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the history of Roman expansion, the decision to invade Sicily in 264 B.c., which, whether expected to do so or not, embroiled Rome in the first of the great wars with Carthage, a turning-point in European history.8 The motives for the first Roman step are so elu-sive that even Polybius (1.10-11) was troubled about them, the
May 26, 2024 · The ancient Roman world was a complex tapestry of power, politics, and daily life, shaped by a rigid social hierarchy and the influence of the emperor. At the heart of this world were the families that made up Roman society, each with its own internal power dynamics.
- Origins of Rome
- The Early Republic
- Military Expansion
- Internal Struggles in The Late Republic
- Julius Caesar’s Rise
- From Caesar to Augustus
- Age of The Roman Emperors
- Decline and Disintegration
- Roman Architecture
As legend has it, Rome was founded in 753 B.C.by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war. Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king of nearby Alba Longa and rescued by a she-wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river’s banks in 753 B.C. After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king...
The power of the monarch passed to two annually elected magistrates called consuls. They also served as commanders in chief of the army. The magistrates, though elected by the people, were drawn largely from the Senate, which was dominated by the patricians, or the descendants of the original senators from the time of Romulus. Politics in the early...
During the early republic, the Roman state grew exponentially in both size and power. Though the Gauls sacked and burned Rome in 390 B.C., the Romans rebounded under the leadership of the military hero Camillus, eventually gaining control of the entire Italian peninsula by 264 B.C. Rome then fought a series of wars known as the Punic Warswith Carth...
Rome’s complex political institutions began to crumble under the weight of the growing empire, ushering in an era of internal turmoil and violence. The gap between rich and poor widened as wealthy landowners drove small farmers from public land, while access to government was increasingly limited to the more privileged classes. Attempts to address ...
When the victorious Pompey returned to Rome, he formed an uneasy alliance known as the First Triumvirate with the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus (who suppressed a slave rebellion led by Spartacus in 71 B.C.) and another rising star in Roman politics: Gaius Julius Caesar. After earning military glory in Spain, Caesar returned to Rome to vie for the...
Less than a year later, Julius Caesar was murdered on the ides of March (March 15, 44 B.C.) by a group of his enemies (led by the republican nobles Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius). Consul Mark Antony and Caesar’s great-nephew and adopted heir, Octavian, joined forces to crush Brutus and Cassius and divided power in Rome with ex-consul Lepid...
Augustus’ rule restored morale in Rome after a century of discord and corruption and ushered in the famous pax Romana–two full centuries of peace and prosperity. He instituted various social reforms, won numerous military victories and allowed Roman literature, art, architecture and religion to flourish. Augustus ruled for 56 years, supported by hi...
The decadence and incompetence of Commodus (180-192) brought the golden age of the Roman emperors to a disappointing end. His death at the hands of his own ministers sparked another period of civil war, from which Lucius Septimius Severus (193-211) emerged victorious. During the third century Rome suffered from a cycle of near-constant conflict. A ...
Roman architecture and engineering innovations have had a lasting impact on the modern world. Roman aqueducts, first developed in 312 B.C., enabled the rise of cities by transporting water to urban areas, improving public health and sanitation. Some Roman aqueducts transported water up to 60 miles from its source and the Fountain of Trevi in Rome s...
Nov 5, 2019 · Authority in ancient Rome was complex, and as one can expect from Rome, full of tradition, myth, and awareness of their own storied history. Perhaps the ultimate authority was imperium, the power to command the Roman army. Potestas was legal power belonging to the various roles of political offices.
117-138 CE), who in some ways epitomizes the Greco-Roman world at its ostensible best. It was in this world of great powers that little Judaea for a brief time enjoyed the status or the illusion of being an independent kingdom.
Its primary concern is to understand how the later Roman empire was governed and how the power to rule was both conceived and justified. Imperial power is considered not only in terms of what emperors could do and how far their authority extended, but also in terms of how it was represented.
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This article examines whether Roman thinking about power was exceptionally legalistic and discusses the relationship between ideology and reality. It looks at Rome's wars against outsiders up to the reign of Tiberius; the Romans against each other, from Republic to monarchy; the Romans against outsiders from the first to fifth centuries CE ...