Were the Romans "evil"?

Can this label apply to the Romans?

Were the Romans evil?

What does this mean exactly?

Morality

A commonly held view today is that morality is subjective. Absolute morals do not exist, and morals are subject to individual and cultural standpoints. Certainly, in historical analyses, judging other cultures’ moral systems isn’t accepted. The ascertaining of the facts is important, via various material and literary sources.

Moral subjectivity doesn’t necessarily that anything goes. It is just at its root an acknowledgement that morals are not part of the fabric of nature or the universe, but a human invention and thus a social construct. It doesn’t one has to condone genocide, murder, rape, slavery, or any other act many would condemn. Many would cite that whilst morals don’t exist in an objective sense, we can still use basic human needs and preferences to form moral preferences (,e.g. don’t kill or steal).

The validity of moral subjectivity is sound. Nobody can prove whether the rightness or wrongness of any given act is intertwined into the universe’s fabric.

So with his backdrop, one must express strong caution when citing the Romans as “evil”.

It would be better to say “evil” compared to what?

By early 21st-century Western standards, yes, the Romans practised things we would baulk at. Slavery, limited genocides, the subjugation of women, etc. were espoused in Roman times.

The Romans, however, were not unique in this pattern. Brutality, in certain cases, was seen as the norm, and they did not have a concept of universal humanity like we do today. The Persians, Ptolemaic Egyptians, Carthaginians, Germanics, Britons, Gauls, Nubians, Greeks, and other Roman contemporaries all held similar practices and beliefs. Some also practised things that the Romans deemed barbaric, such as infanticide.

It can be said then that the Romans merely did things that others did on a higher scale.

That the basic action isn’t valid here - but the extent of it is.

Does the extent matter?

If expanding on the matter of extent, as cited above, then we can use an analogy from the early modern and modern periods. The British Empire was the largest European colonial state. It stands as the biggest political entity of all time, measured via land area.

However, the British executed many of the methods of its colonial contemporaries, such as Spain, Portugal, France, etc. It came to use white supremacy and the white man’s burden as justifications for colonialism, along with its contemporaries. It also engaged in the trans-Atlatnic slave trade and persecution of Native Americans.

So the issue of scale then is moot. Whilst the British Empire was bigger than, say, the Dutch Empire, it doesn’t mean that the actions of the British were worse due to their larger scale by land area.

The same then can be applied to the Romans. They were also not the only conquerors in the Classical world. Even smaller polities committed atrocities, by 21st-century standards. It can be said that the Sack of Rome in the 4th century BC was a major spur in Rome being an expansive power, in that it showed it had to emphasise national defence and militarism to survive.

Like the British, the Romans were just better at what others at the time did. In the entire span of Roman civilisation, from the founding of the Kingdom to the end of the Byzantine Empire, the Mongols, Normans, Alexander the Great, Achaemenid Persians, Mali, Norse, and numerous others engaged in conquests. Many others engaged in slavery or oppressed women. The Arabs enslaved Africans and used Quranic justifications for such. Roman slavery was never racially defined in the same sense.

The extent may not matter as much as the given acts do. And if the Romans behaved as many of its contemporaries did, the fact it did it more or to a greater extent is meaningless. If person A violently robs two banks and person B robs 50 banks, both are bad no matter the greater scope of the latter’s crimes.

Does it matter if the Romans were “evil”?

It is perhaps futile to even label the Romans as evil.

Any such label reflects presentism. From a historical analysis, such a thing is unwise.

As stated, the Romans acted in ways akin to fellow peoples and empires of their eras. In some ways, they were more enlightened. Ancient Sparta actively chose newborn babies to see which would be more fit to be part of Spartan society. This was seldom if ever done in Rome. The Byzantines lost lands to the Caliphates, especially after the rise of Islam. As also mentioned, the Arabs of this era enslaved Africans and used racial justifications for such, rooted in the Quran. The Byzantines didn’t, and Constantinople fell to the Ottomans before the discovery of the Americas and the emergence of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

By citing the Romans as “evil”, it is placing contemporary morality in an era with different ways and means. Whilst their higher ideals as honesty, honour and integrity were similar to our own, they didn’t value a universal application of such as we do today. They believed that some should be slaves, or that women had no business in higher affairs of state and society. They also believed that free men should be ranked in value, with those descended from the founders of Rome holding greater social weight and privilege. Whilst we have socio-economic differences today, we do not believe or espouse entrenched privilege to the same extent.

However, these beliefs were unique to the Romans. They were common in European society up to the mid-20th century, bar the presence of slavery of course. Women gaining the vote occurred in the early 20th century, though there are countries today that have never had a prominent female leader. France is an example of this, as is the United States of America.

So, were the Romans evil?

This question is moot since it inflects contemporary morality onto an ancient people. We can only really judge them by their standards and eras, and even then they clearly were not any worse than fellow ancient-era peoples.

Cases such as the destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of many Gauls in Caesar’s conquest, and even the Boudica revolt, were negative and brutal. But genocide, civil destruction, and legal betrayals were normal, or at least commonplace and accepted at the time.

It’s always a mistake to judge past people by modern standards. This is a basic rule of historical analysis, as the truth of what happened in the past cannot be dulled by subjective biases and reflections.

It should also be noted that Rome did “good”, even by modern standards. It provided public sanitation, offered bread to the needy, ensured viable transportation and roads, and if one was a Roman citizen ensured safety and security. It allowed various peoples to be full Roman citizens, even if Patricians were the ones holding key power. People from various ethnicities and races could be and were Roman citizens. This reflection of a cultural ideal over a racial one is something that we pride ourselves on today.

So if we examine the views and values of Emperors Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, or Constantine the Great, they won’t align with ours fully. All believed in slavery, the public subordination of women to men, and other things we view as detestable. This doesn’t mean they were “bad” people. They were merely people of their times. We are all subject to our environments and cultures, and the Romans were no different.