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Chap 6 – The Roman Empire. Section 1: The Roman Republic. The Italian Peninsula. The Greeks were interested in colonizing Italy for several reasons: its central location in the Mediterranean, rich soil, and mild, moist climate.
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Chap 6 – The Roman Empire Section 1: The Roman Republic
The Italian Peninsula • The Greeks were interested in colonizing Italy for several reasons: its central location in the Mediterranean, rich soil, and mild, moist climate. • Because if Italy’s mountains and the rockiness of the coastline, early inhabitants generally traded among themselves.
Early Peoples • Between 2000 and 1000 B.C., waves of Indo-European migrants arrived and overwhelmed the Neolithic peoples on the Italian peninsula. • From about 900 to 500 B.C., one of these peoples, the Etruscans, ruled northern Italy.
Early Peoples (cont.) • After repeated revolts, the Etruscan lower classes and other Italian peoples finally freed themselves from Etruscan rule. • Chief among the revolutionaries were the Latin's, whose center was the city of Rome.
The Rise of Rome • About 620 B.C. the Etruscans gained control of Rome; the Tarquins, a wealthy Etruscan family, served as kings and elevated Rome into one of the wealthiest cities in Italy. • Rome’s Etruscan rulers were driven out in 509 B.C.
The Rise of Rome (cont.) • The Latin patricians declared Rome a republic, a community which the people elect their leaders. Most of Rome’s inhabitants were plebeians, who could vote but could not hold office. • The patricians organized Rome’s government into executive and legislative branches.
The Rise of Rome (cont.) • Dictators were temporarily appointed to lead the Romans only in time of crisis. • The most admired Roman dictator was Cincinnatus.
Plebeians Against Patricians • The plebeians resented their lack of power in the new republic and eventually many of them refused to fight in the army; frightened at the loss of their military forces, the patricians recognized the plebeians’ chosen representatives, the tribunes and the Assembly of Tribes. • The most significant plebeian victory was the creation of a written law code, known as the Twelve Tables.
Religion • Rome borrowed Greek deities, giving them Roman names, but families privately worshiped their ancestral spirits, their storeroom guardians, and the goddess of the hearth.
Family • The basic unit of Roman society, the family, was large and close-knit. • In Roman families, the father was absolute head of the household; Roman women had few legal rights but had more social freedoms than Greek women.
Roman Legions • Rome’s success in war was due to its strong army and to its small, mobile fighting units. • Rome’s well-trained soldiers, called legionaries, helped Rome conquer an empire; Rome treated conquered foes remarkably well. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFmDt_E3WbU
Rome Against Carthage • In 264 B.C. the Roman army conquered most of Carthage’s colonies in Sicily, but Carthage’s naval superiority at first gave Carthage the advantage at sea • Undaunted, the Romans eventually built a larger fleet and forced Carthage to retreat.
Rome Against Carthage (cont.) • In 221 B.C. Hannibal, the Carthaginian general in Spain, led his soldiers into Italy. • Although outnumbered, Hannibal’s troops defeated the Roman armies, but after 21 years, the Romans forced Hannibal’s retreat to Africa. • In 202 B.C. Roman forced defeated Hannibal’s army near Carthage.
Rome Against Carthage (cont.) • In 146 B.C., although Carthage was no longer a threat to Rome, the Romans burned Carthage and sold its surviving population into slavery. • Rome now had complete control of the Mediterranean.
The Republic in Crisis • The Romans faced growing social discontent in their new empire; by 100 B.C., about 30 percent of Rome’s people were enslaved. • As slave labor replaced paid labor, thousands of rural people poured into cities looking for work.
The Republic in Crisis (cont.) • To quell mounting unrest as the gap between rich and poor steadily widened, Rome stationed legions in most provinces. • Army leaders came to power in Rome and privately paid the unemployed urban poor to serve in the army, meaning that for the first time soldiers owed their allegiance to their commander and not the republic.
Julius Caesar • Skillfully maneuvering through Rome’s tumultuous game of politics, Caesar gradually rose to power as part of a triumvirate that ruled Rome. • Caesar launched military campaigns to advance his political career, winning the allegiance of Rome’s lower classes but engendering suspicion among senators and opposition from Pompey, the other surviving member of the Triumvirate.
Julius Caesar (cont.) • Caesar’s army captured all of Italy and drove Pompey and his allies out of the country. • In 45 B.C. Caesar took over the government as dictator for life, instituting reforms to strengthen his own power at the expense of the patricians.
Julius Caesar (cont.) • Caesar’s most lasting reform was a calendar based on the work of scholars in Alexandria, which was used in Western Europe until modern times. • Believing Caesar a tyrant, a group of senators stabbed Caesar to death as he entered the Senate on March 15, 44 B.C.
End of the Republic • A second triumvirate defeated Caesar’s assassins in 42 B.C. and divided the Roman world among themselves. • The second triumvirate soon fell apart, leaving Octavian the undisputed ruler of Rome.
The First Emperors • Octavian, later known as Augustus, claimed to support the republic but actually laid the foundation for a new state called the Roman Empire. • During his forty year reign as emperor, Augustus rebuilt the city of Rome, became a great patron of the arts, and instituted social reforms. • Jesus Christ was killed while he was in power.
The First Emperors (cont.) • In 31 B.C. the PaxRomana, or Roman Peace, began; it lasted about 200 years. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm89q07lRlU • Historians call the four emperors who ruled from A.D. 14 to A.D. 68 the Julio-Claudians because each was a member of Augustus’s family.
