|
|
 |
|
ROMAN CIVILIZATION
|
|
|
|
ROME TO
509 B.C.
Rome's Origins
|
|
According to ancient LEGEND, Rome was
founded in 753 B.C. by the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who were saved from death in
their infancy by a she-wolf who sheltered and suckled them. Virgil's Aeneid
preserved a different tradition that the founder of the Roman races was AENEAS, a Trojan
who after the fall of Troy founded a settlement in Latium.
Modern scholars believe that in the 8th century B.C., the inhabitants of some small
Latin settlements on hills in the Tiber valley united and established a common meeting
place, the FORUM, around which the city of Rome grew.
The Etruscans conquered Rome about 600 B.C., and under their tutelage Rome first became
an important city-state. From the Etruscans, the Romans received:
|
 | Etruscan
WRITING (the word Roma is an Etruscan word)
|
| Their
gods and goddesses and the practice of PROPHESYING by examining animal entrails.
|
| The art
of BUILDING -- especially the arch.
|
|
| The Roman Monarchy |
|
Rome's political growth followed a line of
development similar to that of the Greek city-states: limited monarchy, oligarchy,
democracy, and finally, the permanent dictatorship of the Roman emperors. According to
tradition, early Rome was ruled by KINGS elected by the people.
|
| The
king's executive power, both civil and military, was called IMPERIUM.
|
| Although
the imperium was conferred by a popular assembly made up of all arms-bearing citizens, the
king turned for advice to a council of nobles, called the SENATE.
 | Each
senator had lifelong tenure and the members of this group and their families constituted
the PATRICIAN class.
|
| The
other class of Romans, the PLEBEIANS (commoners) included small farmers, artisans, and
many clients (dependents of patrician landowners).
|
| In
return for a livelihood, the clients gave their patrician patrons political support in the
assembly.
|
|
|
| EARLY REPUBLIC 509-133 B.C. Establishment
of the Republic |
|
In 509 B.C., according to tradition, the
patricians expelled the last Etruscan king and established a republic.
| The
imperium was transferred to two new officials called CONSULS.
|
| Elected
annually from the patrician class, the consul exercised their power in the interests of
that class.
|
| In the
event of war or serious domestic emergency, a dictator could be substituted for the two
consuls, but he was given absolute power for only six months.
|
|
| Struggle for Equal Right |
|
For more than two centuries following the
establishment of the Republic, the plebeians struggled for political and social equality.
| Outright
civil war was averted by the willingness of the patricians to compromise.
|
| Much of
the plebeians'' success in this struggle was also due to their tactics of collective
action and to their having organized a corporate group within the state.
| The
unofficial body was known as the CONCILIUM PLEBIS.
|
| It was
presided over by plebeian officials called TRIBUNES, whose job was to safeguard the
interests of the plebeians and to negotiate with the consuls and the Senate.
|
|
The advancement of the PLEBEIANS
during the early Republic took two main lines: the safeguarding of their FUNDAMENTAL
RIGHTS and the progressive enlargement of their share of POLITICAL POWER.
Because the consuls often interpreted Rome's unwritten customary law to suit patrician
interests, the plebeians demanded that it be written down.
|
| As
a result, about 450 B.C., the law was inscribed on twelve tablets of
bronze and set up publicly in the Forum.
|
| The
LAW OF THE TWELVE TABLETS was the first landmark in the long history
of Roman law.
|
The plebeians in time acquired other fundamental rights
and safeguards:
|
| They
secured the right to APPEAL A DEATH SENTENCE imposed by a consul and to be retried before
the popular assembly.
|
| The
tribunes gained a VETO POWER over any legislation or executive act that threatened
the rights of the plebeians.
|
| MARRIAGE
between patricians and plebeians, prohibited by the Law of the Twelve Tablets, was
legalized.
|
| The
enslavement of citizens for DEBT was abolished.
|
Little by little, the plebeian
class acquired more power in the functioning of government.
|
| In 367
B.C., ONE CONSULSHIP was reserved for the plebeians.
|
| Before
the end of the century, they ere eligible to hold other important MAGISTRACIES;
| Praetor
(in charge of the law courts)
|
| Quaestor
(treasurer)
|
| Censor
(supervisor of public morals and state contracts)
|
|
| Some
plebeians succeeded in gaining entry to the SENATE.
|
The long struggle for equality
ended in 287 B.C. when the Concillum Plebis was recognized as a constitutional
body, henceforth known as the TRIBAL ASSEMBLY, with the right to PASS LAWS that were
binding on all citizens.
