Chapter 5: Rome and the Rise of Christianity

\

The Rise of Rome

\

The Land and Peoples of Italy

• Italy is a peninsula extending about 750 miles (1,207 km) from north to south. It is not very wide, averaging about 120 miles (193 km) across.
• Most important are the Po River valley in the north; the plain of Latium, on which the city of Rome is located; and the region of Campania, to the south of Latium.
• In the same way as the other civilizations we have examined, geography played an important role in the development of Rome.
  • The location of the city of Rome was especially favorable to early settlers.
  • Located about 18 miles (29 km) inland on the Tiber River, Rome had a way to the sea.
• The Italian peninsula juts into the Mediterranean, making it an important crossroads between the western and eastern Mediterranean Sea.
• Indo-European peoples moved into Italy during the period from about 1500 to 1000 B.C.
  • We know little about these peoples, but we do know that one such group was the Latins, who lived in the region of Latium.
• After about 800 B.C., other people also began settling in Italy—the two most notable being the Greeks and the Etruscans.
• The Greeks came to Italy in large numbers during the age of Greek colonization (750–550 B.C.).
• The eastern two thirds of Sicily, an island south of the Italian peninsula, was also occupied by the Greeks.
• The early development of Rome, however, was influenced most by the Etruscans, who were located north of Rome in Etruria.
• The organization of the Roman army also was borrowed from the Etruscans.

\

The Roman Republic

• Roman tradition maintains that early Rome (753–509 B.C.) was under the control of seven kings and that two of the last three kings were Etruscans.
• In 509 B.C., the Romans overthrew the last Etruscan king and established a republic, a form of government in which the leader is not a monarch and certain citizens have the right to vote.
  • At the beginning of the republic, Rome was surrounded by enemies.
  • For the next two hundred years, the city was engaged in almost continuous warfare.
• In 338 B.C., Rome crushed the Latin states in Latium.
  • It also brought them into direct contact with the Greek communities of southern Italy.
• To rule Italy, the Romans devised the Roman Confederation.
  • The Romans made the conquered peoples feel they had a real stake in Rome’s success.
• Romans believed that their early ancestors were successful because of their sense of duty, courage, and discipline.
• The Roman historian Livy, writing in the first century B.C., provided a number of stories to teach Romans the virtues that had made Rome great.
• Looking back today, how can we explain Rome’s success in gaining control of the entire Italian peninsula?
  • First, the Romans were good diplomats.
  • Second, the Romans excelled in military matters.
  • Finally, in law and politics, as in conquest, the Romans were practical.

