Ancient Rome was a
civilization that grew out of a small
agricultural community founded on the
Italian Peninsula as early as the
10th century BC.
Located along the
Mediterranean
Sea
, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient
world.
In its centuries of existence, Roman civilization shifted from a
monarchy to an
oligarchic republic
to an increasingly
autocratic empire.
It came to dominate South-Western
Europe
, South-Eastern
Europe/Balkans and the Mediterranean region through conquest and assimilation.
Plagued by internal
instability and
attacked by various
migrating peoples, the
western
part of the empire, including
Italy,
Hispania,
Gaul,
Britannia and
Africa broke up into independent
kingdoms in the
5th century AD.
The
Eastern Roman Empire, which was governed from Constantinople
, comprising Greece, the
Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt, survived this crisis. Despite the
later loss of Syria and Egypt to the
Arab
Islamic Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire would
live on for another millennium, until its last remains were finally
annexed by the emerging
Turkish Ottoman Empire. This eastern, Christian,
medieval stage of the Empire is usually
referred to as the
Byzantine Empire
by historians.
Roman civilization is often grouped into "
classical antiquity" with
ancient Greece, a civilization that inspired
much of the
culture of ancient
Rome. Ancient Rome contributed greatly to the development of
law,
war,
art,
literature,
architecture,
technology,
religion, and
language in the
Western
world, and its
history continues
to have a major influence on the world today.
Legend and history
Founding and Roman Kingdom
According
to one legend, Rome was founded on April 21, 753
BC by twin brothers descended from the Trojan
prince
Aeneas. Romulus and Remus were the grandsons of the
Latin King, Numitor of Alba Longa
. The King was ejected from his throne by his
cruel brother
Amulius while Numitor's
daughter,
Rhea Silvia, gave birth. Rhea
Silvia was a
Vestal Virgin who was
raped by
Mars, making the twins
half-divine.
The new king feared that Romulus and Remus would take back the
throne, so they were to be drowned. A she-wolf (or a shepherd's
wife in some accounts) saved and raised them, and when they were
old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to
Numitor.
The twins
then founded their own city, but Romulus killed Remus in a quarrel
over which one of them was to reign as the King of Rome
, though some sources state the quarrel was about
who was going to give their name to the city. Romulus became
the source of the city's name. As the city was bereft of women,
legend says that the Latins invited the
Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried
maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the
Sabines.
Another legend recorded by Greek historian
Dionysius says that Prince Aenas
led a group of Trojans on a sea voyage. After a long time in rough
seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after
they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, but the women
who were traveling with them didn't want to leave. One woman, named
Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent
them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they
soon realized that they were in the ideal location to settle. They
named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships.
The city
of Rome
grew from settlements around a ford on the river
Tiber, a crossroads of traffic and
trade. According to archaeological evidence, the village of Rome was
probably founded sometime in the 8th
century BC, though it may go back as far as the 10th century
BC, by members of the Latin tribe of Italy,
on the top of the Palatine
Hill
.
The
Etruscans
, who had previously settled to the north in
Etruria, seem to have established political
control in the region by the late 7th
century BC, forming the aristocratic and monarchial
elite. The Etruscans apparently lost power in the area by
the late
6th century BC, and at this
point, the original Latin and Sabine tribes reinvented their
government by creating a
republic, with
much greater restraints on the ability of rulers to exercise
power.
Roman
tradition, as well as archaeological evidence, points to a complex
within the Forum
Romanum
as the seat of power for the king and the
beginnings of the religious center there as well. Numa Pompilius was the second
king of Rome, succeeding
Romulus.
He began Rome's great building projects
with his royal palace the Regia
and the
complex of the Vestal
virgins.
Republic
According to tradition and later writers such as
Livy, the
Roman Republic
was established around
509 BC, when
the last of the seven kings of Rome,
Tarquin the Proud, was deposed,
and a system based on annually elected
magistrates and various representative
assemblies was established. A
constitution set a series
of checks and balances, and a
separation of powers. The most
important magistrates were the two
consuls,
who together exercised executive authority in the form of
imperium, or military command. The
consuls had to work with the
senate,
which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or
patrician, but grew in size
and power over time.
Other magistracies in the Republic include
praetors,
aediles, and
quaestors. The magistracies were originally
restricted to patricians, but were later opened to common people,
or
plebeians. Republican voting assemblies
included the
comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly),
which voted on matters of war and peace and elected men to the most
important offices, and the
comitia tributa (tribal
assembly), which elected less important offices.
The
Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian
peninsula, including the Etruscans. The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum
, a major Greek
colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of
Epirus in 281 BC, but this effort failed
as well. The Romans secured their conquests by founding
Roman colonies in strategic
areas, establishing stable control over the region.
In the second half of
the 3rd century BC, Rome clashed with
Carthage
in the first of three Punic
Wars. These wars resulted in Rome's first overseas
conquests, of
Sicily and
Hispania, and the
rise of
Rome as a significant imperial power.
After defeating the
Macedonian and Seleucid Empires in the 2nd century BC, the Romans became the
dominant people of the Mediterranean Sea.
dominance led to internal strife. Senators became rich at the
provinces' expense, but soldiers, who
were mostly small-scale farmers, were away from home longer and
could not maintain their land, and the increased reliance on
foreign
slaves and the growth
of
latifundia reduced the
availability of paid work.
Income from war booty,
mercantilism in
the new provinces, and
tax farming
created new economic opportunities for the wealthy, forming a new
class of
merchants, the
equestrians. The
lex Claudia forbade members of the Senate
from engaging in commerce, so while the equestrians could
theoretically join the Senate, they were severely restricted in
terms of political power. The Senate squabbled perpetually,
repeatedly blocking important
land
reforms and refusing to give the equestrian class a larger say
in the government.
