Brief History of Rome

The Origins of Rome

The Myths

The origins are based on two main legends, those of Aeneas and Romulus and Remus, which were artificially combined at an unknown date (but certainly before 300BC). Although both legends are very ancient, they are, unhistorical, although certain incidental details (e.g. the idea that Romulus founded his settlement on Rome's Palatine hill) are consistent with the archaeological facts. The archaeological evidence now available shows that one or more villages were established on the hills of Rome (including the Palatine) from the end of the bronze age (c.1000 bc. At first these were like hill top settlements with hits, isolated communities etc. They grew in size with increasing trade, especially with Greek cuiteis. Towards the end of the 7th cent BC. the forum was laid out as a public meeting place and monumental buildings made their first appearance. At this point Rome was transformed into an organized city-state.

See also The Iliad

In Virgil's Aeneid we see Aeneas sail from Troy and have many adventures until he lands somewhere south west of Rome called Alba Longa and after a series of battles with the locals he becomes the progenitor of a series of Alban Kings down through the ages to fill in the chronological gap between the Aeneas (12th C BCE) and Romulus and Remus myth in the 7th Century BCE

The two myths are linked insofar as that Romulus and Remus' mother Rhea Silvia was descended from Aeneas. According to Livy she was the daughter of Numitor, whose younger son seized the throne and forced Rhea Silvia to become a vestal virgin to prevent her from producing heirs. She is seduced my Mars and has two sons. When Amulius hears of the birth he sneds a servent out to kill the twins. Taking pity on the babies he casts them adrift and they are found by a wolf (Lupa) who suckles them. later they are found by Faustalus who raises them with his wife. All grown up they overthrow Amilius and restore the old king and make their way to the Tiber where decide to found a new city. Romulus prefers to settle on the Palentine Hill and Remus the Aventine Hill. They fight and Remus is killed allowing Romulus to found Rome as we know it today.

The Aeneas myth is interesting in that Rome came from somewhere else. The Romans were always foreigners and gave rise to later discussions about who are Romans. The Romulus and Remus myth explains to future generations that Romans were always violent, that there was always internecine strife. In one early story we are told that the ragged, undisciplined rabble that had formed around Romulus (ian about 750BCE) were looking to acquire wives and scoured the lands and villages around Rome trying to form relationships with the town elders. They were rebutted at every attempt. Romulus therefore decided to invite all the neighboring towns to a festival. According to Livy. Romulus gave a prearranged signal for his people to abduct (or rape) the Sabine women.

This led to an inevitable war between the Romans with firstly the king of the Caeninenses, whom they defeated and then the king of the Sabines themselves. The Sabines took an early advantage, die in part to the treachery of Tarpeia, who open the gates to the Sabines in exchange of jewelry. In fact the Sabines crushed her to death and through her from a rock (The Parpeian Rock). The battle raged bewtween the two cities for a while before the Sabine women intervened and convinced Romulus and Titus Tatius to rule jointly. This they did until Titua Tatius died five years later.

Historical Record and Conjecture

Rome seems to have had a mixed population, including Sabines, Greeks and, it seems, large numbers of Etruscans. According to the sources the city was originally ruled by kings, but it is unlikely the first seven kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus is historical fact. With the exception of Romulus these names may be those of genuine kings, but the notion that their reigns occupied the whole of the period from the 8th cent. bc to the end of the 6th is unlikely. There is some evidence that kings were elected and that the last two kings were tyrants. Tarquinius Superbus, was expelled in an aristocratic coup, and replaced by a republic under two annually elected consuls. The Fasti list the two consuls of each year going back to around 500 bc (the version of the Fasti Capitolini, places the beginning of the list, and therefore the beginning of the republic, in 509 bc;. A late 6th-cent. date for the beginning of the republic is confirmed by independent Greek sources.

During the early republic power rested in the hands of an aristocratic clique known as the patriciate. Most consuls were patricians, but it appears from the Fasti that they did not have a monopoly of political office until the middle of the 5th century. Debt, land-hunger, and food shortages are recorded as the main grievances. Some of these poorer citizens are said to have taken matters into their own hands in 494 bc, when they withdrew from the city and formed their own alternative state. The plebs, formed an assembly , elected their own officers , and set up their own cult. For the next two centuries this plebeian organization fought to improve the lot of its members.

In 367 bc the Licinio-Sextian laws made plebeians eligible for the consulship. This and similar measures the plebeians were gradually reintegrated into the state, a process that was completed in c.287 bc when plebiscites were made binding on the people and became equivalent to laws. Patricians and plebeians, formed a new ruling class based on tenure of office and descent from former office-holders. By the mid-4th cent. a hierarchy of magistracies had been established, resulting from the gradual creation of additional offices alongside the consulship: the quaestors (before 447), the censors (443), the praetor and curule aediles (367).

