They make a desert and call it peace

I am usually suspicious of claims that understanding the history of the ancient world helps you understand the history of our own. When people tell me that antiquity was so like today, I tend to object that it was actually very different in almost every possible respect.

But two of the topics in Roman history that I regularly teach have recently come to seem almost uncomfortably topical – and raw.

The first is the whole theme of  “native” resistance to the Roman empire. If you didn't have the military resources, how could you stand up against the ancient world’s only super-power?

Between the third century BC and the first century AD, Rome systematically extended its control over the world from the Sahara to Scotland. As with most empires, it was not without its advantages for at least some of the conquered. I’m not just talking about consumer goods, literacy, water and drains (which didn’t impact on as much of the Roman world as we often fondly imagine). Rome’s imperial strategy was first to incorporate the local elites and gradually spread citizenship, with all its advantages, throughout its whole territory. It was generosity, even if sprung from self-interest.

That said,  what could you do if you didn’t fancy being taken over by Rome, having your self-determination removed and being forced to sing to the Roman tune (as well as pay Roman taxes)? The Roman legions represented an insuperable military force. In pitched battle they might occasionally be delayed (if you could muster vast numbers of forces while the Romans themselves were off-guard), but while their power was at its height they could not be defeated.

Barbarians were not stupid. They did not pointlessly waste their men’s lives in formal battle lines against the super-power. Instead they did what the disadvantaged will always do against overwhelming military odds: they ignored the rules of war and resorted to guerilla tactics, trickery and terrorism.

Much of this was ghastly and cruel. Our image of plucky little Asterix with his boy-scoutish japes against the Roman occupation is about as true to life as a cartoon strip would be that made suicide-bombing seem like fun. Boudicca’s scythed chariots (if they ever existed) were the ancient equivalent of car-bombs. In terrorizing the occupying forces she was said to have had the breasts slashed off the Roman civilian women and sewn into their mouths.

Roman writers were outraged at barbarian tactics in war, decried their illegal weapons and their flouting of military law. (In fact “terrorist” sometimes captures the Roman sense of the Latin word “barbarus” better than the more obvious “barbarian”). But in the face of invincible imperialism, they must have felt they were using the only option they had. Does it sound familiar?

My second teaching topic is the famous account by the Roman historian Tacitus of the career of his father-in-law Agricola. Agricola was governor of Britain in the late first century AD and extended Roman power north into Scotland. On one occasion the barbarians were foolish enough to risk a pitched battle – and, just before it, Tacitus puts into the mouth of the British leader, Calgacus, a rousing speech denouncing not only Roman rule but the corruption of language that follows imperial domination.  Slaughter and robbery  go under the name of “power” (we make much the same point about “collateral damage”). And, in a now famous phrase, he says “They make a desert and call it peace.”

This is often treated, and quoted, as a barbarian denunciation of Roman rule. Of course, it is nothing of the sort. No real words of  Calgacus or of any British “barbarians” have survived.  As with many imperial powers, the most acute critiques often came from within the Roman system not from outside it. This is an analysis by Tacitus himself, a leading member of the Roman elite, observing the consequences of Roman expansion and daring to put himself into the place of the conquered.

As such, it makes an even more appropriate message for us. Whatever forms our “deserts” take – whether it is the poppy fields of Afghanistan, or the ruins that will be left of Beirut, when Israel and Hezbollah (and our own culpable inactivity) have finished – we are still making them and calling them “peace”.

Comments

[Anna]

Colin Fergus says the world's superpower is not interested 'in conquering anyone else', but it is surely very interested in gaining the upper hand in strategic influence and its control of the world's resources.

[Neil Murphy]

This is a very intelligent well written article that makes two basic points (quite clearly and in plain English) - the first being "They did not pointlessly waste their men’s lives in formal battle lines against the super-power. Instead they did what the disadvantaged will always do against overwhelming military odds: they ignored the rules of war and resorted to guerrilla tactics, trickery and terrorism.". The article makes no comment about the morality of modern 'terrorists', merely that people who believe in a cause strongly enough to fight for it, but are too weak relative to the opponent, will resort to what we term 'terrorism'. There are numerous such occasions through history, even the Americans resorted to tactics the British regarded as what we would term now as 'war crimes' during the war of independence. The Scots did so against the English in the Scottish war of independence, the British planned to in the event of German invasion and the French did so when they were invaded.

