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Culture
Introduction to Ancient Rome
Part 1: Starting Small
The civilization of ancient Rome was at one time the mightiest on the planet. Yet it, too, like
any other civilization, began as one small settlement.
In 753 B.C., the city of Rome was founded, on the Tiber River, in what is
now central Italy. Some people say that the twins Romulus and Remus
fought each other for the right to found a capital city and that Romulus, who
won the fight by killing his brother, founded Rome. Other people say that the
settlers just called it Rome. Whatever the true story is, it is lost to history.
Rome soon attracted many people, and the city grew larger, both because
the large city attracted people in search of adventure and wealth and
because Roman warriors captured people from nearby settlements and brought them home
to Rome.
The leaders of Rome at this time were kings. The last king of Rome was Tarquin.
In the early 6th Century B.C., Rome became a republic. This meant that a group of people,
called the Senate, made the laws for the people of Rome. (And the civilization this time had
grown quite a bit, including colonies.)
An early struggle developed between patricians (wealthy people) and
plebeians (common people) over laws. The result was the Twelve Tables, a
set of laws carved into rock so everyone would know what the laws were
and to whom they applied.
Part 2: War as a Way of Life
Rome's neighbors both had things the Romans wanted and wanted things the Romans had.
This resulted in many wars.
Some of the most famous of these early wars were between Rome and Carthage. They were
three in all, and they were called the Punic Wars (from the Roman word for Carthaginian).
Carthage at that time was the capital of a large civilization that had cities and colonies all
around the Mediterranean Sea. The first dispute arose over Sicily, an island off the coast of
Roman territory. The result was the First Punic War, won by Rome.
One of the results of this war was the Roman invention of the corvus, a device that would
change the course of history. The corvus was a wooden plank that was carried on a ship and
used to lock two ships together so soldiers could cross from one ship to another and fight
hand-to-hand. The Carthaginians were better sailors and bigger ships, but a Roman ship
would get close to a Carthaginian ship and then lock the two together, allowing Roman
soldiers (who were better at hand-to-hand fighting) to turn a naval battle into a land battle.
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The Carthaginian commander at that time was Hamilcar Barca, whose son Hannibal became
one of the most famous generals in human history.
Part 3: The Struggles with Carthage
Hannibal was a brilliant general and won many battles in which he was outnumbered by
outthinking his opponents. In the Second Punic War, Hannibal won battle after battle
against Rome. Perhaps his most famous achievement was taking a huge army from North
Africa, through Spain, through Gaul, over the Alps, and into the heart of Rome itself.
Three of Hannibal's most famous battles were on the Trebia River, at Lake Trasimene, and
at Cannae. Each time, he outwitted and outfought the Romans and scored a stunning
victory.
But Hannibal's fondest hope--that the other peoples in Italy would rise up against Rome-was never realized. In the end, Hannibal was defeated at the Battle of Zama, in 202 B.C.
This was the end of the Second Punic War.
Several years later, Rome started another war with Carthage and pillaged it beyond belief.
Roman soldiers burned the city of Carthage to the ground and sowed salt into the ground,
so that Carthage would never rise again. (Actually, Carthage was rebuilt later on and
became a thriving Roman colony.)
Rome's victories over Carthage made Rome the dominant power in the Mediterranean world
and allowed Roman soldiers to concentrate on conquests in other areas.
Part 4: The Growth of Government
During the Punic Wars, the power of the Senate grew. But the government also had other
people in it. The actual heads of government were called consuls. Usually, two consuls were
elected, and they could be re-elected.
With the successes of the Roman army, Roman generals became very popular. They also
became very powerful.
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Two generals named Sulla and Gaius Marius fought each other for control of Rome. In 83
B.C., Sulla won and became dictator. It was one of many civil wars that threatened to tear
Rome apart. Each time, however, the Roman civilization survived.
Even though such civil wars threatened to collapse the Roman influence, Roman soldiers
continued to win victories that ever widened Roman control. One area that the Romans
eventually succeeded in conquering was a large area in what is now France called Gaul.
The main conqueror of the tribes in Gaul was Julius Caesar. A brilliant general, Caesar had
many triumphs, including two expeditions to the island the Romans called Britannia.
Caesar became a consul, along with two other famous and important men named Crassus
and Pompey. This was the First Triumvirate (meaning "three people rule").
Crassus was a famous Senator. Pompey was a famous general, who defeated both Sulla the
dictator and Spartacus the slave (Slave-gladiator who led a slave revolt that began in 73
B.C. and ended with his death two years later).
Part 5: Caesar and Civil Wars
The three members of the Triumvirate soon became jealous of each other and fought for
control of the government. The winner was Julius Caesar, who was such a champion of the
people and of the army that he was made dictator for life by the Senate.
Jealous of his popularity and afraid of his ambitions, a group of Senators (including Marcus
Brutus, whom Caesar thought was one of his best friends) killed Caesar on March 15th, 44
B.C.
In the power struggle that followed, three men took the reins of government: Marc Antony,
Caesar's right-hand man; Octavian, Caesar's step-son; and Lepidus, an important leader.
This was the Second Triumvirate.
This, too, resulted in a power struggle, with Octavian defeating Marc Antony and declaring
himself emperor. He renamed himself Augustus Caesar, and the Roman Empire was born.
Roman conquests followed after this for hundreds of years. The main reason was that the
Roman soldiers were better-trained, better-equipped, and better-fed than their opponents.
Germanic tribe after Germanic tribe soon found themselves conquered, invited to join the
Empire, and even serving in the Imperial Army. The borders of Roman civilization soon
stretched from Scotland to the Middle East.