\

The Roman State

• Early Rome was divided into two groups or orders—the patricians and the plebeians
  • The patricians were great landowners, who became Rome’s ruling class.
  • Less wealthy landholders, craftspeople, merchants, and small farmers were part of a larger group called plebeians.
• Men in both groups were citizens and could vote, but only the patricians could be elected to governmental offices.
• The chief executive officers of the Roman Republic were the consuls and praetors.
• The Roman Senate came to hold an especially important position in the Roman Republic.
• The Roman Republic had several people’s assemblies in addition to the Senate.
  • By far the most important of these was the centuriate assembly.
• There was often conflict between the patricians and the plebeians in the early Roman Republic.
  • The struggle between the patricians and plebeians dragged on for hundreds of years.
  • Ultimately, it led to success for the plebeians.
• A popular assembly for plebeians only, the council of the plebs, was created in 471 B.C.
  • New officials, known as tribunes of the plebs, were given the power to protect the plebeians.
  • By 287 B.C., all male Roman citizens were supposedly equal under the law.
• One of Rome’s chief gifts to the Mediterranean world of its day and to later generations was its system of law.
• Rome’s first code of laws was the Twelve Tables, which was adopted in 450 B.C.
• As Rome expanded, legal questions arose that involved both Romans and non-Romans.
• These rules gave rise to a body of law known as the Law of Nations.
  • These standards of justice included principles still recognized today.
• The presence of Carthaginians in Sicily, an island close to the Italian coast, made the Romans fearful.
• In 264 B.C., the two powers began a lengthy struggle for control of the western Mediterranean.
• Rome’s first war with Carthage began in 264 B.C.
  • It is called the First Punic War, after the Latin word for Phoenician, punicus.
• The Romans—a land power—realized that they could not win the war without a navy and created a large naval fleet.
  • Carthage vowed revenge, however, and added new lands in Spain to make up for the loss of Sicily.
  • The Romans encouraged one of Carthage’s Spanish allies to revolt against Carthage.
  • In response, Hannibal, the greatest of the Carthaginian generals, struck back, beginning the Second Punic War (218 to 201 B.C.).
• Hannibal entered Spain, moved east, and crossed the Alps with an army of about 46,000 men, a large number of horses, and 37 battle elephants.
• In 216 B.C., the Romans decided to meet Hannibal head on.
• Rome gradually recovered.
• Although Hannibal remained free to roam Italy, he had neither the men nor the equipment to attack the major cities, including Rome.
• In a brilliant military initiative, Rome decided to invade Carthage rather than fight Hannibal in Italy.
  • Fifty years later, the Romans fought their third and final struggle with Carthage, the Third Punic War.
  • In 146 B.C., Carthage was destroyed.
• For 10 days, Roman soldiers burned and demolished all of the city’s buildings.
• During its struggle with Carthage, Rome also battled the Hellenistic states in the eastern Mediterranean.
• Rome was now master of the Mediterranean Sea.

\

From Republic to Empire

\

Growing Inequality and Unrest

• By the second century B.C., the Senate had become the real governing body of the Roman state.
  • Of course, these aristocrats formed only a tiny minority of the Roman people.
• Some aristocrats tried to remedy this growing economic and social crisis.
• Many senators, themselves large landowners whose estates included large areas of public land, were furious.
• Changes in the Roman army soon brought even worse problems.

\

A New Role for the Army

• In 107 B.C., a Roman general named Marius became consul and began to recruit his armies in a new way.
  • Marius left a powerful legacy.
  • He had created a new system of military recruitment that placed much power in the hands of the individual generals.
• Lucius Cornelius Sulla was the next general to take advantage of the new military system.
• Sulla hoped that he had created a firm foundation to restore a traditional Roman republic governed by a powerful Senate.

\

The Collapse of the Republic

• For the next 50 years (82–31 B.C.), Roman history was characterized by civil wars as a number of individuals competed for power.
• Three men—Crassus, Pompey, and Julius Caesar—emerged as victors.
  • Crassus was known as the richest man in Rome.
• In 60 B.C., Caesar joined with Crassus and Pompey to form the First Triumvirate.
  • A triumvirate is a government by three people with equal power.
• When Crassus was killed in battle in 53 B.C., however, only two powerful men were left.
  • Caesar refused.
  • During his time in Gaul, he had gained military experience, as well as an army of loyal veterans.
  • He chose to keep his army and moved into Italy by illegally crossing the Rubicon, the river that formed the southern boundary of his province.
• Caesar marched on Rome, starting a civil war between his forces and those of Pompey and his allies.
  • Caesar was officially made dictator in 45 B.C.
  • A dictator is an absolute ruler.
  • Caesar planned much more in the way of building projects and military adventures to the east.
  • However, in 44 B.C., a group of leading senators assassinated him.
• A new struggle for power followed Caesar’s death.
• Three men—Octavian, Caesar’s heir and grandnephew; Antony, Caesar’s ally and assistant; and Lepidus, who had been com- mander of Caesar’s cavalry—joined forces to form the Second Triumvirate.
• The empire of the Romans, large as it was, was still too small for two masters.
  • Octavian and Antony soon came into conflict.
  • Antony allied himself with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII.
  • Octavian, at the age of 32, stood supreme over the Roman world. The civil wars had ended. So had the republic.
• The period beginning in 31 B.C. and lasting until A.D. 14 came to be known as the Age of Augustus.

