THE RACE CHANGE IN ANCIENT ITALY!

300 B. C. and 300 A. D.

by

Ernest L. Martin (c1966)

 

Why was Simon Magus and his Gnostic teachings so readily accepted in Rome? Why did the ancient cool tempered and secular minded Romans come to accept an Oriental and emotional religious teaching, which was seemingly so foreign to their nature?

All the textbooks observe this tremendous change of attitude and temperament in the Roman people between the 3rd century B.C. and the 3rd century A.D., but few of them treat the question at any length. It just doesn’t occur to them to find the answer. However, the major historians now realize what caused this change in temperament! To be truthful, there was hardly a temperament change (or at best only a slight one). It wasn’t the temperament that changed — it was the race! Simon Magus, in going to Rome, came amongst his own type of people — they were basically Chaldeans, Syrians, Phoenicians, and Samaritans, with only a very small Latin minority. Italy, by the first century of our era, was in reality, Shemitic country. The evidence to support the truth of this assertion is beyond reproof.

The knowledge of this change of race not only helps us in explaining why the Roman populace accepted Simon Magus, but even more importantly IT HISTORICALLY CONFIRS BIBLICAL PROPHECIES!  The Bible states that the Babylon of prophecy is modern Rome. Many people accept this Biblical indication merely as a symbol, but it is far from being a symbol, it is literal — actual!  Old Babylon was destroyed; the Chaldeans left Mesopotamia; the land turned into a desert  — but where did these Babylonians go? The records of history show them today, primarily, in Italy!  It is thus important to us that we have this evidence before us. The evidence is not only interesting from a historical point of view, but it shows that Bible prophecy is again proved to be right after all!

This article is intended to place the basic facts of this race change at our disposal. The evidence comes from some of the world’s most recognized historians — men who have devoted their whole lives to the study of Roman History. They have been quoted at length in order that no one could possibly charge an “out-of-context” evaluation on the material. It is hoped that the longer quotes (which I feel are important) will not prove too laborious reading — they are necessary for the student of history.

The first portion of this paper, concerning this race change, is mainly centered around the work of Professor T. Frank of John Hopkins University.  He is the recognized authority on the economic history of ancient Rome. He was the author and editor of the five-volume Economic History of Rome, and the author of many other books on ancient Roman history. His contributions to the various classical journals were frequent and always looked for with anticipation by historians around the world. As a matter of interest, the authoritative Cambridge Ancient History and the Oxford History of Rome by Cory, as well as Professor Boak in America, freely quote from his various works. Much of the material in this paper is founded on Professor Frank’s researches, and because of that (for the benefit of those not having studied much Roman History), I have felt it necessary to mention his qualifications. Mention also must be made of Professor Duff of Oxford University whose book, Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, represents a substantiation of Professor Frank’s work. Truly, there is no lack of authority for the conclusions reached in this paper, for they are not merely personal conclusions, but those of world-recognized historians.

 

The Race Change In Ancient Italy!

 

Astounding as it may seem, it can be stated with the greatest of confidence that a fundamental change of race occurred in the Italian peninsula between the 3rd century B. C. and the 3rd century A. D.  The records of history are beyond reproof in showing the truth of this change. What we find is Chaldean, Syrian and Phoenician stock replacing the basic Latin races in Italy. A little amalgamation of Latins and these immigrant Shemites did take place, but the Latin element was so weak when the mixing began, that, in Italy, the remnant of the Latin race was completely submerged by these incoming Shemites. And by the end of the Empire, Italy had become a Shemitic country. When the Bible speaks of Babylonians and Tyrians being the Romans of prophecy — the Romans of our day — it means it! The very descendants of those ancient Babylonians and Tyrians are now found in Italy.  And, even secular history puts them there!

Is this difficult to believe? Then let us notice the evidence from history.

In this article, we will quote at length what the most imminent historians have to say on this subject. And, the only conclusion we can possibly come to is that a change of race did take place in Italy and that Shemites from the East took over the country.

First, we will quote from the foremost historian on the economic history of Rome before his death in 1939, Professor T. Frank. His monumental five-volume work on Roman Economics and Social Life is the recognized authority on the subject. He, probably more than any other person, has studied at length the native Roman records, epigraphical information and archaeological finds relative to his subject.

The Cambridge Ancient History consistently refers to his works. Now, let us notice what Professor Frank says about the race question in the American Historical Review, vol. 21, July 1916, p. 689.  The information he records is illuminating.

 

There is one surprise that the historian usually experiences upon his first visit to Rome. It may be the Galleria Lapidaria of the Vatican or at the Lateran Museum, but, if not elsewhere, it can hardly escape him upon his first walk up the Appian Way. As he stops to decipher the names upon the old tombs that line the road, hoping to chance upon one familiar to him from his Cicero or Livy, he finds prenomen and nomen promising enough, but the cognomina all seem awry. L. Lucretius Pamphilus, A. Aemilius Alexa, M. Clodius Philostosgas do not smack of freshman Latin. And he will not readily find in the Roman writers now extant an answer to the questions that these inscriptions invariably raise. Do these names imply that the Roman stock was completely changed after Cicero’s day, and was the satirist (Juvenal) recording a fact when he wailed that the Tiber had captured the waters of the Syrian Orontes?  If so, are these foreigners ordinary immigrants, or did Rome become a nation of ex-slaves and their offspring?

