ch 6 Flashcards
Heroes of the time
-Cincinnatus great dictator appointed who willingly gave up his position, very humble.
-martyrs
The story of the Roman world from the foundation of the city of Rome and to the fall of the
Roman Empire in the West is, overall, a tale of two different transformations. The first of these
is the dramatic transformation in cultural values and beliefs, a glimpse of which is reflected in
the two stories above. The second is a similarly dramatic geographical transformation, which
also brought about drastic clashes of cultures and a variety of changes throughout the entire
Mediterranean world and beyond, that is, the transformation of a small village on the Tiber into
one of the largest empires in all of world history, followed by a collapse of a part of that Empire,
but a collapse from whose ashes arose what we now know as Europe.
GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME AND THE
ROMAN EMPIRE
-from village around river Tiber with fortifications/natural defenses, trading with neighboring city states, to empire
-One of the most surprising aspects of the history of early Rome is that, despite constant threatsfrom its more powerful neighbors, it was never swallowed by them.
-population growing = egypt becoming breadbasket of rome
-trajan got the empire to the greatest extent, but after his death they struggled to keep it under control (natural frontier with rhine and danubue rivers, location of rome far away from the problem frontiers)
-diocletian split empire into four regions
-sophisticated infrastructure of roads
and sea routes,these roads and routes]
connected the center of the empire (Rome) to the periphery, providing ways for armies, politi-
cians, traders, tourists, and students to travel with greater security and speed than ever before.
-travel not as safe with bandits
BASIC CHRONOLOGY AND PERIODS OF ROMAN HISTORY
-started as monarchy according to tradition, then two major periods of being a republic and an empire
SOURCES AND PROBLEMS
-cato the elder’s being the first roman history on a large scale
-aimed to glorify accomplishments of rome, not the individual romans
-livy writing history, most of it lost, and then just a lot of politions/historians writing things
-poems and many others also works of history
-New Testament an invaluable source
-volcanic eruption buried cities like Pompeii, preserving them completely
-Other than epitaphs on their gravestones, most
average Romans, in general, left no record of their lives, so our evidence is dominated by the
history of the aristocracy. Still, the careful historian can gain at least some insight into these
lesser-documented perspectives by gathering all references to them in sources that survive.
EARLY AND MIDDLE REPUBLIC
-part of the reason for the Romans’ success was their
adoption of the Republican government as replacement for their original monarchy.
From Monarchy to Republic: Some Myths and Legends
-According to myth, Rome received its name from its founder Romulus, the son of the war
god Mars, and a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas.
-By linking themselves to the Trojans,the Romans were able to boast an ancient, reputable lineage, rivaling that of the Greeks, and
a prominent place in the Greek heroic epic, Homer’s Iliad. Furthermore, when embarking on
a conquest of Greece later on, the Romans could claim to be seeking revenge for their Trojan
ancestors’ defeat and destruction by the Greeks during the Trojan War.
-story of romulus and remus, romulus killed remus
-the greatness of Rome sometimes required morally reprehen-
sible actions. In other words, Rome came first, and if the good of the city required the sacrifice ofone’s brother, or required force against others, then the gods were still on the side of the Romans
and ordained these actions.
-Romans believed that, altogether, their city was ruled by seven different kings in succession.
-romulus
-king Numa Pompilius: regulated Roman religion and created many of the priestly
colleges and positions that continued to exist thereafter.
-The seventh and final king, however,
Tarquin the Proud, was known for his and his family’s brutality, final straw a rape, they are expelled and the republic is started
(that is if Livy’s account isn’t all just legend)
Early Republic: Conflict of Orders, the Twelve Tables, and
Key Legislations
-Romans had a strong respect for the past and were averse to change.
-The term for this reverence
for the past, mos maiorum, “custom of ancestors” or “custom of elders,” is telling. While innova-
tion is a revered value in the modern world, Romans believed that innovation amounted to disre-
spect for their ancestors. Ancestral custom, which had first made Rome great, had to be respected,
and successful reformers, such as the emperor Augustus, managed to phrase their reforms as a
return to something old, rather than as something new.
-Patricians:descendants
from the first one hundred senators appointed to the Roman
aristocratic Senate by king Romulus,
-Plebians: that is, everyone who was not a patrician. The plebeians
had their own political assembly, the Plebeian Council,
while all Roman citizens also belonged to the Centuriate
Assembly, which was responsible for annual elections
for top political offices.
-early republic there was lots of contentoin between the two social classes, plebians using tactic of departure en masse (secession)
-led to plebians getting some people representing them in council, twelve tables display of laws
Cursus Honorum and Roman Religion
-The debate over plebeian access to political offices in general, and to the consulship in par-
ticular, resulted in the creation of a rigid cursus honorum, a sequence or ladder of political offices. The ultimate dream of every Roman who entered politics was to become a consul, had requirements to prevent someone from having too much power
-The prerequisite for holding any political office was ten years of military service.
-aediles in charge of building projects
-praetors commanded armies, governed provinces
-While this structure of annually-elected offices was designed to prevent any
one individual from usurping all political power in the state, the Senate also realized that, on rare
occasions, concentrating all power in one set of hands was needed. Thus the Senate could appoint
a dictator for a non-renewable period of six months in times of serious military emergency, such
as in the already-mentioned case of Cincinnatus.
-The cursus honorum is best visualized as a pyramid with a wide base and narrowing each step
on the way up.
-polythestic, gods names changes
-Ultimately, both public
and private religion aimed at the same goal: keeping the pax deorum, peace with the gods, upon
which the success of their state rested, as the Romans believed. Put simply, as long as Romans
maintained a respectful peace with their gods, they ensured Rome’s success.
