Mediterranean sea, city states, commercial-agriculture activities,

chattel slavery system, Democratic-Republic, Rome (3 periods),

achievements (In: politic, religion, nature sciences, social
sciences (Philosophy), architecture, arts…), Founding of
Christianity

Traditions and encounters ( from 258-284)

World History ( from 161- 183)

I. Some main keywords

1. Roman Republic
● After the overthrow of the monarchy, Roman nobles, eager to
maintain their position of power, established a republican form of
government.
● The chief executive officers of the Roman Republic were the consuls
and praetors.
● The Roman senate came to hold an especially important position in
the Roman Republic.
● The Roman Republic had a number of popular assemblies.
● Both patricians and plebeians could vote, but only the patricians
could be elected to governmental offices.
● The struggle between the patricians and plebeians dragged on for
hundreds of years, but it led to success for the plebeians.
2. Roman Empire
● The good emperors were widely praised for their extensive building
programs.
● Trajan and Hadrian (117--138) were especially active in constructing
public works---aqueducts, bridges, roads, and harbor facilities---
throughout the empire.
 ● At its height in the second century C.E., the Roman Empire was one of the
greatest states the world had seen.
● The administration and cultural life of the Roman Empire depended greatly
on cities and towns.
● Most towns and cities were not large by modern standards.
3. Founding of Christianity
● The first century CE saw the beginning of Christianity in the Roman-ruled
eastern Mediterranean.
● Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish religious figure who is credited with founding
Christianity, stressed love, forgiveness, and devotion to others in his
teachings. Despite persecution and rejection from the Roman government,
Christianity expanded quickly across the Roman Empire, with many
converts coming from lower socioeconomic strata and excluded groups.In
the fourth century CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine finally made
Christianity lawful, which encouraged its broad adoption in the empire.
● •Christianity made important contributions to the formation of
organizations like the Catholic Church and the philosophy and ethics of
succeeding generations, impacting Western culture and politics as well.
● Millions of people worldwide are still inspired by the creation of
Christianity, which is a significant event in the history of Roman civilization
and the world.
4. Some achievements

4.1 .Literature

The Latin literature that first emerged in the third century B.C.E. was
heavily influenced by Greek models. It was not until the last century of the
Republic that the Romans began to produce a new 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. The high point of Latin
literature was reached in the age of Augustus, when the most
distinguished poet of the Augustan Age was Virgil (70-19 B.C.E.). His
masterpiece was the Aeneid, an epic poem intended 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 that city and
eventually settles in Latium, establishing a link between Roman civilization
and Greek history. Virgil's overall purpose was to show that Aeneas had
fulfilled his mission to establish the Romans in Italy and thereby start
Rome on its divine mission to rule the world.

Rome Art

The Romans were heavily influenced by the Greeks for artistic inspiration
and developed a taste for Greek statues, murals, and places. They
excelled in architecture, using colonnades, rectangular structures,
curvilinear forms, and concrete on a massive scale. They also constructed
huge buildings, such as Caracalla and amphitheaters, which could seat
fifty thousand spectators. Additionally, they used Roman engineering skills
to construct roads, aqueducts, and bridges, which connected the Roman
empire and supplied a population of one million.

Rome law
 Rome's system of law was developed from the Twelve Tables of 450
B.C.E., which was designed for a simple farming society. As Rome
expanded, problems arose between citizens and noncitizens and also
among noncitizen residents of the empire. This gave rise to a body of law
known as the law of nations, defined as the part of the law that applied to
both Romans and foreigners. Under the influence of Stoicism, the Romans
came to identify their law of nations with natural law, a set of universal
laws based on reason. These standards of justice included principles such
as a person being regarded as innocent until proved otherwise, people
accused of wrongdoing being allowed to defend themselves before a
judge, and judges being expected to weigh evidence carefully before
arriving at a decision. These principles lived on long after the fall of the
Roman Empire.

Roman family

The Roman family was headed by the paterfamilias, a dominant male. It

included the wife, sons with their wives and children, unmarried
daughters, and slaves. By the mid-first century B.C.E., the dominant
practice had changed to ''without legal control''', meaning that married
daughters officially remained within the father's legal power. Some
parents provided education for their daughters, but early marriages
persisted due to women dying at a relatively young age. By the second
century C.E., significant changes were occurring in the Roman family, with
the paterfamilias no longer having absolute authority over his children and
the husband's absolute authority over his wife having also disappeared. By
the late second century, upper-class Roman women had considerable
freedom and independence.

Commercial Agriculture

The Roman Mediterranean experienced economic development and social

change as the state expanded and brought new regions into its network of
trade and communication. Agricultural production, the economic
foundation of the Roman empire, also underwent transformation. Owners
of latifundia concentrated on production for export, and grain from
latifundia in north Africa, Egypt, and Sicily routinely found its way over the
Roman roads and the Mediterranean sea lanes to the large cities of the
empire. Commercial agriculture played an important role in the economic
specialization and integration of the empire, and other regions could
concentrate on the cultivation of fruits and vegetables or on the
production of manufactured items. Greece, Syria, Palestine, Gaul, Spain,
and Italy became a center for the production of pottery, glassware, and
bronze goods. Archaeologists have uncovered one pottery factory north of
Rome that might have employed hundreds of workers and had a mixing
vat capable of holding more than 40,000 liters of clay.