The points made are simple, clear, not moral positions and not defences of, or attacks on, either side in the present conflict.

I think Jeff Williams failed to understand the points made because of a lack of intellectual clarity in his own thinking, rather than because of lack of clarity of thought in the columnist or other respondents.

[denis albertson]

When Ben Campbell talks about the "legtimate freedom-fighters of history" I am not quite clear what he means. I'm sure he would be the first to admit that the difference between "Freedom-fighters" and "terrorists" is all in perspective. Just look at Nelson Mandela for example (and so many others).

In addition to this I have no doubt in my mind that Mary Beard is no more supporting Hezbollah over Israel than she is supporting the Scots over the Romans. Rather she making an observation about the nature of warfare in modern and Roman times.

Warfare in the style of WWII with two major powers fighting each other is no more possible for hezbollah against Israel's masssively superior firepower than it was for calgacus against the might of Roman legions.

Finally it would make my day if I could hear anyone advocating war without bringing up Chamberlain and appeasement!

[Ben Campbell]

Resolute Reader makes a good point. Ms. Beard does not openly support Hezbollah nor openly bash the west. However, she gives tacit support to Islamic fascists everywhere when she erroneously compares them to legtimate freedom-fighters of history. Recent events clearly show that the real aggressors here are those that seek to take away the freedoms of others - not those that seek to bring freedom to the persecuted. I am genuinely puzzled as to why the modern left as lost sight of so basic a point.

And yes, of course there is death in wartime and it is sad and it is tragic. But what Resolute Reader and so many like him/her fail to grasp is that if we do not eradicate this evil today - we will surely have to address it with war and death on a far larger scale tomorrow. WWII is not so long ago that we should have forgotten this lesson already. Chamberlain should be held up as a lesson in abject failure to schoolchildren everywhere...and Churchill hailed as even more of a hero than he was. For, contrary to the name-calling and smear campaigns of his day, he was not a war-monger. He was simply a realist - as are Bush and Blair. Which is the ultimate message of this post: those supporting the war in Iraq do not do so for love of war, or for lust for any financial gain for our nation, we support it as a tragic but necessary duty - to eradicate a clear evil - so that our children can live in a safer world.

Those on the left that seek to trivialize this noble cause with such petty name-calling as "it's all about Halliburton making some money" would do well to step back and get some perspective. They are on the wrong side of history - just as those like-minded (even if well-intentioned) souls were in 1938 when they foolishly believed that, "if only we give the bad guy what he wants everything will be OK." Millions more died as a result of this naïveté than would have died if the leadership in England and France had Churchill's clarity of perspective in the 1930s. Please, let's not make this same mistake again.

[ResoluteReader]

'No one is "slaughtering and robbing" Iraq'

Well Haliburton is making a mint and there are tens of thousands who have lost their lives since the start of the Iraq war, so someone is slaughtering and someone's getting rich on Iraq's resources.

But really Ben, you're being disingenious when you accuse Mary Beard of "west bashing" - her article doesn't do this, rather it points out the (to me obvious point) that people have always resisted occupation, and that the occupiers have always tried to discredit those who do.

Ben goes on to say "Does the author not understand that in a Hezbollah-ruled state she would never be allowed to pen a single article?"

But Mary never argues this, I've read and re-read the article, and I don't think anyone can accuse her of Hezbollah bias. Certainly she doesn't call for a "Hezbollah-ruled state", and certainly she doesn't make any statement of support for that organisation.

Strikes me, that this is a case of someone putting words in the mouth of another in order to make it easier to dismiss their original article, but it's farer to the author that criticism should be aimed at her orignal points, not words put into her mouth by those trying to score simplistic points.

