The Roman Empire | Lessons
Sextus Julius watched the water flow through the aqueduct. The branches of the waterway were downstream, designed to take the water everywhere within the city of Rome. He had overseen it almost his entire life and by now, the sound of the water flowing was as much a part of who he was as his name.
Today, that sound would change. He looked up at the team 200 paces behind him. They were working on final preparations for the simulation that would forever change how water was brought to the city forever.
Next to him, a man held a pole with a flag. They both stood at the top of the hill where Aqua Claudia opened its mouth to water the city. It was one of four main aqueducts. Tests had been done on all the others to mitigate risk, but today is what mattered. The largest final test for the largest source of water to the eternal city.
He turned to Rome and then to the team behind him checking for the signal, and seeing no change in their progress, he poked the man with the flag to pull a color and wave it in the air. The men at the other end waved a flag in answer, and Sextus nodded. Almost time now. He blatantly stared at the group, as if willing them to complete their work. More time passed, and as he was about to poke his man to send up another request for an update, the group waved the green flag.
“It is time,” he said to his team. “Confirm!”
His flagman waved the green. Sextus and others with him went to the edge of the aqueduct and then looked at the men upstream to see what flag was next.
Yellow flag. The roar of the water in front of them calmed, and the stream decreased, exposing one of three levels in the aqueduct.
Orange flag. After a moment, the stream depleted again. Another level became visible as the flow receded.
Red flag. Finally, they watched the water flow to a single stream revealing yet another level as the water flowed along the side of the aqueduct.
Sextus watched for another moment and looked at the city. Red flags began waving at predetermined points throughout the landscape, and he smiled.
“Signal white, then green,” he told the flagman.
At the green flag, he could hear the rush of the oncoming torrent, the waterway unbarred from flowing into the city once again.
“Now,” he told his team. “When water is in abundance, it will flow everywhere. When then there is less water, it will not flow to the bathhouses or pools. And when there is a drought, all fountains and unneeded water spaces will be shut down. Prioritize the citizens and their homes until we have more than enough to go around. An eternal system, for an eternal city.”
He turned to watch the water flow out into Rome, its splendor and majesty somehow highlighted in the midday sun, and knew that that the city would always be there.
____
500 years later, a man walks out of his hut to fetch water. He walks to a muddy stream, fills a bucket, and moves slowly back to his home. Before he goes in, he turns to look at the horizon. He sees nothing and no one. This is good. Anyone out in the wild at this hour would not have good intentions.
As he turned to go in, his eyes once again found the aqueduct that some say, helped bring water to the city of Rome long ago. Now, the bemouth is nothing more than ruins. Water drips down from its heights in the broken sections spilling onto the ground, creating its own stream. He looks at the remains of the colossal structure, then at the muddy brook from which he pulled his water. After another moment, he goes back into his home.
Growth | Innovation and Infrastructure
Gaius Marius and the Marian Reforms
In 107 BC, the Republic of Rome faced a serious issue. Its army was composed of property-owning citizens. Though it had once conquered great countries like Carthage, it was no longer able to combat new foes in the east. To solve this, a Roman General named Gaius Marius created the Marian Reforms. These reforms were a series of military changes that fundamentally altered the structure and role of the Roman Army. They included:
1. Military Service Open to the Non-property owners
2. Professionalization of the Army
3. Standardization of Equipment
4. Creation of Cohorts
5. The Eagle (Aquila) as a Symbol
6. Veteran Land Settlements or Awards
7. Through these changes, a reliance on loyalty
Marius recognized that Rome’s traditional reliance on citizen-soldiers was insufficient for maintaining an expanding empire. His reforms transformed the Roman military by creating a professional standing army, with soldiers recruited from the landless poor. These reforms enabled Rome to maintain a large, highly trained military force capable of year-round operations, regardless of the traditional limitations of part-time citizen soldiers. Marius’s innovations also introduced a system of retirement benefits for soldiers, which attracted new recruits and provided long-term stability for the Roman military. This adaptability allowed Rome to conquer new territories, securing victories across Europe and North Africa.
Marius’s military innovations were critical to Rome's ability to gain and maintain control over its expansive empire. By opening the ranks to the landless poor, he vastly increased the army's manpower, creating a professional force capable of long-term deployment far from home. The standardization of equipment and introduction of a more flexible cohort structure enhanced the army's efficiency and cohesion, enabling it to respond to a wide range of military challenges. Without these reforms, Rome would have struggled – or completely failed – to manage its vast territories, as the traditional citizen-soldier model was insufficient for the demands of a growing empire. Through these innovations, we see that Rome recognized the changing landscape of the world, created new policies and standards in answer, and reorganized itself to combat new and old threats to their sovereignty and desire for conquest.
