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ROME
Roman Republic
• The Romans distrusted monarchy and decided it to
replace it with a new form of gov’t
– Republic = a form of gov’t in which the leader is not a
monarch, elected officials governed the state, and
certain citizens have the right to vote
• Early Rome was divided into two groups:
– Patricians = rich landowners who controlled the gov’t
and society
– Plebeians = commoners, mostly farmers and merchants
• Men in both groups were citizens who could vote
• In the beginning, however, only patricians could be
elected to governmental offices
• Plebeians eventually got more rights, and formed their
own assembly called the Plebeian Council
– Even had the right to elect officials called tribunes
• The plebeians also forced the patricians to have all laws
written down
– The Law of the Twelve Tables = Rome’s first written law
code, was displayed in Roman Forum (central square)
• The patricians and plebeians created an unwritten and
flexible constitution
– Constitution = framework for gov’t or political structure
• The government consisted of three parts:
– The Senate = a select group of 300 hundred patricians
who served for life
• Advised elected officials, handled all foreign
relations, and controlled public finances
• By the third century it had the force of law
– Various popular assemblies
• All citizens voted on laws and elected officials
– Officials called magistrates = put laws into practice
and governed in the name of the Senate and the
people
• Chief executive officers of the Republic
– Consuls – two elected each year, one to run the gov’t
and one to lead the army
– Praetors – magistrates that could act as consuls when
the consuls were away at war
• Also in charge of enforcing civil law
– Censors – recorded the city’s population and how
much property people owned
• System of checks and balances that stopped one group
from becoming too powerful
• Roman Law
– One of the greatest achievements was its system of law
• First code of laws adopted was the Twelve Tables
• Later a more sophisticated system of civil law was
developed
• As Rome expanded, legal questions arose that
involved both Romans and non-Romans, needed
special rules
• Gave rise to body of law known as the Law of
Nations
– Law of Nations
• Used natural law (universal law) based on reason
• Established standards of justice that applied to all
people:
–Innocent until proven guilty
–Accused allowed to defend themselves before a
judge
– This law system greatly influenced the law system of
the United States
The Punic Wars
• Due to the conquest of Italy, the Romans now faced
the powerful city and empire of Carthage located in
North Africa
– Both wanted to control the Mediterranean
• Rome and Carthage fought against each other in three
Punic Punic Wars
– Rome won all three wars and eventually destroyed
Carthage
• The entire population was sold into slavery
• Carthage became a Roman province called Africa
Collapse of the Republic
• Social unrest
– Growing tension among the various classes
– Soldier-farmers were returning home from years
of service and finding that their land had either
been sold or was in bad shape
• The military in politics
– Gaius Marius, a talented young military leader was
elected consul and he decided to improve
recruitment for the army
• Eliminated property requirements
• Poor people began to join and swore an oath of
loyalty to the general, not to the Roman state, in
hopes of sharing the plunder from war
– Result was that armies largely became private
forces devoted to a general and placed much
power in the hands of individual generals
• Generals could use loyalty of troops as a
political tool
– New type of army that was not under gov’t
control
• Legacy of Sulla = using an army to seize power
Rise of the Roman Empire
• The old Republic was mostly gone w/in a generation of
Sulla
– Was the result of the ambitions of just a few men
• The First Triumvirate
– Triumvirate = rule by three people with equal power
– The first Triumvirate was composed of Julius Caesar,
Pompey, and Crassus
• Caesar added Gaul – modern France
• Pompey added Syria and parts of Asia Minor
• Crassus was one of the wealthiest men in Rome
– Took over Rome in 60 BC
• Crassus died and Caesar and Pompey faced off in a
civil war – Caesar was victorious
– Senate declared Caesar dictator for life in 44 BC
• Dictator = an absolute ruler
• Gave citizenship to people in the provinces and gave
public land to veterans
• Was popular with the people, but many senators
thought he meant to destroy the Republic
– Ides of March (March 15) – a group of senators murder
Julius Caesar
• Second Triumvirate
– Established in 43 BC – composed of Octavian (Caesar’s
adopted son & heir), Marc Antony, & Lepidus
• Lepidus was pushed aside and Octavian and Antony
each decide to govern half the empire
– Civil war breaks out and Octavian defeats Antony and
his ally Queen Cleopatra of Egypt
• Both commit suicide after the defeat
– Octavian now alone controlled Rome
• Republic effectively dead
• Senate awards Octavian title Augustus “the revered one”
– continued to control the army and took the name
imperator
• Imperator = commander in chief (emperor)
• Became the first emperor of Rome
• The Augustan Age
– Augustus ruled Rome for more than 40 years
– Divided the power to rule Rome between himself and the
Senate
• Later emperors took over more and more powers of
the Senate
• Julio-Claudians – relatives of Caesar ruled for next 54 yrs.
