Download Overview of Roman History 1200 B.C. Trojan War, Aeneas flees

Overview of Roman History
1200 B.C. Trojan War, Aeneas flees Troy with father Anchises, son Ascanius, Lares,
Penates, and Palladium
Dido in Carthage
753 B.C. Rome founded by Romulus and Remus
Romulus kills Remus
fasces
pomerium
Rape of the Sabines
Numa Pompilius
pax deorum
Tullus Hostilius Mettius Fufetius,
Horatii and Curiatii
meddix
Tarquinius Priscus Tanaquil
Servius Tullius
plebs, equites; patricii, nobiles
Tarquinius Superbus
tyrant
509 B.C. Brutus leads revolution against Tarquinius Superbus; monarchy comes to end
and res publica is born.
Lucretia
consul (2)
praetor
dictator
magister equitum
censor
tribunes
aediles
quaestor
cursus honorum
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flamines, Vestal Virgins, augurs, pontifices, Pontifex Maximus
Senate
decreta
consulta
auctoritas
mos maiorum
comitia centuriata elected consuls and praetors and installed dictators and
approved laws
concilium plebis
451 B.C. Twelve Tables
Cincinnatus
Coriolanus
Sack of Veii; Camillus
390/387 B.C. Gauls sack Rome
Torquatus
340-290 Romans defeat toughest opponents, Samnites; Latins incorporated into Roman
polity as full citizens or half citizens
Caudine Forks
275 Pyrrhus and Pyrrhic War (Pyrrhic Victory), Rome completes conquest of peninsula
Fabricius and honesty and integrity
264-241 First Punic War; Rome gains Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia
Regulus
219-204 Second Punic War (Carthaginian general was Hannibal); Rome emerges
dominant in western Mediterranean, with involvement in eastern Mediterranean.
Hannibal
Cannae
Q. Fabius Maximus “Cunctator”
Scipio Africanus
Zama
2nd c. B.C. Rome incorporates Greece, Asia Minor, Carthage and others into empire;
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others become client-kingdoms
Carthage destroyed, 146 B.C. Cato the Elder: Carthago delenda est! Later
Roman moralists say Rome went into steep decline when it no longer had an enemy to
worry about.
133-122 Tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus attempt land-reforms, show power of
tribunes; die violent deaths; Optimates and populares. Scipio Nasica’s resort to
violence against Ti. Gracchus ushered in one hundred years of civil strife, “a situation
that was finally exorcised by Augustus. Augustan culture cannot be understood without
this background.” (G. Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture). Cf. also, “It was the self-interest
of the senate and its neglect of the larger interests of the Republic that gave rise to the
Gracchan unrest and undermined the senate’s own auctoritas: it became an auctoritas
in form, but not in essence.” Earlier Galinsky had defined auctoritas as “material,
intellectual, and moral superiority.”
107-100 Marius, novus homo; professional army. Wars against Germanic tribes Cimbri
and Teutones. pater patriae
91-88 Social War: All free-born Italians get full Roman citizenship.
81-79 B.C. Sulla’s dictatorship: proscriptions; Sullan Constitution (Senate dominates,
plebs has even less power)
73-71 Spartacus
70 Pompey and Crassus consuls for first time and repeal Sullan Constitution
68-63 Pompey at height of career, conquered pirates, Asia Minor and Holy Land, and
sacks Jerusalem; called “Roman Alexander”
63 B.C. Catiline defeated by Cicero, novus homo: Catilinarian Orations
62 “First Triumvirate” formed: Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus
59 Caesar’s first consulship
58-49 Caesar in Gaul; conditions in Rome are chaotic. Pompey and Optimates want
Caesar to be powerless upon returning to Rome; Caesar refuses to put head into the
noose. alea iacta est, Rubicon
48 Caesar defeats Pompey and Optimates at Pharsalus (Pompey murdered in Egypt);
Cato loses to Caesar at Thapsus and commits suicide); Caesar defeats sons of
Pompey at Munda.
48-44 Caesar rules Rome; appointed dictator for life; assassinated, Ides of March 44
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43 “Second Triumvirate” formed (Mark Antony, Lepidus, Octavian); new period of
instability and civil war.
42 Battle of Philippi, 2nd Triumvirate forces defeat Brutus and Cassius; republic is pretty
much dead.
Decade of 30s: Antony leaves Italy to wage war on Parthia, but ends up partying with
Cleopatra and alienating all his supporters back in Rome. Lepidus is put under house
arrest for plotting to assassinate Octavian. Octavian transforms Italy and becomes
symbol of good government, stability, and restoration of good old-fashioned ways.
Through Maecenas gives patronage to writers, and Latin literature flourishes: Vergil,
Horace, Propertius, Tibullus, Livy, Ovid, and more. The element of propaganda in their
writings cannot be denied, although they wrote primarily for artistic purposes.
Iuravit in mea verba tota Italia sponte suā, et me belli quo vici ad Actium ducem
depoposcit; iuraverunt in eadem verba provinciae Galliae, Hispaniae, Africa, Sicilia,
Sardinia. (Augustus, Res Gestae)
31 B. C. Actium: Octavian (with admiral Agrippa) defeat Antony and Cleopatra.
Octavian (Augustus) has no more rivals for rule. He rules from 31 B.C.–A.D. 14. He
created the “Principate” and Roman Empire. “The essence, then, of Augustus’s
restoration of the res publica was not ‘the Augustan constitution’ but a summons to the
old spirit and values of the res publica that made it a commonwealth.” (Galinsky).
When Augustus returns r.p. to arbitrium of SPQR and is given honorary title Augustus
(“solemn, venerable” from root which yielded verb augeo), Senate erects golden shield
in new Curia Iulia with inscription: virtus, clementia, iustitia, pietas. Clupeus virtutis.
The name Augustus
The period of the next two centuries is the Pax Romana:
Julio-Claudian Emperors: Tiberius (AD. 14-37); Gaius (37-41); Claudius (41-54); Nero
(54-68);
Year of Four Emperors; Flavian Emperors: Vespasian (69-79); Titus (79-81); Domitian
(81-96).
Period of “Five Good Emperors”: Nerva (96-98); Trajan (98-117—Empire reaches
furthest extent); Hadrian (117-138); Antoninus Pius (138-161); Marcus Aurelius (161180)
The early decades of the 3rd century are marked by instability and increasing problems
with the Germans along the Rhine and Danube and with the Parthians (from modernday Iraq and Iran). The Empire is stabilized particularly under Diocletian.
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Constantine (324-337) issues Edict of Milan (313), granting Christians freedom to
worship; he makes Christianity official religion of Empire at Council of Niceae (325).
Constantine moved the capital of Empire to Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople.
Theodosious bans pagan religions (391).
Germans becoming more of an issue in West. Visigoths sack Rome, 410. Empire in
West “falls” in 476. Empire in East, Byzantine, thrives for centuries; is sacked in 1453
by Ottoman Turks.
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