Scipio’s Dream– Power and Death in Ancient Rome

2.000 years ago, in the reign of Augustus, Rome was already a great metropolis with 1.500.000 inhabitants. For at least 400 years the Romans were the undisputed masters of the Western world and came to rule an empire that stretched from Portugal to Mesopotamia, from Britain to Egypt. An empire that seemed immortal… The empire but not its people, subject like everyone to the same eternal fate: death. Even more than today, perhaps, for it is said that the average lifespan at the time was around 30 years. The rise and fall of Rome were also founded on death: the death the Romans inflicted on others, on their enemies, on the defeated. And the death that they themselves faced over eight hundred years of wars, victories and defeats. The history of Rome is the tale of two horses racing toward the finishing line: one is white and its name is “Power” and the other is black and its name is “Death”.