Key Dates of European History: 313

No question, the edict of Milan in 313 was an absolute milestone in European history. Formally, it legalised the practice of all religions and cults in the Roman Empire… technically, this was only relevant to one single persecuted religion- Christianity.

Almost overnight, Christianity turned from a major underground sect to the driving force in the Roman Empire. By 360, Christianity had become so powerful that the attempt to reinstate a pagan state cult by Julianus failed bitterly.

Some historians, as always, try to downplay the significance of this event, arguing that a legalisation of Christianity was bound to happen, and that Constantine had no particular affinity to Christianity, but merely tolerated it to stabilise his own power base.

Well, of course he did. And of course Christianity was already way too powerful a factor to be ignored. But that does not mean that its formal acceptance was not groundbreaking. From now on, Christians could freely spread their faith, and more importantly, were now able to ascend to a position of command- which they quickly did.

Let us look back a little now. Why exactly was Christianity so successful in the first place? If we look at it the way traditional history teachers, and of course Christian authorities themselves would like to have it, the Christians of late antiquity were a bunch of nice guys who never did any evil and stoically endured being tortured and killed by evil Roman emperors. They were all about being martyrs, and their dedication alone was enough to impress generation after generation of converts.

I am not saying that martyrdom did not play a significant role in the early days of Christianity. But there was more to the new faith than that. A bunch of nice guys never brought an empire to its knees; never have, never will. What was significant about Christianity was that it precisely tapped the pulse of its time.

We all know what the people of the ancient Mediterranean world believed in. Gods and great heroes. Zeus and Apollo, Hercules and Venus. The ancient religions were basically about powerful gods who stand by you if you gave them proper sacrifice. However, I personally believe that the pagan religions of ancient Greece and Rome had a few significant flaws. First of all, the gods were not almighty. They were more or less super-humans with the same flaws and ambitions as a mortal man; the only difference was that they were really, very, very powerful. But they did not possess ultimate power. Like any other being, they were subjects to fate, the true master of the universe. If fate dictated something, anybody, gods or men, had to obey.

Christianity on the other hand offered an idea that comforted many: The belief in a universal master plan. Even if nobody was granted deeper insight into it, there was at least the certainty that everything that happens has a purpose, and that this purpose is ultimately to each individual’s benefit, if they only believed.

What is perhaps even more important is that the Greek and Roman religions did not offer a proper idea of what awaited man after his death. There was no dogma that told you, and it took a good number of centuries until a vague concept of heaven and hell – Elysium and Tartanos – was established, but that never quite took off. Basically, the belief stuck that your soul lives on if you are remembered by those who live after you. A great idea for all the Caesars and Scipios; a terrible outlook for your average Publius Rusticus, servant of Cassius.

There were other faiths around that offered more elaborate eschatological theories. Egyptian faith, Judaism and Zoroastrianism spring to mind, although the latter one did not finalise its dogma until the 10^th century.

The new faith, on the other hand, was all about eschatology. The idea was simple. As mentioned, there is a grand master plan. If you play along, you are rewarded in the end, if you don’t, you are punished. You don’t need to conquer foreign lands or build marvellous cities to be rewarded in the afterlife, all you need to do is play the role you are instructed to play, from the greatest emperor to the pettiest slave. If you do your job, you go to heaven.

This simple message was enough for many to convert. But the general concept of the religion was enhanced to please the more critical minds as well. When the Biblical canon was established, it contained four versions of the gospel, written by four different individuals. We all know that. What is so remarkable here is that the Christians of old did not expect you to believe just one person’s account. They had to convert people who were educated in classical Greek philosophy, no less, so they provided four accounts of the same story, each one ever so slightly different, but giving the potential convert a chance to critically check what he has been told. Of course, more gospels were excluded from Biblical canon than included- but the fact that we have four instead of one is already highly progressive for a religious movement of antiquity.

