Rome-140-145

Question 1

What did the five so-called good emperors create?

Answer 1

a period of peace and prosperity that lasted for almost a hundred years

Question 2

What did the five “good emperors” do??

Answer 2

treated the ruling class with respect
cooperated with the senate
ended arbitrary executions
maintained peace throughout the empire
supported domestic policies generally beneficial to the empire

Question 3

What were the five “good emperors” known for?

Answer 3

tolerance and diplomacy

Question 4

How did the first four good emperors reduce the chances of succession problems?

Answer 4

by adopting capable men as their successors

Question 5

What happened under the five good emperors?

Answer 5

the powers of the emperor continued to be extended at the expense of the senate

Question 6

Who took over the running of the government?

Answer 6

imperial officials appointed and directed by the emperor

Question 7

What else did the good emperors do?

Answer 7

extended the scope of imperial administration to include areas previously untouched by the imperial government

Question 8

Trajan

Answer 8

implemented the establishment of an alimentary program that provided state funds to assist poor parents in raising and educating their children

Question 9

Why were the good emperors widely praised by their subjects?

Answer 9

their extensive building programs

Question 10

Trajan and Hadrain

Answer 10

were especially active in constructing public works-aqueducts, bridges, roads, and harbor facilities, throughout the provinces and in Rome. Trajan built a new forum in Rome to provide a setting for his celebrated victory column.
Hadrians pantheon is one of the grandest ancient buildings surviving in Rome.

Question 11

What is Dacia?

Answer 11

modern Romania

Question 12

How did Trajan break with Augustus’s policy of defensive imperialism?

Answer 12

by extending Roman rule into Dacia, Mesopotamia, and the Sinai peninsula, his conquests represent the high-water mark of Roman expansion. His successors recognized that the empire was overextended and pursued a policy of retrenchment.

Question 13

Who withdrew Roman forces from much of Mesopotamia?

Answer 13

Hadrian

Question 14

Hadrian retained Dacia and Arabia, but….

Answer 14

he went on the defensive in his frontier policy by reinforcing the fortifications along a line connecting the Rhine and Danube Rivers and building a defensive wall eighty miles long across northern Britain to keep the Scots out of Roman Britain

Question 15

What happened by the end of the second century?

Answer 15

he vulnerability of the empire had become apparent

Question 16

What else happened by the end of the second century?

Answer 16

frontiers were stabilized
Roman forces were established in permanent bases behind the frontiers
But when one frontier was attacked, troops had to be drawn from other frontiers, leaving them vulnerable to attack. The empire lacked a real strategic reserve, and in the next century its weakness would be ever more apparent

Question 17

When was the Roman Empire one of the greatest states the world had seen?

Answer 17

at its height in the second century
It covered about three and a half million square miles and had a population, like that of Han China, that has been estimated at more than 50 million.
While the emperors and the imperial administration provided a degree of unity, considerable leeway was given to local customs, and the privileges of Roman citizenship were extended to many people throughout the empire. In 212, the emperor Caracalla completed the process by giving Roman citizenship to every free inhabitant of the empire, while Greek was used in the east. Although Roman culture spread to all parts of the empire, there were limits to romanization since local languages persisted and many of the empires residents spoke neither Latin nor Greek

Question 18

What did the administration and cultural life of the Roman Empire depend greatly on?

Answer 18

Cities and town

Question 19

A provincial governor’s staff was not large so…

Answer 19

local city officials were expected to act as Roman agents in carrying out many government functions, especially those related to taxes. Most towns and cities were not large by modern standards. The largest was Rome, but there were also some large cities in the east: Alexandria in Egypt numbered over 300,000 inhabitants, Ephesus in Asia Minor had 200,000, and Antioch in Syria had around 150,000. In the west, cities were usually small, with only a few thousand inhabitants. Cities were important in the spread of Roman culture, law, and the Latin language. They were also uniform in physical appearance, with similar temples, markets, amphitheaters, and other public buildings

Question 20

How were Magistrates and town councils chosen?

