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标题: 凯撒之死 [打印本页]

作者: thesunlover     时间: 2006-9-29 15:48     标题: 凯撒之死

公元前七八十年,地中海到处有海盗出没。他们抢劫从各地运往罗马的黄金和粮食。

一个罗马的年轻军官在海上被海盗俘虏了。他知道自己的处境十分危险,却一点也不害怕。他神色坦然地对海盗们说,如果他能回到罗马,一定要带领舰队来严惩他们。海盗们听了,纵声大笑,因为他们从来没碰到过这样一个敢于吹牛的人。后来,从罗马送来一大笔赎金,海盗就把这个军官放了。

过了些日子,这些海盗被罗马的海军俘获了。有人下令按照罗马人惩罚海盗的方式,把他们全部钉死在十字架上。海盗们临死前认出了站在他们面前发号施令的人,正是他们嘲笑过的那个俘虏。

这个说到做到的海军军官就是罗马史上有名的人物儒略·凯撒。他出身于破落的贵族,是一个既大胆、果断,又十分狡猾、很会随机应变的人。

罗马共和时代的后期,元老贵族和民主派之间的斗争非常尖锐。当时,罗马的属地已经遍及地中海沿岸。可是,享有公民权的只是罗马城内的奴隶主和自由民。至于城区以外、意大利各地和海外一些行省的自由民,尽管他们担负着和罗马自由民一样的义务,却享受不到罗马的公民权。他们不甘心处在这种受歧视的无权地位,曾经多次进行反抗和流血斗争,但是一直遭受顽固守旧的元老贵族的抵制和压迫。因此,他们和元老贵族的矛盾始终没有得到解决,使得罗马的政局长期动荡不安。

凯撒虽然是个贵族,但是他在政治上比较接近民主派,和许多民主派人物有着密切的关系。他又进行着反对元老贵族的活动。这就使他在平民群众中赢得了很高的声望。凯撒酷爱权力,有着强烈的个人野心,他接近平民是为了自己向上爬。公元前60年,他和罗马另外两个统帅庞培和克拉苏结成反对元老院贵族的秘密同盟,历史上称为“前三雄”。公元前58年,凯撒当了高卢(现在的法国)总督。仅仅在三四年的时间里,他不仅征服了高卢全境,而且击退了日耳曼人的入侵,把罗马西北的边界推进到莱茵河岸。不久,他又越过海峡攻入不列颠岛(现在的英国)。凯撒的赫赫战功和卓越的军事才能,越发增加了他在罗马人中的威望。他从战争中掠夺了大量的黄金、财宝和奴隶。为了收买人心,他向士兵和平民发放粮财,还经常举行角斗一类的公共娱乐。实际上,他的名望已经大大超过同盟中的另外两个人了。

克拉苏,就是那个镇压斯巴达克起义的刽子手。公元前53年,他在远征波斯的时候被打死了。因为他爱财如命,波斯人把熔化了的黄金灌进他的口中。

这样,“前三雄”中只剩下庞培和凯撒两人。庞培早年曾经担任执政官。当凯撒在罗马帝国西部打仗的时候,庞培在帝国东部(今天土耳其和叙利亚的一部分)也屡建战功。庞培虽然是凯撒的亲密朋友,却十分嫉妒凯撒。凯撒征服的地方越来越多,在士兵中的威信又日益增高,使庞培深感不安。公元前49年,他怂恿元老院解除凯撒的兵权,命令他立即从高卢返回罗马。

凯撒接到命令,知道这是庞培的阴谋。他反复考虑,决定带领军队打回罗马,利用这次机会在罗马建立独裁政权。

凯撒带领军队,走到一条叫做卢比孔的小河边。罗马法律规定:任何将军没有接到命令,不得带领军队越过这条小河。否则,就要当作谋反来治罪。凯撒当机立断,对着部下大声喊道:“骰子已经掷下去了!”(换成中国类似的说法,就是:“泼出的水收不回了”。骰子他跨上战马,跃进溪流,大军紧紧跟随在后,很快就越过了卢比孔河。。

