Pictured left: 'Adam and Eve' by Titian (1550). Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
Rome as the first empire, before the British empire, ruled over thousands of unique ethnic identities, languages, religions and cultures and attempted to homogenized them to one universal standard. Rome would have a profound effect on many nations it conquered throughout the Mediterranean and Europe by supplanted the indigenous culture with their own. Because of this, Roman influence upon the language, religion, architecture, philosophy, law, and government of other nations around the world lasts to this day.
Pictured left: The Prima Porta Augustus. Note the breastplate is a sign of Rome's military authority.
Rome, having lasted for approximately 1200 years, was not a stagnant empire. At the tail end of the heroic age, a series of prophets, like Jesus of Nazareth, were wearied by the devastating effects and unspeakable cruelties of constant war that a just god would never seem to stand for. These prophets wanted to champion a new value system where instead of men slaying enemies in the greatest numbers to become the wealthiest and most immortal heroes of song, they would come to love their neighbors as themselves to end the suffering of the heroes countless victims and bring about peace on earth.
Pictured left: Two-Sided Icon with the Virgin Pafsolype and Feast Scenes and the Crucifixion and Prophets. Byzantine (Constantinople?), second half of the 14th century. Collection of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Istanbul. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The ruling regime, who gained their wealth and position from these bloodthirsty military campaigns, didn't want change. Eager to stamp out the radicalism of Christian beliefs, the Roman Emperors, like Nero and cruel Diocletian, created the vilest of tortures, from Crucifixion to feeding Christians to lions in the Colosseum, to dissuade Christianity's growing followers over the course of two centuries. However, weakened after several civil wars, the next set of Roman Emperors decided to tolerated Christianity under the Edict of Milan in 313 and then promoted it.
The Colossus of Constantine (Pictured above) was a colossal acrolithic statue of Constantine the Great (c. 280-337) that once occupied the west apse of the Basilica of Maxentius in the Forum Romanum in Rome. Portions of the Colossus now reside in the Courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori of the Musei Capitolini, on the Capitoline Hill, above the west end of the Forum.
The first to do so was Constantine I, the Emperor of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire based in Constantinople, who became the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church where he and his mother, Helena, are considered saints. The second was Theodosius I, who reunited the Eastern and Western Roman Empire and made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380. Today, the Nicene Creed influences the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and almost all branches of Protestantism.
Rome (Pictured above) and it's new religion would have a profound effect on Britain and your ancestry, dear nephews. The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons in England around 600 AD and later the Scandinavian Vikings from Normandy who would conquer the Anglo-Saxon dynasty at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 AD would give Dardanus a new set of ancestors to realign the divinity and the authority of his descendants to the religion of their time. Instead of Greek or Norse gods, these ancestors would come from the genealogy of the Old Testament.
Until next time...
Sweet dreams,
xx