 

Unfortunately, most of the sociological and political data of the empire are provided by satirists. When Tacitus informs us that in Nero’s day a great many of Rome’s senators and knights were descendants of slaves and that the native stock had dwindled to surprisingly small proportions, we are not sure whether we are not to take it as an exaggerated thrust by an indignant Roman of the old stock. . . . . To discover some new light upon these fundamental questions of Roman history, I have tried to gather such fragmentary data as the corpus of inscriptions might afford. This evidence is never decisive in its purport, and it is always, by the very nature of the material, partial in its scope, but at any rate it may help us to interpret our literary sources to some extent. IT HAS AT LEAST CONVINCED ME THAT JUVENAL AND TACITUS WERE NOT EXAGGERATING. It is probable that when these men wrote a very small percentage of the free plebians on the streets of Rome could prove unmixed Italian descent. By far the larger part — PERHAPS NINETY PERCENT — had Oriental blood in their veins (pp. 689, 690).

 

What Professor Frank did, besides referring to literary sources, was to study the epigraphical information on the various tombs and monuments in Rome and throughout Italy. He studied over 13,900 different names and found that about three quarters bore names of foreign derivation. The vast majority had Greek cognomina — not Latin at all.

 

For reasons which will presently appear I have accepted the Greek cognomen as a true indication of recent foreign extraction, and, since citizens of native stock did not as a rule unite in marriage with liberti, a Greek cognomen in a child or one parent is sufficient of status (i.e., was foreign) (p. 691).

 

On the other hand, the question has been raised whether a man with a Greek cognomen must invariably be of foreign stock. Could it not be that Greek names became so popular that, like Biblical and classical names today, they were accepted by the Romans of native stock?  In the last days of the empire this may have been the case; but the inscriptions prove that the Greek cognomen was not in good repute. I have tested this matter by classifying all the instances in the 13,900 inscriptions where the names of both father and son appear. From this it appears that fathers with Greek names are very prone to give Latin names to their children, whereas the reverse is not true (pp. 692, 693).

 

Clearly the Greek name was considered as a sign of dubious origin among the Roman plebians, and the freedman family that rose to any social ambitions made short shift of it. For these reasons, therefore, I consider that the presence of a Greek name in the immediate family is good evidence that the subject of the inscription is of servile or foreign stock. The conclusion of our pro’s and con’s must be that nearly ninety per cent of the Roman-born folk represented in the above mentioned sepulcharal inscriptions are of foreign extraction.

 

Who are these Romans of the NEW type and whence do they come? How many are immigrants, and how many are of servile extraction? Of what race are they? (p. 693).

 

Professor Frank will answer these questions! Information on this matter cannot come from epigraphical material, it must come from literary sources — from eyewitnesses. In this we are not left without evidence. In fact, there is quite a lot of information on who these foreigners were. These “Romans” bore Greek names. This is enough to show that the majority came from the East — from Greece and the Hellenistic world. However, from literary evidence we can gain a better insight into the exact locality from whence most came into Italy. Juvenal, speaking of the Roman population speaks about these people with Greek names. He says most epithetically: “These dregs call themselves Greeks but how small a portion is from Greece; the River Orontes has long flowed into the Tiber” (III, 62).

Juvenal, then, tells us that very few of these people were actually Greek. They were from the Hellenistic world — to be exact, from the Levant.

How did these Orientals get into Italy? Some came by migration, but the vast majority — as the records show — came as slaves. When Rome conquered the East, vast numbers of peoples were captured and brought back to Italy as slaves.  The great majority of slaves came from the East — particularly Asia Minor and Syria!

 

Therefore, when the urban inscriptions show that seventy per cent of the city slaves and freedmen bear Greek names and that a larger portion of the children who have Latin names have parents of Greek names, this at once implies that THE EAST WAS THE SOURCE of most of them, and with that inference Bang’s conclusions (Dr. Bang of Germany) entirely agree. In his list of slaves that specify their origin as being outside Italy (during the empire), by far the larger portion came from the Orient, especially FROM SYRIA and the provinces of ASIA MINOR, with some from Egypt and Africa (which for racial classification may be taken with the Orient). Some are from Spain and Gaul, but a considerable portion of these came originally from the East. Very few slaves are recorded from the Alpine and Danube provinces, while Germans rarely appear, except among the imperial bodyguard. Bang remarks that Europeans were of greater service to the empire as soldiers than servants. This is largely true, but, as Strach has commented, the more robust European war-captives were apt to be chosen for the grueling work in the mines and in industry, and largely they have vanished from the records. Such slaves were probably also the least productive of the class; and this, in turn, helps to explain the strikingly ORIENTAL aspect of the new population (pp. 700,701).

 

There is another reason why European captives were not found with much representation in Italy. When the Romans took over prosperous Gaul, with its vast agricultural areas, the captive slaves were kept in the areas to farm the land. This is also true for Spain, After all, Italy was being stocked with masses of Oriental slaves, to bring Gauls to Italy would bring about redundancies; and who would care for the farms of Gaul and Spain? This is the main reason Dr. Bang found so very few western and northern Europeans as slaves in Italy. The East supplied most to the fatherland.

However, can it really be said that these Eastern slaves displaced the old Latin stock of Italy? Can we believe that slaves, even though they were brought by the tens of thousands to Italy could completely take over the country? It seems, at first glance, almost an impossibility for such a thing to happen.

But it did!  There are many reasons which brought about the change of race. It was not alone the bringing of these new races. Other factors were happening to the original Latin race as well. Let us get a rundown of them by Professor Frank.