Violent gangs of the urban unemployed, controlled by rival
Senators, intimidated the electorate through violence. The
situation came to a head in the late 2nd century BC under the
Gracchi brothers, a pair of
tribunes who attempted to pass land reform
legislation that would redistribute the major patrician
landholdings among the plebeians. Both brothers were killed, but
the Senate passed some of their reforms in an attempt to placate
the growing unrest of the plebeian and equestrian classes.
The denial of
Roman citizenship to
allied Italian cities led to the
Social War of 91–
88 BC. The military reforms of
Gaius Marius resulted in soldiers often having
more loyalty to their commander than to the city, and a powerful
general could hold the city and Senate ransom. This led to civil
war between Marius and his protegé
Sulla, and culminated in Sulla's
dictatorship of 81–79 BC.
In the mid-1st century BC, three men,
Julius Caesar,
Pompey,
and
Crassus, formed a secret
pact—the
First Triumvirate—to
control the Republic. After Caesar's
conquest of Gaul, a stand-off between Caesar and
the Senate led to
civil war, with
Pompey leading the Senate's forces. Caesar emerged victorious, and
was made
dictator for life.
In 44 BC, Caesar was
assassinated by
senators who opposed Caesar's assumption of absolute power and
wanted to restore constitutional government, but in the aftermath a
Second Triumvirate, consisting of
Caesar's designated heir,
Octavian, and his
former supporters,
Mark Antony and
Lepidus, took
power.However, this alliance soon descended into a struggle for
dominance.
Lepidus was exiled, and
when Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra of Egypt
at the
Battle of
Actium
in 31 BC, he became the undisputed ruler of
Rome.
Empire
With his enemies defeated, Octavian took the name
Augustus
and assumed almost absolute power, retaining only a pretense of the
Republican form of government. His designated successor,
Tiberius, took power without serious opposition,
establishing the
Julio-Claudian
dynasty, which lasted until the death of
Nero in 68. The territorial expansion of what was now
the
Roman Empire continued, and the
state remained secure, despite a series of emperors widely viewed
as depraved and corrupt (for example,
Caligula is argued by some to have been insane and
Nero had a reputation for cruelty and being
more interested in his private concerns than the affairs of the
state). Their rule was followed by the
Flavian dynasty. During the reign of the
"
Five Good Emperors" (96–180),
the Empire reached its territorial, economic, and cultural
zenith. The state was secure from both internal and
external threats, and the Empire prospered during the
Pax Romana ("Roman Peace"). With the conquest of
Dacia during the reign of
Trajan, the Empire reached the peak of its
territorial expansion; Rome's dominion now spanned 2.5 million
square miles (6.5 million km²). The
Antonine Plague that swept through the
Empire in 165–180 AD killed an estimated five million people.
The period between 193 and 235 was dominated by the
Severan dynasty, and saw several incompetent
rulers, such as
Elagabalus. This and the
increasing influence of the army on imperial succession led to a
long period of imperial collapse and external invasions known as
the
Crisis of the Third
Century. The crisis was ended by the more competent rule of
Diocletian, who in 293 divided the Empire
into an eastern and western half ruled by a
tetrarchy of two co-emperors and their two junior
colleagues. The various co-rulers of the Empire competed and fought
for supremacy for more than half a century.
On May 11, 330,
Emperor Constantine I firmly
established Byzantium as the capital of
the Roman Empire and renamed it
Constantinople. The Empire was permanently divided into the
Eastern Roman Empire (later known as the
Byzantine Empire) and the
Western Roman Empire in 395.
The Western Empire was constantly harassed by
barbarian invasions, and the gradual
decline of the western Empire
continued over the centuries. In the
4th
century, the westward migration of the
Huns
caused the
Visigoths to seek refuge within
the borders of the Roman Empire. In 410, the
Visigoths, under the leadership of
Alaric I, sacked the city of Rome itself. The
Vandals invaded Roman provinces in Gaul,
Hispania, and northern Africa, and in 455
sacked Rome. On September 4, 476, the
Germanic chief
Odoacer forced the last Roman
emperor in the west,
Romulus
Augustus, to abdicate. Having lasted for approximately 1200
years, the rule of Rome in the
West came to an
end.
The Eastern Empire would suffer a similar fate, though not as
drastic.
Justinian managed
to briefly reconquer Northern Africa
and Italy
, but
Byzantine possessions in the West were reduced to southern Italy and Sicily
within a few years after Justinian's death. In the east,
partially resulting from the destructive Plague of Justinian, the Byzantines were
threatened by the rise of Islam, whose
followers rapidly conquered territories in Syria
and Egypt and soon
presented a direct threat to Constantinople. The Byzantine
Empire by Richard Hooker. Washington State University. Written
1999-6-6. Retrieved 2007-4-8. The Byzantines, however,
managed to stop Islamic expansion into their lands during the
8th century, and beginning in the
9th century reclaimed parts of the
conquered lands. In
1000 AD the Eastern Empire
was at its height:
Basileios II reconquered
Bulgaria and Armenia, culture and trade flourished.
However, soon after
the expansion was abruptly stopped in 1071 at the Battle of
Manzikert
. This finally led the empire into a dramatic
decline. Several centuries of internal strife and
Turkic invasions ultimately paved the way for
Emperor
Alexius I Comnenus to
send a call for help to the West in 1095. The West responded with
the
Crusades, eventually resulting in the
Sack of
Constantinople by participants in the
Fourth Crusade.
The conquest of
Constantinople in 1204 would see the fragmentation of what little
remained of the empire into successor states, the ultimate victor
being that of Nicaea
.
After the
recapture of Constantinople by imperial forces, the empire was
little more than a Greek state confined to the Aegean
coast. The Eastern Empire came to an end
when
Mehmed II conquered Constantinople on
May 29, 1453.