Finally, Gnosticism gave Christianity the possibility to offer a link with pre-Christian Greek philosophy, and hence a possibility to create a continuous flow with the pre-Christian past. This way, Christianity never became a breaking point, despite what many will try to tell you. It took its place in European civilisation without immediately abolishing all previous elements of culture, but gradually, in a time frame of 400 years, displacing them.

Key Dates of European History: 286 AD

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Roman Empire did nothing but expand between 386 BC and 117 AD. The Romans incorporated vast territories by ruthless conquest, clever diplomacy, and sometimes, sheer intimidation. Scipio, Caesar and Augustus are the big names remembered even two thousand years later. After Augustus, Roman conquests lost quantity, but gained quality. Claudius, Domitian and Trajan conquered only few provinces, but they were vast and rich. As long as these conquests went on, Rome could breathe, because expansion was the very foundation of its society. If a region would get overpopulated, people could move away to Roman colonies founded in order to pacify and stabilise a new province. It was never an official policy to Romanise them, but it was a pleasant side-effect.

Much more important, each war Rome waged brought thousands of new slaves to the empire, a workforce that guaranteed the empire's economic prosperity. New provinces also needed to be equipped with various resources, so new trade routes were established throughout the empire, and everybody had a piece of the pie. Imperial growth was economic growth.

But then, Rome hit its limits. In the north, Celts and Germanic tribes halted Roman expansion. To the south lay the vast Sahara desert, and to the east, the Parthians were an opponent of almost equal military capability. Trajan was the last emperor to conquer new provinces, and his successor Hadrian even gave up three newly acquired ones. After that, the Romans were in constant defence, and had to ward off Germanic and Parthian attacks incessantly.

It went well for about seventy years. Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus and Caracalla led major campaigns that could not necessarily stabilise the borders, but at least continued the flow of prisoners of war and kept the empire going the way it had been. But the military pressure proved too big for the empire, and by the middle of the 3d century AD, Rome drowned in civil wars, led by people whom their own troops had declared Roman emperors. All political stability had been lost, and the empire was further strained by attacks from Germanic tribes and Persian armies. Only a miracle, it seemed, could save the empire from total collapse.

It was not exactly a miracle, but it was an extremely ruthless, but brilliant man who did. His name was Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, or Diocletian. He actually managed to become sole emperor of the Roman Empire in 285, but unlike some others who managed to defeat all their enemies temporarily, he kept a cool head. He realised that if Rome wanted to survive, it had to split. For several decades, two parts of the Roman Empire actually became autonomous, and formed the Gaulic and Palmyran empires. They would have fared rather well with it, hadn't they been forced to concentrate their powers to both warding off outward enemies, and other Roman troops. Diocletian saw the potential that lay within this idea, and initiated a more sophisticated, and more importantly, legal split.

I won't go into detail about this - Starting in 286 AD, he basically split the empire in four, legally united but factually autonomous. The system, known as the Tetrarchy didn't last long. He resigned in 305 to ensure stability in transition, but the whole thing fell apart while Diocletian himself was even still alive. In 312, Constantine defeated all his opponents, and in 325, he took over control all by himself and the Roman Empire was once more one political body under one emperor. All back to normal?

No.

Diocletian may have failed with the Tetrarchy, but he did create one thing that was to last. He turned Rome into an absolute, hereditary monarchy, a system that would legally and morally dominate Europe until 1789, until the French Revolution.

Wait a second. Am I seriously arguing that prior to Diocletian, Rome was not a monarchy? What about Augustus?

Of course, the Roman Empire was a monarchy, and in contrary to what some people will have you believe it was even a hereditary monarchy. But at least formally, most emperors followed Augustus' idea. They considered themselves a primus inter pares, a first among equals- the equals here being the Senate. The emperor only relieved the Senate of the dirty work, and the troops were still commanded by senators. In order to be morally acceptable, you had to pledge allegiance to the Republic. The Republican order remained the highest moralic authority.