 

There are other questions that enter into the PROBLEM OF CHANGE — OF RACE AT ROME, for the solution of which it is even more difficult to obtain statistics. For instance, one asks, without hope of a sufficient answer, why the native stock did not better hold its own. Yet there are at hand not a few reasons. We know for instance that when Italy had been devastated by Hannibal and a large part of its population put to the sword, immense bodies of slaves were brought up in the East to fill the void; and that during the second century B. C., when the plantation system with its slave service was coming into vogue, the natives were pushed out of the small farms and many disappeared to the provinces of the ever-expanding empire. Thus, during the thirty years before Tiberius Gracchus, the census statistics show no increase. During the first century B. C., the importation of captives and slaves continued, while the free-born citizens were being wasted in the social, Sullan, and civil wars. Augustus affirms that he had had half a million citizens under arms, one eighth of Rome’s citizens, and that the most vigorous part. During the early empire, twenty to thirty legions, drawn of course from the best free stock, spent their twenty years of vigor in garrison duty while the slaves, exempt from such services, lived at home and increased in numbers.  In other words, the native stock was supported by less than a normal birthrate, whereas the stock of foreign extraction had not only a fairly normal birthrate but a liberal quota of manumissions to its advantage (p. 703).

 

The foregoing are the main problems which affected the race decay of the Latins in Italy. The main points were the decimation and emigration of the native stock, while foreigners, especially from Syria and Asia Minor, took their place. Also, records show the birthrate of the Latins was very low while that of slaves was very large (slaves were encouraged to have children so that more servants could be had). So, the slave population in Italy, during the first century B.C., increased rapidly while the native stock, who were still in the peninsula, diminished to an alarming proportion.

 

To this increase in the population the native stock seems not to have contributed much. Decimated by long wars, fought by citizen crimes, which secured to Rome a Mediterranean empire, its ranks were thinned still further by the withdrawal of colonies of citizens to the provinces beyond the sea and by a heavy decline in the birthrate even among the poorer classes. The native Roman and Italian population steadily dwindled and the gaps were filled by NEW RACES (La Piana, Foreign Groups in Rome During the First Centuries of the Empire, The Harvard Theological Review, vol. XX, pp. 188, 189).

 

This population decline of the native races was alarming to Caesar and to Augustus. Laws were enacted by these rulers to attempt some reversal of the “race-suicide” (as the historians call it) of the Latin peoples. But their laws were completely thwarted.

 

One of the most serious evils with which the imperial government was called upon to contend was the decline in population. Not only had the Italian stock almost disappeared from the towns, but the descendants of freedmen had not been born in sufficient numbers to take its place. Accordingly, while the Lex Papia Poppaea offered privileges to freeborn citizens for the possession of three children, it used the whole question of inheritances of freedmen and freedwomen for the encouragement of procreation (A. M. Duff, Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, Oxford Univ. Press 1928, p. 191).

 

In other words the laws backfired on them. Instead of causing an increase in native Italian stock, it encouraged the procreation of multitudes of ex-slaves who had been freed by magnanimous Romans. Caesar simply could not stem the tide by laws — everything was against him.

 

The centre of the empire had been more exhausted by the civil wars than any of the provinces. The rapid disappearance of the free population had been remarked with astonishment and dismay, at least from the time of the Gracchi. If the numbers actually maintained on the soil of the Peninsula had not diminished, it was abundantly certain that the independent native races had given way almost throughout its extent to a constant importation of slaves. The remedies to which Caesar resorted would appear as frivolous as they were arbitrary . . . . . He prohibited all citizens between the age of twenty and forty from remaining abroad more than three years together, while, as a matter of state policy, he placed more special restrictions upon the movements of the youths of senatorial families. He required also that the owners of herds and flocks, to the maintenance of which large tracts of Italy were exclusively devoted, should employ free labour to the extent of at least one-third of the whole. Such laws could only be executed constantly under the vigilant superintendance of a sovereign ruler. They fell in fact into immediate disuse, or rather were never acted upon at all. They served no other purpose at the time but to evince Caesar’s perception of one of the fatal tendencies of the age (i.e. race deterioration in Italy), to which the eyes of most statesmen of the day were already open (Merivale, The Romans Under the Empire, vol. 2. pp. 395, 396. 397).

 

Or, as Professor Duff says: “Even in Augustus’ day the process of Orientalization had gone too far. The great emperor saw the clouds, but he did not know they had actually burst. His legislation would have been a prudent and not a whit excessive a century earlier; but in his time Rome was a cosmopolitan city, and the doom of the Empire was already sealed” (Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, pp. 207, 208).

These laws were enacted too late, and never enforced! Professor Frank shows, despite their inaction.

 

The race went under. The legislation of Augustus and his successors, while aiming at preserving the native stock, was of the myopic kind so usual in social lawmaking, and failing to reckon with the real nature of the problem involved, it utterly missed the mark. By combining epigraphical and literary references, a fairly full history of the noble families can be procured, and this reveals a startling inability of such families to perpetuate themselves. We know, for instance, in Caesar’s day of forty-five patricians, only one of whom is represented by posterity when Hadrian came to power. The Aemilsi, Fabii, Claudii. Manlii, Valerii, and all the rest, with the exception of Comelii, have disappeared. Augustus and Claudius raised twenty-five families to the patricate, and all but six disappear before Nerva’s reign. Of the families of nearly four hundred senators recorded in 65 A. D. under Nero, all trace of a half is lost by Nerva’ s day, a generation later. And the records are so full that these statistics may be assumed to represent with a fair degree of accuracy the disappearance of the male stock of the families in question. Of course members of the aristocracy were the chief sufferers from the tyranny of the first century, but this havoc was not all wrought by delatores and assassins. The voluntary choice of childlessness accounts largely for the unparalleled condition. This is as far as the records help in this problem, which, despite the silences is probably the most important phase of the whole question of the change of race. Be the causes what they may, the rapid decrease of the old aristocracy and the native stock was clearly concomitant with a twofold increase from below; by a more normal birth-rate of the poor, and the constant manumission of slaves (pp. 704, 705).

