Thursday 12.2 - Good and Bad Emperor, part 1

He does persecute Christians. I mentioned to you yesterday it was because of blaming them for the fire in Rome. Many believe that he did start that fire in Rome in 64 AD because he wanted to build himself a huge palace that he did right there after the fire and things have been there. He came in and built himself a gigantic palace that actually bankrupted Rome in doing so, and then he would later kill himself after he was sentenced by the Roman people, really the Senate and whatnot because they said he committed treason, so he was just a very terrible individual. One of the most important things we have in Christian history is that he was responsible tradition says for the deaths of both the apostle Peter and the apostle Paul, he was responsible was the emperor when they were martyred. Okay, so the coliseum in 69 AD between 69 and 86 96, excuse me. We have a series of emperors that are known as the flavian. 

They were short dynasty. Their father vespasian and his two sons Titus and domitian. They are very significant, though, even in biblical history because they rule during the time of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. If you remember when Jesus was on earth he prophesied that the temple would be destroyed and in 70 AD it was exactly what took place and so they were under the space scene was the emperor at the time and then Titus was the general that brought that about. And so there was the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, many of us are familiar with Pompeii and that took place in 79 AD, and there was also both a fire and a plague that devastates the city of Rome in 80 AD, of which he is ruling during that time. He is, though, very famous in knowing in creating two important things. One was the coliseum, and the arch of Titus, both of those were built during their reigns, the reigns of the Spacey and Titus into mission. And so one of the most iconic pieces of Roman history is the coliseum. And so many of us have read about the coliseum. Let's take a look though and see what the coliseum was like and how it was built, shall we? The Coliseum, Roman Empire the coliseum is located in Rome, Italy, also known as the flavian amphitheater, it is an oval amphitheater at the largest ever built construction began under emperor vespasian around 70 to 72 AD and was completed under his successor and heir, Titus. 

In 80 AD, further modifications were made during the flavian dynasty, so the amphitheater was named as the amphitheatrum flavium or flavian amphitheater. It stood at 50 meters high and a 156 meters wide and was constructed from concrete and sand. Arches and columns frame the structure and strengthened it is at 80 exits and entrances, 76 of which were used by ordinary citizens. A coliseum was also covered by a controllable velarium to shade spectators from the sun, nearby the coliseum stood the colossus of Nero, a great bronze statue later changed to a statue of the sun God sol. The arena was made of a wooden floor covered by sand. Around it were the spectators seats determined by the citizens importance with the best seats reserved for senators, special boxes were reserved for the emperor. The coliseum could hold around 70,000 spectators, under the arena, was the hypogeum still visible today. This was a series of underground tunnels used to house animals imported from Africa and the Middle East, such as lions, rhinos, and panthers, which could be released through trapdoors, the hypogeum was also used to release slaves through lifts and to create different moving scenarios scenery, such as hills, groves, and small lakes. 

The arena hosted a variety of blood sports as entertainment. The schedule for the day consisted of men hunting dangerous animals and executions of criminals, but the main event would be the gladiatorial combat. Ancient writers wrote about mock sea battles or Norma key eye before the hypogeum was developed. It is speculated that hydraulic mechanisms were used to flood the arena rapidly for such naval battles. Gladiatorial combat and public entertainment was shown at the coliseum all the way until the 6th century AD when costs became too high to justify it and public taste had shifted. Over the centuries, it was reused for various purposes, such as a material quarry. Today is as the symbol of Rome and one of the most visited archeological sites all over the world. Subscribe for more history videos. Okay, so moving on, hold on second here. Let me just shift on to the next. If it will let me. There we go. All right. So Mount Vesuvius, many of us have heard the stories about Mount Vesuvius. And yes, it is a it is a volcano that was located south of the city of Naples, it's still an active volcano today, however it hasn't had quite the eruption that it would have seen in 79 AD. That was quite quite an amazing thing that took place. 

