Ch6
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Ancient Rome & Early Christianity
500 bc – 500 ad
Section 1: The Roman Republic
Timeline of Civilization
1) 3500 bc-200 bc: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus, China
2) 2000 bc-300 bc: Greece
3) 500 bc-500 ad
Origins of Civilization
1) started as a small settlement
a) city founded in 753 bc
b) legend: twin sons of the gods chose that spot b/c they had
been abandoned there along the Tiber River
2) it eventually became an empire that touched 3 continents (Europe,
Asia, Africa
Geography: present-day Italy
Geographical Feature Effect/Implication
Peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea Mild climate
Due west of Greece Greek influence and overlap
Tiber River (one of the only Used for inland mov’t and trade
navigable rivers)
15 miles inland Protection from a sea invasion
On the top of 7 rolling hills Protection and visibility
Midway b/w the Alps in the North Access to the whole peninsula, mts
and southern tip of Italy slowed down invaders
Inland: hill country Allowed political unity
First Peoples
1) Latins
a. In the middle of the peninsula
b. built the original settlement
c. the first official “Romans”
2) Greeks: In southern Italy and Sicily colonies
3) Etruscans
a) northern Italy
b) 1st alphabet
Society
1) The family: #1 unit in Roman society
a) father ruled
b) mothers managed household
2) Women had more rights than in Greece
3) Education: taught to be loyal citizens and obedient to elders and
superiors
a) fathers taught boys duties of citizenship
b) mothers taught girls how to manage a household
c) elementary school: boys and girls, age 7, studied reading,
writing, arithmetic, and music
d) secondary school: age 13, boys only, studied grammar,
Greek, literature, composition, and expressive speech
Government: Republic (509 bc) *CHART pg. 157
1) combo of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy
2) two sociopolitical groups: patricians (wealthy landowners) and
plebians (common men)
a) patricians inherited their power and social status
b) plebians were often discriminated against and prevented
from holding office
3) Twelve Tables: (1st) written law code that protected all citizens
4) Consuls: two public officials
a) The “monarchy” part
b) controlled the army and directed gov’t
c) Took advice from the Senate
d) Had Praetors help them command armies in times of peace
e) only a 1-yr term
5) Senate: 300 members
a) The “aristocracy” part
b) Most important and powerful
c) Legislative and administrative duties: controlled public $,
determined foreign policy, acted as a court
d) Plebians weren’t allowed until they protested and led strikes
6) Popular Assemblies: composed of tribunes
a) The “democracy” part
b) Elected by plebians
c) Made laws, had veto power against the Senate
7) Dictator
a) only an option in times of crises
b) one rules the army and gov’t unilaterally
c) only 6-term month
Army
1) required duty: all male citizens who owned land
2) Legions: the way the army was organized
a) 5000 men—sometimes divide further into groups of 80 men
(centuries)
b) Heavily armed foot soldiers (infantry)
c) Supported by soldiers on horse (cavalry)
3) Auxilia: units of non-citizens
Expansion of the Romans
1) defeated Etruscans in the North and Greeks in the South
a) all conquered Latins enjoyed full citizenship
b) Etruscans and Greeks enjoyed citizenship except for the vote
c) All others, outside of Italy, became “allies” of Rome
1. must supply Rome with soldiers
2. cannot make treaties w/ other people
2) Rome’s lenient policy toward defeated enemies helped Rome
succeed in building a long-lasting empire
a) by 0 ad, Rome’s power had spread far beyond Italy
b) they controlled the Mediterranean Sea
3) The (3) Punic Wars (200s bc): against Carthage (North Africa)
b/c rival Carthage was interfering with Rome’s trade and access to
the Med Sea—b/c Carthage feared a Roman takeover of Sicily
which had Carthaginian markets and colonies *MAP pg. 159
a) 1st: for control of Sicily, 23 yrs long, Rome won, made
Carthage pay indemnities ($ for damages caused)
b) 2nd: Carthage’s leader (Hannibal) marched through Spain
France Alps Italian peninsula while inflicting
enormous losses (2 solid victories) on the Romans, he never
captured Rome b/c Roman leader (Scipio) attacked Carthage
and defeated Hannibal when he rushed back there to defend
it, Rome gets more indemnities and Carthage’s Spanish
colonies = Rome is the #1 Mediterranean power
c) 3rd: 50 yrs later, Rome ransacked Carthage, set it on fire,
sowed fields with salt, took 50,000 people as slaves, and
made Carthage a Roman province
4) After the Punic Wars, Rome controlled the entire western part of
the Mediterranean
a) then Rome started to look east, wanting to expand even more
b) Rome decide to reform it’s army—led by Gaius Marius—
into a permanent, fully-paid army
Section 2: The Roman Empire
Problems from Expansion: the Republic’s Just Not Working Anymore
1) Breakdown in military order
a) army became so large it was hard to control
b) some generals gained too much power and abused it
1. recruited landless, poor soldiers by promising them land
2. Recruited men who were not actual Romans (mercenaries)
by paying them and maybe promising them citizenship
3. these recruited soldiers would be only loyal to their
general, not to the Roman republic
4. generals used this power to enslave enemies against orders
c) some were treated humanely and eventually became citizens,
others were treated horribly
d) caused some slaves to revolt—like Spartacus!