Augustus and the Administrative Reforms
Let’s fast-forward 80 years. When Caesar Augustus became the first Roman emperor in 27 BC, he inherited a republic on the brink of collapse due to decades of civil war. To resolve these issues, Augustus’s response was a series of administrative reforms that fundamentally reshaped Rome's governance while maintaining the illusion of republican institutions. The illusion of a Republic would last the next 503 years. Specifically, Augustus centralized power in his own hands while preserving the Senate’s role, allowing him to establish political stability without completely abandoning Rome’s republican traditions.
This adaptability in governance laid the foundation for the Pax Romana, a 200-year period of relative peace and stability. Augustus’s administrative changes, such as reforming provincial governance and the tax system, helped integrate distant provinces into the empire. He also created a standing bureaucracy that allowed for more efficient administration across vast territories.
By establishing a flexible and durable governance model, Augustus ensured the stability of Rome during his reign and long after his death. This adaptability, seen also with Gaius Marius in our earlier example, was prevalent in Rome’s early days. It is important to note that combined with guile, adaptability becomes even more potent and contagious as Rome’s enemies would soon learn.
Claudius and Roman Infrastructure
Fast forward another 27 years. Claudius has taken the throne as Emperor. Through conquest and expansion, the Roman Empire is growing at an accelerated rate. As it grows, so do its needs and reliance on infrastructure, supply, and trade. In addition to his many military successes such as the conquest of Britain and expansion in the Mediterranean, Claudius played a key role in expanding and maintaining Rome’s infrastructure. Known for his passion for building, Claudius initiated several projects that improved the empire’s logistical capabilities, including the construction of two major aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia and the Anio Novus. These aqueducts provided a reliable water supply to Rome, promoting public health and enabling the city to grow. In addition, he expanded the port of Ostia, improving grain supplies and other goods to Rome to ensure that its citizens had access to food in the growing city.
Claudius’s focus on infrastructure extended beyond Rome’s city limits. His conquest of Britain in 43 AD was driven by a desire to integrate more territories into the Roman economic network. He immediately began building roads and fortifications in Britain, linking this distant province to the Roman Empire’s trade and military routes. These roads allowed for efficient movement of Roman legions and goods, ensuring greater control over newly conquered territories.
By investing in infrastructure, Claudius ensured the empire’s military and economic stability. He saw this investment as a requirement for managing the empire, knew the role of infrastructure in maintaining such stability, and solidified Rome’s influence across the known world.
As Rome grew larger and more complex, its leadership became less effective at addressing internal weaknesses and external dangers. The empire’s downfall was hastened by key failures to recognize and adapt to these issues. Neglect of infrastructure maintenance in later centuries contributed to the weakening of Rome’s ability to manage its far-flung provinces and respond to external threats.
Decline | Ignoring Internal Problems and External Threats
Commodus and Political Corruption
Let’s turn the clock forward again 126 years to the reign of Emperor Commodus (180-192 AD). The rule of Commodus is often cited as a pivotal moment in Rome’s decline. Commodus, the son of the respected Emperor Marcus Aurelius, inherited a relatively stable empire. However, his rule was characterized by extreme corruption, extravagance, and neglect of governance. Commodus’s focus on personal indulgence and his infamous participation in gladiatorial games as a performer were symbolic of his disregard for the responsibilities of leadership.
Among the many heinous acts of Commodus, his most notable were the brutal executions of anyone he deemed a threat and his indulgence of sexual pleasures with anyone (and anything) he could get his hands on. Bribery and culling of his circles through his notorious paranoia brought a new level of instability to Rome, one that would only grow after his assassination.
Commodus’s erratic behavior alienated the Roman Senate and military leadership, weakening the central authority of the empire. His assassination in 192 AD plunged the empire into civil war, marking the beginning of a period of political instability known as the Crisis of the Third Century. During this 100 year period, Rome had over 30 emperors due to there being no lawful succession plan. Assassinations, insurrections, and insanity plagued the throne. This contributed to internal divisions, political infighting, and a revolving door of short-lived emperors, weakening the empire’s ability to respond to external threats.
