Horrifying Facts You Need To Know About The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire is remembered as one of the greatest civilizations in history. While true, this greatness came at a cost. Like most other formidable powers, there are many horrifying facts about Rome. Whether it's the Roman Republic's destructive campaigns in Carthage and Gaul, or the wider Roman world's reliance on slavery, ancient Rome's power exacted immense human costs.

Rome Destroyed Entire Cities and Civilizations

Roman governments and armies carried out repeated massacres, mass enslavements, and destructive sieges across centuries of expansion and civil war. Take the destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE. At the end of the Third Punic War, Roman forces razed the city to the ground. According to Appian, they sold approximately 50,000 survivors into slavery, though the total number killed cannot be reliably determined. Some modern scholars classify Rome's deliberate destruction of Carthage as genocide. Applying that modern category to antiquity remains debated, and Punic culture survived elsewhere in North Africa.

Carthage was not the only campaign to attract that charge. Consider Julius Caesar's campaigns in Gaul between 58 and 50 BCE. Gaul covered roughly modern France and Belgium, along with Luxembourg and parts of several neighboring countries. More than a century later, Plutarch claimed that Caesar's campaigns killed one million people and captured another million. Modern historians regard those suspiciously rounded figures as unreliable, but they accept that the death toll was very high. Caesar explicitly hoped to destroy the "stock and name" of the Eburones and attempted to devastate their population, although he did not demonstrably exterminate every member of the group. After a clash that Caesar portrayed as a breach of an agreement, he detained Usipetes and Tencteri leaders who came to negotiate and attacked their camp, where his forces killed combatants and fleeing families. Caesar repeatedly used mass killing, enslavement, and devastation to suppress resistance, and some scholars classify particular episodes, or the conquest more broadly, as genocidal.

Slavery Was Part Of Everyday Life

Slavery was a core component of Roman civilization. The proportion of enslaved people varied enormously by place and period. One estimate puts the figure at roughly 20-30% in Italy during the late first century BCE. Wealthy families had enslaved people serve as cooks, cleaners, tutors, or nurses. Slaves also frequently worked on large agricultural estates called latifundia, where they harvested goods like olives, grapes, and wheat. The most unlucky slaves worked in the mines, where they endured frequent beatings, toxic dust, and cave-ins. Finally, slaves sometimes served as gladiators. While successful gladiators acquired fame and fortune, the risk of injury or death was enormous.

Slavery in the Roman Empire was very different from the slavery most commonly associated with the Americas. Unlike the racialized hereditary slavery of the Atlantic world, Roman slavery was not based on a single legally defined racial caste, although it was hereditary, and ethnic origin could still shape stereotypes and treatment. War captives were a major source during Rome's Republican expansion, while birth to enslaved mothers probably became especially important under the Empire. Kidnapping, piracy, exposure, and slave trading supplied additional victims. Perhaps most cruelly, children of enslaved mothers automatically became slaves, regardless of who their father was.

Political Murder Was Common

Ancient Rome was often violent. This was particularly true in the upper echelons of politics, where political murder was common. The example of Julius Caesar is again illustrative. He was named dictator for life in 44 BCE after a violent power struggle with Pompey the Great. Very soon afterward, he was stabbed to death by conspirators drawn largely from the Senate. Ancient accounts say that more than 60 people were involved in the plot. This assassination set off a chain reaction that led to even more bloodshed.

The murder of Emperor Caligula is another example. Later elite authors portray Caligula as cruel, capricious, and tyrannical, but their sensational accounts require caution. By 41 CE, he had clearly alienated important senators, courtiers, and military officers. The successful conspiracy was led by Praetorian officers, including Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus, with the involvement or acquiescence of other insiders. Caligula was killed on January 24, 41 CE, in a covered passage on the Palatine. According to Suetonius, the attackers inflicted 30 wounds. His wife and young daughter were also killed.

Roman Punishments and Executions Could Be Extremely Brutal

Roman brutality went well beyond political assassination. Their torture methods were notorious and creative. The most famous one is likely the crucifixion. Victims were bound or nailed to wooden structures and died through varying combinations of trauma, exposure, exhaustion, shock, and respiratory or circulatory failure. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the authority of Pontius Pilate, apparently on a charge framed as a claim to kingship and therefore a challenge to Roman rule. Spartacus probably died in battle, while approximately 6,000 captured members of his rebellion were crucified along the road between Capua and Rome.

Flagellation was another common form of torture. Roman scourging ranged in severity and could involve multi-thonged whips fitted with hard or sharp objects. Severe beatings caused grave injury and could be fatal. Nevertheless, it was arguably more humane than damnatio ad bestias (condemnation to beasts). This method saw condemned criminals or prisoners of war mauled to death or eaten alive by wild animals in public arenas. On top of being a horrific way to die, damnatio ad bestias caused untold stress to the animals and sometimes ended in their dying as well.

Civil Wars and Internal Instability Weakened Rome

When people think of the collapse of the Roman Empire, they often think of barbarians storming the gates. In reality, the greatest enemy of the Romans was themselves. Over the course of its history, Rome fought countless civil wars. These internal conflicts only increased as time went on. One of the most severe periods of internal conflict was the Crisis of the Third Century, conventionally dated 235 to 284 CE. More than 20 emperors rose and fell during those decades. At the crisis's height, the central Roman state coexisted with the breakaway Gallic and Palmyrene regimes amid civil wars, foreign invasions, epidemic disease, and severe economic disruption. Aurelian reunited the empire through military victories in the 270s. Diocletian's accession in 284 and his subsequent reforms conventionally mark the end of the broader crisis. When the last widely recognized Western imperial government ended in 476 CE, internal instability was one of several contributing factors. Perhaps the resources put towards ending these conflicts could have been better served in other areas, like the economy or defense.

Impact And Legacy

Several horrifying facts shape the legacy of Ancient Rome. Take the destruction of Carthage and Julius Caesar's Gallic campaign. Some modern scholars classify the destruction of Carthage and particular episodes of Caesar's conquest as genocide, although the retrospective application of that term remains debated. Roman society also relied heavily on slavery. Political murder was common, as evidenced by the assassinations of Julius Caesar and Caligula. Roman torture methods were also notorious. Internal conflict repeatedly weakened the Roman government, but the Western Empire's dissolution resulted from interacting political, military, fiscal, demographic, and external pressures, while the Eastern Roman Empire survived.