2) Discontent among lower classes
a) Many rich landowners (latifundia) used enslaved persons
(captured from war) to work their large estates
b) smaller farmers, including former Punic War soldiers, could
not compete so were forced to sell their farms to the latifundia
c) then the smaller farmers would become migrant workers or
go to the city to join the ranks of the urban poor
d) former soldiers who did this could not rejoin the army—b/c
they no longer owned land
e) as a civil war ensued b/w the rich landowners and the jobless
masses, ideals of discipline and devotion to state weakened
Julius Caesar Takes Control: Makes Rome an Empire
1) Caesar joins forces with General Pompey and Crassus (60 bc)
a) with their help, he’s elected consul (1-yr term)
b) then the three men rule as a Triumvirate for the next 10 yrs
2) During this time, Caesar appointed himself as governor of Gaul
(France) and took troops there to conquer it: through the hardships
of war and his success, Caesar wins the loyalty of his troops
3) After Crassus dies in battle, and due to Caesar’s success, Pompey
becomes insanely jealous of Caesar
a) Pompey gets Senate to demand that Caesar return home
without his army
b) Caesar refuses and orders his army to march on Rome
(crossing the Rubicon), which will have him declared a rebel
4) Pompey flees to Greece
a) Caesar defeats Pompey in Greece
b) obtains power by taking Italy and Spain
c) and then goes to Egypt to from an alliance with Cleopatra
5) upon his return to Rome, he is declared dictator for life (44 bc) by
the Senate
a) governed as an absolute ruler but kept the republican
government—severely reducing the power of the Senate
1, reduced the Senate’s power to advisory council
2. increased the number of Senate to 900
b) implemented numerous reforms:
1. granted citizenship to many provinces
2. increased pay for soldiers
3. gave land to veterans
4. created public construction jobs for the poor
5. gave grain to the poor
6) Caesar is stabbed to death by jealous, Senator friends (44 bc)
Julius Caesar as an Outstanding Roman leader
1) Abilities
a) self-preservation—escapes assassination through briberies
b) spellbinding oratory
c) generosity—gave grain to the poor, granted citizenship to
provincial residents, gave public land to veterans
d) shrewdness—recognized possible consequences of senators’ envy
e) foresight—saw need for military strength as a way to gain power
and recognized the need to keep his supporters informed of his
activities while he was in Gaul
f) superb military skill
g) good organization
h) bravery—attacked Pompey even when ordered to turn back
2) Weaknesses
a) Created enemies in powerful places by reducing the power and
increasing the size of the senate
b) judged character poorly—his “friends” stabbed him to death
Caesar’s Death Avenged
1) Octavian (18-yr old grandnephew of Caesar), General Marc
Antony, and politician Lepidus (Caesar’s 2nd in command) banded
together to crush the assassins
2) They then form the Second Triumvirate
a) Octavian forces Lepidus to retire
b) Octavian and Antony become huge rivals and decide to
divide the empire
1. Octavian took the west
2. Antony took the east where he met and fell in
love with Egyptian Queen Cleopatra
3. Octavian suspected Antony and Cleopatra, turned
on them, and defeated them in a naval battle
4. Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide
c) upon returning home, Octavian became the unchallenged
ruler of Rome
1. first appointed consul by the Senate
2. then given the name “Augustus” (revered one)
3. considered the first Roman emperor
3) After Ocatavian, Julio-Claudians (people from Caesar’s lineage)
took over
a) first: Nero ruled, hated for his cruel policies, he committed
suicide to avoid assassination
b) then the Good Emperors (5 in succession) took over, adding
new areas to the empire to bring it to its largest size
1. spanned most of Europe, North African, and the
Middle East *MAP pg. 163
2. size equal to present-day US: > 3 mil sq miles
3. 60-80 million people
4. 1 million people in city of Rome itself
Pax Romana: 207 yrs of peace during Augustus and the Good
Emperors’ Rule
1) No wars during this time—only border skirmishes—so no new
slaves captured
2) Held together by the efficient gov’t created by Augustus
a) maintained order and unity through enforcing laws that
changed to meet the needs of the growing empire
b) provided citizens with organized military defense and relief
c) Senate still operated but empire mainly run by…
d) the civil service: gov’t employees, mostly plebians,
appointed on ability and paid for their work
3) The economy
a) agriculture: # 1 industry, 90% of people farmed
b) vast trading network: common coinage, ships
protected by Roman navy, complex network of roads
c) slaves: worked on the farms and in cities, reached up
to 1/3 of total population, some forced to be
gladiators, all slave revolts failed
4) Culture
a) practical values: discipline, strength, loyalty, power,
usefulness
b) sophisticated cities built: aquaducts (to carry water), paved
streets (concrete), sewer systems
c) great emphasis on education
d) great value placed on literature, architecture, engineering,
science, and art
e) gov’t provided free entertainment to distract and control the
masses
1. games, races, mock battles, gladiator contests
2. 150 holidays a year!
