Roman history

Question 1

What was the Roman founding myth?

Answer 1

A story which two twin brothers who were born from the god of war Mars engaged in disputation about where the city would be located and who would rule. Because of the dispute, romulus slew remus and named the city after himself.

Question 2

Timespan of the Roman Kingdom

Answer 2

753 B.C. to 510 B.C.

Question 3

Timespan of the Roman Republic

Answer 3

509–27 BCE

Question 4

Timespan of the Roman Empire

Answer 4

27 BC – 476 AD

Question 5

What was the cursus honorum?

Answer 5

the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in the Roman Republic. It was designed for men of senatorial rank.

Question 6

What was the consulship?

Answer 6

A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the cursus honorum after that of the censor. The consulship together exercised executive authority such as imperium, or military command.

Question 7

What was the censor?

Answer 7

The censor (at any time, there were two) was a magistrate in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government’s finances.

The power of the censor was absolute: no magistrate could oppose his decisions, and only another censor who succeeded him could cancel those decisions.

Question 8

Where does the word censorship originate from?

Answer 8

The censor’s regulation of public morality is the origin of the modern meaning of the words censor and censorship.

Question 9

What was the centuriate assembly

Answer 9

A voting assemblage of citizens to participate in a consultation which voted on matters of war and peace and elected men to the most important offices

Question 10

What were the Punic Wars?

Answer 10

The three Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome took place over nearly a century, beginning in 264 B.C. and ending in Roman victory with the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C.

Question 11

What was the Carthaginian Thalassocracy?

Answer 11

An informal empire that was established by the city-states of Phoenicia which inhabited the lands of Northern Africa and modern Spain from 550BC - 150 BC. It was a Thalassocracy, meaning an empire which prospers at Sea.

Question 12

Who are the Descendants of Phoenicia

Answer 12

People of Lebanon

Question 13

What was the Latin League?

Answer 13

The Latin League was an ancient confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the region of Latium near the ancient city of Rome, organized for mutual defense.

Question 14

What was the Latin War?

Answer 14

A conflict between the Roman Republic and the the confederate states in 338 BCE that belonged to the Latin League which emerged because of the Roman Republic’s acquisition of dominance within the league. In the aftermath of their losses they became integrated with the Roman Republic.

Question 15

Who were two leaders in the Punic Wars?

Answer 15

Hannibal (Carthage) and Scipio Africanus the Elder (Roman Republic)

Question 16

What were the Gallic Wars?

Answer 16

The Gallic wars were waged between 58-50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul, which is present day France, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Gallic and Germanic tribes fought to defend their homelands against an aggressive Roman campaign.

Question 17

What was Caesar’s Civil War?

Answer 17

one of the last politico-military conflicts (49-45 BC) of the Roman Republic before it reorganization into the Roman Empire. It began as a series of political and military confrontations between Julius Caesar and Pompeius Magnus.

Question 18

What was the First Triumvirate?

Answer 18

a surreptitious and informal alliance between three prominent politicians in the late Roman Republic; Julius Caesar, Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Crassus. The purpose of this triumvirate was to circumnavigate and bypass the parliamentary institutions of checks and balances.

Question 19

What led to Caesar’s Civil War?

Answer 19

The desideration of Caesar to achieve social reform while Pompey consolidated alliances with the conservative faction. Pompey began entertaining ideas of ruling with the dangerously popular Caesar. While Caesar was fighting in Gaul, Pompey and the Senate ordered Caesar to return to Rome without his army. But when Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in northern Italy, he brought his army with him in defiance of the senate’s order. This fateful decision led to a civil war.

Question 20

What was Caesars’ motivation for initiating a Civil War?

Answer 20

Because his political and senatorial opposition at home at Rome was engaging in consultations to terminate his delegation and designation as consul upon his arrival after fighting battles in Gaul.

Question 21

Ius Gentium and it’s commitments to slavery.

Answer 21

A concept of customary international law within the ancient Roman legal system. The victor had the right, under Ius gentium, to enslave a defeated population.

Question 22

Third Servile War

Answer 22

the last slave rebellion against the Roman Republic which posed the greatest and hellacious threat to the Roman Republic and military. The revolt began in 73 BC with the escape of 70 slave gladiators from a gladiator school. They easily defeated the local Roman force sent to capture them and within 2 years, they had been joined by 120,000 men. Marcus Crassus was the Roman General who defeated them.

Question 23

What were some of the reasons behind the fall of the Republic?

Answer 23

The establishment of the First Triumvirate

The radical expansion of Roman territory destabilizing social organization because of conflicting interests; the Senate’s policymaking, binded by its own term self interest, alienated large portions of society from it, who then joined powerful generals who sought to overthrow the system

Senatorial corruption

Effectuating slave labor and displacing agriculturally peasant labor

Question 24

Who assassinated Julius Caesar?

Answer 24

Highly motivated Senators

Question 25

What was the Second Triumvirate?

Answer 25

An alliance that was established in the aftermath of the death of Julius Caesar between Marcus Antonius, Octavian (Caesar’s adopted son and great nephew) and Marcus Lepidus, which was oriented towards the conservation and the distribution of the powers held by Julius to these three men.

Question 26

What was the Battle of Phillippi?

Answer 26

One of the valedictory and ending battles of the Roman Republic between the Second Triumvirate and the collaborators who orchestrated the assassination of Julius; Cassius and Brutus.

Question 27

What happened to Brutus and Cassius after their defeat at the Battle of Pillippi?

Answer 27

They both committed suicide

Question 28

Why was the Battle of Actium fought?

Answer 28

Because Antonius’ divorcing of Octavian’s sister and perpetuating a surreptitious affair with the Queen of the Ptolemaic Empire, Cleopatra. Antonius was trying to exploit the wealth of Egypt to dominate Rome. There were also disagreements about ways of governing Rome and the allocation of land.

Question 29

Who won the Battle of Actium and what where its consequences?

Answer 29

Octavian and his general Agrippa navally defeat Antonius and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium on the Ionian Sea. The forces of the latter where pushed to Alexandria where they both committed suicide. Rome seized the territory held by the Ptolemaic Empire.

Question 30

Who was Constantine and what did he do?

Answer 30

Constantine was the first Emperor to convert to Christianity and passed the Edict of Milan; the injunction to treat Christians with tolerance and benevolence. He also designated Constantinople as the capitol of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Question 31

Who was Theodosius and what did he do?

Answer 31

The Roman Emperor who Signed the Edict of Thessalonica which made Christianity the main religion. He was also the last Emperor to Rule over both Eastern and Western Empires.

Question 32

How did Western Roman Empire fall and what year?

Answer 32

476 ad. Because of a concatenation of invasions conducted by Germanic tribes, economic immiseration and impoverishment and the division between the Eastern and Western halves.

Question 33

What were some of the Germanic tribes called and where did they emerge from?

Answer 33

They emerged from Southern Scandinavia around 1000 BC. They consisted of the Goths, franks, Angles, Saxons and Vandals, among others.

Question 34

When were the Germanic Barbarians initially considered a threat?

Answer 34

Julius Caesar first noticed them during his Gallic Wars and considered them a potential threat.

Question 35

What did Emperor Diocletion do?

Answer 35

Divided the Roman Empire in half in 286 AD.