The Republic, first situated in Rome expanded out to the rest of Italy and then to North Africa and the Mediterranean. With the overwhelming difference between the rich and the poor, a new practice took place where the army was paid with gold.
This resulted in soldiers no longer fighting for the republic, but rather for their generals. Julius Caesar, a military leader, took this opportunity and seized control, becoming dictator of Rome that dismantled the government.
This is what initiated the beginning of the Roman Empire. The Empire is famous worldwide as one of the greatest civilisations in history. Military spending was astronomical, which left little money for anything else in the empire.
The loss in battles resulted in more soldiers being hired to maintain control over the land, with more and more money spent. But even with this higher investment, the number of battles loss grew and the control over lands lessened, causing more vulnerability particularly to the Western Empire.
The pressure of these raids prompted the army to assume power in This era is known as the military anarchy and lasted about fifty years. As a consequence of these constant wars the army was very expensive to maintain, and thus the Empire became crippled with debts. This in turn impoverished the population and many lost their identity and values.
Many put in doubt their religious beliefs, especially with the arrival of new doctrines from the East. The persecution of an ever growing Christian minority by Diocletain was a way to rid the empire of the dangers it was facing.
In a military revolt saved the Empire and Diocletian was proclaimed emperor. During his rule he instaured the Tetrarchy, a form of government that divided the power. Diocletian designated the general Maximian to take charge of the western regions of the Empire, while the emperor governed over the eastern regions.
This ran afoul of a deep taboo in Roman culture. So on March 15, 44 BC, in perhaps the most famous murder in world history, a group of disgruntled senators surrounded Caesar and stabbed him to death. Antony and Octavian initially fought side by side to avenge the death of Julius Caesar.
But after Antony went east and became romantically involved with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, he and Octavian had a falling-out, leading to war. Antony and Cleopatra died a year later, leaving Octavian the sole ruler of the Roman world. Octavian changed his name to Augustus in 27; historians treat this as the year when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire.
One of our richest sources of information about ancient Rome comes from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It destroyed several Roman towns, most notably Pompeii and Herculaneum. The existence of these towns was forgotten for many centuries, but the thick layer of ash deposited by the eruption preserved them for modern archeologists. This has given us information about daily life in a Roman town that would have been difficult to obtain from other sources. Inscriptions, graffiti, and frescoes provide insight into how various buildings were used and what people did in the town.
The site of Pompeii was first rediscovered in , but only a few artifacts were uncovered before interest in the site waned.
Excavation began in earnest after the site was discovered a second time in , and has continued to the present day. Some areas of the town have yet to be explored due to restrictions imposed by the authorities. In addition to archaeological teams, the site is visited by millions of tourists each year.
There is a surprising amount of erotic artwork on the walls of Pompeiian buildings, like this painting from a bedroom in the home of a wealthy Roman aristocrat. Similar artwork was found in buildings that archeologists believe were brothels. Prostitution in the Roman empire was legal and widespread.
Paintings in Pompeii suggest that Romans enjoyed lively and varied sex lives, with illustrations of cunnilingus and sex with multiple partners. Sex was a topic of political controversy in ancient times just as it is today, with the Emperor Augustus trying — without much success — to crack down on adultery.
Baths were an important part of Roman society, and all major towns and cities had at least one. Pompeii had three public baths, of which the Stabian bath, depicted here, was the oldest.
Men and women bathed separately. In large facilities like this one, there were separate sections for men and women. In smaller facilities, men and women would use the same facilities at different times. The Roman baths included a number of facilities that would be familiar at a modern spa: changing rooms, pools with different water temperatures, and saunas.
There was also an exercise yard where men but only men could play sports. Roman baths were communal spaces; Romans would talk business and share gossip as they washed themselves. Roman aristocrats would sometimes try to win favor with the masses by building more elaborate baths, and baths became larger and more elaborate as Rome became a wealthier and more sophisticated society.
For most of its history, Rome was a pagan society. From the early days of the republic, the Romans built temples and made sacrifices to the gods, and would consult religious leaders to determine which days were auspicious ones for a wedding, military offensive, or other major undertaking.
