Roman Emperor Aurelian (270-275, CE): Restoring the Empire . . . with the Power of the Sun

Figure 1: Roman Emperor Aurelian.  Although he ruled the Empire for only five short years, he did much to help restore its power; and in so doing, also helped to bring about the conclusion of  the Empire’s 3^rd century crisis period.  Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aurelianus,_Nordisk_familjebok.png

Aurelian was one of those charismatic leaders whose star shinned very bright, even if all-too-brief.  This distinguished political reformer managed to achieve in five short years of rule what many world leaders (either ancient or modern) could not achieve in a lifetime.  In that 5-year period of imperial leadership, and after a distinguished military career in the Roman cavalry, he managed to replace his own hapless boss (Emperor Claudius Gothicus, 268-270, C.E.), repulse three different sets of foreign invaders, and eliminate or otherwise neutralize much of his domestic political opposition (for 5 years, anyway).  He then proceeded to reunify the then-collapsing Roman Empire by engaging in military campaigns on two different fronts—one in Gaul in Western Europe (roughly corresponding to 20^th century France), and the other in Palmyra in the eastern Mediterranean (roughly corresponding to 20^th century Syria).  

In addition to all that, the City of Orléans, in modern France (ergo, by logical extension, also the American city of "New Orleans"), was also named after him.  He had been responsible for rebuilding the old Gaullic City of Cenabum (previously destroyed in a retaliatory attack by the Roman forces of Julius Caesar in 54, BCE), among his many acts construction.  As result of this, it was renamed “Aureliana Civitas,” in his honor.  This translates as "City of Aurelian," or “Cité d'Aurélien,” which then evolved over time into “'Orléans.”  

By the time of his assassination, at the hands of his own praetorian guards in the year 275, he had already effectively reunified the Roman Empire.  He did this by halting the secessionist Gallic and Palmyrene Empires, to the west and east of Rome, respectively.  In addition to all this, he had reformed many aspects of Roman political-economy and public administration, together with its religious institutions.  He also initiated a large-scale public works project, designed to promote the security of the City of Rome, itself.  This included the innovative “Aurelian Walls,” built to completely surround the City of Rome.   

Figure 2: Aureus of emperor Aurelian (exact date unknown).  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian

Aurelian’s Religious and Ideological Reforms

Much like Egypt’s radical reformer, Amenhotep IV, who had ruled Egypt some 17 centuries earlier, Aurelian initiated a socio-religious policy which strengthened the position of the Sun god—going by the Roman name “Sol” (or “Sol Invictus,” meaning “the all-powerful Sun”). This was to be the new, primary divinity of the vast Roman pantheon, from this point in time going forward.  From a political perspective, it appeared that the Empire was struggling to find a unifying ideology; and bringing all Roman citizens together, under the all-powerful force of the rehabilitated Sun god might be the path forward. 

Aurelian’s intention was to give to all citizens of the Empire one single, Nature- or Earth-based divinity they could still believe in, while still remaining true to their own gods, and likewise still remaining true to the traditional Roman religious world-view.  This also seemed to be in keeping with the emergent concept of "one god, one empire", that would be engaged more fully by Emperor Constantine, starting some 50 years later.

Figure 3: Dedication slab representing Sun, Moon and Jupiter.  

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stele_Sol_Invictus_Terme.jpg

The great Afro-Roman Scholar, Lactantius, allegedly even speculated that Emperor Aurelian might well have outlawed all the other Roman gods, if he had had enough time.  This notion, if true, speaks to an emergent trend in the evolution of Roman civilization; as such, that speculation would prove to be highly prophetic.  This was to become particularly relevant to the subsequent reformationist regimes of both Diocletian and, eventually, Constantine-The-Great, the latter whom the senior Lacantius would have known as a young man.

  

In any case, we are here dealing with the (re-)formation, maintenance, and the propagation of intellectual ideas and overlapping political ideologies.  Suffice it to say Rome’s roughly 50-year long “Crisis of the Third Century” would set in motion a sequence of reformers and reforms—again in fields as diverse as art, architecture, military and political affairs, philosophy and religion.   Many of these would have their own soft yet enduring cultural echoes, right up into the tumultuous 21^st century of the Common Era (CE).  Examples will follow, below.