Roman Conquest of Italy

A more powerful and political Rome developed which began to flex this power beyond the limits of the city. At first the conquests were aimed at neutralizing the threat from outside tribes sacking ad tooting Rome but soon became expansionary in nature. For instance Pompeii was a Samnite strong-hold that was eventually defeated. As there victories became more widespread only the Greek strongholds of the south held out. The defeat of Pyrrhus in 275 was a turning-point, not only because it was virtually the final act in the Roman conquest of Italy , but because it brought Rome to the attention of a wider world; the defeat of a powerful king created a sensation in the Hellenistic east. A new world power had emerged. The success of the conquests can be attributed to building powerful alliances and sharing the spoils of the wars with their partners

Early Roman Conquests of Overseas Provinces

The Romans embarked on a major overseas war, when they challenged the Carthaginians for the control of Sicily. In spite of immense losses Rome finally emerged as the victor in this First Punic War (264–241 bc), and Sicily became the first province. A second was added shortly afterwards, when Sardinia was seized from an enfeebled Carthage (238). Twenty years later the Second Punic War began when the Romans declared war over the Saguntum affair and Hannibal invaded Italy (218). In spite of spectacular victories in the field Hannibal failed to win over Rome's Italian allies, most of whom remained loyal, and was gradually worn down; he withdrew from Italy in 204 and was finally defeated at Zama in 202.

Rome got involved in wars in Spain and southern Gaul, notably Provence. There also wenEast and after successes in the Adriatic confronted Greek forces. There were three Macedonian Wars and defeated Philip. Rome now directly ruled many Greek cities. The Romans emphasized their dominance by ruthlessness, the most brutal example of which was the destruction of Corinth in 146 bc. In the same year Carthage was destroyed after a Third Punic War (149–146), and its territory became the Roman province of Africa) Further annexations occurred in Asia.

Life back in Rome

The highwater mark of the Roman Republic was the first century BC and a neo-democracy develops The victories had a dramatic effect on Roman life. Architecture and the visual arts flourished, as the Romans imitated all the trappings of Greek civilization. One of the results was the development of Roman literature on the Greek model, including drama, epic poetry, and, not least, historiography.

Land reform became a major issue. The Rich expanded there houses in to large landed estates worked by slaves. Small landowners were forced out and lived in penury. This lead to doscontent and impacted the Romans ability to riase an effectiuve army. Gaius introduced land reform. His aim was to ensure that all citizens, not just the ruling class, should benefit from the proceeds of empire. These gains were short lived and were repealed later.

Sulla, the consul of 88, was appointed by the senate to lead an expedition against Mithradates. After a series of extremely bloody encounters, Sulla emerged victorious and set himself up as dictator in 81. He purged his opponents by means of the notorious proscriptions and attempted to reform the constitution. A fresh series of military crises in the 70s (see Sertorius, Quintus) brought the popular generals Pompey and Crassus to power. As consuls in 70 they repealed most of Sulla's laws and restored the powers of the tribunes.

Pompey and Caesar

After a series of military victories, In 62 Pompey returned, a conquering hero, to a magnificent triumph. However, the optimates (the conservative ruling class), led by Lucullus and Cato the Younger, frustrated his efforts to gain the land allotments he had promised as a reward for his veterans. The effect was to drive Pompey into an informal pact with Crassus and Caesar, sometimes called (in modern books, not in the ancient sources) the First Triumvirate. This alliance proved irresistible. Pompey had overwhelming popular support, Crassus had unlimited money, and Caesar, who was even more unscrupulous than his partners, turned out to have the brains. As consul in 59 Caesar enacted all the measures his partners wanted, and rewarded himself with a special command in Gaul, which he proceeded to conquer in a brilliant and brutal campaign (58–51 bc).

In 52 Pompey was appointed sole consul when riots prevented elections. By this time relations between Pompey and Caesar were becoming strained (Crassus had been killed in battle in 53). Fear of Caesar drove Pompey and the optimates closer together, as they attempted to frustrate Caesar's aim of passing directly from his Gallic command to a second consulship. Caesar refused to lay down his arms, and in 49 he invaded Italy at the head of an army that plunged the empire into civil war. Pompey, who presented himself as defender of the republic, had some initial successes, but was eventually beaten at Pharsalus (48), and was murdered after fleeing to Egypt. Caesar then overcame the republicans in Africa and Spain, before returning to Italy where he became consul and dictator for life.