The failure of leadership under Commodus serves as a historic example of how internal corruption and instability can unravel even the strongest institutions from the inside out. In addition, it shows how such corruption is not limited to the circles where it directly takes place, that it spreads out like a cancer until everything linked to it is infected.
Diocletian and Economic Decline
Around 92 years later, another Emperor would attempt unsuccessful reforms. By the late 3rd century, Emperor Diocletian attempted to address the empire’s internal weaknesses, particularly its economic decline. Diocletian introduced a series of economic reforms, including price controls and a new tax system, to curb inflation and stabilize the empire's economy. However, his policies, such as the Edict on Maximum Prices in 301 CE, were largely unsuccessful. The price controls were impossible to enforce and led to widespread black-market activity and did nothing to solve the problems.
While his economic policies were largely disastrous, he did institute the Tetrarchy, or Rule of Four, which divided the empire into four regions with four emperors. The idea was based on creating a clean line of succession, relying on the ruler’s desire to give up power at a specific point in their reign, and assumed that the emperors would place the interest of the empire over their own. This worked for a short time, but for reason we will talk about in our discussion, failed in the end.
While Diocletian’s reforms were well-intentioned, they ultimately failed to address the deeper economic issues plaguing the empire, such as over-reliance on slave labor, heavy taxation, and the stagnation of trade due to military instability. The failure to reinvigorate the economy contributed to social unrest and further weakened the empire’s ability to withstand external threats.
Valens and the Battle of Adrianople
Let’s travel forward one more time, about 60 years to the reign of Emperor Valens. One of the most devastating examples of Rome’s failure to address external threats occurred during the reign of Emperor Valens. In 378 CE, Valens faced the Gothic invasions along the empire’s northern borders. These invasions were not always violent but rather took the form of migrant groups settling, unchecked on Roman lands. More and more illegal migrations into Roman territory diluted the borders to the point where they seemed to only exist on paper. Coupled with the actual Visigothic threat, this created natural instability in the regions where the violent invaders could recruit and advance.
Rather than adequately preparing for the threat, Valens underestimated the strength of the Visigoth forces and chose to confront them at the Battle of Adrianople without waiting for reinforcements from the Western Roman Empire.
The result was a catastrophic defeat for Rome. Valens was killed in battle, and the Roman army suffered heavy losses of between 10,000 and 20,000 killed. The loss was so severe that it destroyed the core of the eastern Roman military, depleted the ranks of battle-hardened officers, and broke the control of Rome in that region. The defeat also sent a ripple through the known world that Rome was vulnerable, which invited additional threats from those who a century before, would never dare challenge the Empire. The Battle of Adrianople demonstrated Rome’s vulnerability to external invasions and the decline of its military effectiveness.
Valens’s failure to properly assess and address the threat posed by the Goths highlights the dangers of underestimating external threats—a mistake that contributed significantly to the empire’s eventual fall.
Good Idea, Bad Idea
In this episode, we have traveled over 385 years during the Roman Empire. That’s a long time, so thank you for coming along with me. I hope you saw some trends during our journey. Adaptability, strong leadership, and proactive responses to both internal and external challenges are essential to longevity and stability. Failing to address these issues can bring down even the most powerful empires.
The fall of the Roman Empire underscores the importance of adaptable leadership and addressing internal weaknesses. Leaders like Gaius Marius, Augustus, and Claudius demonstrated the power of adaptability in military, administrative, and infrastructural reforms, helping the empire rise to greatness. Most important, these rulers illustrate what happens when you see things how they are, and not what you would like them to be. Taking the reality of the situation, they designed innovative and transformative approaches to solve the issues identified in a long-term, scalable way. In short, their solutions were forward-thinking, based in reality, and rooted in growth.
Failures under rulers like Commodus, Diocletian, and Valens illustrate how corruption, economic mismanagement, and underestimating external threats can lead to collapse. Political puppetry, lack of policy and the ability to communicate it, and corruption at the highest level systemically weakened and damaged the empire to the point of its downfall.
Jon and I will often tell you that knowing history is important to understand the modern day. The more cited reason is that knowing history means we know where we, and our institutions, came from. The other – probably more important reason – is so we do not repeat the mistakes we see in history in the modern day. The challenges and weaknesses are still present and prevalent. In knowing history, we can see such things in their true form, take them seriously, and pursue a solution through the means available to us in our society.