Figure 4: Leaf disc dedicated to Sol Invictus. Silver, Roman artwork, 3rd century CE. From Pessinus (Bala-Hissar, Asia Minor).  Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disc_Sol_BM_GR1899.12-1.2.jpg

Figure 5: US one dollar coin, featuring the US Statue of Liberty (given to the US as a gift, by Government of France, in the 19^th century).  Note a similar radiating solar motif from the head of the statue, on this coin.  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LineartPresRev.png

Figure 6: Statue of Liberty, at the entrance of the harbor shared by the states of New York and New Jersey.  In addition to being a formal gift between the governments of France and the United States, was the statue itself an oblique cultural reference to the Colossus, on the Island of Rhodes, in ancient Greece?  The overlapping motifs are striking in their similarity.  See below.  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Liberty_7.jpg

Figure 7: The Colossus of Rhodes, as depicted by Sidney Barclay (1880). It was built at the entrance to the harbor on the Greek island of Rhodes.  It was a statue dedicated to Helios, the ancient Greek name for the Sun deity.  It was erected sometime between 292 and 280, B.C.E., and then destroyed by an earthquake in 226, B.C.E.  It was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Colosse_de_Rhodes_(Barclay).jpg

Rome’s Aurelian Walls: Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects for Changing Times

Emperor Aurelian was an effective military leader, a shrewd politician, and a visionary social innovator—all combined into one.  He had a vision for how to guide the Empire through the turbulent seas of change that comprised the 3^rd century.  However, to do so, he also faced an array of difficult, sometime contradictory, and highly enmeshed policy options.  Exercising many of those options would commit the Empire to a political, economic, and military course for many decades to come.  Among other things, he was a change agent; however, in the process of being an agent for deep change, he incurred the wrath of a number of political rivals and internal enemies. 

So, Aurelian not only had to navigate an array of difficult policy choices, he also had to navigate a maze of internal political opponents who did not exactly see things his way.  There were conservative elements within the Roman Army (and within the larger Roman body politic), for example, who were very much committed to the concept of “Roman tradition,” as it was then construed.  The challenges faced by Aurelian in the late 3^rd century are perhaps best described by a group of military scientists (from the US Army War College) working in the 21^st.  Regarding the some of the inherent tensions between change and tradition, in hierarchical military organizations, they wrote the following:  

           

History would suggest that military organizations have been more committed to the ethos of the past than to preparing to meet the future. There is a good reason for this: The effectiveness of military institutions in the Western tradition has depended on their ability to inculcate discipline . . . .  Yet the demand of discipline and rigid respect for one’s superiors—on which cohesion in battle depends—are antithetical to the processes of adaptation, which require a willingness on the part of subordinates to question the revealed wisdom of their superiors. It is this inherent tension between the creation of disciplined, obedient military organizations, responsive to direction from above, and the creation of organizations adaptive to a world of constant change that makes military innovation in peacetime and adaptation in war so difficult. 

[Source: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dod/ona_murray_adapt_in_war.pdf ] 

Figure 8: Section of the Arch of Constantine, Rome.  

One could easily switch the term “military organizations” for “large organizations in general” (and minus the element of war), and have a strong description for the administrative challenges faced by social change agents, writ large. 

Aurelian’s innovations did not come without a heavy price—socially and economically.  Bear in mind the overlapping physical, social, and environmental factors that should be calculated in that total price.  In this regard, consider what Tainter (1988) says, concerning the context in which these amazing walls were built:

This was a time of local disintegration.  Lawlessness and banditry increased in places such as Sicily.  Tenant farmers left the land, and there were numerous bands of brigands . . . . 

Government costs rose in the areas still under Imperial control.  There were increased costs for the expansion and care of cities, for the dole, and for the construction of roads, palaces, and storage buildings.  The size and payroll of the army grew, as did [military] campaigning costs.  The government’s fiscal obligations may well have doubled, and yet this was a government that even before the crisis [of the 3^rd century] had been strapped for funds . . . .