Caesar embarked on a series of grandiose and visionary schemes, but his monarchical tendencies went against republican tradition and offended the nobles. On 15 March, 44 bc, he was stabbed to death by a group of senators led by Brutus and Cassius. The conspirators were unable to restore the republic, however, because Caesar's chief aides, Mark Antony and Lepidus, had the support of his armies; in 43 they joined together with Caesar's heir, the 19-year-old Caesar Octavian , to form a Triumvirate whereupon they divided the empire between them, and purged their opponents (including Cicero) by reviving Sulla's device of proscriptions. Lepidus was soon squeezed out, and the empire was uneasily divided between Octavian and Antony until 31 bc, when the issue was finally decided in Octavian's favour at the Battle of Actium. Mark Antony and his mistress Cleopatra VII committed suicide, leaving Octavian in complete control of the Roman empire.

The Roman Empire

After victories in the Mediterranean Rome was at the height of its powers. The armed forces in turn were to revert to their traditional role of war against foreign enemies. The great and successful wars of conquest initiated by Augustus and Agrippa became one of the key sources of legitimacy and prestige of the new regime. Augustus says of his reign that he found an city of brick and left it a city of marble. At all times Octavian ensured that any new powers were formally voted to him and made a great show of rejecting anything which hinted at monarchy or dictatorship. Among his fellow aristocrats he portrayed himself as ‘first among equals'. Grants of special powers by senate and people, most notably in 28 and 23 bc, ensued, which formalized and legitimated Augustus' pre-eminent position. Augustus, ‘revered’, was a title conferred on Octavian in 27 bc. Over time as he took over the reins of power further he was defacto Emperor of Rome. Under Augustus a quiet, more peaceful era develops during the reign and writers such as Livy, Ovid, Virgil become prominent writers of the period.

Under the emperors high politics came to centre on two interconnected issues, namely the relationship of individual emperors to the political élite, and the imperial succession. Extreme tension between sections of the political élite and the emperor, expressed most dramatically in treason-trials and executions, became the hallmark of high politics under Augustus' immediate successors,

• Tiberius ( ad 14–37),
• Gaius or Caligula (37–41),
• Claudius (41–54), and
• Nero (54–68), the Julio-Claudian dynasty. This tension derived structurally from the claim that the emperor was only first among his aristocratic equals, from lingering republicanism, and from the absence of any established law of succession. Consequently leading aristocrats, especially if connected by blood or marriage to the imperial family, could be regarded as threatening an individual emperor's rule. The contingent factor of the personalities and backgrounds of the Julio-Claudian emperors sharpened this structural tension. So the suspicious Tiberius had become Augustus' chosen successor only by default after the death of Augustus' two grandsons; the autocratic Caligula; Claudius was completely without experience of public life at his accession; Nero came to power at the age of 16. Each turned to court-favourites to buttress his position. But the open use, especially, of imperial slaves and freedmen as confidants merely served to strengthen the antagonism of the political élite.

The Flavian Dynasty and later

See Year of the Four Emperors

After the chaos and brutality of Nero, order and stability were restored by Vespasian (69–79). The new Flavian dynasty initiated by Vespasian was short-lived. His elder son Titus ruled for two years (79–81) and was succeeded by Vespasian's younger son Domitian (81–96). Under Domitian, who liked to style himself ‘Lord and God’, tension quickly resurfaced. and in September 96 Domitian was murdered in a palace coup. The senate nominated as his successor a leading, if elderly, senator Nerva (96–8).

The ensuing 90 years represented a high-water mark of stability. The succession problem was resolved by the chance that a series of emperors had no surviving sons. So Nerva adopted Trajan (98–118). Trajan adopted Hadrian (117–38), and Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius (138–61). All had been leading senators before their accession. In 161 Marcus Aurelius, adopted son of Pius, succeeded and immediately associated his adoptive brother Lucius Verus (161–9) as co-emperor. The problem of the succession resurfaced. Marcus had a surviving son, Commodus. Commodus was made co-emperor in 177 and succeeded in March 180. His reign reawakened political tensions. the rulers of Rome in the two centuries from the accession of Augustus achieved two great objectives. Militarily they further extended the empire and protected it from external assault. Politically they maintained uninterrupted administrative control over its vast territory. Fission and secession, the normal fate of great pre-industrial empires, was absent.

Social Order

The most important social development of our period was the process by which the local élites across the empire came to acquire a common and coherent privileged status. At first the local élites were rewarded by individual grants of Roman citizenship. In the course of the 2nd cent. a series of imperial rulings granted all local councillors and magistrates a bundle of legal privileges In turn new recruits into the equestrian and senatorial orders normally came from the ranks of local élites. Only two institutionalized avenues of upward social mobility, namely the army and the emancipation of slaves, existed. The economic and social status of the soldiery was enhanced by the material rewards of service and by the privileges granted to veterans. Furthermore a small minority of ranking legionaries could achieve the post of centurion and, even more spectacularly, the post of chief centurion which automatically conferred equestrian status. Private owners had the right to emancipate their slaves, and a small minority of freedmen (ex-slaves) are found entering the ranks of the local élites.

