The Structure of the Roman Empire A Roman leader was not a king or a dictator in the traditional or historical sense.
He was first citizen prince who was the chief member of the senate.
This state of affairs, came to firmness in the days of the first "Augustus.
" It was derived from earlier tribal customs, trial-and-error experiences and evolution of the thinking that went into making Rome what it eventually became.
Some leaders maintained the title of Augustus, while others were simply known as magistrates or imperators (emperors).
Imperators had full control over the military, and it was really that in which the power of the Roman leader consisted.
Realizing this fully, Julius Caesar changed the title of imperator (commander-in-chief) from temporary to permanent.
In this way he let it be known to all that the emperor, who had no dictatorial or kingly powers under the senate, had unchangeable military control over the state.
Caesar was the imperial family name.
Augustus was the sacred name of majesty, or in other words the title that made him a god, but the Romans steadfastly refused to give the imperator the title of a political or legal despot.
Inevitably servility increased under this system as time passed until Caligula accepted, probably sought, the title "Lord," a title that the offended first Augustus refused and which Nero refused also.
In spite of continued elections in the senate, the office of the emperor became hereditary and passed by adoption.
Each new imperator found it necessary to bribe the army to get its loyalty (which had been given unto death to his predecessor).
The bribery that was necessary to assure patronage by the senate and the army was so elaborate that the cost of it worked hardships on most of the provinces.
Roman emperors knew wherein the power of the empire consisted.
They could do as they pleased with either peasant or nobility, as long as the mob that stood before the emperor and the army were supportive.
To displease either the mob or the army could be the downfall of the most powerful of Roman imperators.
The Roman military was notorious for violence, for false accusations that could and would mean the death of the highest man in society, and for insatiable greed.
In a certain sense, the military ruled supreme.
This was even true of the mighty imperator.
Pertinax found this out in A.
D.
193 in his unsuccessful efforts to resist the injustices of the military and to bring it under control.
But the mob in Rome also had great power.
It is from this group that the term mob rule originated.
No doubt the military could have subdued and dispersed them, but they would not, nor did emperors want this to happen.
The mob was an intrinsic concept to the Roman theory of government.
The people must be heard.
And because of this philosophy, they were heard.
If they turned against an emperor, his days were numbered.
It was this governmental philosophy that obliged governor Pontius Pilate to bow to the wishes of the people in Jerusalem, thereby bringing about the death of Christ.
The Geographical Scope of the Roman Empire In its heyday, the Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic on the West to the Euphrates on the East and from the African desert, the Nile cataracts and the Arabian desert on the South to the British Channel, the Rhine, the Danube and the Black Sea on the North.
Later on, Claudius Caesar added Britain, and Trajan Dacia to the empire.
Germany and Parthia were the only truly independent power s in the world in the days of the Roman Empire.
Thus the saying that Rome ruled the entire civilized world was not quite true.
The Police Force of the Roman Empire It is estimated by Gibbon and others that the empire of Claudius encompassed about 120 million people.
To control this world empire took 25 legions and a Praetorian guard of 10,000.
The guard had "cohorts" in the capital who were a kind of KGB with a network of informers.
In all, about 170,000 men were involved.
The various auxiliaries to this host numbered about the same.
Thus it took about 350,000 men to control the Roman empire in the days of Claudius.
Rome's Philosophy of Governing Captured Territories.
Unlike all world conquerors that had gone before them, the Romans made no effort to culturize captured territories.
Only the homeland in and around Rome had Roman customs.
It was Rome's philosophy to let national entities remain as they were.
A local politician, such as a Herod, was appointed to rule.
They were allowed to keep their cultural identities and to function pretty much as they always had.
In this way, Rome reasoned, they would be easier to control and they would be much more productive.
Rome's interest in these provinces and provincial cities was singular: tribute (taxes).
Rome wanted money from the rest of the world and nothing else.
Only in the homeland did Rome want Roman culture.
The Provincial Government in the Roman Empire Therefore the method of governing provincial cities varied greatly.
