  And the ritual required that the child be awake.  Oh, one other goodie – you couldn’t just adopt a local urchin and toss that one in the fire.  Nope, that just brought bad luck.  It had to be your kid.  Your favorite child.

This was thought at one time to have been Roman propaganda, but it turns out to have been utterly true.  The Carthaginians were evil on a biblical level.  Everything about their religion and public life was against the Roman ideals of virtue, and Roman virtue was a big deal.  In Rome, virtue acted hand in hand with two other pillars:  the law and religion.  Each of them were a leg that helped make Roman society stable enough to last and thrive for hundreds of years, until they discovered Netflix®.

Roman law and Roman virtue are foundational to all of Western Civilization.  What were the Roman virtues?  This list is based on the Wikipedia entry:

• Fides – the root for fidelity, and really covered by the word faithfulness, to gods, country, and family. You’ll see that trio again.
• Pietas – respect to gods, country, and family. Told ya.
• Regilio – following traditional religious practices.
• Disciplina – this one is pretty straightforward.
• Gravitas/Constantia – dignified self-control and perseverance.
• Virtus – ideal male values, knowing good from evil, shame from dishonor, pilsner from bock.

The end goal was Dignitas and Auctoritas.  Dignitas was a reputation for worth, along with the honor and esteem it brought.  Auctoritas was the prestige and respect that came from being virtuous, along with one of those cool leafy hats.

If you did a bad thing in Senate they made you sit in time-out.

This threesome – law, religion and virtue was what made Rome great.  Rome was a culture where these things were held by all to be of value – old Roman politicians would try to ruin their competitors just by destroying their reputations.  Roman youth all the way up to Julius Caesar tried to prove their worth on the field of battle to show that virtue.  From The Notebooks of Lazarus Long:

“No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has.  Roman matrons used to say to their sons:  “Come back with your shield, or on it.”  Later on, this custom declined.  So did Rome.”

I’m worried that our standard of public discourse has now become “If it’s not against the law, it’s virtuous and must be celebrated.”  Public life in the past (before my time, certainly) was different.  The law was one leg, but a person’s virtue was also important.  Prior for a mortgage to be issued, it wasn’t uncommon for the bank to see if a person was a faithful churchgoer.  In public, if you were misbehaving in a grocery store, any lady would have felt free to tell you to get your behavior in line.  I can recall buying a comic book when I was 10 and taking crap from the clerk (who knew my mom) about biting my fingernails.

How has life changed in 120 years?

In 1900, your only contact (on an average day) with anything related to the Federal government was limited to the cash in your pocket (which was backed by gold) and the Post Office.  And that’s it for almost every day.

In 2019, you wake up with EPA electricity running an alarm clock that pulls in FCC-sanctioned FM radio, and turn on light bulbs that are of a government-mandated type.  You brush your teeth with FDA approved toothpaste and shower with water that’s also regulated by the EPA.  We won’t cover the trade agreements that cover your coffee.  Or the DOT and FHWA road that you drive on.  And we’re not even to 8AM yet.

That’s just the Federal government.  Has life gotten better since intact families (including real, actual fathers) declined in popularity?  Since the number of sex partners is up?  Is FaceBook® really better than getting together to play cards and catch up?  The Romans largely got it right.  They brought together virtue and tied it to law and created stability.

Or is it Baltimore?

Beyond that, the Roman ideas of virtue are familiar to because they are the foundation of Western Civilization.  Other things that provide a basis:

• You don’t have to be a Christian.  You don’t even have to believe in any god of any type.  But the values that flow from Christianity are fundamentally compatible with the Roman virtues and have produced the society where we still (more or less) trust each other.
• Q. It’s important.  Different countries have different I.Q.’s and economic output is tied to I.Q.  Also tied to I.Q.?  The ability to self-govern.
• History/European Culture. History, good and bad, is important.  I read that on a poster somewhere.
• I read about a researcher who looked into British genealogy.  He found that almost every person of British descent was descended from a majority of royalty/upper class.  What happened to the poor?  They didn’t have kids, didn’t reproduce.  I’d bet that was repeated all over Europe for hundreds of years.  Not only have we created Western Civilization, Western Civilization has created us.

When you reflect on the virtues of the Romans of the Republic and the ideals that they aspired to, I’m sure 200 years later in the days of the Roman Empire they were viewed as antiquated.  Virtue was silly.  “Do what thou wilt,” became the plan, but from time to time you gotta burn some kids.

Thank heavens we’re still a society that values virtue, religion and the law!