Society
The imperial city of Rome was the largest urban center of its time,
with a population of about one million people (about the size of
London in the early 19th century, when London was the largest city
in the world), with some high-end estimates of 14 million and
low-end estimates of 450,000. The public spaces in Rome resounded
with such a din of hooves and clatter of iron
chariot wheels that
Julius
Caesar had once proposed a ban on chariot traffic during the
day. Historical estimates indicate that around 20 percent of the
population under jurisdiction of ancient Rome (25–40%, depending on
the standards used, in Roman Italy) lived in innumerable urban
centers, with population of 10,000 and more and several
military settlements, a very high rate
of urbanization by pre-industrial standards. Most of these centers
had a
forum and temples and similar
style buildings, on a smaller scale, to those found in Rome.
Class structure
[[File:Roman Empire map.gif|thumb|Area under Roman control
]]Roman society is largely viewed as
hierarchical, with
slaves (
servi) at the bottom,
freedmen (
liberti) above them, and
free-born citizens (
cives) at the top. Free citizens were
themselves also divided by class. The broadest, and earliest,
division was between the
patrician, who could trace their
ancestry to one of the 100
Patriarchs at
the founding of the city, and the
plebeians,
who could not. This became less important in the later Republic, as
some plebeian families became wealthy and entered politics, and
some patrician families fell on hard times. Anyone, patrician or
plebeian, who could count a consul as his ancestor was a
noble (
nobilis); a man who was the first
of his family to hold the consulship, such as
Marius or
Cicero, was
known as a
novus homo ("new
man") and ennobled his descendants. Patrician ancestry, however,
still conferred considerable prestige, and many religious offices
remained restricted to patricians.
A class division originally based on military service became more
important. Membership of these classes was determined periodically
by the
Censors, according to property.
The wealthiest were the Senatorial class, who dominated politics
and command of the army. Next came the
equestrians (
equites, sometimes
translated "knights"), originally those who could afford a
warhorse, who formed a powerful mercantile class. Several further
classes, originally based on what military equipment their members
could afford, followed, with the
proletarii, citizens who
had no property at all, at the bottom. Before the reforms of Marius
they were ineligible for military service and are often described
as being just barely above freed slaves in terms of wealth and
prestige.
Voting power in the Republic was dependent on class. Citizens were
enrolled in voting "tribes", but the tribes of the richer classes
had fewer members than the poorer ones, all the
proletarii
being enrolled in a single tribe. Voting was done in class order
and stopped as soon as a majority of the tribes had been reached,
so the poorer classes were often unable even to cast their
votes.
Allied foreign cities were often given the
Latin Right, an intermediary level between full
citizens and foreigners (
peregrini), which gave their
citizens rights under
Roman law and
allowed their leading magistrates to become full Roman citizens.
While there were varying degrees of Latin rights, the main division
was between those
cum suffragio ("with vote"; enrolled in
a
Roman tribe and able to take
part in the
comitia tributa) and
sine suffragio
("without vote"; unable to take part in Roman politics). Some of
Rome's Italian allies were given full citizenship after the
Social War of 91–88
BC, and full
Roman citizenship was
extended to all free-born men in the Empire by
Caracalla in 212. Women shared some basic rights
with their male counterparts, but were not fully regarded as
citizens and were thus not allowed to vote or participate in
politics.
Family
The basic units of Roman society were
households and
families.
Households included the head (usually the father) of the household,
pater familias (father of
the family), his wife, children, and other relatives. In the upper
classes, slaves and servants were also part of the household. The
head of the household had great power (
patria potestas,
"father's power") over those living with him: He could force
marriage (usually for money) and divorce, sell his children into
slavery, claim his dependents' property as his own, and even had
the right to punish or kill family members (though this last right
apparently ceased to be exercised after the
1st century BC).
Patria potestas even extended over adult sons with their
own households: A man was not considered a
paterfamilias,
nor could he truly hold property, while his own father lived.
During the early period of Rome's history, a daughter, when she
married, fell under the control (
manus) of the
paterfamilias of her husband's household, although by the
late Republic this fell out of fashion, as a woman could choose to
continue recognizing her father's family as her true family.
However, as Romans reckoned
descent through
the male line, any children she had would belong to her husband's
family.
Groups of related households formed a family (
gens). Families were based on blood ties or
adoption, but were also political and
economic alliances. Especially during the
Roman Republic, some powerful families, or
Gentes Maiores, came to dominate
political life.
Ancient Roman marriage was
often regarded more as a financial and political alliance than as a
romantic association, especially in the upper classes. Fathers
usually began seeking husbands for their daughters when they
reached an age between twelve and fourteen. The husband was almost
always older than the bride. While upper class girls married very
young, there is evidence that lower class women often married in
their late teens or early twenties.
Education
In the early Republic, there were no public schools, so boys were
taught to read and write by their parents, or by educated
slaves, called
paedagogi, usually of Greek
origin. The primary aim of education during this period was to
train young men in
agriculture,
warfare,
Roman
traditions, and public affairs. Young boys learned much about
civic life by accompanying their fathers to religious and political
functions, including the Senate for the sons of nobles. The sons of
nobles were apprenticed to a prominent
political figure at the age of 16, and campaigned
with the army from the age of 17 (this system would still be in use
among some noble families well into the imperial era). Educational
practices were modified following the conquest of the Hellenistic
kingdoms in the 3rd century BC and the resulting Greek influence,
although it should be noted that Roman educational practices were
still significantly different from Greek ones. If their parents
could afford it, boys and some girls at the age of 7 were sent to a
private school outside the home called a
ludus, where a teacher (called a
litterator or a
magister ludi, and often of
Greek origin) taught them basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and
sometimes Greek, until the age of 11. Beginning at age 12, students
went to secondary schools, where the teacher (now called a
grammaticus) taught them about
Greek and
Roman
literature. At the age of 16, some students went on to
rhetoric school (where the teacher, almost always
Greek, was called a
rhetor). Education at this level
prepared students for legal careers, and required that the students
memorize the laws of Rome. Pupils went to school every day, except
religious festivals and market days. There were also summer
holidays.
