Ancient Rome Notes

Ancient Rome

• Ancient Rome begin as a group of villages along the Tiber River in what is now Italy.
• Around 750 B.C. these villages united to form the city of Rome.

·       Formation of Roman Republic

·       For more than 200 years, kings ruled Rome.

• In 509 B.C. Rome became a republic.
• The Roman Senate was an assembly of elected representatives. It was the single most powerful ruling body of the Roman Republic.

·       Patricians & Plebeians

• In the beginning most of the people elected to the Senate were patricians.
• Patricians controlled the law since they were the only citizens allowed to be judges.
• Plebeians had the right to vote, but could not hold public office until 287  B.C, when they gained equality with patricians.

·       Roman Expansion

• Under the leadership of ambitious generals, Rome’s highly trained soldiers took over most of the land surrounding the Mediterranean.
• The ancient Romans called the Mediterranean mare nostrum, meaning “our sea”.

Rome 117 A.D.

The End of the Roman Republic

• A successful Roman general and famous speaker, Julius Caesar, was a governor of the territory of Gaul and managed to take control of many nearby territories.
• Fearing him the Roman Senate ordered him to resign…but he had other ideas.
• Caesar fought for control and won, becoming the dictator of the Roman world, ending the Roman Republic.

The Roman Empire

• Less than a year after gaining power a group of angered Senators stabbed Caesar to death on the floor of the Roman Senate. (March 15, 44 B.C.)
• This caused a civil war that lasted several years.
• In 27 B.C., Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian was named the first emperor of Rome.
• An empire is a nation or group

·       of territories ruled by a single powerful leader, or emperor.

• As emperor Octavian took the name Augustus.
• Augustus ruled the Roman Empire for more than 40 years, known as the Augustan Age.

The Augustan Age

• During the rule of Augustus the Roman empire continued to expand.
• Augustus kept soldiers along all the borders to keep peace in the Roman world.
• During this time architects and engineers built many new public buildings.
• During this time trade increased with olive oil, wine, pottery, marble, and grain being shipped all across the Mediterranean.
• Lighthouses were constructed to guide ships into port.
• This was also a time of great Roman literature.

·       The Rise of Christianity

• After the death of Augustus in 14 A.D. a new religion begin to spread: Christianity.
• At first it took hold in the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
• By 200 A.D. this religion had spread throughout the empire.
• Christians were viewed with suspicion and suffered persecution and many were punished or killed for their beliefs.
• Things changed when Constantine became emperor of Rome in 306 A.D. During his reign Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

·       The Fall of the Roman Empire

• Rome had quite a run…First a monarchy, then a republic, then an empire – all roads led to Rome for over 1200 years.
• In the Mediterranean, Rome was in charge.

·       Rome had some wonderful emperors. Rome also suffered from a series of bad, corrupt and just plain crazy emperors.

• The empire was too large to govern effectively.
• The army was not what it used to be. There was corruption in the military - dishonest generals and non-Roman soldiers.  
• Civil wars broke out between different political groups.
• Emperors were often selected by violence, or by birth, so the head of government was not always a capable leader.
• The increased use of slaves put many Romans out of work
• The rich became lazy and showed little interest in trying to solve Rome problems.
• The poor were overtaxed and overworked. They were very unhappy.
• Prices increased, trade decreased.
• The population was shrinking due to starvation and disease. That made it difficult to manage farms and government effectively.
• The Empire starting shrinking. The Huns, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Saxons and other barbarian tribes overran the empire.
• The ancient Romans tried to solve some of their problems by splitting the Roman Empire in half, hoping that would make the empire easier to manage.
• Each side had an emperor, but the emperor in charge was the emperor of the western half, the half that included the city of Rome. 
• The Western Roman Empire did not do well. Instead of getting stronger, they became weaker. By 400 AD, it was pretty much over. The Huns, Franks, Vandals, Saxons, Visigoths – any of these barbarian tribes might have been the group that finally brought Rome down.
• They were all attacking various pieces of the Western Roman Empire. In 476 AD, the Visigoths sacked Rome. Europe entered the Dark Ages. The eastern half of the Roman Empire received a new name – the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire did fine. It lasted for another 1000 years! 

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