In 79 AD, the volcano absolutely completely blew the top off, the volcano, and it buried two cities, the city of Pompeii and the city of herculaneum, and there was a population that was between 16 to 20,000 people, Pompeii was a very important port city to the Roman Empire at this time. So much so that when this took place, there was actually an attempt by the Roman navy under a historian by the name of pliny the younger, are planning to have plenty of the younger who actually comes in and tries to rescue and evacuate people from this island. However, it was not super successful. But one thing that's fascinating is this volcano completely buried these two cities and it was unheard of. Nobody knew about it really after the fall of Rome and nothing was written about it. There wasn't anything there, and then it wasn't until the 1700s in which it was discovered again, and so they began to excavate the site of Pompeii. I believe if I'm right, Pompeii is the longest ongoing meaning it's not stopped, archeological dig site in world history, since the 1700s there have been constant digging and working through trying to find it. And it really gives us a window into the life of the Roman Empire and the early 70s of 70s AD. 

It gives us an understanding of that because of everything was buried. So it was like a time capsule that was brought in there. I want to show you just though about how this attempt was made to save the people of Pompeii. There's pliny right there. Pompey is typically known for a terrible disaster. An eruption of a volcano. Varying two very significant Roman cities. For the better part of 1500 years, we're over forgotten. One of the interesting and little known facts is Pompeii was a port town. It was like today the port of Hong Kong. So it was a really big part. Pompeii was a port so significant that the Roman navy sought to put a Flint to sea in an attempt to save the people of pompei. The Roman navy has his own base in that museum. It was very close to pay. On that day, our clown was noticed over my semen. It was drawn to the attentional plenty of elder, who was a natural historian. He was the naval commander at my semen, which was the main naval base of the Roman Empire. He later got a letter from his friend Rick Tina, who lived at the base of the mountain, and she said, please come and risk me, escape is now only possible by sea. 

So plenty of reaction was basically to send out the entire fleet on a rescue mission. It was unable to land where he intended due to the rafts of hummus, but also to rise in a falling of the sea level due to the magma emptying from the right magma chamber beneath the surface. We need to decide what to send his ship and the ships with him further south to stabia, which is also affected by the eruption. And just after dawn, it was a huge part as a quieter came out of the service that swept into Pompeii, everybody. And it was either this one or one person after that also reached stadium. They got to run when they realized the surge was on its way. He collapsed and died, so either the gas and the ash was too much for his lungs or he turned the heart attack. Rescue is important because it is the first time that he may be trying to save people. We know the navy like to fight to make a war, but not to save the people, but this time they tried to save the people. Escape from Pompeii on now for a limited season. 

Okay, so you can see there was an attempt that was made to save a lot of lives and of course Pompeii is a fascinating thing to study as if you ever want to do a project on this period. Pompeii and the words of pliny. I gave pliny the younger the younger was the one who was his son, who would follow him later and of course there was words from pliny the elder and the younger, and we have got counts both of those that help us detail that. Those are Roman historians. All right, so those are some bad emperors. We're going to start now looking at the 5 good emperors. Now, this again is the first part of two different videos today. I has to be that way because of the time constraints I have in the recording. And so you're going to finish watching this one and then you'll pick up for number two. So let's look at 5 good emperors. First of all, the first one we want to talk about really doesn't have a lot to say here. It's just the emperor nerva. He rules basically only two years and he's a good emperor, but probably he's good because he doesn't rain very long enough to really accomplish much. 

So, but we have to classify him as one of the good ones because his reign doesn't accomplish a whole lot, but he isn't compared to some of the others. He isn't this bloodthirsty, terrible ruler. One, however, that is a very great emperor is emperor Trajan. Trajan will rule from 98 to one 1780, and he's going to expand the boundaries of the Roman Empire, really extend how the Roman Empire he actually conquers a place that is called, which is part of modern day Romania. So he expands the empire outwards, and he is going to attempt, but will fail to conquer what would be called parthia at that time, which is actually part of modern day Iran today. So as you can see, he's trying to extend the empire much like the Persians. He's trying to go deep into the Mesopotamian region and take over land there. They had already controlled Syria. And so he's trying to go even further. Okay, but one of the things is that he's the reason he is considered to be great as he doesn't persecute Christians. 

During his reign there is a period of time in which there isn't this persecution. And that is a major major difference. All right, a couple more things about him. He helps the poor by giving out free grain and money. He's going to reduce the overall tax burden on a lot of people. And he the greatest thing he's going to do is overseeing the constructions of things like bridges and aqueducts and harbors. He will do an awful lot of again infrastructure work. Okay, I'm going to pause it right here, make sure that you have this