The main victims, as always, were those on fixed incomes.  Unlike current times, though, this included the government and its employees.  The Roman government before Diocletian had no real budget, nor any economic policy, as we would know these today.  It depended on tax rates that rarely changed.  As a result, when crises arose, revenue could not be increased.  By the latter part of the third century the currency was so worthless that the State resorted to forced labor and an economy in kind.  The earliest example of the former may be Aurelian’s conscription of craft associations to build the walls around Rome.  [Tainter, 1988, p. 139]

Note that the Roman government had had to effectively conscript what had previously been “free” labor (that is to say, “free” in the liberal political-economic sense of that word), in order to have these vital walls constructed.  Payment of formal salaries, in an increasingly debased currency, would not have sufficed to meet the government’s labor demand requirements, in this particular case.  Related to this was also the gradual transition to a barter economy, during this period, in many different sectors of the empire.  This has been a another recurring pattern, in cash-based economies during times of severe economic crisis: a reversion to barter-based economic transactions. 

Figure 8: Map of Rome's Aurelian Walls.  Source:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_Rome-_Aureliaanse_Muur.png

Figure 8: Portion of the Aurelian Walls of Rome, Italy.  The full circuit of these interconnected walls ran for approximately 19 kilometers (12 miles).  The walls were constructed in brick-faced concrete, roughly 3.5 meters (11 feet) thick and 8 meters (26 feet) high, with a square tower every 100 Roman feet (29.6 meters or 97 feet).   Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian_Walls#cite_ref-claridge_0-0

Figure 9: San Sebastian's Gate, Aurelian Wall, Rome.  Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Celio_-_Porta_san_Sebastiano_-_camminamento_fra_le_torri_1992st.JPG

Figure X:Pyramid of Caius Cestius, Aurelian Wall, Rome.  

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Piramide_e_Porta_s_Paolo_1100866.JPG

The image above highlights the incorporation of urban design from three different eras in Roman history: 1) the Pyramid of Caius Cestius (c. 15 B.C.E.); 2) a portion of the Aurelian Wall, together with its tower; 3) the adjoining paved streets of modern Rome, together with embedded tracks (below) in hanging lines (above), for electric street cars.

This Egyptian-style pyramid was originally built about as a tomb for Caius Cestius, a magistrate, and member of one of the four great religious corporations in Rome, the Septemviri Epulonum.  At the time of its construction, Rome was itself experiencing a period of Egyptian cultural exploration and revivalism, including fields as diverse as architecture, philosophy, science, and religion.  Indeed, just as many societies in Western Europe and in the Americas of the Modern Era would experiences periods of Roman revivalism (see below, on the influence of Byzantine-Roman architecture in 20^th and 21^st century California), so the original Romans also paid homage to those cultures which had had a significant influence on them. 

It is important to note that, upon construction, the location of this tomb was initially well outside of the City proper, in surrounding countryside.  Gradually, however, the City grew, and slowly started to surround the pyramid.  By the time of Aurelian, Roman planners and builders simply decided to incorporate this nearly-three-hundred-year-old structure into their new, “modern” security wall. There is an important lesson, here, chiseled into these ancient stones: The way in which human beings construe and re-construct the past, in their minds, was also reflected in the way in which they constructed their built environment.  

This theme of incorporating selected elements of the past into the present can be seen over and over again, with examples of early 20^th century “Romanesque Revivalist” (Byzantine-Roman) architectural styles, in countries like the United States.  Once again, we may observe the various “layers of history” at work, with each major layer or epoch serving to inform others that may follow after it.  This, in turn, would have implications for how human beings would come to think of what we today call “the built environment.”  Likewise, we may also observe that human beings have been struggling with one issue for a very long time: how to incorporate the undeniable power of the Sun into their various worldviews, across vast distances of time, space, and culture.   Finally, we may also note the Roman Emperor Aurelian’s “comprehensive vision" for the establishment of a New Empire: new infrastructure, new administrative systems, new military systems, new ways of social organization—all supported by a new, “unifying” worldview, based on the symbolic and literal power of the Sun.   

END

---