后来“跨过卢比孔”,就变成了一句谚语,意思是说,谁下定决心要去完成一件事,一干到底,谁就好比“跨过卢比孔”。

庞培没有料到凯撒会这样果断地进军罗马,迎战不及,只得带着2.5万人仓皇逃往希腊。凯撒进入罗马后,迫使元老院同意他成为罗马的“独裁者”,随后又得到了统治整个意大利半岛的权力。等罗马局势稍稍稳定以后,凯撒立即进军希腊,讨伐庞培。庞培被打败,逃到了埃及。凯撒也跟着追到埃及。埃及国王为了讨好凯撒,派人刺杀了庞培,把血淋淋的人头送到凯撒面前。谁知凯撒却把脸一沉,转过头去。这个高傲的独裁者不愿意看到他的政敌被别人杀害,他下令处决了杀死庞培的人。

这个时候,埃及托勒密王朝正发生争夺王位的纠纷,凯撒支持了以美貌闻名的女王克娄巴特拉,并且在她的深宫里住了半年之久。

接着,他的军队又进入小亚细亚,只用5天的时间,就平定了庞培部下本都王子的叛乱。他用最简洁的拉丁文写了一份捷报送回元老院,上面写的是:“Veni,vidi,vici”(意思是“我来了,我看见了,我打胜了”)。这个战报充分显示了凯撒用兵神速的特点。再过两年,凯撒从北非转战西方,又在西班牙扑灭了庞培两个儿子的反抗。这样,凯撒终于取得了罗马的全部属地。他宽恕了庞培手下的将领,把他们收为自己的部下。其中有个名叫马克·布鲁图的人,特别得到凯撒的信任和重用。

凯撒的凯旋受到罗马人热烈的欢迎。有些人想拥戴他当皇帝。从公元前509年塔克文被赶走以后,罗马就没有过帝王。罗马人仇视帝王,反对恢复帝王的职位。凯撒虽然内心十分想当皇帝,也不敢轻举妄动。在一次节日盛会上,执政官安东尼突然把一顶皇冠戴在凯撒头上。可是只有少数人鼓掌,大多数人都在叹息。凯撒一看这种情况,认定还不到称帝的时候,就取下王冠扔在地上。安东尼连忙拾起皇冠又给他戴上,他又扔掉了。人们看到凯撒一再拒绝戴上皇冠,就欢呼起来,纷纷向他致敬。

凯撒虽然没有当上皇帝,却已经拥有许多尊贵的称号:“终身保民官”、“祖国之父”等等。法律规定他坐在黄金象牙宝座上处理公务,他的画像同天神放在一起。他获得了无限期的独裁权力。

有些人看出,凯撒的权力愈来愈大,总有一天会戴上皇冠的。因此,他们组织了阴谋集团,决心除掉他。这些阴谋者当中,有一个就是那位受到凯撒信任的布鲁图。

公元前44年3月15日,元老院举行会议。凯撒单身一人来到会议厅。虽然他事先已经得到警告,说有人这天要谋刺他,但是他仍然拒绝带卫队。他说:“要卫队来保护,那是胆小鬼干的事。”凯撒大步走进大厅,坐到黄金宝座上,笑着说:“现在不就是3月15日吗?”这时候,阴谋者都身藏短剑,像朋友一样困在他身边。其中的一个人跑到他面前,抓住他的紫袍,像是有什么事要请求他似的。原来这就是动手的暗号。众人一拥而上,用短剑刺向凯撒。凯撒没带任何武器,他奋力夺下紫袍,进行反抗。他的腰部中了一剑。接着,一剑又刺进了他的大腿。他看见这一剑正是他最信任的布鲁图刺的,不由得惊呼:“啊,还有你,布鲁图!”他放弃了抵抗,颓然倒下,用紫袍蒙面,听任他的仇敌乱刺、乱砍。他一共被刺23处。其中3处是致命的。

这个奴隶主军事独裁者,就这样结束了他的一生。他留下了一个强大的中央集权的帝国,还有一部由他决定采用的历法──儒略历。这部以凯撒名字命名的历法就是现在大多数国家通用的公历的前身。凯撒还是一个有才华的作家,著有《高卢战记》和《内战记》等书。

凯撒被杀死以后,布鲁图说:“我爱凯撒,但我更爱罗马!”可是罗马的平民没有一个人对凯撒之死表示高兴。当凶手们手提着血淋淋的短剑走出元老院的时候,和他们所预料的欢呼场面相反,看到的只是表情冷漠、充满怀疑目光的人群。平民们对凯撒还是有好感的。凯撒当权的日子不多,但是他实行了许多有重大意义的改革。他改革元老院,把议员人数增加到900,其中包括来自行省的上层人士、军人和反对元老贵族的公民。他还使罗马外省的自由民取得了公民的资格。他曾经答应取消平民的全部债务,把粮食分给贫苦的平民,还要给普通士兵分配土地。这些虽然没有完全做到,但是,他毕竟减免了四分之一的债务,使12万人免费得到了粮食,土地分配也在缓慢地进行。他还改革税法,保护商业,促进了手工业和商业的发展。