 

To all of this, the remarks of Professor Duff will not be unappropriate:

 

It may be asked in this connexion what became of the Latin and Italian stock. Reasons may be given for the coming of the foreigners, but at the same time some explanation may be demanded for the disappearance of the native. In the first place there was a marked decline in the birthrate among the aristocratic families. . . . As society grew more pleasureloving, as convention raised artificially the standard of living, the voluntary choice of celibacy and childlessness became a common feature among the upper classes. . . . But what of the lower-class Romans of the old stock? They were practically untouched by revolution and tyranny, and the growth of luxury cannot have affected them to the same extent as it did the nobility. Yet even here the native stock declined. The decay of agriculture. . . drove numbers of farmers into the towns, where, unwilling to engage in trade, they sank into unemployment and poverty, and where, in their endeavours to maintain a high standard of living, they were not able to support the cost of rearing children. Many of these free-born Latins were so poor that they often complained that the foreign slaves were much better off than they — and so they were. At the same time many were tempted to emigrate to the colonies across the sea which Julius Caesar and Augustus founded. Many went away to Romanize the provinces, while society was becoming Orientalized at home. Because slave labour had taken over almost all jobs, the free born could not compete with them. They had to sell their small farms or businesses and move to the cities. Here they were placed on the doles because of unemployment. They were, at first, encouraged to emigrate to the more prosperous areas of the empire — to Gaul, North Africa and Spain. Hundreds of thousands left Italy and settled in the newly-acquired lands. Such a vast number left Italy — leaving it to the Orientals — that finally restrictions had to be passed to prevent the complete depopulation of the Latin stock, but as we have seen, the laws were never effectively put into force. The migrations increased and Italy was being left to another race. The free-born Italian, anxious for land to till and live upon, displayed the keenist colonization activity (Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, pp. 200, 201).

 

There were two major reasons why the native Latin flocked first to the cities and then to foreign lands. The first, as we have mentioned, was slave labor.  The small farm owner with a few acres could not compete with the large landowner with hundreds if not thousands of slave labourers. The free-born farmer, by sheer economics, was often forced to sell his small holding to the larger farmer and then go to live in the cities and onto the doles. But there is a second important reason why the small farmers and even the village free-born, gave up their holdings — this was the desolation of a good deal of the land in Italy. The Hannibalic and Civil wars had rendered whole sections sterile by the ravages that took place. Vast areas of once fertile soil in Italy were, by the first century B.C., desolate wastelands. This was especially true in certain Central and Southern regions. The Central Etruscan area was so desolate that one General returning to Rome, complained of traveling for miles without so much as seeing a village.

 

The stock of (Latin) men capable of bearing arms in this (Central) district on which Rome’s ability to defend herself had once mainly depended, had so totally vanished, that people had read with astonishment and perhaps with horror the accounts of annals — sounding fabulous in comparison with things as they now stood — respecting the Aequain and Volscian wars. . . . Varro complains, ‘the once populous cities,’ in general ‘stood desolate’ (Mommsen, The History of Rome, vol. V, p. 394).

 

What had happened was disastrous to Italy — at least to the Latin stock. Italian land was in two general states: either vast areas were rendered completely unproductive through desolation and were worth hardly anything agriculturally, or, the areas that were fertile came to be in the hands of large rich land-owners and farmed by thousands of slaves. There was no place for the freemen. It is no wonder that the poor native Latin looked elsewhere for his fortune — there was little place for him in Italy by the first century B.C.

 

Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy, and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly awful silence (because of desolation) (ibid., p. 395).

 

Huge masses of Latins left Italy for Spain and Gaul. This desire for the Roman of free-birth to go to other areas of the empire, is mentioned by Seneca. He shows how the Italian looked for every opportunity to leave his native country:

 

This people (the Romans), how many colonies has it sent to every province! Wherever the Roman conquers, there he dwells. With a view to this change of country, volunteers would gladly ascribe their name, and even the old man, leaving his home would follow the colonists overseas (Helvia on Consolation, VII, 7).

 

Or, as Mommsen continues:

 

The Latin stock of Italy underwent an alarming diminution, and its fair provinces were overspread partly by parasitic immigrants, partly by sheer desolation. A considerable portion of the population of Italy flocked to foreign lands. Already the aggregate amount of talent and of working power, which the supply of Italian magistrates and Italian garrisons for the whole domain of the Mediterranean demanded, transcended the resources of the peninsula, especially as the elements thus sent abroad were in great part lost for ever to the nation (ibid., p. 393).

 

And what is equally important to explain the loss of Latin stock, the thousands of soldiers in foreign countries (Augustus had over 100,000 in foreign garrisons alone), when retiring from their service careers, more often than not chose for their pension-lands, territory outside of Italy. Merivale shows that by the first century D. C. “there were no tracts of land of public domain left within the Alps for the state to distribute in public grants” (ibid. p. 395). The veterans had to take provincial areas, especially those in Gaul, Spain, and North Africa, as their demobilization pay. This was not objected to by the veterans because Italy just wasn’t productive enough to live on, especially if the holding was small. The veteran normally chose the immediate area in which he had been stationed for his twenty some years service. Let us remember that the garrisoned soldier often had his family with him — it was not unlike the armed forces today in this regard.

However, when the Caesars finally awoke to the disastrous effect that this draining of the Latin population was having to the native hold on Italy, the process of the unwitting de-Latinization of Italy had gone so far that it became impossible to do anything about it. Of course, the state tried to reverse the situation. Lands were even bought up in Italy and many veterans were forced to take up residence in their homeland. But this even backfired! The veterans, yearning for the better provincial areas, soon sold their lands to the large landowners and went back to the new provinces. In fact, all the legislation regarding the strengthening of the Latin stock in the home country came to nothing. “They (the laws) fell in fact into immediate disuse, or rather were never acted upon at all” (Merivale, vol. II, p.397).

