Turning points in Roman history..

[ColdFire]

.. two immediately come to mind..

.. when the Roman city of Pompeii was destroyed by the volcano in 79..

I guess many Romans back then might have thought " Are the gods against Rome ?" or "Are we feeling / experiencing the wrath of the gods?"... Of course, the Romans didn't have today's geographical knowledge back then..


.. imagine you're a Roman citizen back then and you see a mountain spewing flames...

Concerning that.. also one of the few occasions in recorded history when a whole city / settlement was completely destroyed by a volcano...

Well.. apparently against the forces of nature (((also the Romans couldn't stand))), if you will..

Such an event occurring today would still shock but back then it must have shocked even more ..


Another turning point in Roman history...

.. when Rome burned in 64..


But that weren't "the forces of nature", that is said to have been arson..

You know, there are rumours that Emperor Nero himself had allegedly set the fire, but..

Let's say two things.. it is a known fact that early Christians living in the Roman empire were hostilised, mainly because they rejected the power of the Caesar ( who often also was the religious 'supreme being' in the Roman Empire)..

They were treated like, in today's parlance, terrorists ....They questioned the structures and the faith..

One could understand that maybe some of the early christians were frustrated..

.. to this day it is still open to debate whether christians actually did arson in Rome..

The theory that it was Nero himself, gotta admit , may have been claimed by later Christian historians who naturally would have had no sympathy for Nero ..
Also, it is acknowledged that the first christians were Greeks, in the mediterranean .. they were subject to Rome... One at least could imagine early greek christians having a wrath against the emperor...

. . . . .


.. so, these are two turning points in Roman history...

That once "nature itself messed with the Roman Empire ", if you will and that once the heart of the empire burned..

A tone-giving city up in flames, maybe, ((maybe)) by an enemy within...


Of course , there are other turning points in Roman history... which would come to your mind ?

 

[Albus]

The Battle of Adrianople is considered by mainstreamers as the turning point where Barbarians picked the lock of of roman military invincibility. It was all downhill from there.

 

[stendhal]

The gallic sacking of early Rome caused Roman institutions to adjust to the prospect of total annihilation, there was a subsequent re-centering of Rome's state and customs around this possibility reoccurring. It was the ability of the Roman state to function cohesively while sustaining repeated catastrophic losses which differentiated it from other Mediterranean powers. This attitude emerges most noticeably in Roman wars against Pyrrhus and Hannibal and its really Rome's conflicts with Greece and Carthage which propel Rome to world-power status. Another would be the abolishment of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Senate and Caesar's civil war.