执政官安东尼了解平民的这种情绪。他企图利用凯撒的死达到个人野心,就拿起凯撒的血衣,指着被短剑洞穿的地方,煽动性地问人们对阴谋者应该怎么办?大家一齐怒吼:“为凯撒报仇!”阴谋集团的人见势不妙,纷纷逃亡海外。安东尼很巧妙地把自己推上了凯撒继承者的地位。

【文章来源:转自春秋战国全球中文网上的转帖,起始来源不详。】
作者: Xiaoman     时间: 2016-5-22 14:01
这篇挺好。用写故事的手法讲历史。 谢谢分享!

转来【罗马帝国灭亡的八个原因】



罗马帝国的灭亡归咎以下八个主要原因:1)野蛮部落的侵略,2)经济困境和过度依赖奴隶劳力,3)东罗马帝国的扩张,4)军事超支,5)政府腐败和政治动荡,6)匈奴和野蛮部落的迁移, 7)基督教与传统价值观的丧失,和8)罗马军团的削弱。




In the late fourth century, the Western Roman Empire crumbled after a nearly 500-year run as the world’s greatest superpower. Historians have blamed the collapse on hundreds of different factors ranging from military failures and crippling taxation to natural disasters and even climate change. Still others argue that the Roman Empire didn’t really fall in 476 A.D., since its eastern half continued for another thousand years in the form of the Byzantine Empire. While just how—and when—the Empire fell remains a subject of ongoing debate, certain theories have emerged as the most popular explanations for Western Rome’s decline and disintegration. Read on to discover eight reasons why one of history’s most legendary empires finally came crashing down.




1
Invasions by Barbarian tribes

The most straightforward theory for Western Rome’s collapse pins the fall on a string of military losses sustained against outside forces. Rome had tangled with Germanic tribes for centuries, but by the 300s “barbarian” groups like the Goths had encroached beyond the Empire’s borders. The Romans weathered a Germanic uprising in the late fourth century, but in 410 the Visigoth King Alaric successfully sacked the city of Rome. The Empire spent the next several decades under constant threat before “the Eternal City” was raided again in 455, this time by the Vandals. Finally, in 476, the Germanic leader Odoacer staged a revolt and deposed the Emperor Romulus Augustulus. From then on, no Roman emperor would ever again rule from a post in Italy, leading many to cite 476 as the year the Western Empire suffered its deathblow.

2
Economic troubles and overreliance on slave labor

Even as Rome was under attack from outside forces, it was also crumbling from within thanks to a severe financial crisis. Constant wars and overspending had significantly lightened imperial coffers, and oppressive taxation and inflation had widened the gap between rich and poor. In the hope of avoiding the taxman, many members of the wealthy classes had even fled to the countryside and set up independent fiefdoms. At the same time, the empire was rocked by a labor deficit. Rome’s economy depended on slaves to till its fields and work as craftsmen, and its military might had traditionally provided a fresh influx of conquered peoples to put to work. But when expansion ground to a halt in the second century, Rome’s supply of slaves and other war treasures began to dry up. A further blow came in the fifth century, when the Vandals claimed North Africa and began disrupting the empire’s trade by prowling the Mediterranean as pirates. With its economy faltering and its commercial and agricultural production in decline, the Empire began to lose its grip on Europe.

3
The rise of the Eastern Empire

The fate of Western Rome was partially sealed in the late third century, when the Emperor Diocletian divided the Empire into two halves—the Western Empire seated in the city of Milan, and the Eastern Empire in Byzantium, later known as Constantinople. The division made the empire more easily governable in the short term, but over time the two halves drifted apart. East and West failed to adequately work together to combat outside threats, and the two often squabbled over resources and military aid. As the gulf widened, the largely Greek-speaking Eastern Empire grew in wealth while the Latin-speaking West descended into economic crisis. Most importantly, the strength of the Eastern Empire served to divert Barbarian invasions to the West. Emperors like Constantine ensured that the city of Constantinople was fortified and well guarded, but Italy and the city of Rome—which only had symbolic value for many in the East—were left vulnerable. The Western political structure would finally disintegrate in the fifth century, but the Eastern Empire endured in some form for another thousand years before being overwhelmed by the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s.

