By the late fourth century CE the so-called invasions into the Roman Empire of barbarian hordes could equally well be described as mass movements of economic migrants or political refugees. The Roman authorities had no better idea of how to handle this crisis than our own authorities do, and they were less humane. On one occasion they sold dog-meat as food to the asylum-seekers who had managed to cross the Danube. It was one stage in a series of standoffs, compromises and military conflicts that eventually destroyed Roman power in the western part of their empire. It was exacerbated by the calculating policy of the Romans in the east, by then effectively a separate state. Their solution to the crisis was to point the migrants firmly westwards and make them someone else’s problem.

It’s tempting to imagine the ancient Romans as some version of ourselves. They launched disastrous military expeditions to those parts of the world where we too have failed. Iraq was as much a graveyard for the Romans as it has been for us. And one of their worst defeats, in 53 BCE, took place near the modern border between Syria and Turkey. In a particularly ghoulish twist, uncomfortably reminiscent of the sadistic showmanship of Islamic State, the Roman commander’s head was cut off and used as a makeshift prop in a performance of Euripides’ play The Bacchae –-in which King Pentheus’ head takes a macabre starring role.

Back in Italy, too, Roman life had a familiar side. Urban living in a capital city with a million inhabitants raised all the usual questions: from traffic congestion (one law tried to keep heavy vehicles out of the city during the day) to rudimentary planning problems (how high should high-rise blocks be, and what materials would make them safe from fire?). Meanwhile the political classes worried about everything from expenses scandals to benefits scroungers. There was endless, and largely unsuccessful, legislation aimed at preventing officials lining their own pockets out of the public purse. Even the famously upright Marcus Tullius Cicero left one overseas posting with a small fortune in his suitcase.

There was also endless debate over the distribution of free or subsidised grain to citizens living in Rome, which, according to a hard-nosed satirist, had sapped the political energy and independence of the people. Was this a proper use of the state’s resources and a precedent to be proud of? Or an encouragement to idleness which the exchequer couldn’t afford?
One rich Roman conservative was once caught standing in line to collect this allowance of which he vehemently disapproved, and certainly didn’t need. When asked why, he replied: “If you’re sharing out the state’s property, I’ll come and take my cut, thank you.” This isn’t far from the logic of the elderly modern millionaire who claims his free bus pass.

But it isn’t so simple. To study ancient Rome today is rather like walking on a tightrope. If you look down on one side, everything looks reassuringly familiar. It’s not just the military escapades or the problems of urban life and migrants. There are conversations going on we almost join, jokes we still “get”, buildings and monuments we recognise and family life lived out in ways we understand, with all their quarrels, divorces and troublesome adolescents. Cicero’s disappointment with his son Marcus —who preferred clubbing and drinking to attending lectures on philosophy— is one many of us can share.

On the other side of the tightrope is completely alien territory. Some of that strangeness is well recognised. The institution of slavery disrupted any clear idea of what it was to be a human being. The filth of the place was shocking. There was hardly any reliable system of refuse collection in ancient Rome, and there were stories about stray dogs walking into posh dinner parties clutching in their mouths human body parts they had picked up in the street. And that’s not to mention the slaughter in the gladiatorial arena or death from illnesses whose cure we now take for granted. Over half of the Romans born died before they were 10. Childbirth was as deadly to women as battle was to men.

Less well known are the thousands of unwanted new-born babies who were thrown on to rubbish heaps. The boundary between contraception and infanticide was a blurred one, and disposing of children after birth was safer than getting rid of them before. Likewise overlooked are the young Roman girls —often married by the age of 13 or 14— into what we would have little hesitation in calling child abuse. How soon these marriages were consummated is anyone’s guess, but Cicero’s response to questions about why, in his 60s, he was taking as a bride a child in her mid-teens, is instructive. “Don’t worry,” he said, “she’ll be a grown-up woman tomorrow”. The ancient critic who quoted this answer thought it was a brilliantly witty way of deflecting criticism, and held it up for admiration. We are likely to put it somewhere on the spectrum between uncomfortably coarse and painfully bleak —a powerful marker of the distance between the Roman world and our own.

Source adapted from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/02/mary-beard-why-ancient-rome-matters

Example Question

The migratory movements into the Roman Empire are a good idea of how…

1. a historical event is seen in modern-day terms.
2. today’s world can learn from the mistakes of the past.
3. world powers go into decline and collapse.