The Roman Empire in Relation to Culture

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Ch. XXIX The Roman Empire in Relation to Culture

Rome had a major impact on later cultures in a number of ways, the most important of which were a long peace to allow the transmission of ideas, Greece and the east's influence on a large Empire because that influence included Christianity and the transfer of Hellenistic ideas to Islam where it was kept for later use.

With the power of Rome coming to full fruition under Caesar Augustus, "The Greek world lost its youth, and became either cynical or religious" (Russell, 273).

As far as the direct effect Rome had on Greek thought, two thinkers emerged as important that had been greatly effected by Roman rule. The historian Polybius, born circa 200 BC and Panaetius the Stoic were contemporaries and both friends of Scipio the younger.

Epictetus, though a Greek, spent most of his life in Rome. Plutarch also spent a long time in Rome and was changed by it.

Most Greek thinkers however were not impacted by a favorable view of Rome and the Eastern and Western parts of the Empire split along Greek and Latin lines.

Rome was "culturally parasitic on Greece. The Romans invented no art forms, constructed no original system of philosophy, and made no scientific discoveries. They made good roads, systematic legal codes, and efficient armies; for the rest they looked to Greece" (Russell, 278).

The older Romans saw the adoption of all things Greek as moral decay.

As the Western part of the empire decayed and the Emperors became more and more generals and semi-barbarians the West fell out of love with the Greek culture and culture in general. Non-Hellenic religion introduced through Greece to the Romans however had a much longer lasting audience.

Numerous Pagan religions spread into the empire from as far away as Persia, Babylonia and Egypt.

Elagabalus, the emperor from 218-222 came to power and acted like a godking from the Medes or Phoenicians. He ascended to the throne from his place as a chief-priest in the cult of the sun God and had a private chapel with statues of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana and Christ.

The Persian religion of Mithras, a competitor of Christianity was wildly popular with soldiers in both the East and the West.

Constantine finally ushered in the Christian age, what Russell calls a politically successful attempt at introducing a new religion for stabilizing purposes. He notes that the major difference between Christianity and other eastern religions really boiled down to its successful implementation.

"The fact that we are acquainted with what was done by the Greeks in art and literature and philosophy and science is due to the stability introduced by Western conquerors who had the good sense to admire the civilization which they governed but did their utmost to preserve" (Russell, 281).

Russell notes that while Rome may have never risen to the level of culture that Athens of Pericles had, but the stability and scope of the empire allowed for mass quantity to come down the ages and that sometimes that quantity is just as good as quality.

The Islamic conquest of the East saw their intellectuals take on Greek learning. They are responsible for the rise in Aristotle's estimation.

"In philosophy, the Arabs were better as commentators than as original thinkers. Their importance, for us, is that they, and not the Christians, were the immediate inheritors of those parts of the Greek tradition which only the Eastern Empire had kept alive" (Russell, 283).