Download Persia, the Greeks and Alexander

Rome – Parthia – China
• Parthia founded by the Parni federation
– Relatives of the Achaemenids.
– Defeated Seleucid governor of the “Parthia” province
• 109 BCE Mithridates II declared himself king-of-kings
• Parthia engaged two major world empires
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Han China and Rome.
Han sent envoys in 115 BCE, proposed an alliance against Turkic nomads.
Parthia and China opened up trade
Silk Road trade included horses to China.
• Contact with Rome began in 103 BCE in Cilicia, Anatolia.
– Roman envoy angered Parthians.
Turkic People
Rome
Rome
• The Roman story . . .
– Founded by the Trojan Aeneas
or
– Romulus and Remus
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Born to Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin
Conceived with Mars (or Hercules)
Thrown in the Tiber River by their uncle
Fed by a she-wolf and a woodpecker
Eventually learn their heritage
Argue over where to establish a city
Romulus kills Remus and calls the city Rome
• Founded c. 1000 BCE
– part of an Etruscan kingdom
• c. 500 BCE Romans
– overthrew Etruscans and
– creates a republic
• Assembly elected two consuls
– executive officers of state
– Senate and council of commoners advised the consuls
• 450 BCE adopted Twelve Tablets of Law
SPQR - Senātus Populusque Rōmānus
“The Senate and People of Rome"
Leges Duodecim Tabularum
Twelve Tablets of Law
(Twelve Tables of Law)
• Influenced by the Greeks
• Original tablets destroyed in 390 BCE
• “Where anyone commits a theft by night, and
having been caught in the act is killed, he is
legally killed.”
• “If anyone commits a theft during the day, and
is caught in the act, he shall be scourged, and
given up as a slave to the person against
whom the theft was committed.”
• “A father shall have the right of life and death
over his son born in lawful marriage, and shall
also have the power to render him independent,
after he has been sold three times.”
• “A father shall immediately put to death a son
recently born, who is a monster, or has a form
different from that of members of the human
race.”
• “Where a woman, who has not been united to
a man in marriage, lives with him for an entire
year without the usucaption of her being
interrupted for three nights, she shall pass
into his power as his legal wife.”
• “If a husband desires to divorce his wife, and
dissolve his marriage, he must give a reason
for doing so.”
pater familias
• “the father of the family”
• Responsible for the entire family
– Familia was everyone living in the household
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Familia distinct from the domus
Included power of life and death
Power to be used in consultation
Distinct power, but not the same power as
held by magistrates
• Rome solidified control of Italy
– with citizen army of heavy infantry
• Punic Wars, 264 BCE - 146 BC
– First Punic War
• Rome seizes Sicily
• Navy dominates the Mediterranean
– Second Punic War
• Hannibal invades Italy from the north
• Romans defeat the Carthaginians in Spain
– Third Punic War
• Siege and destruction of Carthage
Hannibal
Romans
50,000
Lost: 8,000
86,400
Lost: 60,000+
• With control of central Mediterranean, Rome
turned east to Antigonid Greece.
• Greece controlled by Rome after 146 BCE
First-century BCE Rome (100 – 0)
• Plagued by unrest due to wealth disparity.
– Wealthy landowners built large estates called latifundia.
– Poor classes
• discharged legionaries
• dispossessed farmers
• slaves.
• Marian Reforms allowed landless men into the army.
– Led to creation of a professional army paid in land in conquered
lands.
– Encouraged generals to manipulate army for power.
– Generals competed with one another for power, including Julius
Caesar.
Roman Civil Wars
• Julius Caesar vs. Pompey, Brutus, et al.
– Caesar assassinated for trying to become dictator
for life (15 March 44 BCE).
• Octavian vs. Mark Anthony
• Octavian wins in 31 BCE
• Octavian given title of “Augustus”
“revered one.”
Octavian
Augustus Caesar
Rhine
Danube
Rome
An Engineered Empire
The Emperors
Roman naming system
• Three parts (not always)
Given name - clan/family name
cognomen
Giaus
Julius
Caesar
Gaius
Octavius
Publius
Cornelius
Scipio
agnomen
Africanus
Julio-Claudians
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Augustus
Tiberius
Caligula
Claudius
Nero
27 BCE – 14 CE
14 – 37
37 – 41
41 – 54
54 – 68
“The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and
Nero, while they were in power, were falsified
through terror, and after their death were written
under the irritation of a recent hatred.” Tacitus
Year of the Four Emperors & and Flavians
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Galba
Otho
Vitellius
Vaspasian
Titus
Domitian
June 68 – January 69
January 69 – April 69
April 69 – December 69
69 – 79
79 – 81
81 – 96
Nervan-Antonians
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Nerva
Trajan
Hadrian
Antoninus Pius
Lucius Verus
Marcus Aurelius
Commodus
96 – 98
98 – 117
117 – 138
138 – 161
161 – 169
161 – 180
177 – 192
The Five Good Emperors
End of the
Pax Romana
“If a man were called to fix the period in the
history of the world during which the condition of
the human race was most happy and prosperous,
he would, without hesitation, name that which
elapsed from the death of Domitian to the
accession of Commodus.”
Edward Gibbon
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
6 vols. 1776-1789