– Tiberius – adopted son of Augustus
– Caligula – brutal and mentally unstable
– Nero – killed his own mother and committed suicide
• The Five Good Emperors
– Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, & Marcus
Aurelius
– Governed Rome for nearly a century and under them the
empire grew tremendously
– Hadrian built defensive fortifications along the frontiers
to guard against invasions
• Hadrian’s Wall – built in northern Britain
Pax Romana
• Pax Romana = Roman Peace
– Age of peace and prosperity
– Started off with the reign of Augustus in 27 BC and
ended with the death of the last Good Emperor,
Marcus Aurelius, in 180 AD
• Stable gov’t, strong legal system, widespread trade
• Not much war or invasion
– The Roman gov’t was the strongest unifying force in
the empire
• Maintained order and enforced the laws
– Extensive road network – 50,000 miles
• Entertainment – provided on a grand scale for
Romans
– Chariot races
– Coliseum - Gladiator fights, animals killing
prisoners
– Dramatic performances held in theaters
– To keep the poor from rebelling against the bad
living conditions, free food and public
entertainment became a major feature of city life
• “Bread and Circuses”
• Slavery
– Romans relied the most on slave labor and had the most
slaves
– Large numbers of captured peoples brought back as
slaves
– Slaves built buildings and roads, were used as tutors, on
farms, and as shop assistants
– Conditions for most slaves were bad
– The murder of a master by a slave meant the execution
for all the household slaves
– Most of the gladiators were slaves
– The most famous slave revolt was led by Spartacus and
involved 70,000 slaves – they managed to defeat several
armies before being caught and crucified
• Women
– Women could do little without the intervention of a
male guardian
– Could own and inherit property
– Could attend races, the theater, and events in the
Colosseum, but had to sit in separate female sections
• Achievements
– Aqueducts – man-made channels used to bring water
to the cities
– Ptolemy – stated that the earth was the center of the
universe
•
Decline
and
Fall
of
Rome
Political problems
– Weak leaders and aseries of civil wars
• Between 235 to 284 there were 20 emperors, all but one
died violently
• Economic problems
– Economic crisis – decline in trade and farming
• People didn’t believe the money was worth the same
– The result was growing inflation = dramatic rise in prices
• Military Problems
– Difficult to pay and enlist more soldiers, had to rely on
hiring Germans to fight
• Had little loyalty to the Empire
• Plague
– Disease weakened the Roman Empire
– Not enough soldiers or farmers to harvest crops
• Invaders
– Invading Germanic tribes, mostly enter Roman territory
to flee from the Huns
• Huns = feared nomadic warriors from Asia
• Visigoths – crossed the Danube river into Italy
• Vandals – came into Italy from north Africa
– Sacking of Rome
• 410 the Visigoths plunder Rome
• 455 the Vandals sack Rome
–Famous for destroying everything in their path
–Vandal = “one who causes senseless destruction”
• The Huns were talked out of attacking Rome by Pope
Leo I
Fall of Rome
– 476 – the last emperor of Rome was deposed by the
Germanic commander Odoacer
– Many consider this to be the end of the Western
Roman Empire
• Division of the Roman Empire
– To slow the empire’s decline, emperors Diocletian and
Constantine divided the empire into two parts
– Western Roman Empire – capital at Rome
• Destroyed in 476
– Eastern Roman Empire – capital at Byzantium, later
renamed Constantinople
• Lasted another thousand years, becomes known as
the Byzantine Empire
Rise of Christianity
• Some Jews began to revolt against Roman rule, resulting in
all Jews being banned from Jerusalem
• Jesus of Nazareth
– Born in the town of Bethlehem
– All knowledge about Jesus comes from the Gospels, the
first four books of the New Testament
– Traveled around preaching people to repent their sins
and seek God’s forgiveness
– As Jesus traveled, he gathered a small group of disciples,
or followers
– Roman authorities feared a political uprising and arrested
Jesus and sentenced him to death
• Jesus was crucified = nailed to a cross
• As a result, people began to call him Jesus Christ, the
Greek word for Messiah
• Spread of Christianity
– Jesus’ disciples began to teach that all people could
achieve salvation
– Salvation = forgiveness of sins and the promise of
everlasting life in heaven
– The Apostles – the 12 disciples that Jesus had specifically
chosen to carry out his message
• Were the earliest Christian missionaries
– Paul of Tarsus believed that God had sent him to convert
non-Jews
• Without him, Christianity might have remained a
branch of Judaism
• He helped to make Christianity a broader religion
• The Christian message of eternal life after death
appealed to many
–Especially to the poor
• Persecution
– Some local officials and rulers, such as Nero, saw
Christians as a threat and arrested and killed them
• Fed to the lions, made them martyrs
• Martyrs = people who die for their faith and thus
inspire others to believe
• Imperial approval of Christianity
– Emperor Constantine became the first Christian
emperor after he converted after winning a battle
• He issued the Edict of Milan, which made
Christianity legal within the empire and
declared official tolerance of Christianity
– Emperor Theodosius outlawed public nonChristian sacrifices and ceremonies
• As a result, Christianity was adopted as the
Roman religion and polytheism began to
disappear
• The Early Christian Church
– Development of ceremonies that inspired people’s faith
and made them feel closer to Jesus
• Eucharist = held in memory of Jesus’ last supper with
his disciples
–Eat bread and drink wine in memory of Jesus’
death and resurrection
• Baptism = people admitted into the Christian faith
– Popes were seen as the head of the entire Christian
church