Answer 20

from the ranks of the wealthy upper classes directed municipal administration. These municipal offices were unsalaried but were nevertheless desired by wealthy citizens because they received prestige and power at the local level as well as Roman citizenship. Roman municipal policy effectively tied the upper classes to Roman rule and ensured that these classes would retain control over the rest off the population

Question 21

What was reflected in significant changes in the governing classes of the empire?

Answer 21

the process of romanization in the provinces

Question 22

What happened in the 1st century?

Answer 22

there was a noticeable decline in the number of senators from Italian families.

Question 23

What happened by the end of the second century?

Answer 23

Italian senators made up less than 50% of the total. Increasingly, the Roman senate was being recruited from wealthy provincial equestrian families. The provinces also provided many of the legionaries for the Roman army and, beginning with Trajan, supplied many of the emperors.

Question 24

What empire was a period of considerable prosperity?

Answer 24

The Early Empire

Question 25

What did Internal peace result in?

Answer 25

unprecedented levels of trade.
Merchants from all over the empire came to the chief Italian ports of Puteoli on the Bay of Naples and Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber. Trade extended beyond the Roman boundaries and included even silk goods from China. But the patterns of trade were somewhat unbalanced. The importation of large quantities of grain to feed the populace of Rome and an incredible quantity of luxury items for the wealthy upper classes in the west led to a steady drainage of gold and silver coins from Italy and the west to the eastern part of the empire

Question 26

What helped stimulate manufacturing?

Answer 26

increased trade

Question 27

What did the cities of the east still produce?

Answer 27

the items made in Hellenistic times. The first two centuries of the empire also witnessed the high point of industrial development in Italy. Some industries became concentrated in certain areas, such as bronze work in Capua and pottery in Arretium in Eturia. Other industries, such as brick making, were pursued in rural ares as by-products of large landed estate. Much industrial production remained small in scale and was done by individual artisans, usually freed-men or slaves. In the course of the first century, Italian centers of industry began to experience increasing competition from the provinces.

Question 28

What was the chief occupation of most people and the underlying basis of Roman prosperity?

Answer 28

agriculture

Question 29

What are large landed estates called?

Answer 29

latifundia and they still dominated agriculture, especially in southern and central Italy, small peasant farms persisted, particularly in Eturia and the Po valley. Although large estates concentrating on sheep and cattle raising used slaves, the lands of some Latifundia were worked by free tenant farmers who paid rent in labor, produce, or sometimes cash

Question 30

What were the development of towns and cities based in?

Answer 30

large degree upon the agricultural surpluses of the countryside.
In ancient times, the margin of surplus produced by each farmer was relatively small. Therefore, the upper classes and urban populations had to be supported by the labor of a large number of agricultural producers who never found it easy to produce much more than they needed for themselves. In lean years, when there were no surpluses, the townspeople often took what they wanted, leaving little for the peasants.

Question 31

What was strongly influenced by Greek models?

Answer 31

Latin literature

Question 32

What happened in the last century of the republic?

Answer 32

the Romans began to produce anew poetry in which Latin poets were able to use various Greek forms to express their own feelings about people, social, and political life, and love
Ex. The work of Catullis the “best lyric poet” Rome produced and one of the greatest in world literature.

Question 33

Catullus

Answer 33

became a master at adapting and refining Greek forms of poetry to express his emotions.
He wrote a variety of poems on political figures, social customs, the use of language, the death of his brother, and the travails of love.
Catullus became infatuated with Clodia, the promiscuous sister of a tribune and wife of a provincial governor, and addressed a number of poems to her (he called her Lesbia) describing his passionate love and hatred for her

Question 34

Catullus had a noticeable impact on who?

Answer 34

later Latin poets

Question 35

The development of Roman prose was greatly aided by the practice of what?

Answer 35

Oratory

Question 36

Why did the Romans have great respect for oratory??

Answer 36

because the ability to persuade people in public debate meant success in politics.