The First Emperors (cont.) • Each of the Julio-Claudian emperors – Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero – showed promise when appointed but later revealed great faults. • The Good Emperors, who ruled beginning in A.D. 96, were known for their skills as effective administrators and their support of large building projects.
The First Emperors (cont.) • The emperor Trajan increased the empire to its greatest size and strengthened its defense; • Antoninus Pius maintained the empire’s prosperity; Marcus Aurelius (Gladiator) brought the empire to the height of its prosperity.
Roman Rule • To improve the government, Augustus chose professional governors rather than letting the Senate appoint inexperienced proconsuls every year. • Augustus and each later emperor became the head of the national religion.
Roman Rule (cont.) • The Romans created the jus gentium, a law to deal with noncitizens, to accompany jus civile, or citizen law • By the A.D. 200s, however, all free males in the empire were made full citizens of Rome, so the two laws became one.
Roman Rule (cont.) • In their laws, Romans generally stressed the authority of the state over the individual, but the laws also accorded individuals definite legal rights. • Augustus and his successors maintained the professional army, but reduced the number of legions; by A.D. 160, invasions by outsiders had become a continuing problem.
Roman Civilization • The stability of the PaxRomana boosted trade, raised standards of living, and generated many achievements in the arts. • More people became moderately well off, but the majority of Romans were still poor.
Roman Civilization (cont.) • Despite trying conditions, the poor did not rebel, because the government offered both free bread and free entertainment. • The Romans erected many impressive buildings during the PaxRomana and also excelled in road building; they also engineered aqueducts.
Roman Civilization (cont.) • Latin, Rome’s official language, would remain the common language of Europe into the A.D. 1500s, and it formed the basis of the Romance languages. • During the reign of Augustus, Latin literature achieved elegance and power; Cicero, Ovid, Horace, and Virgil were among the Roman literary masters.
Judaism and the Empire • In A.D. 6 the Emperor Augustus turned the kingdom of Judah into the Roman province of Judea. • In A.D. 66 some Jews rebelled against the Romans and overpowered the small Roman army in Jerusalem; four years later, the Romans retook the city.
Judaism and the Empire (cont.) • After another unsuccessful rebellion, the Romans banned the Jews from Jerusalem. • In their newly scattered communities, the Jews continued to study their religion.
Jesus of Nazareth • A few decades before the Jewish revolts, a Jew named Jesus grew up in the town of Nazareth. • He traveled through Galilee and Judea, preaching a new message to his fellow Jews and winning disciples.
Jesus of Nazareth (cont.) • While Jesus’ disciples believed that he was the messiah, other Jews disputed this claim. • Roman officials believed that Roman rule in the region was threatened by the growing controversy and ordered that Jesus be arrested and crucified as a political rebel in A.D. 33.
The Spread of Christianity • After Jesus’ death his disciples proclaimed that he had risen from the dead and appeared to them. • Jews and non-Jews who accepted Jesus as the way of salvation became known as Christians.
The Spread of Christianity (cont.) • A convert named Paul aided Christianity’s spread, especially among non-Jews. • Paul’s letters, along with other writings of early Christian leaders, form the New Testament of the Bible.
Persecution and Competition • The Romans fears that Christian rejection of their deities would bring divine punishment; when local officials thought Christians were causing trouble, they often times had them killed. • Such persecution kept many people from becoming Christians.
Persecution and Competition (cont.) • another obstacle was competition from Judaism and polytheistic religions. • Although the number of Christians during the A.D. 200s and 300s was relatively small, Christianity’s strength in cities gave the religion an influence beyond its size.
Romans Adopt Christianity • In A.D. 312 the Roman emperor Constantine became a protector of Christianity and issued the Edict of Milan, which decreed that all religious groups in the empire were free to worship as they pleased. • In A.D. 393 the Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, banning the old Hellenistic and Roman religions.
The Early Church • Christians turned to various scholars known as the Church Fathers to explain Christian teachings. • Christian leaders organized the Church into a hierarchy of priests and bishops; the bishops of the five leading cities were called patriarchs.
The Early Church (cont.) • Eventually the bishop of Rome began to claim authority over the other patriarchs and became known as the pope. • Greek-speaking Christians in the east did not accept the authority of the pope. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnKbPj7EhCg
The Empire’s Problems • When Marcus Aurelius died in A.D. 180, a new period of violence and corruption brought the PaxRomana to an end. • From A.D. 192 to A.D. 284, Rome’s armies were busier fighting each other than they were defending the empire’s borders.
The Empire’s Problems (cont.) • Germanic tribes repeatedly and successfully attacked the empire. • Political instability led to economic decline, leading the government to mint more coins and sparking inflation.
Unsuccessful Reforms • During the late A.D. 200s and early 300s, the emperors Diocletian and Constantine struggled to halt the empire’s decline; their efforts succeeded in the east but only briefly delayed the Germanic tribes’ invasion of Rome in the west. • In A.D. 330 Constantine moved the capital of the eastern empire to the Greek town Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople.
Unsuccessful Reforms (cont.) • During Theodosius’s rule, the western half of the empire suffered further internal problems. • In A.D. 395, according to a provision in Theodosius’s will, the eastern and western parts of the empire became separate empires – the Byzantine and Roman Empires.
Barbarian Invasions • Beginning in the late A.D. 300s, Germanic peoples migrated into the Roman Empire in search of warmer climate and better grazing land, a share of Rome’s wealth, and an escape from the Huns – nomadic invaders from central Asia. • Germanic warriors lived mostly by raising cattle and farming small plots.