Imperial Rome

Rome was the center of the Roman Empire, with the largest population of
any city in the empire, close to one million by the time of Augustus. Food
and entertainment were provided on a grand scale, with the most famous
being the gladiatorial shows, which took place in amphitheaters.
 Gladiatorial games were held from dawn to dusk, with contests to the
death between trained fighters and other forms of entertainment. Animal
contests were also held, such as wild beasts against each other, staged
hunts, and gladiators in the arena with bulls, tigers, and lions. It is
recorded that five thousand beasts were killed in one day of games when
Emperor Titus inaugurated the Colosseum in 80 C.E.

Slaves and their masters

The Romans possessed the most slaves and relied on slave labor in the
ancient world. Slaves were used in many ways, including as tutors,
musicians, doctors, and artists. Slaves were also used as farm laborers,
menial household workers, and contractors. The treatment of Roman
slaves varied, with some being humane and protecting their owners from
danger, while others were subject to severe punishments, torture, abuse,
and hard labor. Large-scale slave revolts occurred in Sicily, where
enormous gangs of slaves were subjected to horrible working conditions
on large landed estates. The most famous uprising on the Italian peninsula
occurred in 73 B.C.E., led by Spartacus, who managed to defeat several
Roman armies before being trapped and killed in southern Italy in 71
B.C.E. Six thousand of his followers were crucified, the traditional form of
execution for slaves.

The city of Rome

The Roman empire was a major player in the Mediterranean integration of

cities and contributed to economic and social change. In the first century
C.E., the city was home to ten thousand statues, seven hun dred pools,
five hundred fountains, and thirty-six monumental marble arches. The
Roman state also financed the construction of temples, bathhouses, public
buildings, stadiums, and aqueducts, which brought fresh water into the
city. Construction provided employment for hundreds of thousands of
workers, and the population of Rome surged. Shoppingkeepers, artisans,
merchants, and bankers proliferated in the imperial capital, and economic
development attracted large numbers of migrants from the country-ideal
and foreign lands. Urban growth and development also took place beyond
the capital, with some parts of the empire having long-standing urban
traditions and the city founding cities at strategic sites for government
and administration.

Roman Deities
The Romans worshiped a variety of deities in their early history and thought that
these beings actively affected human affairs. The main deity and master of the
sky was Jupiter. The gods of battle were Mars, Ceres, Janus, and Vesta. Ceres
was the goddess of grain, while Vesta was the goddess of the hearth. The
majority of Roman homes also revered tutelary deities, or gods who watched
over the welfare of specific families, in addition to these primary deities.

The religious and cultural practices of various peoples were encountered when
the Romans grew their political power and created an empire. They frequently
appropriated other peoples' deities and utilized them for their own ends. By way
of illustration, they discovered Juno, the moon goddess, and Minerva, the
goddess of wisdom, as well as certain religious practices, such as divination of
the future through examination of the internal organs of ritually sacrificed
animals.

II. Details
Rome republic

The Roman Conquest of Italy

Livy, one of the chief ancient sources for the history of the early Roman
Republic, provided a detailed narrative of Roman efforts. By 340 B.C.E.,
Rome had crushed the Latin states in Latium. During the next fifty years,
the Romans waged a successful struggle with hill peoples from central
Italy and then came into direct contact with the Greek communities. The
Greeks had much influence on Rome, cultivated olives and grapes, passed
on their alphabet, and provided artistic and cultural models through their
sculpture, architecture, and literature. By 267 B.C.E., the Romans had
completed the conquest of southern Italy by defeating the Greek cities.

Rome had conquered most of Italy in 264 B.C.E. and devised the Roman
Confederation to rule it. This system allowed some peoples, especially the
Latins, to have full Roman citizenship, while most of the remaining
communities were made allies. The Romans pursued consistent policies
that helped explain their success, such as diplomatic decisions, good
soldiers, and a practical sense of strategy. They also established colonies
at strategic locations throughout Italy, building roads to these settlements
and connecting them. By insisting on military service from the allies in the
Roman Confederation, Rome mobilized the entire military man power of all
Italy for its wars.

The Rome State

The Roman Republic was established after the overthrow of the monarchy,
with the chief executive officers being the consuls and praetors. The
praetor was in charge of civil law and could also lead armies and govern
Rome when the consuls were away from the city. The Roman state also
had a number of ad ministrative officials who handled specialized duties.
The Roman senate was a select group of about three hundred men who
served for life. The Roman Republic had a number of popular assemblies,
such as the centuriate assembly and the council of the plebs.