Question 37

Who brought oratory to perfection in a literary fashion?

Answer 37

Cicero, the best exemplar of the literary and intellectual interests of the senatorial elite of the late Republic and the greatest prose writer of that period. For Cicero, oratory was not simply skillful speaking. An orator was a statesman, a man who achieved his highest goal by pursuing an active life in public affairs.

Question 38

When was the high point of Latin literature reached?

Answer 38

The age of Augustus

Question 39

What was the Augustan age called because of their literary accomplishments?

Answer 39

the golden age of Latin literature

Question 40

Who was the most distinguished poet of the augustan age?

Answer 40

Virgil, the son of a small landholder in northern Italy, he welcomed the rule of Augustus and wrote his greatest work in his honor. Virgil’s masterpiece was The Aeneid, an epic poem clearly meant to rival the work of Homer. The connection between Troy and Rome is made in the poem when Aeneas, a hero of Troy, survives the destruction of Troy and eventually settles in Latium; hence, Roman civilization is linked to Greek history. The character of Aeneas had fulfilled his mission to establish the Romans in Italy and thereby start Rome on its divine mission to rule the world.

Question 41

What was Rome’s gift, according to Virgil?

Answer 41

ruling

Question 42

Who was another prominent Augustan poet?

Answer 42

Horace,
a friend of Virgil.
He was a very sophisticated writer whose overriding concern was to point out to his contemporaries the “follies and vices of his age” In his Satires, a medley of poems on a variety of subjects, Horace is revealed as a detached observer of human weakness. He directed his attacks against movements, not living people, and took on such subjects as sexual immoralirty, greed, and job dissatisfaction.
Horace mostly laughs at the weakness of humankind.

Question 43

Who was the last of the great poets of the golden age?

Answer 43

Ovid.
He belonged to a youthful, privileged social group in Rome that liked to ridicule old Roman values. In keeping with the spirit of this group, Ovid wrote a series of frivolous love poems know as the Amores. Intended to entertain and shock, they achieved their goal. Another of Ovid’s works was the Art of love. This was essentially a takeoff on didactic poems. Whereas authors of earlier didactic poems had written guides to farming, hunting, or some other subject, Ovid’s work was a handbook on the seduction of young women.

Question 44

Who wrote the most famous Latin prose work of the golden age?

Answer 44

historian Livy,
Livy’s masterpiece was the History of Rome, which covered the period from the foundation of the city to 9 B.C.E. Only 35 of the original 142 books have survived, although we do possess brief summaries of the whole work from other authors. Livy perceived history in terms or moral lessons. For Livy, human character was the determining factor in history. Livy’s history celebrated Rome’s greatness. He included scene upon scene that not only revealed the character of the chief figures but also demonstrated the virtues that had made Rome great. Of course, he had serious weakness as a historian. He was not always concerned about the factual accuracy of his myriad stories and was not overly critical of his sources. But he did tell a good story, and his work became the standard history of Rome for a long time

Question 45

What was the century and a half after Augustus called?

Answer 45

The Silver age

Question 46

Who was Seneca?

Answer 46

Educated in Rome, Seneca became strongly attached to the philosophy of Stoicism. In letters written to a young friend, he expressed the basic tenets of Stoicism.

Question 47

What were the basic tenets of Stoicism?

Answer 47

living according to nature

accepting events dispassionately as part of the divine plan, and a universal love for all humanity

Question 48

Who was the greatest historian of the Silver age?

Answer 48

Tacitus.
His main works included the Annals and Histories, which presented a narrative account of Roman histories, which presented a narrative account of Roman history from the reign of Tiberius through the assassination of Domitian.
Tacitus believed that history had a moral purpose.
He was a member of the senatorial class and was disgusted with the abuses of power perpetrated by the emperors and determined that the “evil deeds” of wicked men would not be forgotten. His work Germania is especially important as a source of information about the early Germans. But it too is colored by Tacitus’s attempt to show the Germans as noble savages in comparison to the decadent Romans.