Government
Initially, Rome was ruled by kings, who were elected from each of Rome's major tribes
in turn. The exact nature of the king's power is uncertain.
He may have held near-absolute power, or may also have merely been
the
chief executive of the
Senate and the people. At least in military
matters, the king's authority (
Imperium) was likely absolute. He was also the
head of the
state religion.
In addition to the authority of the King, there were three
administrative assemblies: the
Senate,
which acted as an advisory body for the King; the
Comitia Curiata, which could endorse and
ratify laws suggested by the King; and the
Comitia Calata, which was an assembly of
the priestly college which could assemble the people in order to
bear witness to certain acts, hear proclamations, and declare the
feast and holiday schedule for the next
month.
The
class struggles of the
Roman Republic resulted in an unusual mixture
of
democracy and
oligarchy. The word republic comes from the Latin
res publica which literally translates to public business.
Roman laws traditionally could
only be passed by a vote of the Popular assembly (
Comitia Tributa). Likewise, candidates for
public positions had to run for election by the people. However,
the
Roman Senate represented an
oligarchic institution, which acted as an advisory body. In the
Republic, the Senate held great authority (
auctoritas),
but no actual legislative power; it was technically only an
advisory council. However, as the Senators were individually very
influential, it was difficult to accomplish anything against the
collective will of the Senate. New Senators were chosen from among
the most accomplished
patrician by
Censors (
Censura), who could also
remove a Senator from his office if he was found "morally corrupt";
a charge that could include
bribery or, as
under
Cato the Elder, embracing one's
wife in public. Later, under the reforms of the dictator
Sulla,
Quaestors were made automatic members of the
Senate, though most of his reforms did not survive.
The Republic had no fixed
bureaucracy,
and collected
taxes through the practice of
tax farming. Government positions such
as
quaestor,
aedile,
or
praefect were funded from the
office-holder's private finances. In order to prevent any citizen
from gaining too much power, new
magistrates were elected annually and had to
share power with a colleague. For example, under normal conditions,
the highest authority was held by two
consuls. In an emergency, a temporary
dictator could be appointed. Throughout the
Republic, the administrative system was revised several times to
comply with new demands. In the end, it proved inefficient for
controlling the ever-expanding dominion of Rome, contributing to
the establishment of the
Roman
Empire.
In the early Empire, the pretense of a republican form of
government was maintained. The
Roman
Emperor was portrayed as only a
princeps, or "first citizen", and the Senate
gained legislative power and all legal authority previously held by
the popular assemblies. However, the rule of the emperors became
increasingly
autocratic over time, and the
Senate was reduced to an advisory body appointed by the emperor.
The Empire did not inherit a set bureaucracy from the Republic,
since the Republic did not have any permanent governmental
structures apart from the Senate. The Emperor appointed assistants
and advisers, but the state lacked many institutions, such as a
centrally planned
budget. Some historians
have cited this as a significant reason for the
decline of the Roman
Empire.
Law
The roots of the legal principles and practices of the
ancient Romans may be
traced to the law of the
twelve tables
(from
449 BC) to the
codification of Emperor
Justinian I (around 530 AD). Roman law as
preserved in Justinian's codes continued into the
Byzantine Empire, and formed the basis of
similar codifications in continental
Western Europe. Roman law continued, in a
broader sense, to be applied throughout most of Europe until the
end of the 17th century.
The major divisions of the law of ancient Rome, as contained within
the Justinian and Theodosian law codes, consisted of
Ius
Civile,
Ius Gentium, and
Ius Naturale. The
Ius Civile ("Citizen law") was the body of common laws
that applied to Roman citizens. The
Praetores Urbani
(
sg. Praetor Urbanus) were the individuals who
had jurisdiction over cases involving citizens. The
Ius
Gentium ("Law of nations") was the body of common laws that
applied to foreigners, and their dealings with Roman citizens. The
Praetores
Peregrini (
sg. Praetor Peregrinus) were
the individuals who had jurisdiction over cases involving citizens
and foreigners.
Ius Naturale encompassed natural law, the
body of laws that were considered common to all being.
Economy
Ancient Rome commanded a vast area of land, with tremendous natural
and human resources. As such, Rome's economy remained focused on
farming and trade.
Agricultural
free trade changed the
Italian landscape, and by the 1st century BC, vast
grape and
olive estates had
supplanted the
yeoman farmers, who were
unable to match the imported grain price.
The annexation of Egypt, Sicily and Tunisia
in North Africa
provided a continuous supply of grains. In turn,
olive oil and
wine were Italy's main
exports. Two-tier
crop
rotation was practiced, but farm productivity was overall low,
around 1 ton per
hectare.
Industrial and
manufacturing activities were smaller. The
largest such activities were the
mining and
quarrying of stones, which provided basic
construction materials for the buildings of that period. In
manufacturing, production was on a relatively small scale, and
generally consisted of workshops and small factories that employed
at most dozens of workers. However, some
brick
factories employed hundreds of workers.
The economy of the early Republic was largely based on smallholding
and paid labor. However, foreign wars and conquests made
slaves increasingly cheap and
plentiful, and by the late Republic, the economy was largely
dependent on
slave labor for both skilled
and unskilled work. Slaves are estimated to have constituted around
20% of the Roman Empire's population at this time and 40% in the
city of Rome. Only in the Roman Empire, when the conquests stopped
and the prices of slaves increased, did hired labor become more
economical than slave ownership.
Although
barter was used in ancient Rome, and often
used in tax collection, Rome had a very developed coinage system, with brass, bronze, and
precious metal coins in circulation
throughout the Empire and beyond—some have even been discovered in
India
. Before the 3rd century BC,
copper was traded by weight, measured in unmarked
lumps, across
central Italy. The
original
copper coins (
as) had a face value of one
Roman pound of copper, but weighed
less. Thus, Roman money's utility as a unit of exchange
consistently exceeded its
intrinsic value as metal.