This map shows the temples in Pompeii. Notice that in addition to temples to traditional pagan gods, the map shows a Temple of Vespasian. This is an unfinished structure that some historians speculate was intended to honor the emperor who was in power at the time Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the city. Religion and state were closely intertwined in Roman society, and subjects were encouraged to think of their rulers as semi-divine figures.
And his epic poem The Aeneid became one of the most important works of Roman literature. After the fall of Troy, Aeneas leads a group of surviving Trojans around the Mediterranean looking for a new home. And it continues to influence Western culture. For example, near the beginning of The Aeneid is the story of the Trojan horse, a subterfuge the Greeks used to take over Troy. Slavery was deeply woven into the fabric of Roman society. There are several ways that people in Roman society could fall into slavery.
When the Romans prevailed on the battlefield, they would often take their defeated enemies captive and sell them into slavery. People could also become slaves due to failure to pay debts or as a punishment for crime. Roman slavery differed from American slavery in some important respects. Roman slaves could be of any race. And while American slaves generally performed manual labor, Roman slaves could sometimes be highly skilled. Educated slaves captured from the Greek world were highly sought after for tutoring children and performing clerical work.
Of course, many slaves resented their subservient status, and some revolted. This map shows a portion of the most famous slave revolt in Roman history, in which the gladiator Spartacus led an army that eventually grew to , freed slaves. When the rebellion was finally crushed, 6, surviving slaves were crucified along the Appian Way, a major road leading into Rome.
As Rome expanded, the traditional homeland of the Jewish people at the eastern end of the Mediterranean came under Roman control. Not long after Herod died, the Romans created the province of Judea, which was under Roman control for centuries thereafter. The Jews had an uneasy place in the Roman Empire. Romans were suspicious of people who insisted on practicing minority religions, and between 63 AD and AD Jews staged three major revolts against Roman authority.
The third rebellion led to a brutal crackdown by Emperor Hadrian. One ancient historian estimates that the Romans killed , Jews to put down the rebellion, and many more were sold into slavery. As a result, Christianity emerged there and spread during the early Roman Empire, one of the most peaceful and prosperous eras of the ancient world.
The early Christians, like the Jews, faced suspicion from Roman officials. To the Christian, this act was one of pagan worship; to the imperial bureaucrat, simply a profession of patriotism toward the figure who embodied the state. Throughout the classical period, Britain was at the fringes of civilization.
Conquest of Britain began in earnest under the emperor Claudius in 43 AD. Over the next four decades, Roman troops explored the entire island, including the northernmost parts of Scotland. But the Romans only conquered an area roughly corresponding to modern-day England and Wales. The Romans would govern this territory until , when the declining Western Roman Empire was forced to abandon the remote province.
Most of his predecessors had sought glory by conquering new territory, steadily expanding the size of the empire. Hadrian had a different vision. He believed the empire was becoming overextended militarily, and immediately upon taking office he focused on consolidating Roman control of the territories that had already been conquered.
He withdrew from a few Eastern territories conquered by his predecessor, Trajan, and he negotiated peace agreements with rivals such as the Parthians. Over time, similar fortifications would be built all around the edges of the empire, transforming what had been a fluid frontier into a clearly defined border. The new wall was only manned for a few years before the Romans were forced to abandon the new territory and retreat to the border Hadrian had chosen. The Roman empire provided its subjects with a reliable and standardized system of currency.
Uniform money brings major economic benefits because cash transactions are a lot more efficient than those done by barter. This map, drawn from a database of amateur archeological finds, shows where Roman coins were found between and As Rome was rising in the West, the Han dynasty was consolidating power in China.
These two great empires were too far apart to have a direct relationship. But they became linked together indirectly through trade networks. This map, based on geographical data recorded by a Greek writer in the early years of the Roman Empire, shows the trade route from Rome to India.
Elites in India and China prized Roman-made glass and rugs, while Roman aristocrats enjoyed purchasing silks made in the Far East. For the first two centuries after Augustus became emperor in 27 BC, the Roman Empire experienced a period of unprecedented political stability and economic prosperity. But the situation deteriorated rapidly in the third century AD. Between and , Rome had more than 20 emperors, and as this map shows, most died violent deaths.
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