HUMANITY: Rome, and the death of a Man # 6 [+Drawings]

... Rome is at the top of its power, its empire rules Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The fifth part of humanity is under Roman rule.

But the Romans did not know that on the other side of the world, there was another empire just as big and powerful ...

166 AD

Roman merchants whose names were lost in history are 8,000 km away from home. For two years they had to cross oceans, mountains and deserts. They are heading to a place beyond India, to a land they have only heard in stories.

A Roman historian writes:
"In a distant place on the other side of the world, where the sea ends, there is a great nation on the mainland ..."

They were the first Romans to set foot in the Chinese capital, Liuyang. They enter into another world. The merchants are very far from home, come to seek, silk.

The Romans spent the equivalent of $ 2.2 billion a year on imports of luxury goods such as silk, bought from intermediaries in India and Central Asia.

They do not know where the silk comes from or how it is made, they believe it grows in the trees.

Silk making is a state secret in China, no Chinese weaver could share that knowledge with any foreigner. It is a secret that China has kept for 3,000 years.

Roman merchants are granted an audience in the Imperial Palace with Emperor Huan.

Emperor Huan, ascends to the throne to the 14 years, expelled to its family of the court. He is the most powerful man in the Eastern world.

The emperor welcomes the Romans, but does not let him know how the silk is made. In our days it is no longer a secret...

...Silk is a natural fiber spun by silkworms, its larva produces a single fiber to make its cocoons. It takes 2,000 silkworms to make half a kilo of silk.

Over the next 300 years, China continued to be the largest exporter of silk in the world. Silk travels west through India, the Middle East to Europe. A commercial route of 8 thousand kilometers called the route of the silk.

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Trade thrives, so do ideas flow, ideas that will transform the future of humanity ...

Damascus, Syria. 4 years after the crucifixion.

A man is still running, Paul.

The preacher, the agitator and the most important convert in the history of Christianity.

Before his conversion on the road to Damascus he persecuted the Christians, but now he will convert an insignificant sixth into a world religion.

He was a passionate man, he was a man with guts, he really believed in his god, he believed in his gospel, he truly believed that Christ was the only way.

By spreading the message that Christ was the Messiah, Paul is now a fugitive. For the Jewish leaders he is a heretic, for the Romans, an agitator. If captured, it will be executed.

Damascus is a walled city, each entrance is well guarded, but Paul finds an escape route over the walls.

For 20 years Paul travels through the Roman Empire contacting other believers, expanding the message of hope.

He tells people that Christendom grants salvation to all.

Paul writes letters to other Christians throughout the empire, Romans, Thessalonians, and Corinthians, they begin half of the New Testament.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, because we are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

"We who are many, are a body in Christ, love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful, not arrogant or rude." Corinthians 13: 4

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child and reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I left the children behind." Corinthians 13:11

Paul's letters were entrusted to other believers who carried them throughout the Empire. By that time Rome had built 400 thousand kilometers of roads enough to turn the earth 10 times. The navigation routes connect the 250 largest ports, that way Pablo spread the word.

"Faith, hope and love guide us, but love is the greatest of all." Corinthians 13:13

150 years later, on the outskirts of Carthage.

One of the largest ports of the Roman Empire, a group of Christians meets in secret. Private houses also function as churches.

At first Christianity was a religious movement for the very poor, for slaves and for many women, most of whom had no voice in Roman society found one in the Christian movement.

Across the Empire 8 million people are slaves, with no rights under Roman law. 30 million are women who can not vote or hold public office, including Perpetua.

A 22 year old mother and supers. He had a baby for a few months. It belonged to a family rich and very esteemed by all the population.

A year before an imperial decree dictates that conversion to Christianity is illegal, converts like Perpetua are now enemies of the state. His crime, his refusal to honor the Roman gods.

You must be mad to be a Christian, you could be condemned to death because you recognized your loyalty to Christ and his father, not to the emperor. You always had to look around, be vigilant, it was as if someone was following you, as if they knew you were a Christian. You had become paranoid, afraid to talk openly with someone.

The secret police of the Empire, the Frumentarii.

He used a secret network of informants to hunt down dissidents.

Perpetual is captured. Accused of treason, she is sent to prison awaiting her fate. She kept a diary, the first surviving words of a Christian woman.

Perpetua writes in her diary:
"I will not fight against beasts, but against the devil. And I know victory awaits me."

The ultimate test for any believer, to die for their faith.

The Christian dissident, Perpetua, faces a horrible death in the stadium of Carthage. Christians are thrown into wild or tarred animals and burned alive or decapitated.

But Perpetua can still be saved by making an offering to the Roman gods.

The Romans came to these people and said, "We are causing problems, make a public statement in which they deny being against the state, affirm that the emperor is a god and everything will be fine"

Perpetua's family visits her in jail, she is allowed to breastfeed her baby. His father begs him to retract and accept the Roman rules.

Perpetua's diary: "She told me, daughter have mercy on me, do not abandon me, have mercy on your baby, give up your pride, I tried to comfort him by telling him, what God wills will happen"

A true Christian can not deny his religion, he can not do it in public, nor in his heart, as they burn in hell according to their belief.

According to his daily Perpetua goes willingly to death, his bravery inspires one of the prison guards his name was, Prudencio, to become.

Thousands of Christians were executed ... they are known as martyrs.

But the more Christians kill the Romans, the more popular religion becomes. In 100 years the number of followers grows from 200 thousand to 6 million.

Year 337 d.C

The present Emperor, Constantine, is dying, and makes a decision that will determine the future of the Roman Empire.

Constantine:"The moment that I had been waiting for arrived with a fervent desire and prayer I can obtain the salvation of God."

The most powerful man in the Western world is baptized.

For hundreds of years Christianity was stifled and repressed by the persecuted Roman Empire, but now it is okay to be a Christian. Once Constantine is baptized the whole Empire is inclined towards Christianity, and then anyone who wants to have a political or economic participation, has to be Christian.

A new Christian capital rises to the East of the Empire, Constantinople, today Istanbul. In the center is a larger church than any other temple in Rome, Hagia Sophia which means "Holy Wisdom".

The death of a man in the Middle East inspires a message that spreads throughout the world, a world connected as never before.

Christianity, an enduring legacy of the Roman Empire.

But when the empires fall, we remake our world, innovate and explore new ideas, new opportunities, but also new conflicts, a clash of civilizations ...

To be continued…

Do not miss my next Post of this great series, where I will bring you more drawings and especially more history of humanity.

We are born to survive in a world full of dangers, we have impossible dreams that we realize.

Greetings friends!

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Source:
1 2 3[Book Prentice Hall Science]

I invite you to see the previous chapters of this great #serie-humanity, and let yourself be enveloped by this fantastic adventure.