After
Nero began debasing the silver
denarius, its
legal
value was an estimated one-third greater than its intrinsic.
Horses were too expensive, and other
pack
animals too slow, for mass trade on the
Roman roads, which connected military posts
rather than markets, and were rarely designed for wheels. As a
result, there was little transport of
commodities between Roman regions until the rise
of
Roman maritime trade in
the 2nd century BC.
During that period, a trading vessel took
less than a month to complete a trip from Gades
to Alexandria
via Ostia
, spanning
the entire length of the Mediterranean. Transport by sea was around 60 times
cheaper than by land, so the volume for such trips was much
larger.
Some economists like
Peter Temin
consider the Roman Empire a
market
economy, similar in its degree of capitalistic practices to
17th century Netherlands and 18th century England.
Military
The early Roman army (c. 500 BC) was, like those of other
contemporary
city-states influenced by
Greek civilization, a citizen
militia which practiced
hoplite tactics. It was small (the population of
free males of military age was then about 9,000) and organized in
five classes (in parallel to the
comitia centuriata, the body of
citizens organized politically), with three providing hoplites and
two providing light infantry. The early Roman army was tactically
limited and its stance during this period was essentially
defensive. By the 3rd century BC, the Romans abandoned the hoplite
formation in favor of a more flexible system in which smaller
groups of 120 (or in some cases 60) men called
maniples could maneuver more
independently on the battlefield. Thirty maniples arranged in three
lines with supporting troops constituted a
legion, totaling between 4,000 and 5,000 men.
The early Republican legion consisted of five sections, each of
which was equipped differently and had different places in
formation: the three lines of manipular heavy infantry
(
hastati,
principes and
triarii), a force of light infantry
(
velites), and the cavalry
(
equites). With the new
organization came a new orientation toward the offensive and a much
more aggressive posture toward adjoining city-states.
At nominal full strength, an early Republican legion would have
included 3,600 to 4,800 heavy infantry, several hundred light
infantry and several hundred cavalrymen, for a total of 4,000 to
5,000 men. Legions were often significantly understrength from
recruitment failures or following periods of active service due to
accidents, battle casualties, disease and desertion. During the
Civil War, Pompey's legions in the east were at full strength
because recently recruited, while Caesar's legions were in many
cases well below nominal strength after long active service in
Gaul. This pattern also held true for auxiliary forces.
Until the late Republican period, the typical legionary was a
property-owning citizen farmer from a rural area (an
adsiduus) who served for particular (often annual)
campaigns, and who supplied his own equipment and, in the case of
equites, his own mount. Harris suggests that down to 200
BC, the average rural farmer (who survived) might participate in
six or seven campaigns. Freedmen and slaves (wherever resident) and
urban citizens did not serve except in rare emergencies. After 200
BC, economic conditions in rural areas deteriorated as manpower
needs increased, so that the property qualifications for service
were gradually reduced. Beginning with
Gaius Marius in 107 BC, citizens without
property and some urban-dwelling citizens (
proletarii)
were enlisted and provided with equipment, although most
legionaries continued to come from rural areas. Terms of service
became continuous and long—up to twenty years if emergencies
required it although Brunt argues that six or seven years was more
typical. Beginning in the 3rd century BC, legionaries were paid
stipendium (amounts are disputed but Caesar famously
"doubled" payments to his troops to 225
denarii a year), could anticipate booty
and donatives (distributions of plunder by commanders) from
successful campaigns and, beginning at the time of Marius, often
were granted allotments of land upon retirement. Cavalry and light
infantry attached to a legion (the
auxilia) were often
recruited in the areas where the legion served. Caesar formed a
legion, the Fifth Alaudae, from non-citizens in Transalpine Gaul to
serve in his campaigns in Gaul. By the time of Caesar Augustus, the
ideal of the citizen-soldier had been abandoned and the legions had
become fully professional. Legionaries were paid 900
sesterces a year and could expect a
payment of 12,000
sesterces on retirement.
At the end of the
Civil
War, Augustus reorganized Roman military forces, discharging
soldiers and disbanding legions. He retained 28 legions,
distributed through the provinces of the Empire. During the
Principate, the tactical organization of
the Army continued to evolve. The
auxilia remained
independent cohorts, and legionary troops often operated as groups
of cohorts rather than as full legions. A new versatile type of
unit, the
cohortes equitatae, combining cavalry and
legionaries in a single formation could be stationed at garrisons
or outposts, could fight on their own as balanced small forces or
could combine with other similar units as a larger legion-sized
force. This increase in organizational flexibility over time helped
ensure the long-term success of Roman military forces.
The Emperor
Gallienus (253–268 AD) began a
reorganization that created the final military structure of the
late Empire. Withdrawing some legionaries from the fixed bases on
the border, Gallienus created mobile forces (the
Comitatenses or field armies) and
stationed them behind and at some distance from the borders as a
strategic reserve. The border troops (
limitanei) stationed
at fixed bases continued to be the first line of defense. The basic
unit of the field army was the "regiment",
legiones or
auxilia for infantry and
vexellationes for
cavalry. Evidence suggests that nominal strengths may have been
1,200 men for infantry regiments and 600 for cavalry, although many
records show lower actual troop levels (800 and 400). Many infantry
and cavalry regiments operated in pairs under the command of a
comes. In addition to Roman troops,
the field armies included regiments of "barbarians" recruited from
allied tribes and known as
foederati. By 400 AD,
foederati
regiments had become permanently established units of the Roman
army, paid and equipped by the Empire, led by a Roman tribune and
used just as Roman units were used. In addition to the
foederati, the Empire also used groups of barbarians to
fight along with the legions as "allies" without integration into
the field armies. Under the command of the senior Roman general
present, they were led at lower levels by their own officers.
