* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Source A Questions
Ancient Roman architecture wikipedia , lookup
Travel in Classical antiquity wikipedia , lookup
Structural history of the Roman military wikipedia , lookup
Roman army of the late Republic wikipedia , lookup
East Roman army wikipedia , lookup
Slovakia in the Roman era wikipedia , lookup
Romanization of Hispania wikipedia , lookup
Roman historiography wikipedia , lookup
Education in ancient Rome wikipedia , lookup
Switzerland in the Roman era wikipedia , lookup
Military of ancient Rome wikipedia , lookup
Early Roman army wikipedia , lookup
Food and dining in the Roman Empire wikipedia , lookup
History of the Roman Constitution wikipedia , lookup
Culture of ancient Rome wikipedia , lookup
Demography of the Roman Empire wikipedia , lookup
Roman funerary practices wikipedia , lookup
Roman agriculture wikipedia , lookup
Rome Primary & Secondary Source Activity: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire You and your group members will read primary and secondary source materials describing the decline of the Roman Empire. Various reasons will be given, it will be your group’s task to catalogue the reasons, identify if the source of the problem (internal- Rome’s fault or external- beyond Rome’s control), and then rank each reason 1 (most impact/severe) to 5 (least impact/severe). Please answer the questions for each source and fill out the chart before determining your group’s order of reasons. Source According to this source, the reason for the fall of Was it an internal (from within the Roman Empire was… the empire) or an external (from outside the empire) problem? A B C D E Source A Questions: 1. Why were there so many emperors in just 50 years? 2. How would the instability in leadership of the empire affect people in the empire as well as people outside the empire? Source B Questions: 3. Using information from the first excerpt, how did Roman historians describe the Huns? 4. Using information from the second excerpt, how did the Roman citizen feel about being ruled by the Huns? Source C Questions: 5. How did Roman military procedures change over time? 6. Make a connection between the information from the quote and the information on the map. Source D Questions: 7. According to the first excerpt, what natural disaster occurred and what were the effects? 8. According to the second excerpt, how did the plague affect the empire? Source E Questions: 9. Based on this excerpt, what did Sallust say had happened among the Roman people? Use evidence from the text to support your choice. (a) food shortages (b) decline in morals and values (c) conflict between social classes Source A: Leadership Emperor Reign Cause of Death Maximus 235-238 CE Assassination Gordian I & II (co-rulers) 238 CE Suicide; killed in battle Balbinus & Pupineus 238 CE Assassination Gordian III 238-244 CE Possible assassination Philip the Arab 244-249 CE Killed in battle Decius 249-251 CE Killed in battle Hostilian 251 CE Possible plague Gallus 251-253 CE Assassination Aemilianus 253 CE Assassination Valerian & Gallinus 253-260 CE Died as slave of Persians; assassination Claudius Gothicus 268-270 CE Plague Quintillus 270 CE Assassination or suicide Aurelian 270-275 CE Assassination Tacitus 275-276 CE Possible assassination Florianus 276 CE Assassination Probus 276-282 CE Assassination Carus 282-283 CE Assassination Numerian 283-284 CE Possible assassination Carinus 283-285 CE Killed in battle When [Julianus] came to the wall of the [military] camp, he called out to the troops and promised to give them just as much as they desired, for he had ready money and a treasure room full of gold and silver. About the same time too came Sulpicianus, who had also been consul and was prefect of Rome and father-in-law of Pertinax, to try to buy the power also. But the soldiers did not receive him, because they feared lest his connection with Pertinax might lead him to avenge him by some treachery. So [the soldiers] lowered a ladder and brought Julianus into the fortified camp; for they would not open the gates, until they had made sure of the amount of the bounty they expected…he promised the troops as large a sum of money as they could ever expect to require or receive. The payment should be immediate, and he would at once have the cash brought over from his residence. Captivated by such speeches, and with such vast hopes awakened, the soldiers hailed Julianus as Emperor… -Herodian of Syria, History of the Emperors II.6ff: “How Didius Julianus Bought the Empire at Auction, 193 A.D. In William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West. Source B: Reports about the Huns . . . Huns are never sheltered by buildings, but . . . roam freely in the mountains and woods, learning from their earliest childhood to endure freezing cold, hunger, and thirst. . . Huns are not well adapted to battle on foot, but are almost glued to their