The Roman Republic was now technically a democracy, although in actual practice a
senatorial aristocracy of patricians and rich plebeians continued to control the state.
|
| The Roman Citizen |
|
The fundamental unit of early Roman society
was the FAMILY.
| The
FATHER's power was absolute.
|
| STRICT
DISCIPLINE was imposed to instill in children those virtues to which the Romans attached
particular importance: loyalty, courage, self-control and respect for laws and ancestral
customs.
|
The Romans of the early Republic
were STERN, HARD-WORKING, and PRACTICAL.
Men's relationship to the universe and the possibilities of immortal life did not
concern them very much.
|
| RELIGIOUS
PRACTICES were confined to placating the spirits of the family and the state.
|
| Under
Etruscan influence, the major SPIRITS WERE PERSONIFIED: Jupiter (god of the universe, Mars
(god of war), Janus (spirit of the city gate).
|
|
| FOREIGN AFFAIRS 509-133 B.C. Growth
of Empire |
|
Steps in the development of the ROMAN
EMPIRE:
| Between
509 and 270 B.C., the Romans crushed all resistance to their rule in ITALY.
|
| They
then clashed with CARTHAGE (during the Punic Wars) and defeated Carthage in 201 B.C.
|
| Having
conquered the West, the Romans found themselves drawn to the East and by 133 B.C.:
| MACEDONIA
AND GREECE were ruled by Roman governors.
|
| The
Seleucid emperor in ASIA had been defeated and humbled.
|
| Rome
had acquired its first province on the Asian continent.
|
|
With provinces on three continents
-- Europe, Africa, and Asia -- the once obscure Roman Republic, was now supreme in the
ancient world.
|
| Effects of Roman Expansion |
|
As a results of this expansion, important
social and economic problems faced Rome by the middle of the second century B.C.
| One of
the most pressing problems was the DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SMALL LANDOWNER.
| Burdened
by frequent military service, his farm buildings destroyed by war, and unable to compete
with the cheap grain imported from the new Roman province of Sicily, the SMALL FARMER SOLD
OUT and moved to Rome.
|
| Here he
joined the unemployed, discontented PROLETARIAT.
|
|
| Improved
farming methods learned from the Greeks and Carthaginians encouraged RICH ARISTOCRATS to
buy more and more land and, abandoning the cultivation of grain, introduce LARGE-SCALE
SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION of olive oil and wine, or of sheep and cattle.
| This
trend was especially profitable because an abundance of cheap SLAVES from the conquered
areas was available to work on the estates.
|
| These
large slave plantations, called LATIFUNDIA, were now common in Italy, while small farms
were the exception.
|
|
| The
land problem was further complicated by the government's earlier practice of LEASING part
of the territory acquired in the conquest of the Italian peninsula to anyone willing to
pay a percentage of the crop or animals raised on it.
| Only
the patricians or wealthy plebeians could afford to lease large tracts of this public land
and in time they treated it as their own property.
|
| Plebeian
protests had led to an attempt to limit the holdings of a single individual to 320 acres,
but the law was never enforced.
|
|
| CORRUPTION
IN GOVERNMENT was another growing degeneracy of the Roman Republic.
| Provincial
officials seized opportunities for lucrative GRAFT and a new class of Roman businessmen
scrambled selfishly for the profitable STATE CONTRACTS to supply the armies, collect taxes
in the provinces, and lease mines and forests.
|
| Although
in theory the government was a democracy, in practice it remained a SENATORIAL OLIGARCHY.
The tribunes, guardians of the people's rights, had become mere yes-men of the Senate.
|
|
Thus by the middle of the second
century B.C., the government was in the hands of the wealthy, self-seeking Senate, which
was UNABLE TO COPE with the problems of governing a world-state.
|
| Ordinary
citizens were for the most part impoverished and landless.
|
| Rome
swarmed with fortune hunters, imported slaves, unemployed farmers, and discontented war
veterans.
|
| The
poverty of the many, coupled with the opulence of the few, hastened the decay of the old
Roman traits of discipline, simplicity, and respect for authority.
|
|
THE END
OF THE REPUBLIC
133-27 B.C.
|
|
As the Mediterranean world succumbed to the
Roman legions, the Roman Republic faced civil war and degeneration.