Military leadership evolved greatly over the course of the history
of Rome. Under the monarchy, the hoplite armies would have been led
by the kings of Rome. During the early and middle Roman Republic,
military forces were under the command of one of the two elected
consuls for the year. During the later
Republic, members of the Roman Senatorial elite, as part of the
normal sequence of elected public offices known as the
cursus honorum, would have served
first as
quaestor (often posted as
deputies to field commanders), then as
praetor. Following the end of a term as
praetor or consul, a Senator might be appointed by the Senate as a
propraetor or
proconsul (depending on the highest
office previously held) to govern a foreign province. More junior
officers (down to but not including the level of centurion) were
selected by their commanders from their own
clientelae or those
recommended by political allies among the Senatorial elite. Under
Augustus, whose most important political priority was to place the
military under a permanent and unitary command, the Emperor was the
legal commander of each legion but exercised that command through a
legatus (legate) he appointed from
the Senatorial elite. In a province with a single legion, the
legate would command the legion (
legatus legionis) and
also serve as provincial governor, while in a province with more
than one legion, each legion would be commanded by a legate and the
legates would be commanded by the provincial governor (also a
legate but of higher rank). During the later stages of the Imperial
period (beginning perhaps with
Diocletian), the Augustan model was abandoned.
Provincial governors were stripped of military authority, and
command of the armies in a group of provinces was given to generals
(
duces) appointed by the Emperor. These
were no longer members of the Roman elite but men who came up
through the ranks and had seen much practical soldiering. With
increasing frequency, these men attempted (sometimes successfully)
to usurp the positions of the Emperors who had appointed them.
Decreased resources, increasing political chaos and civil war
eventually left the Western Empire vulnerable to attack and
takeover by neighboring barbarian peoples.
Comparatively less is known about the Roman navy than the Roman
army. Prior to the middle of the 3rd century BC, officials known as
duumviri navales commanded a fleet of twenty ships used
mainly to control piracy. This fleet was given up in 278 AD and
replaced by allied forces. The
First Punic
War required that Rome build large fleets, and it did so
largely with the assistance of and financing from allies. This
reliance on allies continued to the end of the Roman Republic. The
quinquireme was the main warship on both
sides of the Punic Wars and remained the mainstay of Roman naval
forces until replaced by the time of Caesar Augustus by lighter and
more maneuverable vessels. As compared with a
trireme, the quinquireme permitted the use of a mix
of experienced and inexperienced crewmen (an advantage for a
primarily land-based power), and its lesser maneuverability
permitted the Romans to adopt and perfect
boarding tactics using a troop of
approximately 40 marines in lieu of the
ram. Ships were
commanded by a
navarch, a rank
equivalent to a centurion, who were usually not citizens. Potter
suggests that because the fleet was dominated by non-Romans, the
navy was considered non-Roman and allowed to atrophy in times of
peace.
Available information suggests that by the time of the late Empire
(350 AD), the Roman navy comprised a number of fleets including
both warships and merchant vessels for transportation and supply.
Warships were oared sailing galleys with three to five banks of
oarsmen. Fleet bases included such ports as Ravenna, Arles,
Aquilea, Misenum and the mouth of the Somme River in the West and
Alexandria and Rhodes in the East. Flotillas of small river craft
(
classes) were part of the
limitanei (border
troops) during this period, based at fortified river harbors along
the Rhine and the Danube. The fact that prominent generals
commanded both armies and fleets suggests that naval forces were
treated as auxiliaries to the army and not as an independent
service. The details of command structure and fleet strengths
during this period are not well known although it is known that
fleets were commanded by prefects.
Culture
Life in
ancient Rome revolved around the city of Rome, located on
seven hills. The city had a vast
number of monumental structures like the
Colosseum
, the Forum of Trajan
and the Pantheon
. It had fountains with fresh drinking-water
supplied by hundreds of miles of
aqueducts,
theatres,
gymnasiums,
bath complexes complete with libraries and shops,
marketplaces, and functional sewers. Throughout the territory under
the control of ancient Rome, residential
architecture ranged from very modest houses to
country villas.
In the capital city of Rome, there were
imperial residences on the elegant Palatine Hill, from which the word palace is
derived. The low
Plebian and middle
Equestrian classes lived in the
city center, packed into
apartments, or
Insulae which were almost like modern
ghettos. These areas, often built by upper
class landlords for the rental incomes collected, were often
centred upon
collegia or
taberna. These people, provided by a
free supply of
grain, and entertained by
gladatorial
games, were enrolled as
clients of
patrons amongst the upper class
Patrician, whose assistance they
sought and whose interests they upheld.
Language
The native
language of the Romans was
Latin, an
Italic
language the
grammar of which
relies little on word order, conveying meaning through a system of
affixes attached to
word
stems. Its
alphabet was based on
the
Etruscan alphabet, which was
in turn based on the
Greek alphabet.
Although surviving
Latin literature
consists almost entirely of
Classical
Latin, an artificial and highly stylized and polished
literary language from the 1st century BC,
the actual
spoken language of the
Roman Empire was
Vulgar Latin, which
significantly differed from Classical Latin in
grammar and
vocabulary,
and eventually in pronunciation.
While
Latin remained the main written language
of the Roman Empire,
Greek came to be
the language spoken by the well-educated elite, as most of the
literature studied by Romans was written in Greek. In the eastern
half of the Roman Empire, which later became the
Byzantine Empire, Latin was never able to
replace Greek, and after the death of Justinian, Greek became the
official language of the Byzantine government. The expansion of the
Roman Empire spread Latin throughout Europe, and over time Vulgar
Latin evolved and
dialectized in different
locations, gradually shifting into a number of distinct
Romance languages.