Diocletian changed that. He simply took away all power from Republican institutions. No longer did senators command the troops, and no longer did they govern the provinces. The senate was reduced to what it had originally been, the city council of Rome. A new, imperial aristocracy emerged that now took over control. You no longer had to confess your loyalty to the Senate and people of Rome. You now did it to the emperor himself. He now possessed a divine component, much like the Great Kings of whatever political entity existed in Iran, and disobedience was blasphemy. Hence, Diocletian is also remembered for his unprecedentedly cruel pogroms against Christians.

Still, the Christians later adopted that idea. A monarch who was essentially chosen by God seemed like a good idea, and it did work for a long, long time. Without Diocletians creation, it may be argued whether the idea of divine right, which dominated politics and theology throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, would ever have become accepted in Europe. Unwittingly, Diocletian, perhaps the most bloodthirsty enemy the Christians ever faced, paved the way for Christian Europe. Only one year after his death, in Milan, this course was confirmed. But that is another story.

Key Dates of European History: 386 BC

If the Greek culture that could freely blossom after the events of 479 BC was the intellectual birth of Europe, then what happened in 386 BC could be considered as its political birth.

In the early 4th century BC, a Gaulic tribe known as the Senones invaded northern Italy. Led by a warlord called Brennus, the Senones wrought havoc to much of rural Italy before encountering a small confederation of city states known as the Latin League. The Latin League was weak, unorganised and disloyal. So when the Senones appeared at the river Allia, the Romans stood there alone. And were defeated. Soon afterward, the Senones appeared at the outskirts of Rome.

Legend has it that the Senones attacked the city at night, while the people were sleeping. When they attempted to storm the Capitol, however, the sacred geese of Iuno woke up and alarmed the entire town. The population fled to the Capitol and withstood the Senones for seven months until buying their freedom with a humiliating tribute that led Brennus to say, “vae victis” – “woe to the vanquished”.

So far, so good. During all of antiquity, cities of varying size and importance were besieged, conquered and plundered. Some survived, some didn’t. Why was this different?

The Romans, humiliated and scared, vowed to never let something like this happen again. The ‘Gaulic Scare’ became a vision of horror that accompanied them for centuries to come, and they saw only two methods to stop the ruthless barbarians from attacking their home again: First, build a wall. Second, expand their resources.

In the following decades, the Romans managed to turn the Latin League into a tool of their domination. It didn’t go without fighting and wars, but in the end, the League was not much more than an embryonic Roman Empire, soon to become the province of Latium. At the same time, the Romans pushed back whatever it perceived a threat from the Apennine Mountains. It went fast. By 270 BC, the Romans were undisputed lords over all of Italy, including the powerful Greek city states of the south. Rome was strong enough to challenge Carthage, the greatest power of the western Mediterranean- and win. Perhaps their victory over Hannibal was luck, the Romans considered it fate. In 203 BC, the terrible Gauls of northern Italy were defeated, and by the mid-2nd century BC, Rome had gained the upper hand against the powerful Hellenistic kingdoms of the east. Province after province fell to the Romans, and it was only with the death of emperor Augustus in 14 AD – a full 400 years after Brennus’ invasion – that the breathtaking expansion of the Roman empire slowed down. Within the next 100 years, few, however major, provinces fell to the Romans, and only the death of emperor Trajan in 117 halted Roman expansion. By 166, the Romans were no longer expanding, but defending their empire against foreign threats. In 455, Rome itself was conquered by the Vandals- the first time since 386 BC that the city was under foreign occupation.

386 BC was the starting point of the Roman Empire. For five centuries, the Romans did nothing but expand, bringing the greater part of Europe under their control and shaping it their way. Undoubtedly, the Romans were the most influential civilisation in European history, and their traces can be found deep in territories that have never been under their direct control, and entire libraries could be devoted to the influence the Romans had. In their expansion, the Romans also spread Greek wisdom spoken of in the previous post, and for the first time tied Europe together politically and spiritually.