4
Overexpansion and military overspending

At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Euphrates River in the Middle East, but its grandeur may have also been its downfall. With such a vast territory to govern, the empire faced an administrative and logistical nightmare. Even with their excellent road systems, the Romans were unable to communicate quickly or effectively enough to manage their holdings. Rome struggled to marshal enough troops and resources to defend its frontiers from local rebellions and outside attacks, and by the second century the Emperor Hadrian was forced to build his famous wall in Britain just to keep the enemy at bay. As more and more funds were funneled into the military upkeep of the empire, technological advancement slowed and Rome’s civil infrastructure fell into disrepair.

5
Government corruption and political instability

If Rome’s sheer size made it difficult to govern, ineffective and inconsistent leadership only served to magnify the problem. Being the Roman emperor had always been a particularly dangerous job, but during the tumultuous second and third centuries it nearly became a death sentence. Civil war thrust the empire into chaos, and more than 20 men took the throne in the span of only 75 years, usually after the murder of their predecessor. The Praetorian Guard—the emperor’s personal bodyguards—assassinated and installed new sovereigns at will, and once even auctioned the spot off to the highest bidder. The political rot also extended to the Roman Senate, which failed to temper the excesses of the emperors due to its own widespread corruption and incompetence. As the situation worsened, civic pride waned and many Roman citizens lost trust in their leadership.

6
The arrival of the Huns and the migration of the Barbarian tribes

The Barbarian attacks on Rome partially stemmed from a mass migration caused by the Huns’ invasion of Europe in the late fourth century. When these Eurasian warriors rampaged through northern Europe, they drove many Germanic tribes to the borders of the Roman Empire. The Romans grudgingly allowed members of the Visigoth tribe to cross south of the Danube and into the safety of Roman territory, but they treated them with extreme cruelty. According to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman officials even forced the starving Goths to trade their children into slavery in exchange for dog meat. In brutalizing the Goths, the Romans created a dangerous enemy within their own borders. When the oppression became too much to bear, the Goths rose up in revolt and eventually routed a Roman army and killed the Eastern Emperor Valens during the Battle of Adrianople in A.D. 378. The shocked Romans negotiated a flimsy peace with the barbarians, but the truce unraveled in 410, when the Goth King Alaric moved west and sacked Rome. With the Western Empire weakened, Germanic tribes like the Vandals and the Saxons were able to surge across its borders and occupy Britain, Spain and North Africa.

7
Christianity and the loss of traditional values

The decline of Rome dovetailed with the spread of Christianity, and some have argued that the rise of a new faith helped contribute to the empire’s fall. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in 313, and it later became the state religion in 380. These decrees ended centuries of persecution, but they may have also eroded the traditional Roman values system. Christianity displaced the polytheistic Roman religion, which viewed the emperor as having a divine status, and also shifted focus away from the glory of the state and onto a sole deity. Meanwhile, popes and other church eladers took an increased role in political affairs, further complicating governance. The 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon was the most famous proponent of this theory, but his take has since been widely criticized. While the spread of Christianity may have played a small role in curbing Roman civic virtue, most scholars now argue that its influence paled in comparison to military, economic and administrative factors.

8
Weakening of the Roman legions

For most of its history, Rome’s military was the envy of the ancient world. But during the decline, the makeup of the once mighty legions began to change. Unable to recruit enough soldiers from the Roman citizenry, emperors like Diocletian and Constantine began hiring foreign mercenaries to prop up their armies. The ranks of the legions eventually swelled with Germanic Goths and other barbarians, so much so that Romans began using the Latin word “barbarus” in place of “soldier.” While these Germanic soldiers of fortune proved to be fierce warriors, they also had little or no loyalty to the empire, and their power-hungry officers often turned against their Roman employers. In fact, many of the barbarians who sacked the city of Rome and brought down the Western Empire had earned their military stripes while serving in the Roman legions.

Source: http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-reasons-why-rome-fell

阅读详情: http://www.backchina.com/blog/358517/article-251471.html#ixzz49PhcKpcL
作者: Xiaoman     时间: 2016-5-22 14:21
也学习了廖教授的帖: http://www.yidian.org/articlelist.php?tid=14858&starttime=0&endtime=0




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