\

The Age of Augustus

• In 27 B.C., Octavian proclaimed the “restoration of the Republic.” He knew that only traditional republican forms would satisfy the Senate.
  • Although he gave some power to the Senate, Octavian in fact became the first Roman emperor. In 27 B.C., the Senate awarded him the title of Augustus—“the revered one,” a fitting title in view of his power.
• Augustus proved to be highly popular, but his continuing control of the army was the chief source of his power.
• The Senate gave Augustus the title imperator, or commander in chief.
  • Imperator gave us our word emperor.
• Augustus maintained a standing army of 28 legions, or about 150,000 men.
  • Augustus stabilized the frontiers of the Roman Empire, conquering many new areas.
  • His attempt to conquer Germany failed, however, when three Roman legions under Varus were massacred by German warriors.

\

The Early Empire

• Beginning in A.D. 14, a series of new emperors ruled Rome.
  • This period, ending in A.D. 180, is called the Early Empire.
• Augustus’s new political system allowed the emperor to select his successor from his natural or adopted family.
  • Nero, for example, had people killed if he wanted them out of the way—including his own mother.
• At the beginning of the second century, a series of five so-called good emperors came to power.
  • They were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.
• These emperors created a period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana—the “Roman Peace.”
  • The Pax Romana lasted for almost a hundred years
  • Under the five good emperors, the powers of the emperor continued to expand at the expense of the Senate.
  • The good emperors were widely praised for their building programs.
• Trajan and Hadrian were especially active in building public works—aqueducts, bridges, roads, and harbor facilities—throughout the provinces and in Rome.
• Rome expanded further during the period of the Early Empire.
• Trajan extended Roman rule into Dacia (modern Romania), Mesopotamia, and the Sinai Peninsula.
  • His successors, however, realized that the empire was too large to be easily governed.
• Hadrian withdrew Roman forces from much of Mesopotamia and also went on the defensive in his frontier policy.
  • He strengthened the fortifications along a line connecting the Rhine and Danube RIvers.
• At its height in the second century, the Roman Empire was one of the greatest states the world had ever seen.
• The emperors and the imperial government provided a degree of unity.
• Cities were important in the spread of Roman culture, Roman law, and the Latin language.
• Latin was the language of the western part of the empire, whereas Greek was used in the east.
• The Early Empire was a period of much prosperity, with inter- nal peace leading to high levels of trade.
• Despite the active trade and commerce, however, farming remained the chief occupation of most people and the underlying basis of Roman prosperity.
• An enormous gulf separated rich and poor in Roman society.
• Thousands of unemployed people depended on the emperor’s handouts of grain to survive.

\

Culture and Society in the Roman World

\

Roman Art and Architecture

• During the third and second centuries B.C., the Romans adopted many features of the Greek style of art.
• The Romans excelled in architecture, a highly practical art.
• The Romans were the first people in antiquity to use concrete on a massive scale.
  • The remarkable engineering skills of the Romans were also put to use in constructing roads, bridges, and aqueducts.

\

Roman Literature

• Although there were many talented writers, the high point of Latin literature was reached in the Age of Augustus.
  • Indeed, the Augustan Age has been called the golden age of Latin literature.
• The most distinguished poet of the Augustan Age was Virgil.
  • The son of a small landholder in northern Italy near Mantua, he welcomed the rule of Augustus and wrote his greatest work, the Aeneid, in honor of Rome.
• Another prominent Augustan poet was Horace, a friend of Virgil’s.
• The most famous Latin prose work of the golden age was written by the historian Livy, whose masterpiece was the History of Rome.
  • In 142 books, Livy traced the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to 9 B.C.
  • Only 35 of the books have survived.
  • Livy’s history celebrated Rome’s greatness.