Rome simply had no international politic such as had the Babylonians or the Greeks or the Communists of more recent times.
The free cities, such as Antioch, Athens, Ephesus and Thessalonica, were governed by their own magistrates and they housed no garrisons of Roman soldiers.
In Thessalonica there were "rulers of the city" (politarchs) and the people (demos).
At Ephesus there was the "town clerk" (grammateus) and the "assembly" that had some voice in governing, though the exact form is not clear.
In Philippi there were "colonies.
" These were microcosms of Roman citizens who kept to themselves.
They did not try to interfere in government and were sort of a "little Rome" in the midst of the native culture.
In other cities, such as Corinth, Troas and Pisidian Antioch, the rule was a little different.
The magistrates bore the title of prætors and were selected for their compatibility to Rome, though loyalty was not necessary.
They were overseen by "lictors" (serjeants) that were loyal to Rome though not necessarily Romans.
Taxes and the Provinces in the Roman Empire Roman citizens and the people of Rome proper did not pay taxes, or at least not usually.
Rome derived its revenue from the provinces by direct tax.
One of the principal businesses of each city was tax collecting (how little things have changed).
This tax was pretty well set at five to seven percent of the produce of the soil.
The produce was usually sold and the taxes collected in money, not in goods.
As you can see, these direct taxes were not heavy.
But there were indirect taxes, and these were the ones that were repressive.
There were public gratuities to thousands of idle citizens and always the large support for the greedy armies, who could get very cruel if their greed was not fed.
This local corruption seriously impaired the direct taxes collected by Rome (each little individual operation looked out for itself first and Rome second).
As a result, Augustus found it necessary to make an evaluation of all persons and properties in order to see what was going on (Luke 2:1).
Order and Industry in the Roman Empire As a result of the large army of peacekeepers and the basic wisdom of Roman rule, the world came into a rare time of peace and prosperity.
There was worldwide peace.
The military constructed roads such as the world had never seen.
Piracy was just about eliminated.
An international system of trade was established.
The universal languages of Latin and Greek made it possible for the various nationalities of the world to communicate with each other in spoken and written word.
Not All Was Sweetness and Light Under Rome There was an outward appearance of peace, unity and prosperity, which was true as far as it went.
But behind it were the ancient problems untouched.
There was moral decay and corruption.
There were no hospitals for the sick and no relief for the poor.
No vehicles were set up for moderating the sad conditions of the many.
There was no education for the lower classes.
Conviction about slavery; and conscience toward charity and philanthropy were non-existent.
The philosophers then, as now, regarded all religion as false on intellectual and metaphysical grounds.
They saw each man as a god unto himself, and government as antithetical to human autonomy but useful for the restraint of anarchy.
What a sorry state of affairs, but what fertile ground for the spread of the Gospel! Rome Proper The specific designation of St.
Paul's Epistle to the Romans is not to the Roman Empire, but to the city of Rome and Rome proper.
It was from this city that the Holy Ghost found the historical and geographical setting for the Epistle to the Romans.
Before passing along, we should perhaps think about the city of Rome for a bit.
The Commonalty and the Difference There are some things that all men and all cultures in history have had in common.
But there are also certain identifying marks that have set one apart from the other.
Ancient Romans shared most of the vices of history.
They were lusty, violent, exclusive, domineering when they had the opportunity, and cruel to those who were less fortunate.
Yet there were unique features that set Rome apart.
This was true both of the city and the empire.
Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were more interested in law and justice than they were in philosophy.
These two concerns are not necessarily the same and sometimes they are mutually exclusive.
The idealistic philosophies of Socrates turned him against law and toward antinomianism, and eventually resulted in his execution.
And then, too, the Romans were occupied with pleasure.
This was not a casual pleasure in the live-and-let-live style.
It was a grim pleasure.
It had to do with condescending attitudes, boredom, escapism and social status.
It was an aristocratic society.
Those who had men under their power were supposed to treat them as inferiors 3/4 even mistreat them to show a kind of a social correctness.