horses, which are certainly hardy, but also ugly . . . Like refugees-all without permanent settlements, homes, law, or a fixed way of life-they are always on the move with their wagons, which they leave . . . Like unthinking animals, they are completely ignorant of the difference between right and wrong. Fired with an overwhelming desire for seizing the property of others, these swift-moving, and ungovernable people make their destructive way amid the pillage and slaughter of those who live around them. -Roman History by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, c. 380 CE. adapted from http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/AmmHuns.html [He] . . . considered his new life . . . better than his old life among the Romans, and the reasons he gave were as follows: . . . The condition of the [Roman] subjects in time of peace [is worse than war] . . . taxes are very severe, and unprincipled men inflict injuries on others. . . A [wealthy lawbreaker] . . . is not punished for his injustice, while a poor man . . . undergoes the legal penalty . . . The climax of misery is to have to pay in order to obtain justice. . . [He said] that the laws and constitution of the Romans were fair, but deplored that the governors, not possessing the spirit of former generations, were ruining the state. -Priscus, Roman ambassador to the Huns, 449 CE., reporting a conversation he had with a former Roman citizen whose land had been conquered by the Huns. adapted from: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/priscus1.asp Source C: Military Issues [Before the year 400 CE] foot soldiers wore breastplates and helmets. But when, because of negligence and laziness, parade ground drills were abandoned, the customary armor began to seem heavy since the soldiers rarely ever wore it. Therefore, they first asked the emperor to set aside the breastplates . . . and then the helmets. So our soldiers fought the Goths without any protection for chest and head and were often beaten by archers. Although there were many disasters, which led to the loss of great cities, no one tried to restore breastplates and helmets to the infantry. Thus it happens that troops in battle, exposed to wounds because they have no armor think about running and not about fighting. Concerning Military Matters by the Roman Historian Vegetius, c. 450 CE Source D: Acts of God? In the second year of the reign of Valens (366 CE) . . . the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. . . The shores of the Mediterranean were left dry by the sudden retreat of the sea . . . but the tide soon returned with the weight of an immense [flood] which was severely felt on the coasts of Sicily. . . Greece, and Egypt . . . fifty thousand persons had lost their lives in the flood [in the city of Alexandria alone] . . . [T]his calamity. . . astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome. . . and their fearful vanity was disposed to [see a connection] between the symptoms of a declining empire and a sinking world. . . -Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-1788. More important in initiating the process of decline was a series of plagues that swept over the empire . . . which brought diseases [from] southern Asia to new areas like the Mediterranean, where no resistance had been established even to contagions such as the measles. The resulting diseases decimated the population. The population of Rome decreased from a million people to 250,000. Economic life worsened in consequence. Recruitment of troops became more difficult, so the empire was increasingly reduced to hiring Germanic soldiers to guard its frontier. The need to pay troops added to the demands on the state’s budget, just as declining production cut into revenue. -Peter Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart Schwartz, Marc Jason Gilbert, World Civilizations: The Global Experience, Pearson Education, 2000. Source E: Patriotism After Sulla had recovered the government by force of arms, everybody became robbers and plunderers. Some set their hearts on houses, some on lands…The whole period was one of debauched tastes and lawlessness. When wealth was once counted an honor, and glory, authority, and power attended it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was thought a disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life of mere ill nature. From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury, [greed], pride came to prevail among the youth. They grew at once rapacious and [extravagant]. They undervalued what was their own; they set at naught modesty and continence; they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and threw off all consideration and self-restraint. -Sallust, Roman politician, in his work Conspiracy of Catiline Chapters 11-16: “Life in Rome in the Late Republic, c. 63 B.C.” In William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, pp. 135-138.