\

The Roman Family

• At the heart of the Roman social structure stood the family, headed by the paterfamilias—the dominant male.
• Unlike the Greeks, the Romans raised their children at home.
  • Roman boys learned reading and writing, moral principles and family values, law, and physical training to prepare them to be soldiers.
  • Some parents in upper-class families provided education for their daughters by hiring private tutors or sending the girls to primary schools.
• Like the Greeks, Roman males believed that the weakness of females made it necessary for women to have male guardians.
  • For females, the legal minimum age for marriage was 12, although 14 was a more common age in practice (for males, the legal minimum age was 14, although most men married later).
• Traditionally, Roman marriages were meant to be for life, but divorce was introduced in the third century B.C. and became fairly easy to obtain.
• By the second century A.D., important changes were occurring in the Roman family.
  • Upper-class Roman women in the Early Empire had considerable freedom and independence.
  • Outside their homes, upper-class women could attend races, the theater, and events in the amphitheater.
  • In the latter two places, however, they were forced to sit in separate female sections.
  • Women could not officially participate in politics, but a number of important women influenced politics through their husbands.

\

Slavery

• Slavery was common throughout the ancient world, but no people had more slaves or relied so much on slave labor as the Romans did.
• The Roman conquest of the Mediterranean brought a drastic change in the use of slaves.
• Large numbers of foreign peoples who had been captured in different wars were brought back to Italy as slaves.
  • Greek slaves were in much demand as tutors, musicians, doctors, and artists.
• Slaves built roads and public buildings, and farmed the large estates of the wealthy.
  • Some slaves revolted against their owners and even murdered them, causing some Romans to live in great fear of their slaves
  • The most famous slave revolt in Italy occurred in 73 B.C.
  • Led by the gladiator Spartacus, the revolt broke out in southern Italy and involved seventy thousand slaves.

\

Daily Life in The City of Rome

• At the center of the colossal Roman Empire was the ancient city of Rome.
  • Truly a capital city, Rome had the largest population of any city in the empire— close to one million by the time of Augustus.
  • Rome was an overcrowded and noisy city.
  • Because of the congestion, cart and wagon traffic was banned from the streets during the day.
• An enormous gulf existed between rich and poor.
  • The rich had comfortable villas, while the poor lived in apartment blocks called insulae, which might be six stories high.
• Fire was a constant threat in the insulae because of the use of movable stoves, torches, candles, and lamps within the rooms for heat and light.
• Rome boasted public buildings unequaled anywhere in the empire.
• Although it was the center of a great empire, Rome had serious problems.
• Entertainment was provided on a grand scale for the inhabitants of Rome.
• Public spectacles were provided by the emperor as part of the great religious festivals celebrated by the state.
• The most famous of all the public spectacles, however, were the gladiatorial shows.

\

The Development of Christianity

\

Background: Roman Religion

• Augustus brought back traditional festivals and ceremonies to revive the Roman state religion, which had declined during the turmoil of the late Roman Republic.
• The Romans believed that the observation of proper ritual by state priests brought them into a right relationship with the gods.
  • At the same time, the Romans were tolerant of other religions.
  • After the Romans conquered the states of the Hellenistic east, religions from those regions flooded the western Roman world.

\

The Jewish Background

• In Hellenistic times, the Jewish people had been given considerable independence.
• By A.D. 6, however, Judaea, which embraced the lands of the old Jewish kingdom of Judah, had been made a Roman province and been placed under the direction of a Roman official called a procurator.
  • Unrest was widespread in Judaea, but the Jews differed among themselves about Roman rule.
• In fact, a Jewish revolt began in A.D. 66, only to be crushed by the Romans four years later.
• The Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