By the late 2nd cent. ‘the immeasurable majesty of the Roman peace’ (as the elder Pliny had termed it) still appeared settled and unchallenged. The political and institutional characteristics of Roman rule, even the territorial extent of the empire itself, were little different from the situation at the end of Augustus' reign. It was to be the combination of the intense civil wars that ensued on the murder of Commodus, and the advent of new and aggressive enemies to the north and east of the empire, which were to put the imperial state to its first great test in the 3rd cent., to transform its political and institutional structures, and to open the way for the triumph of the new world religion.

The Conversion to Christianity

The period from the Severans to Constantine the Great begins and ends with strong government, separated by a period of political instability and military stress through which shine the heroic achievements of great (but short-lived) individual emperors. In Septimius Severus (193–211) rose to power.

The period from Maximinus to the rise of Diocletian in 284 is known as the ‘period of anarchy’ of the Roman empire. In this half-century there were at least eighteen ‘legitimate’ emperors, and far more if one counts the numerous usurpers of the period. Nearly all met violent deaths after short reigns. What does emerge from the period, in the response of Diocletian (284–305), is a conception of the imperial office as divisible, authority in different regions being devolved to separate emperors who, instead of fighting each other for sole power, would concede each others' dignity and collaborate. This conception is at the heart of the so-called Tetrarchy, in which Diocletian first (in 285) shared his power as Augustus with a single colleague, Maximian, and (in 293) added to the Augusti two Caesars who would both share the burden of warfare and government and ensure an orderly succession but Constantine's defeat of Licinius at Chrysopolis in 324 put him and his sons in sole control of the Roman empire.

Of relevance to the future, the Christian Church expanded considerably. At the opening of the 3rd cent. Tertullian of Carthage preached opposition to the world and secular culture, at the end of it Eusebius of Caesarea documents the expansion of the Church and its acceptance, in the conversion of Constantine, by the empire and the world-order. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of the conversion to Christianity of Constantine, and after him the Roman empire. Constantine's hoped that loyal bishops would deliver to him obedient tax-paying cities. Christianity gave common ground in a literate culture to rulers and ruled, and provided for imperial ideologists such as Eusebius a rhetoric of power, and a model of imperial as deriving from divine authority. It gave to bishops an enhanced secular role

The Beginning of the end of the Roman Empire

The 4th-cent. West was threatened on the Rhine front by the Germanic federation known as the Alamanni and on the Danube by the Quadi and their allies and, in particular, by the Goths. The real crisis of the Roman empire was generated on the Danube, as the Goths, under pressure from the Huns, negotiated or forced their way across the river, a process leading to the momentous defeat at Adrianople. Despite the treaty concluded in 382 by Theodosius I, the Romans were never able fully to recover, and the ensuing fragility of their command of the Balkans is the most important strategic consideration in the division of the empire into eastern and western parts. In the 5th cent., the west was overrun by mainly Germanic invaders—Goths and then Franks in Gaul, Goths and Suebi in the Spanish peninsula, Vandals in North Africa. Despite pressure from the Avars and other northern peoples, the eastern empire retained its territorial integrity until the expansion of Islam in the early 7th century.

Was Christianity to Blame for the Fall of the Empire?

The Roman Empire was built upon a polytheistic narraive yet to Christianity, polthiesm was an affrint to their beliefs. Far from being abenign religion, in its early days Christianity was a radical force and once not noted for compromise. Christians were percuted for their religion but were also punished for their crimes. As Christians rose in prominence there was less focus om pomp and ceremony. Cerominial games with their link to gods and goddesses started to fall out of favour and yet these were a potent symbol of Roman power and celebration of that power during its hayday. Equally, expensive temples to the Gods were no longer being built in such great numbers and were slowly replaced with modest churches. This changed the culture of Roman city and there were less reasons to be drawn in to the center of the city in such great numbers.

Other Reasons for the Fall

Decline and Fall does have implicit meanings behind the words. Many would see it not as a decline but a transformation, change or evolution but nonetheless the Empire does fall and we do see a retreat in the innovations that Romans brought to western culture. For instance hot and cold running water disappeared after the 6th C and not see again on a large scale for many centuries. Of course nothing can go on for ever so it was part of an inevitable cycle that this empire like those before and after it would decline.

The split between the East and West of the Empire is interesting. The West had particular problems that led to its demise. The Gauls, Spain and Britain were all often in revolt. The Barbarians as a force ebbed and flowed during this period. Strong in the 3rd C. weaker in the 4th and stronger again in the 5th. The Barbarians cannot be considered a unified force. many Barabarians were Christians, others fought wioth Rome and later used their skills against the Romans. It is also said that the Roman fighting unit was not as good as it had been in previous centuries and there was a certain amount of loss of the raison d'etre and a fall off in civic virtue and too much reliance on having others fight their wars for them.

If a date must be used to pinpoint the fall then we should use AD0473 when Constantinople becomes the new Rome