[Bill Dryden]

While on the subject of classical precedents and aphorisms applicable to the modern world, what about Lucius Accius who in 170 BC coined the phrase, "Oderint dum metuant" - Who cares if they hate us, so long as they fear us, which seems to the the motto more appropriate for the United States and its acolytes than "e pluribus unum".

[David McGregor]

Jeff Williams:

"What an incredibly foolish and superficial article with follow-up comments even more witless."

And your argument was? Tell us what you disagree with and why.

[Ben Campbell]

I continue to be amazed at the left wing mush that passes for intelligent commentary. It seems that as long as its "fashionable" to criticize one's own government, even to the point of self-destruction, there will be no shortage of people who can't wait to stand up and blather on about how evil the west is. The author of the article above is but one more example of someone willing to twist history, no matter how weak the argument, to serve their noble (read fashionable) cause of west-bashing. Unfortunately, she ignores two fundamental points in attempting to make her case:

1. When the Romans came to a country they absolutely ruled it with an iron fist and brutally exploited the people and the land. Today, no one is trying to "slaughter and rob" Hezbollah. No one is "slaughtering and robbing" Iraq. In both cases the west is promoting and supporting democratic governments - no demanding of taxes; no taking slaves; no robbing the natural resources. In both Iraq and Lebanon, the terrorists are the ones who reject democracy and instead are trying to install fantical, opressive, relgiously intolerant regimes. How can one simply ignore this dramatic difference between the Roman example given above and the modern scenario playing out today? Does the author not understand that in a Hezbollah-ruled state she would never be allowed to pen a single article? When did the modern left get so confused?

2. If Hezbollah are legitimate defenders of their land, in the vein of Boudicca or Calgacus, then what does the author propose? Is she seriously suggesting that the Jews are illegitimate occupiers of Israel and that we could have peace if they would only pack up and leave - so that the just and honorable regime of Hezbollah or Hamas can have the land? Does one really believe that the fighting in the mid east would stop if the west offered such a victory? Or in the case of Iraq, was the world a better place with a monster like Sadaam and his Baathist thugs in power? Do the Kurds and the Shiites have no right to live in freedom?

A more objective reading of history would note that it is extraordinarily rare for a democratic nation to declare war against another democratic nation. If one truly wants peace then join your government in promoting and supporting democratic regimes. Help defend the innocents against the totalitarian radicals behind islamist fascism. Don't hinder the noble efforts of those trying to advance the only known system that actually works long-term with lame arguments and criticisms that accomplish nothing - other than emboldening the terrorists by causing them to have hope that the west will fall from within and retreat due to its own internal divisions.

[hans beukes]

Mary Beard's recollection of the Roman comment recalls the comments recently made by Mr Kaare Willoch, ex-Prime Minister and past leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party, on being asked if he thought there was hope for peace in the Middle East. According to the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten he said, "There is yet hope, but I am very much afraid that if (people) do not come to their senses, that peace could come about in much worse manner than anyone can imagine. If one were prepared to look 50 years ahead into time, the world's power relations are changed dramatically. By then Europe is a community of the aged, and the US sunken so deep into debt that they cannot afford any global policy. Who is then to prevent the great catastrophe in the Middle East (from taking place)?
"Are you predicting catastrophe?"
"The danger arises if one doesn't root out hatred in time".
This does suggest that the parties do not have much time to start thinking about making friends...

[Jeff Williams]

What an incredibly foolish and superficial article with follow-up comments even more witless.

It was my impression that The Times represented the most perceptive of British thinking. Seems that I was wrong.

[Colin Fergus]

I think the author misses one huge differnece between today and any other period in history. The current most powerful country on Earth is not interested in conquering anyone else. That's a pretty big one.

[Darryl Gordon]

The divide and conquer strategies of Rome and Britain are still being used today in the middle east. The U.S. and Britain are ruthelssly exploiting the split between Sunni and Shia to create an Islamic civil war. But if it keeps London and New York safe who's to say it's a bad strategy?

[Richard Holt]

Those close to Tony Blair say he's not a big fan of books. He's an intelligent man so surely he could bring himself to read this short article. If he gave some regard to the importance of history he may be better placed to forge a half-decent place in it for himself.