3. animal shows—sometimes fight against humans
4. used the Colosseum: arena the held 50,000
5) Negative Aspects of Pax Romana
a) huge gap in wealth—most were poor and made low wages
b) many unemployed—gov’t had to give them grain, lived in
undesirable tenements
c) most Roman women did not receive an education
d) entertainment promoted violence and usually ended in death
for one of the participants
Section 3: The Rise of Christianity
Early Roman Religion
1) worshiped powerful spirits or divine forces all around them
(numina)
2) believed each family had a guardian spirit
3) gave names to these gods and honored them through rituals
a) Jupiter: father of the gods
b) Juno: Jupiter’s wife, watched over women
c) Minerva: goddess of wisdom and the arts/crafts
4) deities linked to the state: must worship in public, must worship
emperor
5) the worship of these gods was very impersonal and was not done
with a great deal of emotion
Christianity: a movement within Judaism
1) Rome made Judea (in Mesopotamia) a province in 6 ad
2) According to the Bible, God would sent a savior—the “Messiah”
(Anointed One)—to liberate the Jews from their captors
3) Jesus of Nazareth was born (c. 5 ad)
a) said he was the Son of God who would die to save people
from their sins
b) said God loved all people and would take them to heaven if
they believed in Jesus and His forgiveness
c) preached the 10 commandments given by Moses
d) emphasized a personal relationship with God
e) preached, “People must love God above all else, and they
must love others as they love themselves.”
f) Gained 12 loyal followers—the apostles—who went on to
record the life of Jesus in the Gospels (first 4 books of the
New Testament)
4) Jesus was Executed
a) the Jewish chief priests argued that Jesus was not the
Messiah and his teachings were blasphemous
b) He was tried by Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor, as an
enemy of the state
c) Crucified on a cross and buried in a tomb
d) 3 days later His body was missing; Gospel’s say that He rose
from the dead
5) Jesus’ Message Spreads *MAP pg. 171
a) Paul, a Jew, spent the latter ½ of his life spreading and
interpreting Jesus’ teachings
1. he could travel safely throughout the empire b/c of
Pax Romana
2. he wrote letters (the Epistles) to groups of Romans
3. he argued that Jesus saved Jews and Gentiles (non-
Jews alike)
4. It was these things that took Christianity from a local
world religion
b) others also spread Jesus’ Word
1. it appealed to many Romans b/c it offered a personal
relationship with God and hope/comfort that was no
longer there from Roman emperors and religions
2. appealed to the common man and woman b/c it
offered eternal salvation
3. Appealed to those who were persecuted or resented
Roman rule over them
Jews use their belief of Jesus as their savior to rebel against the Romans
1) Romans stormed Jerusalem (70 ad)
a) killed ½ million Jews
b) destroyed the main Temple—except for the western
portion of the wall (today’s holiest Jewish shrine)
2) Jews tried again to break free from Roman rule in 132 ad
a) 3 yrs of fighting
b) another ½ million Jews died
c) Jews were dispersed as they were driven from their
homeland (Diaspora)
d) although the religion survived, the Jewish state ceased
to exist for 1800 yrs
3) Romans Began to Persecute Christians as Pax Roman Crumbled
a. Christians challenged the Roman demands to worship the
emperor as a god—seen as a direct threat to the state
b. Christians used as scapegoats for economic troubles
c. Christians were exiled, imprisoned, executed, tortured
(crucified, burned, killed by wild animals in circus arenas)
4) Constantine puts an end to Christian-Roman disputes
a) won a battle after praying and seeing a vision of a cross
b) attributed it to the help of the Christian God
c) he announced the end of persecution of Christians
d) he declared the Edict of Milan: Christianity is a
religion approved by the emperor
e) by 380: he convinces emperor Theodosius to make it
the Roman empire’s official religion
f) created a new capital in the former Greek city of
Byzantium—renamed it Constantinople
Organization of Christianity
1) organized like a gov’t
a) Peter, an apostle, became the first pope: head of the
Christian Church, stationed in Rome
b) bishops worked under the pope, supervising several local
churches
c) priests led each individual church
2) Church leaders set a single, official standard of belief: the four
Gospels, added to the Jewish Old Testament in the Bible