Religion
Archaic
Roman religion, at
least concerning the gods, was made up not of written
narratives, but rather of complex interrelations
between gods and humans. Unlike in
Greek
mythology, the gods were not personified, but were
vaguely-defined sacred spirits called
numina. Romans also believed that every person,
place or thing had its own
genius, or divine soul. During the
Roman Republic,
Roman religion was organized under
a strict system of priestly offices, which were held by men of
senatorial rank. The College of Pontifices was uppermost body in
this hierarchy, and its chief priest, the
Pontifex Maximus, was the head of the
state religion.
Flamens took care of the
cults of various gods, while
augurs were
trusted with taking the
auspices. The
sacred king took on the religious
responsibilities of the deposed kings. In the Roman empire,
emperors were held to be gods , and the formalized
imperial cult became
increasingly prominent.
As contact with the
Greeks increased,
the old
Roman gods became
increasingly associated with
Greek gods. Thus,
Jupiter was perceived to be the
same deity as
Zeus,
Mars became associated with
Ares, and Neptune with
Poseidon. The Roman gods also assumed the
attributes and mythologies of these Greek gods. Under the empire,
the Romans absorbed the mythologies of their conquered subjects,
often leading to situations in which the temples and priests of
traditional Italian deities existed side by side with those of
foreign gods. Beginning with Emperor
Nero,
Roman official policy towards Christianity was negative, and at
some points, simply being a Christian could be punishable by death.
Under Emperor
Diocletian, the
persecution of Christians reached
its peak. However, it became an officially supported religion in
the Roman state under
Constantine I
and became dominant. All religions except Christianity were
prohibited in 391 AD by an edict of Emperor
Theodosius I.
Art, music and literature
Roman
painting styles show
Greek influences, and surviving examples are
primarily
frescoes used to adorn the walls
and ceilings of country
villas, though
Roman literature includes mentions
of paintings on
wood,
ivory, and other materials.
Several examples of
Roman painting have been found at Pompeii
, and from these art
historians divide the history of Roman painting into four
periods. The first style of Roman painting was practiced
from the early 2nd century BC to the early- or mid-1st century BC.
It was mainly composed of imitations of
marble and
masonry, though
sometimes including depictions of mythological characters. The
second style of Roman painting began during the early 1st century
BC, and attempted to depict realistically three-dimensional
architectural features and landscapes. The third style occurred
during the reign of
Augustus (27 BC –
14 AD), and rejected the
realism of the second style in favor
of simple ornamentation. A small architectural scene, landscape, or
abstract design was placed in the center with a
monochrome background. The fourth
style, which began in the
1st century
AD, depicted scenes from mythology, while retaining
architectural details and abstract patterns.
Portrait sculpture during the period utilized youthful and
classical proportions, evolving later into a mixture of realism and
idealism. During the
Antonine and
Severan periods, more ornate hair and
bearding became prevalent, created with deeper cutting and
drilling. Advancements were also made in
relief
sculptures, usually depicting Roman victories.
Latin literature was from its very
inception influenced heavily by Greek authors. Some of the earliest
extant works are of historical
epics
telling the early military history of Rome. As the Republic
expanded, authors began to produce
poetry,
comedy,
history, and
tragedy.
Roman music was largely based
on
Greek music, and played
an important part in many aspects of Roman life. In the
Roman military, musical instruments
such as the
tuba (a
long
trumpet) or the
cornu (similar
to a
French horn) were used to
give various commands, while the
bucina (possibly a
trumpet or
horn) and the
lituus (probably an elongated J-shaped instrument), were
used in ceremonial capacities. Music was used in the
amphitheaters between fights and in the
odea, and in these
settings is known to have featured the
cornu and the
hydraulis (a type of water organ). The majority of
religious rituals featured musical performances, with
tibiae (double pipes) at sacrifices,
cymbals and
Tambourines at
orgiastic cults, and
rattles and
hymns
across the spectrum. Some music historians believe that music was
used at almost all public ceremonies. Music historians are not
certain if Roman musicians made a significant contribution to the
theory or practice of music.
The
graffiti, brothels,
paintings, and sculptures found in Pompeii and Herculaneum
suggest that the Romans had a very sex-saturated
culture.
Scholarly studies
Interest
in studying ancient Rome arose during the Age of Enlightenment in France
.
Charles
Montesquieu wrote a work
Reflections on the Causes of the
Grandeur and Declension of the Romans. The first major work
was
The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by
Edward Gibbon, which encompassed the
period from the end of
2nd century to
the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Like Montesquieu, Gibbon
paid high tribute to the virtue of Roman citizens.
Barthold Georg Niebuhr was a founder
of the examination of ancient Roman history and wrote
The Roman
History, tracing the period until the
First Punic war. Niebuhr made an attempt to
determine the way the Roman tradition evolved. According to him,
Romans, like other people, had an historical
ethos which was preserved mainly in the noble
families. During the
Napoleonic
period a work titled
The History of Romans by
Victor Duruy appeared. It highlighted the
Caesarean period popular at the time.
History of Rome,
Roman constitutional
law and
Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, all by
Theodor
Mommsen, became very important milestones. Later the work
Greatness and Decline of Rome by
Guglielmo Ferrero was published. The
Russian work
Очерки по истории римского землевладения,
преимущественно в эпоху Империи (
The Outlines on Roman
Landownership History, Mainly During the Empire) by Ivan Grevs
contained information on the economy of
Pomponius Atticus, one of the
greatest landowners during the end of the Republic.
Games and activities
The youth of Rome had several forms of play and exercise, such as
jumping,
wrestling,
boxing, and
racing. In
the countryside, pastimes for the wealthy also included
fishing and
hunting. The
Romans also had several forms of ball playing, including one
resembling
handball.
Dice games,
board games,
and
gamble games were extremely popular
pastimes. Women did not participate in these activities. For the
wealthy, dinner parties presented an opportunity for entertainment,
sometimes featuring music, dancing, and poetry readings.