In summing up, Professor Duff gives us a keen insight on what was happening in Italy and why the Latin race went under with a new stock taking its place:

 

Among all the causes of the change of race (apart from manumission) war was the most important. The armies of the late Republic and civil wars had consisted largely of Italians, who, if they were not killed off, were at least deprived of domestic life during their prime. Meanwhile the freedmen, usually excluded from the army, and the freedman’s descendant, never a keen soldier, were allowed an uninterrupted family life and produced offspring with greater freedom. Moreover, after his twenty years’ service, it was frequently the case that the legionary never returned home, but joined his fellow veterans to found a colony in the province where he had served.

 

The Roman thus gave away to the Easterner in Italy, while he made a place for himself in the provinces (Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, pp. 201, 202).

 

What a strange situation! By the first century B.C., Italy found itself stocked with slaves (Merivale says at least two-thirds were of servile origin at this time), and the natives were constantly leaving the country. And, of those free-born who remained in Italy, the thought of propagation was not taken seriously while the slaves were producing many times the offspring. It can easily be seen how this slave population — the vast majority were from Asia Minor and Syria — replaced the old stock.

On top of this, there was a strong movement in the first century B.C. of freeing slaves — letting them take over the activities of the former free-born who had left or was leaving the country. The rate of emancipation was so high that laws were finally enacted to curtail the practice. For what was happening? Simply this: thousands of slaves were becoming freedmen and by virtue of this, they became the new Roman citizens. The emancipations or manumissions were not done a corner, but were becoming the fashion of the day by the beginning of our era. When a slave owner died, he often freed every slave in his household — and some households had upwards of several thousand. These ex-slaves — now freedmen and consequently Roman citizens — were the most energetic of peoples in Italy. They were the ones, who as slaves, had done the business, the teaching, the doctoring, the farming, the building, etc., while the rich Roman did nothing but amuse himself and the poverty stricken free-born was shifting for himself, more often than not on the dole and idle. Now, that thousands of these slaves were gaining their freedom, they continued their trading and business activities. They became the energetic stock of Italy.

The Cambridge Ancient History says:

 

With thoughtful citizens, partly owing to the Stoic doctrine of the fraternity of man, humaner views gradually spread and made for amelioration in the lot of servitude, and for so much readiness in masters to liberate slaves that Augustus, recognizing the serious infiltration of alien blood into the body politic, introduced restrictions on manumission. Yet this proved but a slight check, and Tacitus records a significant remark that ‘if freedmen were marked off as a separate grade, then the scanty number of free-born would be evident.’ This shows how very few native free-born were left in Italy by our era. This freemen were now freedmen — ex-slaves or their descendants. They were taking over the complete population. The rise of successful freedmen to riches made a social change of the utmost moment, and the wealth amassed by a Narcissus or a Pallas gives point to Martial’s use of ‘wealthy freedmen’ as something proverbial (vol. VI, pp. 755, 756).

 

The ex-slaves, now freedmen, who really made names for themselves were generally from Syrian or Eastern extraction.

 

It seems unquestionable that the slaves from the eastern provinces were numerically preponderant in Rome, and — what is still more important — that they played a more important part in Roman life. . . . The large population of slaves gave rise to a numerous class of foreign origin, the liberti or freedmen, which came to play an important part in the life of the city. Rome’s policy of manumitting slaves was very liberal and the grant of freedom and citizenship made it possible for them to become merged in the citizen body of Rome. Former slaves and sons of slaves spread into trades and crafts that required civil standing, and in Cicero’s day it was these people who already constituted the larger element of the plebian classes (La Piana, Foreign Groups in Rome, pp. 190, 191).

 

These freedmen from the East began to take over almost all of the active enterprises which govern society and commerce as a whole. By the first century, freedmen were beginning to be so powerful — their number far out did any Latin stock that remained — that even top governmental posts were coming their way.

 

One thing which must, most of all, have shocked the aristocracy, even though of recent date, was the large number of Orientals, especially freedmen, who — had been given some of the highest posts in the empire (Cambridge Ancient History, vol. X, p. 727).

 

This history goes on and on showing personal incidents of Oriental ex-slaves gaining posts that only the Latin aristocracy could hold in the Republic. In fact, these ex-slaves finally took over almost complete control. Tacitus complains that in Nero’s day most of the senators and members of the aristocracy were now men of ex-slave status — and most of these were of Eastern origin.

Ex-slaves became so powerful that in Nero’s time they were put in charge of the highest governmental offices — a thing which an ancient republican Roman would have gasped at.

 

The reign of Nero saw no abatement in the power of the imperial freedmen (ex-slaves). When Agrippina was accused of treason, freedmen were present to hear her defense. One of Nero’s freedmen, Polyclitus, was actually employed as an arbitrator between a senator and a knight; for when Suetonius Paullinus, the legate of Britain, had disputes with his procurator, Polycritus was sent to settle their differences. He proceeded to the island (of Britain) with the gorgeous train of an Oriental potentate, but the barbarians failed to comprehend why their conqueror should bow the knee to a slave. When Nero went on his theatrical tour to Greece he left the freedman, Helius, in charge of Rome.  Twelve years before this menial had been employed by Nero to murder Silanus; and was now absolute master of the imperial city (Duff, pp. l78, 179).

 

These instances of freedmen taking over the government are not isolated cases. This was the general trend. Professor Duff gives examples of how in times after Nero, the descendants of these ex-slaves were the power behind the throne.  In fact, by the third century even many of the Emperors were actually descendants of the slaves of earlier centuries.

 

The denationalized capital of the great empire, came to be ruled by the offspring of races which originally had come to the city only to serve (La Piana, Foreign Groups in Rome, p. 223).

 

Let us not for a moment forget that by the first century B.C. the urban populace of the cities in all Italy were of slave or ex-slave extraction. These are the clear findings of the historians. The taking over the government by the descendants of slaves was brought about because the major population, by the end of the first century A. D., was of ex-slave extraction — the former Latin nobles disappeared almost completely.