[ResoluteReader]

"WW1 whose main cause was French revenge against Germany for defeating France in 1870 when France declared war against Germany"

Unfortunately such a statement is a simplistic analysis of the causes of WW1. Few serious historians would agree with the idea that the great slaughter was initiated simply because of the desire for revenge (just as it wasn't simply the result of an assassin's gun fired at Archduke Ferdinand).

The end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th were marked by the then "super powers" grabbing and distributing huge areas of land around the world. These colonies provided raw materials, goods for trade, areas for manufacture and new markets for expanding industry. But you could only divide the world so many times before collision became inevitable. There may have been many desires for revenge, petty hatreds, patriotic beliefs and nationalistic dreams of power, but at the heart of the drive towards war was a fear that another nation would get the upper hand. War had been narrowily avoided on a number of occasions - primarily over lands in Africa, but ultimately world war one was a clash between those nations that wanted to be top in the imperialist pecking order, and those that wanted to defend their position. That unfortunately is the logic of capitalism and the competition it breeds.

Ms. Beard's outstanding article makes a very valid point - that those fighting colonial or imperialist occupation have always been portrayed as terrorists or barbarians. Whether they were the mutineers of the Sepoy Mutiny against the British in 1857, the Zulu warriors fighting the British again, or the Abysinnia's fighting off the Italians all were described as barbaric, anti-christian, backward or terroristic - however justified their grievances, however unequal the war.

Sometimes they were able to delay the inevitable, but almost always the superior firepower of the colonials brought defeat. But not always. Abysinnia was never truely colonised and the dreams of independence in India forced the British out eventually. Indeed the "Scramble for Africa" itself seems a joke, when a few decades later almost all of the colonial nations had been forced out, or left with flags drooping.

And to go back to the original point, Rome's superpower may have seemed unstoppable to the Gauls or the Germans as Julius Caesars' armies rolled over them, but armies from those nations did breech Rome's defences on many occasions, and you don't have to stare at the ruins of the once mighty temples in the Roman Forum for long today, before realising history's contempt for Empires.

As Shelley's traveller said of the buried statue of King Ozymandias who had commanded, "Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair"

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away"

[Donald MacDonald]

As to Jewish ancestors migrating from Germany and Alsace in the 1850's to the US, being "Roman citizens" there may be confusion with the Holy Roman Empire of which it was said 'it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire'. I cannot recall the status of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1850's - it think had started to wane in power and influence and was closely connected to Habsburg fortunes.
in the 1850'there were no real restrictions except perhaps on health and character - which her relations no doubt easily fulfilled. Read the biography of Bernard Baruch and of his own Jewish grandparents in the South of the US. There was no discrimination in the South until the Civil War ended when some in the defeated South looked for scapegoats.
Discrimination came in the rest of the US about the start of the 19th. century - from the time when all immigration started to be restrictive against some people and nations. Active and very poor Jewish immigrants came from Russia, White Russia (now Belarus) and Poland. They were Ashkenazim. They went also to England, and were believed by the German-Jewish Ashkenazim who preceded them both into the US and the UK to be ruder and rougher than themselves. However, the German-origina Jews - a great elite - helped them.
Periodic persecution of Jews was not confined to a murderous group in Germany WW2. "Pogrom" is a Russian name and "ghetto" is Italian-Venetian - comfing from a metal foundry district in Venice.
The main enemies over the centuries have been two major Christian religions - Roman Catholic and some parts of the Orthodox church. Until post-WW2 disturbances in the then British League of Nations mandate in what was then Palestine, the Moslems (mainly Arabs) around the Meditteranean lived in relative amith with Jews and Greeks and had done so for almost a millenium.
From these troubles both Jews and Greeks found themselves having to move.
Of the consequences of the unnecessary WW!(in which I know the German Jews were great patriots for Germany - and regarded themselves as Germans by nationality and Jews by religion) there came firstly The Great Depression (in the US - 1929 to 1939)- the 2nd. World War - and the present troubles in the Middle East - from the partition instead of reform of the Turkish Empire - the same for the Austro-Hungarian - and for the Russian absolute monarchy - and the Declaration by Arthur Balfour in 1917. When it will end without some major war (perhaps not quite WW3 except in oil/gas sense - the Cold War could have become WW3 easily at several times - Korea and the Cuba missiles and the Berlin Wall and its fall were on the edge of the knife) I do not know.
No one surely can think that Hezbollah - the Party of Allah - can be allowed to fire rockets into Israel and shelter both in bunkders and with the civilian population - without retaliation both to bunkers and their shelters. Lebanon and Syria were also parts excised into French mandate from the Turkish Empire, and Iraq (3 vilayets = provinces - of the Turks) was artificially created to be ruled by England, which to great local unpopularity in Iraq - administered it through the ICS - Indian Civil Service.
WW1 whose main cause was French revenge against Germany for defeating France in 1870 when France declared war against Germany - and in which Great Britain (really England) need not a joined - permeates us even yet - not only in the Middle East but in the Balkans. WW1 was a greater disaster in loss of lives, economic and political damage, and long-term effects than WW@.
Now we seem to be back to the Crusades but with weapons and tactics - and areas of destruction - not then foreseen.

