Chapter 4
• Founded in the eighth century B.C., Rome
was ruled by Etruscans and experienced a
period of monarchy before the republic
emerged.
The Rise of Rome, 753-265 B.C.
• A Great City is Founded
– Geography
• Rome was located on hills overlooking a fertile low-lying plain
and the Tiber River
• The Etruscan Influence
• The Roman Monarchy, ca. 753-509 B.C.
– Overthrow of Etruscans
• Sextus, son of the Etruscan king Tarquin the Proud, raped
Lucretia at knifepoint and she committed suicide
• The Etruscan monarchy was overthrown
The Rise of Rome, 753-265 B.C.
• Governing an Emerging Republic
– Struggle of Orders
• A series of political reforms from 509 to 287 B.C.
• The poor wanted guarantees against the abuses of the
powerful
• The wealthy plebeians wanted a role in government
– Governing the Republic
• Laws passed by the Tribal Assembly did not need Senate
approval
• Three main social classes: Patricians, Wealthy Plebeians,
and Poor Plebeians
• Informal Governance: Patrons and Clients
The Rise of Rome, 753-265 B.C.
– Clients’ Role
• Consisted of people from all walks of life who looked to
powerful patrons for help in their careers
• Clients received ritual gifts
• The patron was supposed to exert a moral authority over his
clients, helping them to be good citizens
• Dominating the Italian Peninsula
– Italian Wars
• The Latin League - Romans were united by fellow Latin tribes
in religious and military ties
• Two years later, Rome defeated the allies and dissolved the
League
Chapter 4
– Foreign Policy
• Most of their success came from their generosity in
victory
• Romans allowed all the tribes to retain full
autonomy in their own territories and to elect their
own officials, keep their own laws, and collect their
own taxes.
• The Romans valued piety and moral
seriousness and made the family the
center of urban social life.
Family Life and City Life
• A Pious, Practical People
• Loyalty to the Family
– Marriage Patterns
• Marriages were arranged, a woman could be given in two
ways.
• Her family might transfer her to her husband’s control, or she
might remain under her father’s hand
• The Challenges of Childhood
– Child-Rearing Practices
• Newborns were bound in strips of cloth for two months to
ensure that their limbs would grow straight
• Many physicians recommended that children begin to drink
sweet wine at six months
Family Life and City Life
– Child-Rearing Practices (cont.)
• Fewer than half of the newborns raised reached puberty
• At the age of six or seven, children were put in the care of tutors
• By twelve, boys graduated to higher schooling
• Life in the City
– Life in the Forum
• The Forum was the economic, social center, and the political center
• In the afternoon, work ceased and the men headed for the baths,
and the late afternoon and evening it was time for leisure
– Diet
• Men dined reclining on couches, and women and children are
seated in chairs
• Bread, porridge, vegetables mixed with oil, and wine
Chapter 4
• The success of Rome’s army eventually
brought changes, positive and negative, to
Roman Society.
• The Romans’ Victorious Army
– Weapons and Discipline
• All soldiers took an oath binding themselves to the army until
death or the end of the war
Expansion and Transformation,
265-133 B.C.
• Wars of the Mediterranean
– First Punic War
• Rome’s clash with Carthage began over who would control
Messana
– New Roman Navy
• Before the Romans, the basic tactic at sea was ramming one
ship into another, but they developed a new vessel that
featured a special platform that allowed many infantrymen on
board to fight hand to hand.
– Second Punic War
• Over who would control the city of Saguntum
• General Hannibal and Publius Cornelius Scipio
• Scipio decisively defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in
202 B.C.
Expansion and Transformation,
265-133 B.C.
– Third Punic War
• Cato the Elder tried to spur his countrymen to resume the
fighting against Carthage
• Rome crushed the city of Carthage in 146 B.C.
– Eastern Conquests
• An Influx of Slaves
– Slave Occupations
• In the cities, slaves and citizens often worked in the same
occupations, and all could earn money through their labor
• The most undesirable jobs were generally reserved for
slaves
Expansion and Transformation,
265-133 B.C.
– Slave Revolts
• Between 73 and 71 B.C. the gladiator Spartacus
and his army of almost 70,000 slaves ravaged
portions of Italy.
• Economic Disparity and Social Unrest
– New Poverty
• The population swelled with propertyless day
laborers
Chapter 4
• Republican armies conquered some of the
great Hellenistic cultural centers which
brought an influx of Hellenistic ways to
Rome.
– Resisting Change
Hellenizing of the Republic
• Roman Engineering: Fusing Utility and Beauty
– Engineering
• Romans had learned much about engineering from the
Etruscans
– Aqueducts
• Brought water from rivers or springs into cities
• Concrete: A New Building Material
– Pantheon
• A temple dedicated to all the gods, built in A.D. 125
Hellenizing of the Republic
• Latin Comedy and the Great Prose
Writers, 240-44 B.C.
– Cicero
• Defined Latin literature
– Caesar’s Writings
• Commentaries
Chapter 4
• An economic downturn, which some
leaders tried to prevent with reforms, led to
a decay in the political life of the Roman
republic, as political murder and
dictatorship became common.
The Twilight of the Republic, 13344 B.C.
• The Reforms of the Gracchi, 133-123 B.C.
– Tiberius’s Reforms
• Proposed an agarian law that would redistribute public land
to landless Romans
• Some senators beat Tiberius and 300 of his followers to
death
– Gaius’s Reforms
• Tiberius’s brother built granaries, roads, and bridges to
improve the distribution of grain into the city
• Populares vs. Optimates: The Eruption of Civil
Wars, 123-46 B.C.
The Twilight of the Republic, 13344 B.C.
– Marius
• The first general to come to power based on the support of
the army
• He created a professional army, put the soldiers on the
payroll, and cultivated an army with many rootless and
desparate men who were loyal only to him
• Defeated first the Numidians in Africa, and then the Celts to
the north
– Sulla
• Commanded six legions in the final stages of the Italian wars,
and his successes earned him a governorship in Asia
• Sulla defeated Mithridates
The Twilight of the Republic, 13344 B.C.
– First Triumvirate
• Was made up of three men who appealed to various sectors
of Roman society
• Pompey, Julius Caesar, and Crassus
• Julius Caesar, 100-44 B.C.
– Civil War
• War between Caesar and Pompey began in 49 B.C.
• After losing a decisive battle in Greece in 48 B.C., Pompey
fled to Egypt where he was assassinated
• In 46 B.C. Caesar returned to Rome
The Twilight of the Republic, 13344 B.C.
– Political Titles
• Caesar accepted the title of “dictator” in 48 B.C., and
proclaimed himself “dictator for life”
• Caesar had his image placed on coins
– Conspiracy
• Many Romans were outraged by the honors Caesar took for
himself
• Sixty senators entered into a consiracy to murder their leader
– Caesar’s Murder
• On March 15, the “ides,” assassins surrounded the dictator
as he approached the Senate meeting place; they drew
knives and plunged them into his body