The Roman Empire
How did Rome lay the foundations of
its empire?
Roman Empire
Struggle for control
• Alexander died in 323 B.C.
• Rome dominated most of the Italian peninsula
• Expansion southward brought Rome into collision
with Carthage, the greatest power in the western
Mediterranean
• Second Carthaginian war (218-201 B.C.): Rome’s
southern Italian allies defected to Hannibal
• Third war with Carthage in 201 B.C.: Rome
emerged not merely victorious but a world power
• What were the tensions
that accompanied
Rome’s transformation
from city-state to world
power?
Rome’s transformation into worldpower
• Roman transformation of Greek tradition
through contact with Greek cities in southern
Italy, Sicily and mainland Greece
• Greek culture began to permeate Roman
• The military victories brought in huge numbers of
enslaved war captives
• Wealthy businessman exerted control over the
government
• Growing gulf between the wealthy and the poor
How was the Republic replaced by
imperial rule?
• General prosperity masked the potential conflicts
• Civil war
• By the end of the first century B.C., Rome was the
capital of an empire that stretched from the
Straits of Gibraltar to the frontiers of Palestine
• It gave peace and orderly government to the
Mediterranean area for the next two centuries
Rome in first century B.C.
• What is the legacy of
the Roman empire?
Rome’s legacy
• The ideal of the world –state, an ideal that was taken over
by the medieval Church
• The Church claimed a spiritual authority as great as the
secular authority it replaced
• How did they achieve success?
• Talent for practical affairs (aqueducts)
• Not notable political theorists, but they organized a stable
federation
• Conservative to the core: gravitas
• The great body of Roman law is one of their greatest
contribution to Western civilization
Aquaduct
Compare Roman and Greek
civilizations
•
•
•
•
Rome: manliness, industry, discipline
Greece: adaptability, versatility, grace
Greek history begins with an epic poem
The Romans conquered half of the world before
they began to write
• Latin literature began with a translation of the
Odyssey
• Latin writers borrowed from Greek originals
openly and proudly (Virgil)
Odyssey
Roman emperors
• The civil conflict ended in the establishment of a powerful
executive
• The Senate retained an impressive share of the power in
the Republic, but the new development led to autocracy
• Augustus, after the murder of his uncle Julius Caesar in
44 BC., controlled the western half of the empire by 31
B.C.
• Battle with Mark Anthony, ruler of the eastern half of
the empire
• Augustus’s victory united the empire under one authority
and ushered in an age of peace and reconstruction
Roman emperors
• The successors of Augustus ruled the ancient world for the
next 200 years with only occasional disturbances
• Nero who abused his immense power was overthrown
• A.D. 96-180 “Five good emperors”:
• Longest period of peace that has ever been enjoyed by the
inhabitants of an area that included Britain, France,
southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa
• Yet the literature of the second century reflects a spiritual
emptiness described in Petronius’s Satyricon: the new rich
can think only in terms of money and material possessions
Religion
• New religions were imported from the East that made their
appeal to citizens of the world: to all nations and classes
• Worship of the Egyptian goddess Isis
• Hebrew prophet Jesus, crucified in Jerusalem, risen from
the dead
• Christianity, persecuted and working underground, finally
triumphed and became the official religion of the Roman
world
• The Church in Rome, by converting the new
inhabitants, made possible the preservation of much of
that Latin and Greek literature that was to serve as a
basis for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
• This picture depicts
the moment when the
statue of Galatea
created by Pygmalion
comes to life
Metamorphoses
Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne
Io and Jove
Io and Jove
Europa and Jove
Europa and Jove
The Rape of Europa by Zeus
Iphis and Ianthe
Zeus and Europa
Rubens, Abduction of Europa