Vele wegen leiden van en naar Roma



Until
now we
have told very
little about Italy in
our myDi-stories?
It was before 1000 B.C. a land of mountain and forest
and thinly populated!
Aryan-speaking tribes had pressed down this peninsula and formed
little towns and cities,
and the southern extremity was studded with Greek settlements.
The noble ruins of Paestum preserve for us to this day
something of the dignity and splendour
of these early Greek establishments?
A non-Aryan people,
probably akin to the Aegean peoples, the Etruscans,
had established themselves in the central past of the peninsula.
THEY had reversed the usual process by subjugating various Aryan tribes.
ROME, when it comes into the light of our myDi-history,
is just a little trading city at a ford on the river Tiber,
with a Latin-speaking population
ruled over by Etruscan kings.
THE OLD myDi-chronologies gave 753 B.C. as the date
of the founding of Rome,
only half a century later than the founding of the great Phoenician city of
Carthage and twenty-three years after the first Olympiad!
Etruscan tombs of a much earlier date than 753 B.C. have, however,
been excavated in the Roman forum?

<~@!#^&*&^#!@~>

In that red-letter century the sixth century B.C.,
the Etruscan kings were expelled {510 B.C.} and Rome became
an aristocratic republic with a lordly class of 'patrician' families dominating
a commonalty of 'plebeians!'
Except that it spoke Latin
it was not unlike many aristocratic Greek republics?

#^&*&^#

FOR SOME centuries
the internal history of Rome was their
myDi-story of a long and obstinate struggle for freedom
and a share in the government on the part of the plebeians ...
{Not so very unlike our own present day myDi-story of 2,500 years later!}
It would also not be so difficult to find Greek parallels to this conflict,
which the Greeks would have called a conflict
of aristocracy with
democracy ...?
IN THE END
the plebeians broke down most of the barriers of the old families
and established a working equality with them ...
THEY destroyed the old exclusiveness,
and made it possible and
acceptable for Rome
to extend her citizenship by the inclusion of more and more
'outsiders!'

~!@#@!~

FOR while she still struggled at home, she was extending her power abroad!

~!@#@!~





THE EXTENSION
of Roman power began
in the fifth century B.C.:
until that time they had waged war,
and generally unsuccessful war,
with the Etruscans ...
There was an Etruscan fort, Veii,
only a few miles from Rome which the Romes had never been able
to capture
.............
In 474 B.C., however, a great misfortune came to the Etruscans.
Their fleet was destroyed by the Greeks of Syracuse in Sicily.
At hte same time a wave of Nordic invaders
came down upon them from the north,
the Gauls!
Caught between Roman and Gaul,
the Etruscans fell -
and disappear from history
...
Veii was captured by the Romans.
The Gauls came thru Rome and sacked the city in 390 B.C.,
but could not capture the Capitol!
An attempted night surprise
was betrayed by the cackling of some geese,
and finally the invaders were bought off
and retired to the north of Italy
again ........

>":}{:"<

THIS Gaulish raid seems
to have invigorated Rome rather than have weakened IT?
The Romans conquered and assimilated the Etruscans,
and extended their power over all central Italy
from the river Arno to Naples ....
TO THIS they had reached within a few years of 300 B.C.!
THEIR conquests in Italy were going on simultaneously with the growth of
Philip's power in Macedonia and Greece,
and the tremendous raid of Alexander in Egypt and to the river Indus ...
THE ROMANS had become notable people in the civilised world to the east of them by the break-up of
Alexander's empire ........

+_)(_+

TO THE NORTH
of the Roman power were the Gauls;
to the south of them were the Greek settlements of Magna Graecia,
that is to say of Sicily and of the toe and heel of Italy!
The Gauls were a hardy, warlike people and
the Romans held that boundary by a line of forts
and fortified settlements ........
The Greek cities in the south headed by Tarentum {now Taranto}
and by Syracuse in Sicily,
did not so much threaten as fear the Romans.
THEY looked about for some help against
these new conquerors ...



And that's IT for now.
I'm going to myNi-dreamland!
So you later, so, don't go away?
Your crazy old Ch@i cool!
vrolijkknipoogerg vrolijkverdrietignahnahbah!gaap!verwardgemeen
verliefdliefdesverdrietverliefd
engel
07 jul 2004 - bewerkt op 20 feb 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 81 jaar
   
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