 

But however numerous the offspring of the servile classes, unless the Romans had been liberal in the practice of manumission, these people would not have merged with the civil population. Now, literary and legal records present abundant evidence of an unusual liberality in this practice at Rome, and the facts need not be repeated after the full discussion of Wallon, Buckland, Freulander, Dill, Lemonnier, and Cicotti. If there were any doubt that the laws passed in the early empire for the partial restriction of manumission did not seriously check the practice, the statistics given at the beginning of the paper should allay it. When from eighty to ninety per cent of the urban population proves to have been of servile extraction, we can only conclude that manumissions were not seriously restricted (Frank, ibid., pp. 698, 699).

 

Yes, by the first century of our era, the vast majority of free Italians were now ex-slaves or the descendants of ex-slaves. “By far the larger part — perhaps ninety per cent — had Oriental blood in their veins” (Ibid.,  p. 690).

 

The Effect of the Race Change

 

Professor Frank can now be called on to analyze the overall effect of this change. His findings, along with others, now make many things hitherto somewhat unclear, just as clear as daylight! Many enigmas are now explained! Let us notice what he relates.

 

This Orientalization of Rome’s populace has a more important bearing than is usually accorded it upon the larger question of why the spirit and acts of imperial Rome ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT from those of the republic. There was a complete change in the temperament! There is today a healthy activity in the study of the economic factors that contributed to Rome’s decline. But what lay behind and constantly reacted upon all such causes of Rome’s disintegration was, after all, to a considerable extent, the fact that the people who had built Rome HAD GIVEN WAY TO A DIFFERENT RACE. The lack of energy and enterprise, the failure of foresight and common sense, the weakening of moral and political stamina, all were concomitant with the gradual diminution of the stock which, during the earlier days, had displayed these qualities. It would be wholly unfair to pass judgment upon the native qualities of the Orientals without a further study, or to accept the self-complacent slurs of the Romans, who, ignoring certain imaginative and artistic qualities, chose only to see in them unprincipled and servile egoists. We may even admit that had these new races had time to amalgamate and attain a political consciousness a more brilliant and versatile civilization might have come to birth (ibid., p. 705).

 

Professor Frank has given us the answer, which has long puzzled people: why is the temperament of the early Roman so utterly different from the Italian of Constantine’s time? As the Cambridge Ancient History puts it:

 

What of the enormous change in intellectual outlook and spiritual atmosphere between Augustus and Constantine? Is not the result something more Oriental than Greek or Roman in type and temper? (vol. XII, p. 448).

 

The answer is plain. It is not the ancient Roman gradually changing his basic temperament; this change represents a change of race. The later intellectual and spiritual temperament of Constantine’s Italians are outright Oriental and totally different from the earlier Romans.

Let us notice the spiritual side of this change, not of temperament, but of race. These incoming races from Syria, Asia Minor and Phoenicia brought with them their Chaldean sun-worship and the mystery cults. The early Romans repudiated these Oriental religions, but the slaves, who soon became the greater part of the population and freedmen, accepted them outright. Professor Frank calls attention to this change from one type of religion to another. “It would be illuminating by way of illustration of this change to study the spread of the mystery religions.” What of this change? How did the Romans accept the Chaldean mystery religion?  Professor Frank answers:

 

May it not be that Occidentals who are actually of Oriental extraction, men of emotional nature, are simply finding in these cults the satisfaction that, after long deprivation, their temperaments naturally required?

 

Why of course. This is the clear answer. Most of the Oriental slaves brought their Chaldean religion right with them into Italy. Then, when later, in the first and second centuries of our era, the new Gnostic-Chaldean cults springing up in Syria and Samaria, found fertile ground in the now Orientalized Italy. These Italians were the same type of peoples as those who were bringing in the new mystery cults. It is just that plain!

Professor Duff also notices the striking differences in the early race in Italy and the Oriental one which followed. He calls attention to the fact that these later “Romans” accepted the Oriental religions so quickly.

 

The cumulative effect of these Oriental religions helped to break the old Roman character. Another more powerful solvent was also inherited from slavery and manumissions. The profuse intermixture of race, containing without interruption from 200 B.C. far into the history of the Empire, PRODUCED A TYPE UTTERLY DIFFERENT FROM THAT WHICH CHARACTERIZED THE HEROES OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC. Instead of the hardy and patriotic Roman with his proud indifference to pecuniary gain, we find too often under the Empire an idle pleasure-loving cosmopolitan whose patriotism goes no further than applying for the dole and swelling the crowds in the amphitheatre (ibid., pp. 205, 206).

 

Yes, what a difference! This change cannot be explained as being a gradual change in temperament. It goes much deeper than that. As the work by the Encyclopedia Britannica says:

 

Slavery was the most determined enemy of that spirit of conservatism and tradition which had been the strength of the Roman race. The slaves did not spring from the soil of Rome, their recollections and affections were elsewhere, and when they became citizens they did not hesitate to welcome foreign customs and to introduce them into the city. Whilst the statesmen and leading men wore themselves out in trying to preserve what remained of the ancient spirit and old customs, down below, amongst those classes of the populace which were constantly being recruited from slavery, there was a continual working to destroy it. It was thus that, thanks to this secret and powerful influence, new religions easily spread throughout the empire (Historians History of the World, vol. 6, p. 365).

 

It was this new, ex-slave population — now the people of the land, the new Italians — who readily absorbed and propagated these Chaldean mystery cults. It was in their nature to do so.

“In short,” says Professor Frank, “the mystery cults permeated the city, Italy, and the western provinces only to such an extent as the city, Italy, and the provinces were permeated BY THE STOCK THAT HAD CREATED THOSE RELIGIONS” (ibid., p. 707).

