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Roman Literature. Founding. Mythically, Rome was founded when a young man named Aeneas escaped from the fall of Troy and sailed across the ocean to Rome. In reality, Rome is an ideal location for agriculture and trade, and is considered revolutionary for its republic. . Republic.
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Founding • Mythically, Rome was founded when a young man named Aeneas escaped from the fall of Troy and sailed across the ocean to Rome. • In reality, Rome is an ideal location for agriculture and trade, and is considered revolutionary for its republic.
Republic • A government in which voters elect representatives to make political decisions for them. • The Republic lived by the motto: pietas (piety or religious devotion) gravitas (seriousness of purpose) and fides (patriotism and loyalty).
Roman Empire • Beginning in 270 B.C., Rome began to expand its presence, conquering Spain, the entire country of Italy, Greece and began eyeing North Africa. • The wars between the ruling empire of Africa (Carthage) and Rome are known as the Punic Wars.
Julius Caesar • The most successful army commander in Roman history. • His power threatened other generals, but Caesar was immensely popular with the people • He was named “dictator for life” but was assassinated in office shortly thereafter by Brutus and Cassius.
Octavian • Caesar’s great-nephew, who is also known as Augustus Caesar, took over the leadership of Rome and began a war to kill Brutus and Cassius, which lasted two years. • Octavian’s lust for power grew and eventually he tried to take over Egypt, where Queen Cleopatra and her lover Marc Antony fought, causing a Roman civil war, as Marc Antony was a beloved Roman.
Antony and Cleopatra eventually commited suicide rather than bow to the dictator Octavian, and at just 32 years of age, Octavian ruled 2/3 of the known world.
Literature • The Romans borrowed heavily from the Greeks, especially in the writing of epics, tragedies and comedies. • The genre the Romans created is an oratory: speech made to the public to express a belief or political theory.
Roman Theology • Like literature, the Romans believed in gods that were almost identical to the Greeks. The exception is that the names have been changed from Greek to Latin. • For example: • Zeus = Jupiter • Ares = Mars • Aphrodite = Venus
Age of Augustus • During Octavian’s reign as Emperor of Rome, the empire flourished in economy, technology, art, religion, literature, and society. His reign is known as the “Golden Age” of Rome. • However, his successors did not have the same fervor for helping people as Augustus did; they were more concerned with ruling the world and reaping all of the possible benefits.
The Roman Empire Crumbles • By 284 A.D., the empire was so massive it had to be split in half. Rome would remain the capital of the western half of the world and Byzantium (Constantinople)(Istanbul) would be the capital of the eastern half. • By splitting the empire in half, each half was more vulnerable to attack from other strongholds, such as the Germans and the Huns. • Also, the great dispute of Christianity separated the east from the west, as the west stopped persecuting Christians. • Finally, the west decided that Latin would be universal language of the empire, while the east made no universal declaration. • The eastern empire fell in 1453 while under attack by the Ottoman Empire.
