practiced their religion in secret, however, and suff ered rela-
tively little persecution.
Th e situation changed in 64 c.e., when, under the Ro-
man emperor Nero, Rome burned. Nero, generally regarded
as mentally unbalanced, wanted to build a magnifi cent palace
to himself, and many Romans believed that he set the fi re de-
liberately as an excuse to rebuild. To defl ect suspicions away
from himself, Nero blamed the fi re on the Christians, who
were widely perceived as a subversive cult. Th e result was
widespread persecution of Christians, many of whom fl ed
Rome for other parts of the empire.
Th ese persecutions continued well into the second cen-
tury, and they extended to other parts of the empire. In
177 c.e., for example, the emperor Marcus Aurelius perse-
cuted Christians in Lyons, in Gaul, driving them out of the
city, and Christians in Italy were persecuted as well. Many
of these Christians left for Britain and other areas of Gaul,
where the persecutions were not as widespread. In 303 c.e.
the emperor Diocletian and his successor, Galerius, began
an eight-year purge of Christians in the east, particularly in
such places as Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor, driving them
out of the empire or to other places in the empire where the
fi res of persecution did not burn as hotly. Th e persecution
and consequent movement of Christians came to an abrupt
halt when the emperor Constantine converted to Christian-
ity in 313 c.e. and declared Christianity the offi cial religion
of the empire.
CONSEQUENCES OF MIGRATION
In general, the formation and spread of the Roman Empire
did not lead to massive movements of people. For the most
part, peasants and farmers—those who lived in rural areas
and very small towns and villages—lived their lives much as
they had before the Romans came. Th ey provided food and
craft items, and they did not attract much attention from
their Roman rulers. Most of the consequences of Roman im-
migration were felt in the larger towns and cities, particularly
in Europe. Th ere people began to use the various products
that the Romans brought with them. A good example is wine,
which had been unknown in many of these areas prior to the
spread of the empire, when beer was the favored beverage.
Particularly among the upper classes, many people began
to dress like the Romans and otherwise adopt their ways,
including elements of their religion. Many towns began to
feature buildings—temples, bathhouses, and theaters—that
strongly resembled those in Rome. Many of these buildings,
as well as military fortifi cations and roads, still exist and can
be seen in Europe.
Similarly, the migration of Romans led to the spread of
the Latin language. Latin, which used elements of the Greek
and Etruscan alphabets, was the language of the people in the
province of Latium, which surrounded Rome. As the empire
expanded, fi rst throughout Italy and then throughout the
Mediterranean regions, soldiers, administrators, and civil
servants took the language with them. In time Latin became
the offi cial language of the entire empire. Offi cial documents,
for example, were written in Latin, and Latin became the lan-
guage of educated people, as well as of the Christian Church.
In contrast, local languages were preserved in the Eastern Ro-
man Empire.
By about the eighth or ninth century c.e. communities
of Latin speakers, isolated from one another, began to de-
velop their own versions of the language, and these versions
evolved into the Romance languages of Europe, including
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, and, to a lesser extent,
Bulgarian. Th ese languages are called “Romance” languages
not because they have anything to do with aff airs of the heart
but because they evolved from the language of Rome. While
English is a Germanic language rather than a Romance lan-
guage, fully 60 percent of English words derive from Latin
through the Romance languages as a result of the much later
invasion of the British Isles by the French Normans. (Simple,
everyday words in English tend to be Germanic while longer,
more formal words tend to come from Latin. Th us, house is a
Germanic word; domicile is a Latin-based word.) Had it not
been for the migration of the Romans during the empire, the
map of European languages would probably be very diff erent
than it is.
It should be noted that the Roman Empire comprised
two distinct parts, the western empire and the eastern em-
pire. Th e western empire included primarily Europe; the east-
ern empire included such areas as Asia Minor, Greece, and
the Middle East. Th ese two regions were markedly diff erent.
While the population of the eastern empire was dense, that of
the western empire was sparse. Easterners were more urban,
and they tended to be more literate and to engage in com-
merce using a fi xed monetary system; westerners were more
rural and tribal, and they tended to be illiterate and to pur-
sue agriculture using a system of barter. In the east laws were
written; in the west law was based on local custom. While
easterners tended to be wealthy, or at least comfortable, west-
erners were poor.
Th e spread of the Roman Empire, with its movement of
Romans outward, united these two very diff erent regions,
oft en through the use of force. Taxation was heavier in the
east as a way of transferring wealth to the poorer regions
of Europe. Because all the parts of the empire were within
easy reach of Rome (with the possible exception of Britain),
it was relatively easy for the Roman emperor to impose a
common language, a common currency, a system of weights
and measures, a standing army, canals and roads, and, in
particular, a class of civil servants. Trade established con-
tact between the regions of the empire, and a well-developed
system of laws, a trained bureaucracy, a standing military,
and a uniform system of government gave rise to what has
been called the Pax Romana, an era of peace when tribes
that would likely have warred with one another lived under
Roman rule.
In addition to conquest, the military put an end to pi-
racy and artifi cial barriers to the movement of peoples, such718 migration and population movements: Rome