Chapter 6

Question 1

What was Rome originally started as?

Answer 1

A city-state.

Question 2

What form of government did the early city-state adopt?

Answer 2

A monarchy. They had a king.

Question 3

What two periods of history does the Rome have?

Answer 3

The Republic and The Empire

Question 4

What did the Romans borrow from the Etruscans?

Answer 4

Agricultural methods, political skills, how to create street plans for cities, how to build masonry arches, how to create public sanitation systems, and military techniques.

Question 5

What did the Romans borrow from the Greeks?

Answer 5

Greek gods and goddess, the concept of a phonetic alphabet, and Greek philosophy and culture.

Question 6

What two sides were in a class struggle during the Roman Republic era?

Answer 6

The Patricians and the Plebians.

Question 7

What is the class struggle formally called?

Answer 7

The Struggle of the Orders.

Question 8

Who were the Patricians?

Answer 8

Families who long possessed political, economic, and military power.

Question 9

Who were the Plebians?

Answer 9

The commoners who boasted of little power, little wealth, and did not hail from long established families.

Question 10

What approach to politics did Rome take after ending the kingship?

Answer 10

A pragmatic one. It made a series of compromises between the Plebians and Patricians.

Question 11

Who possessed executive power in the Roman Republic and how were they chosen?

Answer 11

Two consuls. Elected by a body of male citizens.

Question 12

What was the Senate? What was its purpose? How many people made up the Senate? How were its members chosen and for how long did they serve?

Answer 12

The Senate was the body created to advise the consuls. It was made up of around 300 leading patrician members chosen by the consuls and appointed for life.

Question 13

How did the Plebians go about gaining more rights and privileges in Roman society?

Answer 13

By threatening to secede from Rome and found their own city-state. This would deprive Rome of labor, taxes, and military services.

Question 14

What was the initial Roman written law called?

Answer 14

The Twelve Tables.

Question 15

What office did the Patricians create to avoid having to make Plebians eligible for consul?

Answer 15

Tribute.

Question 16

What did a tribute do?

Answer 16

Could protect any plebian being wronged by a Patrician.

Question 17

In what year did Senators have to win public election?

Answer 17

200 B.C.

Question 18

What was the basic unit of Roman society?

Answer 18

The family.

Question 19

What was the father of a Roman family known as?

Answer 19

Pater Familias.

Question 20

How often were adoptions and why did they happen?

Answer 20

Adoptions were frequent and strategic. Powerful figures identified young men to be their heirs and adopted them.

Question 21

Who was Rome’s greatest playwright?

Answer 21

Plautus.

Question 22

What themes did Plautus’ plays cover?

Answer 22

The pains of love, drunkenness and womanizing.

Question 23

What did Roman religion say about personal ethics?

Answer 23

They were irrelevant to the gods.

Question 24

What was Roman religion built on?

Answer 24

A “Contractual Paradigm”. If a person did the rituals properly he would be favored and if he did the rituals badly he would be punished.

Question 25

What were the household gods that represented the family’s ancestors named?

Answer 25

Lares and Penates.

Question 26

What were plaster death masks of deceased family members called?

Answer 26

Imagines.

Question 27

What was the moral code of the Romans called and what did it entail?

Answer 27

Mos Maiorum. Following the way of the elders or the way things were done by your forefathers.

Question 28

How was Roman creativity expressed?

Answer 28

Through highly practical architectural projects such as the aqueducts.

Question 29

What kind of army did Rome have?

Answer 29

A professional army.

Question 30

What did the Romans do to defeated city-states and conquered peoples?

Answer 30

Converted them from enemies to allies by incorporating them into Rome. People would pay tribute to Rome and Rome would protect them and afford them some measure of self-government.

Question 31

What series of wars turned Rome into a world superpower?

Answer 31

The Punic Wars.

Question 32

How many Wars were fought in the Punic Wars?

Answer 32

Three.

Question 33

When Rome triumphed over Carthage, did Rome incorporate it into the Roman Republic?

Answer 33

No. It looted and sacked the city and sold its inhabitants into slavery.

Question 34

What other great Empire did Rome incorporate into its Republic?

Answer 34

The Greek city-states.

Question 35

What happened to agriculture during the Punic Wars and afterwards as a result of the wars?

Answer 35

Farms were either destroyed or abandoned by soldiers fighting the war. The lack of farmland, because it was bought up by the wealthy, caused a mass migration to the cities.

Question 36

What were the large plantations owned by the wealthy called?

Answer 36

Latifundia.

Question 37

How much of the population of Rome were slaves?

Answer 37

About 1/3.

Question 38

Who led the most famous slave revolt?

Answer 38

Spartacus.

Question 39

How did Senators keep the mobs of Rome happy when the people there had no land?

Answer 39

By creating extensive social welfare programs and providing entertainment. They took the bread and circuses approach.

Question 40

Who created a use for the unemployed masses in Rome and how did he do this?

Answer 40

Marius. By eliminating the property requirement for military service.

Question 41

Where Marius’s soldier loyal to the Republic or to Marius?

Answer 41

Marius, since it was Marius who promised them wealth and plunder.

Question 42

Who started a civil war in Rome against Marius?

Answer 42

Sulla.

Question 43

Who proposed key reforms to try and restore virtue to Rome?

Answer 43

The Gracchus Brothers.

Question 44

Who formed the triumvirate that transitioned Rome from a Republic to an Empire?

Answer 44

Julius Ceasar, Pompey, and Crassus.

Question 45

What grew Julius Ceasar’s fame in Rome?

Answer 45

His conquests in Gaul and military victories achieved in that campaign.

Question 46

Who tried to stop Ceasar when he returned to Rome with his army?

Answer 46

Pompey.

Question 47

What reforms did Ceasar undertake as Emporer?

Answer 47

The Gracchus Brothers land reform, gave Roman citizenship to the people in Spain and Gaul, eliminated petty corruption, and built splendid roads and buildings that created jobs.

Question 48

When was Julius Ceasar assassinated?

Answer 48

The Ides of March, March 15, 44 BC.

Question 49

Who won the resulting civil war to gain control of Rome?

Answer 49

Octavian (Later Augustus Ceasar.)

Question 50

When did Rome prosper and when did Rome start to fall?

Answer 50

Rome prospered when leaders put the common good ahead of their own self-interest. However, when leaders used power to improve their own social and economic standing, the Republic started to fall.