[Cesar Ayala]

An excellent history article. Human actions and feelings changes only a little across time.

[Thomas Flatt]

The sad thing is that nowadays also the super-power is using military tactics, illegal weapons (cluster bombs) that go far beyond the acceptable. It ignored rules of military law (destroys civil infrastructure, power stations, bridges, streets that are used by the refugees and amulances, multi-floor residential buildings). Therefore, ultimately, what is the difference between "terrorism" and "self-defense", between "terrorist murder" and "targeted killing"? It's merely George Orwell's doublespeak!

[charlie macleod]

todays terrorist is just that and will be forgotten by history,unless he wins in which case he becomes a head of state!
As for peace and deserts its called progress and explains why our longevity and standard of living is massively greater than at any time in history

[John Small]

A much better historical parallel with today's world comes from the first few paragraphs of chapter 3 in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. From the starting 'In the age of the Antonines ...' to the final sentence '.. The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverable lost when the legislature is nominated by the excecutive'. As a decription of Blair's rule'.. the enterprises of an aspiring prince.. ' it is quite uncanny.

[s.r.j. thanhauser]

my jewish parents came from germany and alsace to america
in the 1850s. my understanding is that the jews were allowed into those areas because they were roman citizens,
after having been "romanized"...did the roman empire have
good qualities? were the jews protected by the romans as
"citizens" and allowed into Gaul?

cyrus of persia rescued the enslaved jews from babylon and
allowed them to return to their homeland, as you surely know. also see psalm 83 which is in the news and out of the peat bog

[smintheus]

Attitudes within the empire often seem to be much more complex and variegated than a surface reading of the evidence stemming from the leading politicians might suggest. Tacitus' depiction of Agricola was an attack upon the regime that had mistreated him, and presumably Tacitus. Other political outcasts in Rome (such as Sallust) seem to be readier to view the wrongs of empire through the eyes of non-Romans, than writers (such as Livy) who remain relatively snug in the embrace of power.

Incidentally, I find the Agricola to be one of the most productive Roman texts to teach.

[Francis Rogan]

I'm not an intellectual, nor am I versed in ancient history. I emigrated to the US in 1966 (courtesy of wedgewood-benn) and the first thing I learned about the Americans was that "winning" was everything....

[Daniel Loftin]

Very apropos. while methodology has changed tactically, on the strategic level the operation of empire has been the same ever since empires have come into being.
I personally believe the urge to empire is the single most destructive impulse in humanity, and is the most defining characteristic of the figure named Satan in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.

[NAVAL LANGA]

Man should learn from history that man has learnt nothing from history. What Madame Mary Beard has narrated above is not only a page from a history book. It is a mirror of the front pages of the present day newspapers, too.
Modern day terorist can't attack the rival armies, hence they attack the innocents, the innocents who suffered before thousands of years, the innocents who have continued to suffer throuout the history. Has mankind learnt anything from the history?

[Christina Dickinson]

Oh! wise, sad, caring woman!