Chapter 5: The World of Rome Flashcards
Etruscans
1) 8th century B.C.E. to 5th century B.C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Eventually dominated by the Romans
4) Established the first Italian cities
5) Traded natural products especially iron with their Greeks neighbors in the Mediterranean in exchange for luxury goods
6) Etruscan kings were the first rulers of Rome
7) Adopted alphabet from the Greeks and later passed it on to the Romans.
8) Invented the toga, a white woolen
9) CC: Similar to the Greek polis in political organization and culture and to the Mayan city-states in political organization, while different from the large empires of the time period
10) COT
Struggle of the Orders
1) 5th century B.C.E. to 3rd century B.C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Plebeians and Patricians
4) Inequality struggle between plebeians and patricians
5) Plebeians wanted real political representation and safeguards against patrician domination
6) COT: After a ten-year battle, the plebeians gained the Licinian-Sextian Rogations that allowed wealthy plebeians access to all the magistracies of Rome.
the Senate
1) 8th century B.C.E. to 3rd century C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Political existence was summed up in a single phrase senatus populusque Romanus, “the Roman senate and the people,” abbreviated into “SPQR”
4) Originated from the Etruscans as a council of noble elders who advised the king; once the Romans took over control, the senate became advisers to the consuls and other magistrates.
5) Senate sat year after year with nominal change, thus providing a sense of stability.
6) The Senate could not technically pass legislation; it could only offer its advice but increasingly, over time because of the Senate’s prestige, its advice became the force of law.
Major Laws of Rome
1) 8th century B.C.E. to 5th century C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Roman civil law, the ius civile, consisted of statutes, customs, and forms of procedure that regulated the lives of citizens.
4) As the Romans came into more frequent contact with foreigners, the praetors resorted to the law of quity, the ius gentium, the “law of the peoples,” which they thought applied to all parties.
5) By the late republic, Roman jurists reached the concept of ius naturale, “natural law,” based in part on Stoic beliefs, that applied to all societies.
Punic Wars
1) 3rd century BCE
2) Italian Peninsula
3) In the First Punic War, Roman’s victory led to Sicily becoming its first province.
4) During the Second Punic War, Carthage’s general Hannibal won three major victories, including the devastating blow at Cannae in the late 3rd century BCE.
5) The Roman general Scipio Africanus led the counterattack to Carthage itself.
6) In the late 3rd century BCE, near the town of Zama, Scipio defeated Hannibal; his victory meant that Rome’s heritage would be passed on to posterity.
Pax Romana
1) 1st century C.E. to 2nd century C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Shortly after the civil wars ended, it was Augustus who led this era of peace.
4) A period of security, order, harmony, flourishing culture, and expanding economy in Rome.
5) Augustus faced the major problem of reconstruction from the civil wars and to deal with this problem, he gave Rome the gift of peace known as Pax Romana.
Paterfamilias
1) 8th century B.C.E. to 3rd century C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) The head of the family was the paterfamilias. the oldest dominant male of the family.
4) The paterfamilias help nearly absolute power over the lives of his wife and children as long as he lived; until he died, his sons could not legally own property.
5) Romans viewed the family as most important and thought that children should be raised by their mothers.
Latifundia
1) Late Republic (2nd-1st BCE)
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Latifundias were huge Roman estates created by buying up several farms.
4) When legionaries returned home from war. they found that they lacked the funds to retain their property, and as such, many were forced to sell their land to those who had grown rich from the wars.
5) The dismal state for returning legionaries–in that they created an excess of landless veterans–threatened Rome’s army because landless men were forbidden to serve.
Major Roman Emperors and their Accomplishments
1)
2) Italian Peninsula
3)
4)
5)
The Reign and Ideas of Augustus Octavian
1) 1st century BCE to 1st century CE
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Augustus Octavian was the grandnephew and heir of Julius Caesar.
4) Augustus joined with two of Caesar’s followers, Marc Antony and Ledipus, in the Second Triumvirate.
5) After defeating Caesar’s murderers, the members of the Second Triumvirate had a falling-out; Octavian forced Ledipus out of office and waged wars against Antony, who had become allied with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.
6) In the early 1st century BCE, Octavian defeated the combined forces of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in Greece; his victory ended the civil war.
7) For his success, the senate voted Octavian the name Augustus.
8) The pax Romana–a period during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE of security, order, and harmony, flourishing culture, and expanding economy–began during Augustus’s reign.
9) Augustus became princeps civitatis, “First Citizen of the State,” a prestigious title without power.
10) The senate voted Augustus the full power of the tribunes, giving him the right to call the senate into session, present legislation to the people, and defend their rights.
11) Augustus held control of the army, which he made a permanent, standing organization.
12) Failing to restore the republic, he created a constitutional monarchy; without saying so, he also created the office of emperor.
13) He encouraged local self-government and urbanism.
14) He encouraged the cult of Roma et Augustus, “Rome and Augustus,” as the guardians of the state; the cult spread rapidly and became a symbol of Roman unity.
15) Augustus completed the conquest of Spain; one of the most momentous aspects of Augustus’s reign was Roman expansion into northern and western Europe.
Jesus and Christianity
1) 1st century BCE to 1st century CE
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Jesus of Nazareth was raised in Galilee, stronghold of the Zealots.
4) The principal evidence of Jesus’s life and deeds are the four Gospels of the New Testament.
5) These Gospels are records of Jesus’s teachings and religious doctrines; they were written some 75 years after his death, and there are discrepancies among the four accounts.
6) Jesus preached of a heavenly kingdom, one of eternal happiness in a life after death.
7) Jesus’s teachings were essentially Jewish; his major deviation from orthodoxy was his insistence that he taught in his own name, not in the name of Yahweh.
The Five Good Emperors and their Accomplishments
1) 96 C.E. to 180 C.E.
2) Italian Peninsula
3) The five good emperors were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonious Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.
4) The era of the five good emperors (also considered the golden age of the empire) was caused by the benevolence and moderation of these five consecutive Roman emperors.
5) Under these emperors, extensive prosperity occured. Agriculture flourished at the hands of free tenants farmers, and peace and security opened Britain, Gaul, Germany, and the lands of the Danube to immigration.
Flavian Monarchs
1) 1st century CE
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Vespasian established the Flavian dynasty and restored order to the Roman emperor.
4) Vespasian turned Augustus’s principate into a monarchy.
5) The Flavian dynasty repaired the damage of civil war and paved the way for the five good emperors.
6) The dynasty consisted of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.
Plutarch
1) 1st-2nd centuries CE
2) Italian Peninsula
3) Plutarch spent his later adult years in Chaeronea where he wrote many influential and compelling biographies of eminent Greeks and Romans, including Themistocles, Pericles, Caesar, and Antony.
4) He mastered philosophy and wrote extensively on Plato and his teachings.
5) Plutarch’s writings included treatises on moral philosophy as a guide to everyday life.
6) His work influenced the Renaissance.
7) He symbolizes the urbanity of the Roman empire in the era of the five good emperors.
German Barbarians
1) The world of Rome (8th century BCE to 5th century CE)
2) Italian Peninsula
3) The Germanic barbarians were the subject to Roman invasions during the reign of Augustus Octavian (1st century BCE to 1st century CE).
4) The Roman legions of Augustus penetrated the areas of modern Austria, southern Bavaria, and western Hungary; the regions of modern Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania fell.
5) Roman towns, trade, language, and law began to exert a civilizing influence on the barbarians.
6) For the first time, the barbarian north came into direct and continuous contact with Mediterranean culture; the Romans maintained peaceful relations with the barbarians whenever possible, but Roman legions remained on the frontier to repel hostile barbarians.