What foresight! How correct Professor Frank is!

Those mystery religions had their creation in ancient Babylon. These vast hordes of Easterners who had come or had been brought to Italy to make their new homes, were saturated with Chaldeans — literal Chaldeans, from Babylon, Syria, Samaria, and Phonecia. Almost the whole new Italian stock was Shemitic and that was largely Babylonian by origination.

 

In the third and fourth centuries A.D., when even the aristocracy at Rome was almost completely foreign, these Eastern cults, rather than those of old Rome, became the centers of ‘patrician’ opposition to Christianity. In other words, the western invasion of the mystery cults in hardly a miraculous conversion of the even-tempered, practical-minded Indo-European to an orgiastic emotionalism foreign to his nature.  THESE RELIGIONS CAME WITH THEIR PEOPLES, and so far as they gained new converts, they attracted for the most part people of Oriental extraction who had temporarily fallen away from native ways in the western world (ibid., p. 708).

 

How true that observation is! There was practically a complete change of race between the third century B.C. and the time of Constantine — the Shemite had come! As Professor Duff states:

 

The fact that the Romans who resisted Hannibal (late 3rd century B.C.) and those who succumbed to the Goths (5th century A.D.) WERE TOTALLY DIFFERENT PEOPLES is one of the main explanations of the decline and fall” (Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, Oxford University Press, p. 207).

 

With the observations of these historians, perhaps it will be in order to bring in God’s revelation on this matter. That is, do peoples change their basic natures?

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, Or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jer. 13:23).

“Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?” (Jer. 2:11).

How plain the whole matter is, the later ‘Romans’ didn’t change their gods. They were basically Babylonian by race and brought their Babylonian gods and worship with them to Italy.

Historians have long been aware of the striking similarities between ancient Babylonian civilization and that of Rome — particularly Medieval Rome. Professor Sayce, the noted historian of Near Eastern nations, gave a remarkable parallel between Babylon and later Rome.

 

Babylon remained (after the time of Solomon) the capital of the Kingdom and the holy city of Western Asia.  Like the sovereigns of the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, it was necessary for the prince, who claimed rule in Western Asia, to go to Babylon and there be acknowledged as the adopted son of Bel before his claim to legitimacy could be admitted. Babylon became more and more a priestly city, living on its ancient prestige and merging its ruler INTO A PONTIFF. From this time down to the Persian era, it was the religious head of the civilized East” (Historians History of the World, pub. by the Ency. Brit. vol. 1, p. 364).

 

Such a parallel could hardly be accidental. Just as the rulers of Asia Minor, Syria, Assyria, and Babylon had to be acknowledged by the Pontifex Maximus of Babylon, so the later rulers of Austria, Germany, France, and Spain had to be recognized by the Pontifex Maximus of Rome — the Pope!

How plain it is that the Babylonians have made an exact replica of ancient Babylon. Rome is the new Babylon.

 

CHAPTER TWO

From Babylon to Syria

 

That the people of the later Roman Empire were basically from Syria and Asia Minor is without doubt! These “Syrians” replaced the old stock of Rome. As plain as this is, however, it is one thing to say that these new Romans were transplanted Syrians, but quite another to prove that they, were basically Babylonians. Realizing that evidence must be given, this portion of the article is designed to fill the gap. We will use Biblical and secular sources to show, without doubt, that Syria in the last centuries before our era was saturated with Babylonian stock. This being shown to be true, it will then follow that the slaves taken to Rome from the Levant area must represent the same general stock. The reality of this Babylonian movement to Italy will be self-evident as we proceed in the article.

Let us first note that the Bible tells us to expect Babylonians in Rome! The Book of Revelation locates the new Babylon on the city of the seven hills. And, as we have seen, the Roman stock which brought about Babylonian religion to Italy, were the people “who created those religions.” Does this not indicate a Chaldean movement into Italy? It certainly does! These people were primarily from Syria.

It only remains for us to find out who those Syrians were.

 

The Bible the Key

 

All have recognized that the Bible gives information about several Babylonian nations being transported into the old hill country of Ephraim — into Samaria! But what is not generally known is that scripture reveals these Babylonians as being not only in the Samaritan area — they were placed in ALL the areas west of the Euphrates — IN ALL OF SYRIA!

 We normally restrict the Babylonian colonization of the West only to Samaria, but from the records of the Samaritans, those of the Jews and especially the records of the Bible, we can prove that these Babylonians were not limited alone to Samaria. Babylonian peoples were settled in Syria and Phoenicia as well as Samaria!  Let us carefully observe, first, the Biblical record of this matter.

 

What the Bible Says!

 

When the Jews were rebuilding the temple right after the Babylonian captivity, the peoples of Samaria came to the Jews and said: “Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither” (Ezra 4:2).

The Jews declined this Samaritan petition because of their utterly corrupt religion. This refusal infuriated the Samaritans. They resolved to thwart any attempt to rebuild the temple if they couldn’t have a hand in it. Thereupon, they wrote a letter to the king of Persia asking him to put a stop to the building. The contents of this letter is interesting because it reveals a lot more about the origin of the Samaritans and about where they were living in Palestine than any other Biblical reference. And the Bible has recorded this letter to afford us a key as to the distribution of Babylonians west of the Euphrates. Let us notice what these Samaritans said of themselves.

 

Then wrote Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions; the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnapper (Asshur-banipal) brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, AND THE REST THAT ARE ON THIS SIDE OF THE RIVER (i.e., west of the Euphrates), and at such a time (Ezra 4:9, 10).

 

Let us first notice that these tribes were all SHEMITES! (Almost all were from Mesopotamia with the exception of some Elamites from Persia). The major core were from the area of Babylon!