Roman Expansion to the End of the Punic Wars
-First, until the
late Republic, Rome did not maintain a standing army. Rather, a new army was raised for each
campaign,
-repeated nature of Roman conflicts with the same
enemies, This repetition suggests that, for whatever reason, the Romans did not aim to annihilate
their opponents, unless absolutely pressed to do so.
-Absorbed and conquered Latin and Etruscan city states
-called upon gods and believed they were aided by them through their process of expansion
-at some point during the Samnite
Wars, the Romans switched from fighting in the
Greek hoplite phalanx fashion to a system of
their own making, the manipular legion. Thisnew system apparently allowed more flexibility
in the arrangement of the troops on the battle-
field; it also allowed using both heavy and light
infantry as needed, instead of keeping them in
a static formation for the duration of a battle.
-united most of Italy under Roman rule
-The Romans’ proximity to northern Greece, in particular, ensured an intersection
of spheres of interest, thus also providing cause for continued conflict.
-how would the Republic, whose system
of government was designed for a small city-state, adapt to ruling a large empire? The preliminary
answer on which the Romans settled was to divide the conquered territories into provinces, to
which senatorial governors were assigned for terms that varied from one to five years. The system
continued, with minor variations, into the Empire.
-The new availability of governor positions, however, only made the political competition in the
Republic even stiffer than before. Senators competed for the most desirable positions; typically,
these were provinces in which military action was on-going—since this provided the potential
for winning military glory—or provinces that were wealthy, with the potential opportunity in
governing them to acquire wealth.
FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC
-As Sallust and some other conservative politicians of his day believed,
this victory corrupted the noble Roman character, traditionally steeled by privation. More im-
portantly, the abundance of resources that flowed in following the victories over Carthage raised
the question of distribution of this new wealth and land. The disagreements over this question
dominated the politics of the Late Republic, creating two new political factions: the Populares,
or those who protected the interests of the people, and the Optimates, or those who protected
the interests of the best element of the populace—namely, themselves.
The Gracchi and the Beginning of Political Violence
-there used to be no violence politically and things were bloodless until 133 BCE
-Tiberius Gracchus
proposed a land distribution law, known as the Lex Sempronia Agraria, senate didn’t want it so he went straight to the plebian council, and was clubbed to death later by the senators
The Civil War of Marius and Sulla, and the Conspiracy of Catilina
-Marius came from a family of no previous Roman politians, a “new man” Henceforth making,
the military became a profession,
rather than a seasonal occupa-
tion for farmers. Finally, Marius
changed the tactics of the legionary
organization on the battlefield,
changing the legion of maniples
into a legion of cohorts.however, because soldiers were paid by their generals, their loyalty was
to their generals, as much or more than to the Roman state.
-Marius didn’t want Lucius Sulla to take over, got him out, Sulla came back with an army of Romans marching against the Romans, starting a civil war
-Sulla made proscriptions—a list of enemies
of the state, whom anyone could kill on sight, and whose property was confiscated. (Julius Caesar was on this, yet survived)
-Catlina showing that resorting to violence to get power became the new normal. Catilina’s frustration,just like that of Sulla twenty years earlier, nevertheless shows how difficult it was for Roman “old-
school” political families to accept that their competition for the consulship now was not just againsteach other. Catilina’s
-Marius: electron to successive consulships
-Sulla: dictatorship
The First Triumvirate, and the Civil War of Caesar and Pompey
-Crassus, POmpey, Gaius Julius Caesar formed an alliance Together, they lobbied to help each other rise again to the consulship and achieve
desirable military commands.
-Julia and Crassus died, Caesar and Pompey became enemies
-By leaving
his province with his army against the wishes of the Senate,
Caesar committed an act of treason, as defined in Roman
law; the civil war began.
-Caesar
started the war with a distinct advantage: his troops had just
spent a larger part of a decade fighting with him in Gaul;
many of Pompey’s army, on the other hand, was disorga-
nized.
-Caesar defeated Pompey
Aftermath of the Civil War, the Second Triumvirate, and the Age
of Augustus
-Caesar went from MArius to SUlla method, first in Roman history to mint his likeness onto coins
-Caesar Ides of MArch, will story, he had heir and back up heir
-Second Triumvirate: Octavian, Marcus
Antonius and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.
-fought small civil war with Caesar’s assasins
-Augustus(Octavian) learned from Caesar’s mistakes
-Different times the Roman Republic could have fallen:
-fallen with dictatorship of Sulla
-assassination of Caesar
-when the senate gave octavian title of augustus
–death of augustus
Roman Culture of the Late Republic and the Augustan Age
-end of second punic war increased entertainment and culture, ROmans adapted made what they borrowed their own
-Augustus encouraged literacy, so lots of politians writing
-Horace and Ovid, Ovid exiled through pushing the envelope, spent rest of liife being depressed hehe
-Augustus rebuilding Rome such as a lot of temples like building ara pacis, altar of gods
-Augustus wanted to show that his rule was a new Golden Age of Roman history, a
time when peace was restored and Rome flourished, truly blessed by the gods.
THE EARLY EMPIRE
The period from the consolidation of power by Augustus in 27 BCE to the death of the emperor
Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE was one of relative peace and prosperity throughout the Roman
Empire. For this reason, the Romans themselves referred to this time as the Pax Romana, or
Roman peace. During this period, the Empire became increasingly more of a smoothly run bu-
reaucratic machine when commerce prospered, and the overall territory grew to its largest extent
in the early second century CE. Of course, some of the Roman subjects did not feel quite as happy
with this peace and what it brought to them.
-the period of the early Empire witnessed the rise of a new religion, Christianity. This
new religion did not have a profound impact on the state yet at this point, but the seeds planted
in this period allowed for fundamental changes to occur centuries later. This is, after all, one of
the marvels of history. It can take centuries to see the long-term impact of events that seem so
small and insignificant at first.