These assemblies elected the chief magistrates and passed laws, but only
the patricians could be elected to governmental offices. Intermarriage
between patricians and plebeians was forbidden. At the beginning of the
fifth century B.C.E., the plebeians began a struggle to seek political and
social equality with the patricians. This led to the creation of the council of
the plebs in 471 B.C.E., marriages between patricians and plebeians, and
the right to pass laws for all Romans in 287 B.C.E. The struggle between
the patricians and plebeians had a significant impact on the development
of the Roman state, with a select number of patrician and plebeian
families forming a new senatorial aristocracy that came to dominate the
political offices.

The Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean (264–133 B.C.E.)

The Romans faced Carthage, a powerful Mediterranean power founded

around 800 B.C.E. on the coast of North Africa by Phoenicians. In 264
B.C.E., the two powers began a lengthy struggle for control of the western
Mediterranean. In the First Punic War, the Romans resolved to conquer
Sicily and developed a substantial naval fleet. After a long struggle, a
Roman fleet defeated the Carthaginian navy off Sicily and the war quickly
came to an end. In 241 B.C.E., Carthage gave up all rights to Sicily and
had to pay an indemnity.

When the Romans encouraged one of Carthage’s Spanish allies to revolt

against Carthage, Hannibal, the greatest of the Carthaginian generals,
struck back, beginning the Second Punic War (218--201 B.C.E.). This war
aimed to bring the war home to the Romans and defeat them in their own
backyard. Hannibal crossed the Alps with an army of thirty to forty
thousand men and inflicted a series of defeats on the Romans. At Cannae
in 216 B.C.E., the Romans lost an army of almost forty thousand men.
Rome then sent troops to Spain, and by 206 B.C.E., Spain was freed of the
Carthaginians.

At the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C.E., the Romans crushed Hannibal’s forces
and the war was over. Fifty years later, the Romans fought their third and
final struggle with Carthage. In 146 B.C.E., Carthage was destroyed and
the inhabitants were sold into slavery. Rome also had problems with the
Hellenistic states in the eastern Mediterranean, and after the defeat of
Carthage, Rome turned its attention to the Hellenistic states in the eastern
Mediterranean. In 133 B.C.E., the king of Pergamum deeded his kingdom
to Rome, giving Rome's first province in Asia.
 + Evolution of the Roman Army

By the fourth century B.C.E., the Roman army consisted of four

legions, each made up of four thousand to five thousand men. The
infantry consisted of three lines of battle: the hastati (spearmen),
the prin cipes (chief men), and the triarii (third-rank men). In the
early Republic, the army was recruited from citizens between the
ages of eighteen and forty-six who had the resources to equip
themselves for battle. After the disastrous battle of Cannae in 216
B.C.E., the Romans were forced to recruit larger armies, and the
number of legions rose to twenty-five. Major changes in recruitment
would not come until the first century B.C.E. with the military
reforms of Marius.

Roman Empire

The Age of Augustus (31 B.C.E.–14 C.E.) saw Octavian proclaim the restoration of
the Republic and become the first Roman emperor. He maintained a standing
army of 28 legions and set up a praetorian guard of 9,000 men. He also
established a new system for governing the provinces, allowing him to overrule
the senatorial governors and establish a uniform imperial policy. He also
conquered the central and maritime Alps and expanded Roman control of the
Balkan peninsula up to the Danube River. He died in 14 C.E.

After dominating the Roman world for 45 years, creating a new order while
placating the old. The Early Empire (14–180) saw the establishment of the Julio-
Claudian dynasty, which included four successors related to the family of
Augustus or his wife, Livia. During the reigns of the Julio-Claudians, more and
more of the responsibilities of the senate were taken over by the emperors, who
also instituted an imperial bureaucracy. Nero, for example, freely eliminated
people he wanted out of the way. The Five Good Emperors (96–180) saw the Pax
Romana (the 'Roman peace') and the prosperity it engendered, and were known
for their tolerance and disobedience.

The powers of the emperor continued to expand at the expense of the senate,
and imperial officials appointed and directed by the emperor took over the
running of the government. Trajan and Hadrian were praised for their extensive
building programs. Trajan extended Roman rule into Dacia, Mesopotamia, and
the Sinai peninsula, but his successors returned to Augustus' policy of defensive
imperial ism. Hadrian withdrew Roman forces from Mesopotamia and built a wall
80 miles long across northern Britain to keep the Scots out of Roman Britain. At
its height, the Roman Empire was one of the greatest states in the world.

The Roman Empire was unified by the emperors and the imperial administration,
with leeway to local customs and the privileges of Roman citizenship extended to
many people. Latin was the language of the western part of the empire, while
Greek was used in the east. Cities were important in the spread of Roman
culture, law, and the Latin language, and they resembled each other with their
temples, markets, and amphitheaters.

III. Questions
Critical Thinking : In what ways were the Roman Empire and the Han Chinese
Empire similar, and in what ways were they different?
Focus question:
1. Early Rome and the Republic What policies and institutions help explain
the Romans’ success in conquering Italy? How did Rome achieve its
empire from 264 to 133 B.C.E., and what problems did Rome face as a
result of its growing empire?
2. The Roman Empire at Its Height What were the chief features of the
Roman Empire at its height in the second century C.E.?