Understanding the Leadership Failures and Cruelty in the Roman Empire

Some are born into leadership and others are born with leadership skills. This held true for those who ran the Roman Empire. Some may argue that that the Roman Empire holds the title of being one of the greatest, most victorious empires in the history of the world, though what people often do not know is the fallacies that its leadership inquired. In 117 AD, at the peak of their conquest, power, and imperial nation, the Romans encompassed nearly 5 million square kilometers of land, though it certainly was quantity not quality. From exploitation and genocide to a lack of their own culture, and ideas of sexism and inequality, the Roman Empire was remarkably cruel to its people and ultimately, not beneficial to the world.

Slavery was a longstanding barbarity in the ancient Roman world. Slavery meant complete dominance over another individual. Slaves were present in the everyday life of Rome, from households, to the agricultural subdivision of the Roman Empire, as well as with a wide range of other services in Rome. Slavery was commonplace in the Roman culture, so second nature that slaves eventually became invisible to the rest of the world, and justice towards them was nowhere near a possibility. Children who were born to a slave mother were automatically enslaved.

Those civilians of countries who the Roman Empire conquered were exploited and slavery essentially became their only way of survival. Because of the popularity slavery had in Rome and the influence the Roman Empire had on the rest of the world, through the years in history, it is possible that slavery is one of the biggest forms of exploitation today. That endless and vicious cycle definitely has had a negative impact on the world.
Genocide is among all the other catastrophic events that happened under the Roman Empire regimen. Many of Rome’s emperors persecuted Christians in attempts to completely abolish the religion. At the time, Christianity was believed to be denomination of Judaism not a religion of its own. As Christianity’s popularity arose, those running the Roman Empire wanted to keep harmony with Roman mythology. Diocletian, a Roman Emperor, was known as the leader for greatest hostile behavior against Christians, a time known as the Great Persecution. Under Diocletian's reign, over 20,000 Christians were executed. The Roman Army, too, exiled nearly 1 million Jews, and put one hundred thousand Jews into slavery. Furthermore, another act committed by the Romans to annihilate a group of people was after the Roman Empire had annexed Carthage. Before Carthage was conquested, it was a “superpower” in competition with Rome. During the Fall of Carthage, a time when the Roman Empire was destroying Carthage and its people, their population “reduced from 500,000 to 55,000” (Durant, Caesar and Christ) due to Roman forces.
Moreover, the Romans and their culture is definitely unoriginal because most of their culture is practically stolen from the Greeks. Through their few original creations, though, much of what the Roman culture brought was dangerous and brutal. Having said that, saying that the Romans “adopted” the Greek culture glorifies the idea of stealing. While it is true that Greek Mythology and Roman Mythology are distinctively different, the concept of what these stories were supposed to bring upon Roman and Greek Mythology believers was morality. So, if speaking in timely manner, when comparing Roman and Greek Mythology, the Iliad, the tales and stories on Greek Mythology, comes many years before Aeneid, the manuscript of Roman Mythology stories. One of the few many creations or ideas created by the Romans was the Colosseum where gladiator fights took place. Individuals who were sent to fight for their life in this blood bath, deadly sport included but was not limited to, slaves, those who owed money, prisoners of war, and criminals. Because of this, the Roman culture played no beneficial role to the world rather than glorifying death through life-threatening sports.
Sexist ideas and inequality were among other wickedly popular concepts in the Roman World. The brutal truth is that females in the Roman Empire had little to no power or “opinionated voice” during the time of Roman dominance. With that being said, in Roman mythology, one of the first most famous stories, Rape of Sabine Women, centers its message around men from the Roman culture abducting women from Sabine families to marry them. This act on Roman’s part portrays women as property and inhumane, rather than a person who has the right to choose their own husband. Or someone who can make choices of her own, as this should be a human right, nonetheless. Another instance in which the Roman Empire poorly paints an image on who the Romans were is with their code of laws, the Twelve Tables. The fourth table in the set of Roman laws was concerning the male-head of a family and his marriage. Like the fourth table, the fifth table in the Twelve Tables are laws in regards to estates and guardianship. Both of these tables are in favor of males. One of the many very sexist laws that preexisted in the set of Roman laws was: “When the head of a family dies intestate, and leaves a proper heir who has not reached the age of puberty, his nearest agnate shall obtain the guardianship.” So to speak in the common language today, the law essentially is saying that if the father dies without leaving a will and leaves behind a children that have not yet hit puberty, his nearest closest male relative, inherits his property. A daughter or female cousin would not be able to inherit the property simply for being a female. If that is not gender biased, then I fail to understand what else could be. Nowhere in the set of laws does a wife or woman have any “rights.” Because of this, assuming that sexism was very common in the Roman culture is the only option to have.
Despite all of what seems to be “victory and glory” the Romans and their empire had, misconceptions on this empire are more times than not misunderstood.

Even if it may seem as if the Romans had a lot to brag about, their transfer of power was definitely not peaceful. What good does it do to have power when all that power is only an atrocity. Enslaving humans, attempting to annihilate groups of people, glorifying death, and being unequal within their own people only proves the point that their ultimatum was not beneficial to the rest of the world, as it negatively influenced it. Dominance over others does nothing more than imbed a lack of freedom, and this seems true for those living in the Roman

Empire.