And more importantly, note that these nations (they were whole nations) were settled not only in the cities of Samaria, but also in the REST on this side the River — that is, the rest of the cities west of the Euphrates. This side the River:

 

This was the ordinary designation of Syria in the official language of the old Persian Empire (Bevan, The House of Seleucus, vol. I, p. 234).

 

How clear it all is!  These Eastern peoples were brought into the whole region THAT WE NOW CALL SYRIA, and not alone to Samaria. They were brought there to fill up the devastation and the void which hung on the land after the Assyrian wars. Let us remember that Northern Israel was emptied of Israelites — the Samaritan portion of these people came in to replace them. On the other hand, we are told that ancient Syria — north of Israel — was also invaded by Assyrian and that many of the ancient Arameans were taken back to northern Assyria. It was, like the land of Israel, left practically empty! The prophet Amos (Chapter 1:3-5) foretold that the Arameans were to be taken captive by the Assyrians to KIR (the Kir valley area just south of the Caucasus). This prophecy probably does not mean that every single Aramean was taken away — even though on the surface that is what the prophecy says. However a good deal of the native stock of ancient Aram were removed, like Israel, from their land. Those few who were left must have amalgamated with the incoming stock from the East. The land of Syria was repopulated, just like the land of Israel, with people allied with Assyria. After all, the eastern seaboard area of the Mediterranean was one of the most strategic to Assyria. They didn’t move exiles or rebellious nations, into the Syrian and Palestine areas — that would have been the height of folly. Besides, Syria and Samaria were never regions of exile like the Caucasus and Caspian Sea areas. These people were colonists. Many of them came from regions annexed to Assyria by Esar-haddon, but they were his allies. They came to redevelop the land — to strengthen it for Assyria. It would have been a crazy maneuver to place rebellious tribes into an area bordering the naturally rebellious Egypt. Babylonian nations were being granted these lands by Assyria in order to stabilize the western flank of the empire and to make it secure. Later, when the Babylonian empire came along, these very people proved to be even more helpful. During the time of the Persian empire, these Babylonians — with a few other Shemitic peoples — were still in the Syrian region. They were, as the Bible says “in all the areas west of the Euphrates.”

Even the records of the Samaritans and the Jews support the above information. Josephus mentions an official letter of the Samaritans which was written to Antiochus Epiphanes in which the Samaritans stated that their forefathers had at one time lived in the northern area near the city of Sidon. See Antiquities, Book XII, ch. 5, sec. 5.  In fact, the Samaritans from Babylon had kinfolk all along the northern area of the Phoenician coast. Sidon was the center of this Babylonian influence.

In Assyrian times this ancient city of Sidon had been completely destroyed by Esar-haddon king of Assyria — the Sidonian king was killed and all the former people taken captive. Esar-haddon tells how the destruction came about in his own official cuneiform records. He states that after Sidon’s destruction, he rebuilt the city and, naming it after himself, restocked it with people from the countries of the East. This official record can be checked in The Assyrian Eponym Canon, pp. 137, 138. This cuneiform record is the first of Esar-haddon bringing peoples from the East to the Phoenician seaboard. It agrees remarkably with the Bible record, when the Scriptures state that these Samaritans and their kin had come into the area “since the days of Esar-haddon, king of Assur, WHICH BROUGHT US UP HITHER” (Ezra 4:2). The Assyrian record and the Bible are speaking about the same peoples!

It was Esar-haddon who brought up these Babylonian and Elamite people; he first put them in his new city of SIDON. It is no wonder that the Samaritans told Antiochus that their original home was the area around SIDON.  That is where those from Samaria were first placed. There can be no doubt of this for these Samaritans even asked Antiochus to check “the public records.” There were state records which clearly showed that the Samaritans were telling the truth in this matter. When Antiochus answered their letter, after having checked those public records, he addressed them as “the Sidonians who live at Shechem” (ibid.). Even Josephus himself refers to them as SIDONIANS of recent origin (but at the same time saying they anciently came from Eastern countries). Plus all this, the Jewish Targum written about 50 B. C., referring to Genesis 10, calls SIDON a Samaritan city. It calls it Cutha — the city of the Cuthites. (Cuthites was, and still is, the name the Jews use for the Samaritans.)

Now what does this all prove? Very much! It serves to indicate that the Samaritan influence was not only limited to the hill country of Ephraim — the Samaritans were only a part of many nations brought over from Babylon into Palestine and Syria. Sidon was the first big stronghold of them (they were not called Samaritans in Sidon because the word ‘Samaritan’ is geographical and can only be used of those in Samaria). These Babylonians who lived in Sidon were called Sidonians, they were, of course, the same stock as the Samaritans. Likewise the transplanted Babylonians in the other cities west of the Euphrates were not called Samaritans, but were still of the same stock. There was a major difference between the Babylonians in Samaria and the Babylonians in Sidon and Syria (not in race but in religion): the Samaritans accepted the Old Testament Law as a basis for their idolatrous religion, while the others, at first, cared little for accepting the Old Testament. This singled out the Samaritans as being somewhat different from the others in Syria but they were all of the same general race.

So, what is the outcome of this? It means that the Bible puts Babylonians in all the cities of Syria and Phoenicia as well as in Samaria, and that the secular records support it. Thus, Babylonian influence in the West was much greater in scope than has hitherto been realized by some historians. But there is more to come!

 

Syria Becomes the New Babylon

 

We now come to a matter concerning ancient history that all historians accept. And that is: The Seleucid kingdom (called ‘the kingdom of the north’ in Daniel) can be designated a Babylonian kingdom! Yes, actually a Babylonian kingdom.

It has been customary to call the Seleucid realm a Greco-Macedonian regime. And, this is true — but only on the surface. Let us see.

After Alexander the Great had conquered Asia, he made as capital of this vast eastern domain, the city of Babylo