| The
GRACCHI BROTHERS tried to persuade the senatorial oligarchy to allow the enactment of
necessary reforms, but to no avail.
| Tiberius
Gracchus, elected tribune in 133 B.C., proposed laws that would divide the farmlands
gained in war among the out-of-work farmers and make it against the law for any person to
own more than a certain amount of land. Since his proposal would have taken away land from
some of the richest families, a group of rich men had him murdered.
|
| Ten
years alter, Gaius Gracchus was elected tribune and worked on his brother's reforms. He
was able to pass a land reform bill, but the wealthy were again alarmed. His supporters
were attacked and he, himself, committed suicide.
|
|
| Rome
was now the scene of bitter rivalry between the people's party, supported by the plebeians
and the masses, and the Senate, the agent of the rich patricians. The country was divided
by VIOLENCE and WAR.
|
| Finally,
SULLA, an able general and strong supporter of the Senate, restored order.
| Appointed
dictator by the Senate, he doubled the size of this ruling council and limited the power
of the veto.
|
| His
changes wiped out many of the gains made by the plebeians in their struggle for equality.
|
| He
brought peace to the republic, but his changes did not last.
|
|
In 60 B.C., after a successful
military career, JULIUS CAESAR joined with Pompey (another military hero) and Crassus (one
of the wealthiest men in Rome) to form the FIRST TRIUMVIRATE, a three-person governing
body that was to rule the Roman state.
In 49 B.C., after conquering Gaul and invading Britain, Caesar defied the Senate, which
feared his growing power, returned to Rome with his army, defeated Pompey, and
declared himself DICTATOR.
|
| During
his five years of rule, Caesar made moderate reforms.
| He
weakened the power of the Senate, but at the same time increased its membership to 900 by
allowing more representation of the provinces.
|
| Roman
citizenship was extended to persons living outside Italy, an action that helped to unite
the Roman territory.
|
| In the
provinces, taxes were adjusted and the administration worked to reduce corruption.
|
| He
reduced unemployment among the poor by creating public building projects.
|
|
| On the
Ides of March, 44 B.C., Caesar was murdered on the floor of the Senate by a group of men
who feared he intended to make himself king.
|
In 27 B.C., the Senate gave
Caesar's heir Octavian the honorary title of AUGUSTUS.
|
| After a
century of civil war, Rome at last had been united under one ruler.
|
| With
the reign of Augustus, the ROMAN EMPIRE BEGAN.
|
|
| THE ROMAN EMPIRE |
|
AUGUSTUS proved to be a wise ruler.
| On the
surface, the old republic institutions, such as the Senate, were preserved, but Augustus
wielded the real power in the new government.
|
| He
improved the government that had grown corrupt during the later days of the republic by
creating a professional civil service, open to all classes and based on talent.
|
| In
addition, he established a permanent, professional army that was loyal to the emperor and
stationed away from the political arena in the isolated frontier provinces.
|
| He took
a census of citizens and adjusted the tax rates.
|
| He
began a program of public works and built roads and bridges.
|
From the time of TIBERIUS,
Augustus' successor, to the end of the western empire in 476 A.D., Rome was ruled by more
than 70 emperors, only a few of whom were capable.
|
| In
spite of incompetent rulers, the empire held together because efficient administrators at
many levels of responsibility maintained justice and order.
|
| In
addition, commercial strength helped keep the empire stable.
|
| Only
when economic decline and social unrest set in did the lack of good leadership at the top
seriously weaken the empire.
|
|
|
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION |
|
|
| ONLINE RESOURCES |
|
| The Julius Caesar Site:
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in its entirety along with
supplementary material (including character analyses, references to Plutarch's Lives,
and other classical sources).
|
| The Roman
Technology Handbook: Interesting site with information on survival (food, clothing,
shelter), arts and crafts, construction and engineering, and lots more.
|
|
| DISCUSSION QUESTIONS |
|
| How
successful were the plebeians in securing equal rights in the Roman government?
|
| How did
the lives of the small Roman landowners change as Rome expanded? How did these problems
affect city life?
|
| Present
arguments justifying Roman expansion as something more than ruthless territorial
acquisition.
|
| Imagine
that you are a Roman general who is conquering foreign lands. Would you choose to grant
the defeated the kinds of privileges that the Romans usually granted? Why or why not?
|
| Why was
the empire able to survive during periods when there were bad rulers?
|
|
|
Send mail
to