Part 6: Empire's Rise and Fall
A succession of emperors did both great and terrible things (often at the same time). Some
of the most important emperors were these:
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Trajan, who built great structures in and around Rome, including a huge Forum and
a great wall along the Rhine River, in what is now Germany;
Hadrian, who built great structures in Rome and elsewhere, including Hadrian's Wall,
a massive stone wall that divided Roman Britain from Scotland.
Marcus Aurelius, who won great victories over the German tribes and also became
known as a philosopher-king for his famous writings;
Constantine, who became known for making Christianity the official religion of the
Roman Empire and for moving the capital of the empire to Constantinople, in what is
now Turkey. (He named this city after himself.)
Despite these successes, the Roman
Empire soon grew too large to control.
More and more generals lost more and
more territory to Germanic tribes and
other invaders. Rome itself was sacked
by Alaric and the Visigoths in A.D. 410.
The traditional date of the Fall of the
Western Empire is 476, when Odoacer
the Barbarian defeated the Roman
legions defending their capital and
installed himself on the throne of the
empire.
(The Empire had, by this time, been
divided into two parts: Eastern and
Western. The Eastern part, with its
capital at Constantinople, survived for
hundreds of years after the "fall" of the
Western part. This part of the Empire became known as the Byzantine Empire.)
Part 7: Construction, Culture, Economics
But Rome wasn't all wars and conquests. The Roman civilization is also famous for its
construction and its culture.
The Romans connected the vast parts of their Empire with roads, which they made straight
and solid. They also built aqueducts to carry water from the far reaches of the Empire to
large cities. And, the Romans built many baths, which provided heated water through
inventive means.
The backbone of Roman civilization was the farmer. Grain was a staple and was shipped all
across the Empire to feed the growing population. Other popular Roman crops included wine
and olive oil. As the population of the Empire grew, the need for other crops arose. One
answer was the latifundia, a large farm that produced sheep or cattle to sell, rather than to
be eaten.
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Another major element of Roman civilization was trade. Roman ports sent ships to the far
reaches of the earth, and goods from far-away places like China made their way to Roman
markets as well. The famous Silk Road stretched from China to Roman markets in the
Middle East. Major Roman exports included pottery, bronze, and cloth.
Part 8: Religion and the Arts
Originally, the Romans thought of their gods as powers rather than people. Eventually,
however, the Romans adopted most of the Greek gods and goddesses. Many of the gods
had similar characteristics and therefore Romans were able to use Roman names for the
Greek deities. For example, the Greek god Zeus was Jupiter to the Romans. This was not
always true, however: Apollo was Apollo to both the Greeks and the Romans.
Overall the Romans were tolerant and accepting of other polytheistic religions. They
accepted and adopted the teachings of the majority of religions practiced by the people they
conquered. A major exception to this was Christianity. For many years, the Romans and the
Christians were at odds because Christians would not participate in the Emperor worship
that Romans required. However, Emperor Constantine declared Christanity the official
religion of the Empire in the 4th Century A.D.
The Romans enjoyed philosophy and drama. One of the most famous philosophers was also
a playwright: Seneca. His dramas are well-known to Roman scholars. Plautus and Terence
wrote Roman comedies that audiences
found very funny.
Other forms of enjoyment in Roman
society involved death and destruction.
The main attraction for many Romans
was the "games" in the Colosseum, a
huge outdoor theater. Gladiators were
slaves or former soldiers who fought in
the Colosseum and in other arenas,
against other people or against animals.
These "games" were often fatal to the
participants.
Part 9: And in the End
Another thing the Romans were really good at was making and enforcing
laws. At times, Roman laws were all that held the vast empire together. The
Roman legal tradition continues to influence laws passed today.
In the end, the civilization of ancient Rome is known for several things:
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the hugeness of the Empire;
the success of the well-trained armies;
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the massive, impressive structures and construction, such as roads, aqueducts,
baths, the Forum, and temples;
the struggle with and then embracement of Christianity;
the spreading of Roman writing, laws, trade practices and ideals and, especially, of
Greek ideals to the rest of the known world;
the terrible tragedies of slavery and conquest on which the civilization was ultimately
based;
the dramatic way in which the Empire collapsed, serving as an example for
generations afterward.
Courtesy:
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/worldhistory/introancientrome1.htm
Latin Literature
The Roman Empire lasted for more than a thousand years, so there was plenty of time
to produce a lot of writing. Latin, an Indo-European language, was written in an alphabet
derived from the Greek alphabet, with some letters changed: the Latin or Roman
alphabet is essentially the one Americans use today. English-speakers have added the
letters J and U and W.
Most of what was written during those thousand years has been lost, but a fair amount
still survives and we can read it today. We like to think that the best writing has
survived, but certainly some very good works have been lost, while some of what
survives is not very good. Nearly all of the Latin literature that we still have today
survives because it was copied over and over by hand by different people through
hundreds of years. That is, almost none of the actual books that people read at that time
survive: papyrus and parchment just don't last that well. The words survive, but in later
copies of later copies. For some books, many copies survive; for other books, only one.
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This year you will most likely hear about the Roman writers Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny. Virgil
wrote the epic poem the Aeneid, and was greatly influenced by the great Greek epic
poet, Homer (who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey). We will read adaptations of Ovid’s
myths from his book, the Metamorphoses. Pliny the Younger wrote letters in which he
describes the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii and
Herculaneum.
Courtesy:
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/literature/latinlit.htm
Good sources of more complete information (i.e. less juvenile).
http://www.roman-empire.net/founding/found-index.html (please read this and write
down a list of any questions for things you don’t understand or want to know more
about.)
http://www.roman-empire.net/society/society.html (This page contains a lot of information,
but is much more than a typical 7th or 8th grade student needs to know. However, it is an
excellent overview of information, the very basics of which are covered in middle school Latin.)
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