Emotions were not allowed to get in the way of the system.
Because of these things and more, the pleasure of Rome turned brutal and sadistic beyond our imagination.
Rome was notorious for its Coliseum and bloody spectacles.
This was partly due to the emperors' efforts to stamp out Christianity, but it was mostly due to boredom.
Romans were incapable of being entertained and amused by simple pleasures or even immoral and extravagant things.
When this happens, men turn to the macabre.
This is very evident in the archaeological and anthropological relics of many civilizations.
Perversion, torture and heinous acts are required to exhilarate such degenerated and bored people.
It has often been said by those who have written the history of ancient Rome (Philip Schaff and others) and the early Christian martyrs (Fox and others) that the exhibitions in the Roman arena aroused a sinister kind of ecstasy.
The more outrageous it was the more excitement it aroused in the spectators.
It could be a virgin Christian girl being thrown to a lion or molested by a gladiator or some other perpetrator of cruelty.
It might be one gladiator killing another, hacking into him with his sword, fountains of blood spurting from the vanquished.
Or it might be some beast tearing some person to pieces.
This was a state of excitement that had definite sexual connotations.
Things that took place in the grandstands while these activities were going on were outrageous and unspeakable.
Women and children, stripped of their clothes to varying degrees, were fondled shamelessly and conjugal lovemaking and acts of sodomy and other kinds of perversion were not at all uncommon.
The Paradox of the Natural Moral Code It is strange, then, that the Roman leaders and rulers thought of themselves as the defenders, indeed pioneers, of law and justice.
What is even stranger is that this was true in the historic perspective.
Roman justice was superior to anything else around, or that had been around except in the days when the Nation of Israel functioned closest to God's instructions, which had not been for a long time.
What a paradox! These things just do not seem to fit together.
But if one looks analytically, he sees the same thing in our society.
There are men in government, education, entertainment and business who think they have a respect for God, truth, the old ways, men-of-the-cloth and the Church in its classic form.
Yet they are busy defending cruel, vile, blasphemous, degrading things and are trying to enact laws that defend these things as human rights.
In so doing, they are committed to the destruction of biblical righteousness.
This is one of the puzzling contradictions in natural man.
Jerusalem was not a "free" city.
It, along with all of Judea, was under Roman rulership, though the local magistrate was a Herodian.
If one reads the biblical record carefully, he finds this kind of spurious and superfluous outward show of respect.
Such a man was Pilate, who seemed to be more of a friend to Jesus in His trying hour than the religious world.
Yet it was Pilate who ordered His brutal crucifixion to please the people.
King Agrippa listened to Paul with great intensity and trembled at the words of truth.
Yet he could not, in the final analysis, bring himself around to act in the interest of the truth or the faith.
The Church Grows Up In a Hypocritical Society The Church in Rome was spawned in this contradictory, convulsive, blasphemous, decadent, hypocritical and cruel society.
No doubt this was part of the reason for the content of the Roman letter.
But the character and content of the Bible cannot be attributed to culture in any primary sense.
The truth is universal, it applies equally to everyone, and it could just as well have been written to another church in another city.
Somewhere in the laying of the written foundations of the Gospel, there had to be a beginning.
At some time and place in history it had to start with the basics.
It was the decision of the Holy Ghost, as He worked through men, to launch that enterprise in the letter of St.
Paul to the Church of Rome.
Justification: the Law, the Court, the Judge, and Acquittal It is the aspect of the Romans and the Law that forms the basis for the book being written to the city of Rome.
The Book of Romans will deal with the basics of the Gospel.
That starts with justification.
Justification means to be tried and found innocent, or to be acquitted.
It has to do with crimes against the law, the wrath of the court and the judge and the need on the part of the accused for a favorable outcome.
It is judicial in nature.
Justification, as we shall see more particularly as we go on, has to do with salvation from the penalty of sin.
That is where salvation starts.
That is where the Gospel starts.
That is where Romans starts.
And that is where we shall start.