Hermann was not German

2009 is a very "German" year - it sees the 20th celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall (which I already addressed), the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the German Federal Republic (a point which I will address in a future post), the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War (a point which I will probably come to at some point as well) and the 2000th anniversary of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is something that has moved German historians and nationalists alike for nearly two hundred years now. Many have called it the "Big Bang" of German history, and named Arminius, the battle's protagonist, the "first German". When I read things like that, I personally wish these historians and journalists have their respective degrees and/or licenses revoked. But first things first: What was the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest?

When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, he set up a border between the Roman Empire and what he defined as Germania (I will not come to the details and inaccuracies of this, it may be the subject of a later post as well), which was essentially the course of the Rhine river. Caesar himself had led two expeditions to the Germanic territories, which lay east of the Rhine, but not with the intention to conquer them, but to keep his back free for his Gaulic campaign; Germanic forces had repeatedly threatened the Romans at that time.

A few decades later, emperor Augustus wanted to end the latent threat Germania posed to the Roman Empire, and decided to conquer the territory. The initial campaign was successful, and a new province, Germania Magna was established, that ranged from the Alps and the Rhine to the Elba river. German archaeologists have uncovered numerous remains that suggest profound Roman colonisation deep in this territory, which is not mentioned anywhere in the written sources we know.

Like anywhere else, the Romans commanded the new province by the means of divide et impera, much rather allying themselves with local Germanic tribes than implementing direct military control, even though the number of Roman legions garrisoned within the province (mostly around the Ruhr area) was comparatively high. But had the conquest and subsequent pacification of Gaul been completed within a mere eight years, the new Germanic province proved to be much more troublesome. The string of military operations did not end, and new troublespots appeared almost constantly. Eventually, as in Gaul in 53 BC, a new character appeared that posed a serious threat to the Roman forces.

This man was Arminius, a nobleman of the Germanic tribe of the Cherusci. He had served the Roman army for a while, was a Roman citizen and considered an ally by the Romans. Arminius saw the possibility that lay in unifying various Germanic tribes under his command. This unification is seen as the first idea of a German nation by modern historians - a view that is not only anachronistic, but a gross distortion of the facts. Anyway, in 9 AD, this Germanic confederation lured three Roman legions under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus into the deep Germanic forest and practically annihilated them. Although this did not mark the end of the Roman occupation of Germania, it was a turning point, and the province was eventually given up by emperor Tiberius, and nobody ever spoke of it again.

Although archaeological surveys have uncovered several battlefields in the region of the Teutoburg Forest, none of them could ever be positively identified as the site of the Varus-Battle, as it is called in Germany. This did not prevent German nationalists of the 19th century to declare the town of Detmold to be the battlesite, and erect a huge monument dedicated to Arminius - or Hermann the Cheruscian as he was now called - here. Incidentally, this monument is known as Hermann the German in the English-speaking world.

Notwithstanding the fact that Arminius was murdered several years after the battle, and the Germanic coalition broke apart over the question whether it should turn into a big Germanic empire, and the fact that a German nation state was founded only 1862 years after the battle, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest is, in the same vein as 19th century nationalism, now again considered the foundation of the German nation by many.

Let's dig a bit deeper here. It is not so obvious in English, given that Germany and Germania are technically the same word - or at least the one is derived from the other - but they describe two completely different things. It becomes much clearer when you consider the German word for Germany: Deutschland. Germania, for that matter, is referred to in Germany as Germanien. So what do these two words mean, and what is the difference between them? Let's start with the term German.

When they did not simply call them Barbarii, or named them by their individual tribal names, the Romans referred to the Germanic people as Germanii. That name was and is applied to Goths, Vandals, Franks, Langobards and whatnot, and is now even used to refer to the Norse people. For once, this is not a stupid idea the Romans came up with, but Caesar (who introduced the term to the Roman world) took that designation from the Celts. In truth, the Germani were one of the many tribes that were later lumped together under that term. They were simply the ones the Celts had the most to do with, and so they started using that name for all the people who lived east of their territories. Germania was then used by the Romans to name the territory of uncertain boundaries that was inhabited by these tribes. That's quite simply all there is to it.

