65. The Pax Romana

A second triumvirate was formed

That hunted the traitors.

The last of the Romans

Fell over Caesar’s token

Across the river Styx

As the battle for Rome’s future raged all around him.

The traitors died.

Antony met Caesar’s consort

Her country fell when he left

The snake took care of that.

The August one came

In the turmoil after the Julian.

Declaring himself princeps

He rested the exhausted Rome

On her glorious throne

Dressed in an empress’s gown.

During the august one’s reign

Rome grew fat with offerings.

She lay in peace and prosperity

On her throne

Surrounded by presents from across the land.

Silks from China,

Ivory from Africa,

Jewels and spices from India,

Gold and silver flowed from France

Her conquests took her to the Danube.

She was sung to sleep by great poets.

Virgil telling tales of Aeneas,

Horace singing to Grecian pots

Livy told the truth,

Ovid mixing history and myth.

As she rested her mighty head

Smiling to herself on the august one’s lap

He declared Rome to be at peace

Calling himself “Restorer of the world.”

After him dynasties came.

Julio Claudians provided stability,

Flavians gave Rome a proper public crown,

The five good ones spread the empire further.

Emperors came and went like weather.

Some were fair

Others stormy.

62. The Third Punic War

“Carthago Delenda Est…” (Cato the Elder 234 B.C. – 149 B.C.)

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

Sprang from the statesman’s ancient lips.

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

The senate yelled for blood.

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

The people want revenge.

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

Rome wanted revenge.

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

She screamed it with harpy’s fury.

“No more peace!”

“The time has come!”

“Take arms!”

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

Rome went

After Numidian problems.

Two years passed

Another Scipio made the charge to Hannibal’s city

Forcing his way in.

People were killed.

People were enslaved.

The city was razed to the ground.

The walls where Dido fell

Proclaiming endless hate

For the sons and daughters of Aeneas

Were gone.

Rome’s hate burned for Dido’s people too.

It could be seen in every Roman soldier.

Burning more intense

Than Dido’s own.

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

Echoing through history

Along with legion’s sandaled feet

Digging salt into the ground

Kicking it up

Into Roman eyes.

“Carthage must be destroyed!”

“Carthage was destroyed.”

61. The Second Punic War

Giving up in Sicily

Carthage tried for Iberia

Whose golden and silvery mountains

Could supply her expanding country.

Three kings came to Iberia.

Hamilcar who landed in Spain,

Hasdrupal who continued the campaign,

Hannibal who stepped on the foot of the country called Rome.

Rome declared war in a fit of rage.

But Hannibal surprised her

He crossed her great Alpine ridges

Bringing great and fearful elephants

To sac the fair city.

He was met by Roman forces and driven back.

His transgression was never forgotten.

A Scipio came

To take revenge for his country.

He traveled to Africa

Fighting the Carthage king at home

He won the name Africanus

A statue was erected

Among others

Decorating Rome’s streets

Like homages to gods.

Rome retaliated.

Her great band of legions

Relentlessly pushed outward.

Growing out of Europe.

Branching into new territories.

All of Iberia fell.

They came to Greece

After fighting through Macedonian mountains.

Where the marble men used to live.

They offered freedom and peace.

The Akhians bowed to them

Giving Aeneas his revenge for Illium’s destruction.

Rome made sacrifices

For her survival.

She dressed herself with Mediterranean blue

With hints of roses

In the bloody sacred spring.

60. The First Punic War

“Poor Dido!”

Carthage cried.

Our beautiful queen

Has died.

It was Aeneas

Who rejected her.

His descendants must pay.

Carthage looked up

At the growing Rome

Seeing that she wants the island of Sicily

“We will take it for ourselves,”

Carthage said.

You took our beautiful queen away

We’ll take the island.

Rome sent her men

Securing the island

Just as Carthage did the same.

Mercenaries,

Fleets of ships,

Legions clashed

For the beautiful island

To the south of her land.

Carthage’s navy had Rome cornered

But adapting well

The white republic

Built her ships

Overcoming Carthage in the end.

Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica

All fell to Rome’s might.

59. Roman Expansion

“With reason did gods and men choose this site: all its advantages make it of all places in the world the best for a city destined to grow great.”  (Livy 59 B.C.E. – 17 C.E.)

Rome became a powerful city.

Her neighbors feared the seven hilled city.

Veii, however, was to proud to bend to her power

For they had the support of the Etruscans.

Both cities fought constantly

Over land and leadership.

Neither gained advantage.

Wars came and went

The stalemate didn’t end

Until the city’s final ten year siege

With Camillus and his tunnel

Penetrating Veiian walls

Ending in surrender.

Rome had her first real taste of conquest.

She was hooked for life.

A Gallic sac later on

Fed the flame of bloodlust

That the Roman legion knew so well.

Rome eyed her neighbors

Like a hungry beast.

First she looked to the Latins

With their fertile lands.

Then the Samnites.

She declared war with them

Showing her great white fangs.

Pretending it was all in self defense

As she gobbled them up into slavery.

Peoples and cities fell to Rome.

The Umbrians

The Etruscans

Bowed down in forced dependence.

The Campanians were allies

But found themselves surrounded by their Roman neighbors.

Rome smiled brightly

When the child of Aeneas

Got her taste of Greek blood.

Tarentum sought the great king Pyrrhus.

Pyrrhus stood from his throne

Smiling at the opportunity and sent his armies west.

Many of those marble men fell to Rome.

Crumbling into dust

But Pyrrhus’s pillar still stood.

He raised more armies

Seeking help from neighbors

As he continued his march to Rome.

Even with the help he failed

Returning to Molossia to lick his wounds.

Rome continued to expand

Slowly filling out into the boot of Appenine.

56. Aeneas’s Journey

“Arms and the man I sing, the first who came

Compelled by fate an exile out of Troy…” (The Aeneid, Rolfe Humphies translation)

“Remember what they did”

Said the ghosts of Trojan women,

“Remember the fire.”

“The horse.”

“How they cut down our heroes”

“How they murdered us”

“Tearing our children from our comforting arms.”

Those words haunted him

As Aphrodite’s son escaped the mighty cyclopean walls.

His people burned.

They pleaded for help from Athena

But it was all in vain.

Hera’s hatred sent them to their doom.

Hector appeared to injured Aeneas in a dream.

“My brother,”

The fallen prince told him,

“Fate has given you a chance”

“To get even with those that did this.”

“Go west and you shall see.”

“In the land above Sicily.”

Aeneas and his family

Left the dead and ruined city.

To the ships they went

Eager to find this new promised land.

They came to Thrace

Where the black blood of Polydorus

Gave warnings of greed in the land

Sending them off once again.

Apollo’s island welcomed them

With great earthquake

They were off to Crete, the lonely Isle

Where, in a dream, he was told of Italus’ land.

Passed the turning point they traveled

Where flocks of harpies pestered them.

They followed Greek islands

Up to the lands that Alexander saved.

From there they sailed passed the boot

That will house their future home

To the land where Poseidon’s sons live.

They saved a man from the one eyed one.

Left carelessly by the horse maker on his way home.

Then between the treacherous rocky whirlpool and sister monster.

After surviving those two beasts

They met a storm stirred up by Hera

That brought them to rest on Dido’s mighty shores.

As Aeneas told his story

Aphrodite set the queen aflame.

In a cave on hunting trip

Came Dido’s poor undoing.

Aphrodite’s son promised marriage

But left her to fall to her grave

Cursing the Trojan race

And all who spring from them.

After a visit to Hades’ land

They went north to their promised fate.