NATIONS IN PROPHECY

ROME

A BRIEF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Having knowledge of the European Union, we now want to take a look at the history of Rome, – one of the grandest cities in the world.

Roman history begins in a small village in central Italy. It was to grow into a small metropolis, conquering all of Italy, Southern Europe, the Middle East and Egypt. By the start of AD time, it became the most powerful and largest empire in the world. It was able to rule the entire world under a single administration for a considerable amount of time.

This imperial rule, which extended from Great Britain to Egypt, from Spain to Mesopotamia, was a period of remarkable peace. The Romans would look to their empire as the instrument that brought law and justice to the rest of the world. They were in actual fact, bringing peace and stability to the world.

However, being a military state, they ruled over this vast territory by maintaining a strong military presence. The Romans devoted much of their brilliance to military strategy and technology, administration, and law, all in support of the vast world government that they built.

Rome, however, was responsible for more than just military and administrative genius. Culturally, the Romans had a slight inferiority complex in regards to the Greeks, who had begun their city-states only a few centuries before the rise of the Roman republic. The Romans, however, derived much of their culture from the Greeks: art, architecture, philosophy, and even religion. This was very much due to the penetration of the Greek culture into the Roman lifestyle at the time of the fall of the empire. However, the Romans changed much of this culture, adapting it to their own particular worldview and practical needs. It is this changed Greek culture (Greco-Roman culture) that was handed down to the European civilisations in late antiquity and the Renaissance.

By the fourteen century, the great ancient city had dwindled to a miserable village. It was dwarfed in wealth and power by the great commercial cities and territorial states further north, from Florence to Venice. Due to the ruins, even Popes fled to southern France. They returned, however, in the Renaissance, and straightened streets, raised bridges, provided hospitals, fountains and new churches for the public and splendid palaces and gardens for themselves. They drew on all the riches of its art and architecture as a means to display the power and glory of the church. Pilgrims were attracted to the city from all of Christian Europe and this made Rome even the richer. The central administration of the church thereby developed to become one of the most efficient governments in Europe.

Even up to this day, papal efforts remain to make Rome a state that can wield political and spiritual power. Such knowledge brings forth understanding of events and happenings that will happen in the last days as we await His return!

Beryl Ng
Dip.Ed,B.A., BA(B.Th)
Assistant Registrar
El-Shaddai Conventions

Copyright © Beryl Ng, 1997
This article was first published in the Word Aflame Newsletter, of El-Shaddai Conventions,
The Training Arm of our Vision.

Bibliography

1. Vatican Exhibit Rome Reborn, http://www.sunsite.unc.edu/expo/vatican.exhibit/Vatican.exhibit.html
2. Rome : History, http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/

Further readings

1. Decadence, Rome and Romania, and the Emperors Who Weren't & Other Reflections on Roman History, http://www.friesian.com/decdenc1.htm
2. Archaeology, Learning to Read Rome's Ruins, http://www.sunsite.unc.edu/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/b-archeology/Archaeology.html