3) Fathers of the Church: early scholars who helped define
Christianity
a) Augustine: wrote The City of God, argued that afterlife
(heaven) is more important than what happens on earth
Section 4: The Fall of the Roman Empire
Beginning of the End
1) Last Good Emperor: Marcus Aurelius (died 180 ad)
2) After Aurelius, no ruler could deal with the giant empire and its
growing problems
3) Rome slowly started to decline
Problems
1) Economic
a) hostile tribes and pirates on the boarders disrupted trade
and made travel unsafe
b) the gov’t minted so many coins that they became less
valuable (inflation got so bad that some people reverted to
bartering
c) artisans began to look to the country and left the city to find
work
d) there were a large number of homeless and slaves in Italy
e) agriculture: overworked soil lost its fertility, war destroyed
much farmland serious food shortages
f) almost all the small farmers had been forced to sell out to
major landowners huge wealth gap
2) Military
a) the mercenaries felt little loyalty to the Roman Empire
b) their apathy spread to the public, who seemed to lose their
sense of patriotism
c) many of the enslaved enemies relentlessly revolted
3) Political
a) Rome’s gov’t was originally designed for a city-state, not an
empire
b) the gov’t granted citizenship to all free peoples in the empire, in
order to tax them a stiff inheritance tax angered people greatly
Emperors Delay the Decline for Almost 200 Years
1) Diocletian (284-305 ad)
a) doubled the size of the army
b) set fixed prices on goods to control inflation
c) divided the kingdom into 2: Greek speaking East and Latin-
speaking West
d) he retired due to poor health, and four men fought for his job
2) Constantine gained power and became the next emperor
a) he moved the capital of the empire from Rome in the West to
Constantine in the East
b) named it Constantinople, it was strategically located for trade
(b/w East and West) and defense
c) as under Diocletian, the poorer West continued to decline
while the wealthier East prospered
The End of the Western Roman Empire
1) a Mongol group from Asia, the Huns, attacked Germanic peoples
living right north of the Roman boundary *MAP pg. 175)
2) the Germanic peoples—called barbarians (non-Romans), trying to
flee the attack, pushed into Roman land
a) made it all the way through Gaul, Spain, and N. Africa
b) Plundered the empire and the city of Rome itself
3) The West could not field an army to stop the German barbarians
4) The Western Empire collapsed and fell into disorder and anarchy
a) learning declined, ignorance and superstition replace knowl
b) no cities, trade, commerce, literacy no civilization!!
5) The East survived and flourished for another 1000 years
Section 5: Rome and the Roots of Western Civilization
Roman Culture
1) Rome conquered Greece c. 200s bc
2) Romans were proud of their ability to rule but…
3) acknowledged Greek leadership in the fields of art, architecture,
literature, and philosophy
4) Romans even learned the Greek language
5) Greek + Hellenistic + Roman = Greco-Roman culture: Romans
adapted Greek & Hellenistic models to create a style of their own
Fine Arts
1) Sculpture: realistic portraits in stone, created bas-relief
2) Paintings: colorful mosaics, large murals (frescos) painted directly
on the walls
3) Used art for public education and tell stories
4) Theater: satire—use of irony and sarcasm to prove a point
Literature
1) Greek Stoicism encouraged virtue, duty, moderation, and
endurance in Rome
2) Poet Virgil wrote Aeneid, the epic of the legendary Aeneas that
praises Rome and its virtues (i.e gov’t)
3) Excellent prose, especially history
a) mixed truth with myths
b) Tacitus: presented the facts accurately—wrote about the
good and bad things of Rome (e.g. cruel Emperor Nero)
Legacy of Rome
1) Writing: letters (23 letters of English alphabet) and Roman
numerals
2) Language: Latin
a) Germanic barbarians adopted Latin into their own languages
today these are called the Romance languages
b) roots to over ½ of English words (ex. lights, senate, republic)
4) Architecture
a) arches, domes, and use of concrete
b) aquaducts: to bring water to towns
c) Thomas Jefferson Monticello and other US gov’t buildings
d) Vast network of roads—some still used
5) Law: Roman law
a) stressed fairness and equality for all
b) innocent until proven guilty
c) punished for actions, not thoughts
d) influenced France and Spain, which influenced American
laws
6) Religion: Roman Catholic Church