Plebeians sometimes enjoyed similar parties
through clubs or associations, although recreational dining usually
meant patronizing
taverns. Children
entertained themselves with toys and such games as
leapfrog.
A popular form of entertainment was
gladiatorial combats. Gladiators fought either to
the death, or to "first blood" with a variety of weapons and in a
variety of different scenarios. These fights achieved their height
of popularity under the emperor
Claudius,
who placed the final outcome of the combat firmly in the hands of
the emperor with a hand gesture. Contrary to popular
representations in film, several experts believe the gesture for
death was not "thumbs down". Although no one is certain as to what
the gestures were, some experts conclude that the emperor would
signify "death" by holding a raised fist to the winning combatant
and then extending his thumb upwards, while "mercy" was indicated
by a raised fist with no extended thumb. Animal shows were also
popular with the Romans, where foreign animals were either
displayed for the public or combined with gladiatorial combat. A
prisoner or gladiator, armed or unarmed, was thrown into the arena
and an animal was released.
The
Circus
Maximus
, another popular site in Rome, was primarily
used for horse and chariot racing, and when the Circus was
flooded, there could be sea battles. It was also used for
many other events. The Circus could hold up to 385,000 people;
people all over Rome would visit it. Two temples, one with seven
large eggs and one with seven dolphins, lay in the middle of the
track of Circus Maximus, and whenever the racers made a lap, one of
each would be removed. This was done to keep the spectators and the
racers informed of the race statistics. Other than for sports, the
Circus Maximus was also an area of
marketing and
gambling.
Higher authorities, such as the emperor, also attended games in the
Circus Maximus, as it was considered rude to avoid attendance. The
higher authorities, knights, and many other people who were
involved with the race, sat in reserved seats located above
everyone else. It was also considered inappropriate for emperors to
favour a particular team. The Circus Maximus was created in 600 BC
and hosted the last horse-racing game in 549 AD, after a custom
enduring over a millennium.
Roman Technological Achievements
Ancient Rome boasted impressive technological feats, using many
advancements that would be lost in the
Middle Ages and not be rivaled again until the
19th and 20th centuries. Many practical Roman innovations were
adopted from earlier Greek designs. Advancements were often divided
and based on craft. Groups of
artisans jealously guarded new
technologies as
trade secrets.
Roman engineering
as well as
Roman
military engineering constituted a large portion of
Rome's technological superiority and legacy, and contributed to the
construction of hundreds of roads, bridges,
aqueducts,
baths,
theaters and
arenas.
Many
monuments, such as the Colosseum, Pont du
Gard
, and Pantheon, still remain as testaments to Roman engineering
and culture.
The Romans were particularly renowned for their
architecture, which is
grouped with Greek traditions into "
Classical architecture".
Although there were many differences from
Greek architecture, Rome
borrowed heavily from Greece in adhering to strict, formulaic
building designs and proportions.
Aside from two new orders of columns, composite and Tuscan, and from the dome,
which was derived from the Etruscan arch, Rome had relatively few
architectural innovations until the end of the
Republic.
In the 1st century BC, Romans started to use
concrete, widely. Concrete was invented in the late
3rd century BC. It was a powerful
cement
derived from
pozzolana, and soon
supplanted
marble as the chief Roman building
material and allowed many daring architectural schemata. Also in
the 1st century BC,
Vitruvius wrote
De architectura, possibly
the first complete treatise on architecture in history.
In late
1st century BC, Rome also began to use glassblowing soon after its invention in
Syria about 50 BC. Mosaics
took the Empire by storm after samples were retrieved during
Lucius Cornelius Sulla's
campaigns in Greece.
Article on history of Roman concrete
Concrete made possible the paved, durable
Roman roads, many of which were still
in use a thousand years after the fall of Rome. The construction of
a vast and efficient travel network throughout the Empire
dramatically increased Rome's power and influence. It was
originally constructed to allow
Roman
legions to be rapidly deployed. But these highways also had
enormous economic significance, solidifying Rome's role as a
trading crossroads—the origin of the saying "all roads lead to
Rome". The Roman government maintained way stations which provided
refreshments to travelers at regular intervals along the roads,
constructed bridges where necessary, and established a system of
horse relays for
couriers that allowed a
dispatch to travel up to 800 kilometers (500 mi) in 24 hours.
The Romans constructed numerous
aqueducts to supply water to
cities and industrial sites and to assist in
their agriculture. The city of Rome was
supplied by 11 aqueducts with a combined length of 350 kilometres
(220 mi). Most aqueducts were constructed below the surface,
with only small portions above ground supported by arches.
Sometimes, where depressions deeper than 50 metres (165 ft)
had to be crossed,
inverted siphons were used
to force water uphill.The Romans also made major advancements in
sanitation. Romans were particularly
famous for their public
baths, called
thermae, which were used for both
hygienic and social purposes. Many Roman houses came to have
flush toilets and
indoor plumbing, and a complex
sewer system, the
Cloaca Maxima, was used to drain the
local
marshes and carry waste into the Tiber
river. Some historians have speculated that the use of
lead pipes in the sewer and plumbing systems led to
widespread
lead poisoning which
contributed to the decline in
birth rate
and general decay of Roman society leading up to the
fall of Rome. However, lead
content would have been minimized because the flow of water from
aqueducts could not be shut off; it ran continuously through public
and private outlets into the drains, and only a small number of
taps were in use.
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
- Cowell, Frank Richard. Life in Ancient Rome. New York:
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1961 (paperback, ISBN 0-399-50328-5).
- Gabucci, Ada. Rome (Dictionaries of Civilizations; 2).
Berkekely: University of California Press, 2007 (paperback, ISBN
0520252659).
- Wyke, Maria. Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema, and
History. New York; London: Routledge, 1997 (hardcover, ISBN
0-415-90613-X, paperback, ISBN 0-415-91614-8).
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