And it is in fact not very different with the term Deutsch either. The word has been around in one form or the other since antiquity, and was used during the Middle Ages mostly as a name for the German language(s), and then as a rather obscure term for "people". The word derives from Teuton, the name of a Germanic tribe that settled in the far north of modern-day Germany and parts of Denmark. They had their fifteen minutes of fame when they (along with the Cimbri) migrated south around 100 BC and threatened the Roman Empire, but were decisively defeated by the Roman general Marius. This was the first contact the Romans had with any Germanic tribe, and so the label Teuton kind of stuck and never quite went away. By the Middle Ages, Teutonic had become the self-designation of the Germans, while Germanic or German was the word foreigners used for them.

Now the bulk of what the Romans knew as Germanii migrated from their homelands (which were by no means identical with modern-day Germany) in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries AD. They founded kingdoms in what is now France, Spain, Italy, Britain and Tunisia, some short-lived, others, like France, in essence still existing today. Some Germanic tribes however remained where they were, in the area between Rhine and Elba. Those were different tribes than those the Romans had met in classical antiquity. Gone were the Cheruscans and Marcomanns, who had been the prominent antagonists of the Romans back in the day. The tribes who now resided here were basically new ones: Saxons, Thuringians, Baiuwars and Allamanns. The political body they were now to live in was forged by the Franks, another Germanic tribe. So can we call this "Germany"?

No.

The people of that time called it the Frankish Empire (Regnum Francorum). That is, until 800. Then people called it- the Roman Empire. Confused yet?

Charlemagne, the king of the Frankish Empire, was crowned Roman Emperor by the Pope in 800. By definition of the time, the Roman Empire had never fallen. And it would have been pretty terrible if it had, because the Biblical prophet Daniel had predicted the end of the world after the fall of what was interpreted to be the Roman Empire (Dan:2). So the people of the Middle Ages were pretty keen on keeping the Roman tradition alive, and believed in the end that Rome had changed from a political entity with a number of religions inside to a religious entity with a number of political ones (translatio imperii). Moreover, the Roman Empire had passed from the hands of the Romans themselves to the Greeks (Byzantines), to the Franks, who were Catholic, and hence more true to the faith.

But that is not all. When Charlemagne died, his empire got divided among his sons, according to Frankish tradition. Only one of them, however, could carry on the heritage of the Roman Empire. After what is essentially a huge mess, it turned out like this: The Frankish Empire was permanently divided into two separate ones, the West Frankish one, which would go on to become France, and the East Frankish one, which was now considered the Roman Empire, because it also contained large parts of Italy, including Rome itself. Control of the Roman Empire soon passed from the Frankish Carolingian dynasty to the Saxon Ottonic dynasty. Then the Frankish Salians took over, and eventually the Swabonian Staufers (who renamed the thing into Holy Roman Empire), and so on.

So can we finally call this Germany? I wouldn't. Some do, however. Fact is that throughout the Middle Ages, it was only called the (Holy) Roman Empire, and the word German or Deutsch was merely used to distinguish one part of the population from others, such as Italians or Slavs. In fact, one of the major principalities of the Holy Roman Empires was Bohemia, basically the modern-day Czech Republic. It was later acknowledged that the Holy Roman Empire was in possession of the Germans by extending its name to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but that never quite caught on. By that time, the Empire itself was not of any importance anymore, and the individual principalities tended to go their own way without even thinking about whether they were German or not. In fact, in the years prior to Napoleon, Prussia was at the verge of developing for itself a combined German and Polish identity.

It was only during the French occupation of the Napoleonic Wars that the Germans started developing the idea of their own nation, and the desire to create one unified German nation state. So while there has been a distinguished German culture for many, many centuries, and you can speak of a German history ever since the days of Charlemagne or perhaps prior, you cannot speak of a history of Germany before the days of Napoleon. Any attempt to trace this idea to an earlier moment in time is, in my opinion, a gross falsification of history.