\

The Rise of Christianity

• A few decades before the revolt, a Jewish prophet named Jesus traveled and preached throughout Judaea and neighboring Galilee.
• Jesus believed that his mission was to complete the salvation that God had promised to Israel throughout its history.
  • God’s command was to love God and one another.
  • Jesus’ preaching eventually stirred controversy.
  • Some people saw Jesus as a potential revolutionary who might lead a revolt against Rome.
  • After the death of Jesus, his followers proclaimed that he had risen from death and had appeared to them.
• Christianity began as a movement within Judaism.
• Prominent apostles, or leaders, arose in early Christianity.
  • One was Simon Peter, a Jewish fisherman who had become a follower of Jesus during Jesus’ lifetime.
  • Peter was recognized as the leader of the apostles.
  • Another major apostle was Paul, a highly educated Jewish Roman citizen who joined the movement later.
  • Paul took the message of Jesus to Gentiles (non-Jews) as well as to Jews.
  • He founded Christian communities throughout Asia Minor and along the shores of the Aegean Sea.
  • At the center of Paul’s message was the belief that Jesus was the Savior, the Son of God who had come to Earth to save humanity.
• The teachings of early Christianity were passed on orally.
  • Later, between A.D. 40 and 100, these accounts became the basis of the written Gospels— the “good news” concerning Jesus.
  • These writings give a record of Jesus’ life and teachings, and they form the core of the New Testament, the second part of the Christian Bible.
• By 100, Christian churches had been established in most of the major cities of the eastern empire and in some places in the western part of the empire.
• The basic values of Christianity differed markedly from those of the Greco-Roman world.
• The Romans tolerated the religions of other peo- ples unless these religions threatened public order or public morals.
• The Roman government began persecuting (harassing to cause suffering) Christians during the reign of Nero (A.D. 54–68).

\

The Triumph of Christianity

• The Romans persecuted Christians in the first and second centuries, but this did nothing to stop the growth of Christianity.
• Crucial to this change was the emerging role of the bishops, who began to assume more control over church communities.
  • The Christian church was creating a new structure in which the clergy (the church leaders) had distinct functions separate from the laity (the regular church members).
• Christianity grew quickly in the first century, took root in the second, and by the third had spread widely.
• Why was Christianity able to attract so many followers?
  • First, the Christian message had much to offer the Roman world.
  • Second, Christianity seemed familiar.
  • Finally, Christianity fulfilled the human need to belong.
• Christianity proved attractive to all classes, but especially to the poor and powerless.
  • Eternal life was promised to all—rich, poor, aristocrats, slaves, men, and women.
• Some emperors began new persecutions of the Christians in the third century, but their schemes failed.
• In the fourth century, Christianity prospered as never before when Constantine became the first Christian emperor.
  • Although he was not baptized until the end of his life, in 313 Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which proclaimed official tolerance of Christianity.
• Then, under Theodosius the Great, the Romans adopted Christianity as their official religion.

\

Decline and Fall

\

The Decline

• Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five good emperors, died in A.D. 180.
  • A period of conflict and confusion followed.
• Following a series of civil wars, a military government under the Severan rulers restored order.
• At the same time, the empire was troubled by a series of invasions.
  • In the east, the Sassanid Persians made inroads into Roman territory.
  • Invasions, civil wars, and plague came close to causing an economic collapse of the Roman Empire in the third century.
• A labor shortage created by plague (an epidemic disease) affected both military recruiting and the economy.
• Armies were needed more than ever, but financial strains made it difficult to pay and enlist more soldiers.
• At the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth centuries, the Roman Empire gained a new lease on life through the efforts of two emperors, Diocletian and Constantine.
  • Believing that the empire had grown too large for a single ruler, Diocletian, who ruled from 284 to 305, divided it into four units, each with its own ruler.
  • Constantine, who ruled from 306 to 337, continued and even expanded the policies of Diocletian.
  • Both rulers greatly strengthened and enlarged the administrative bureaucracies of the Roman Empire.
  • The political and military reforms of Diocletian and Constantine greatly enlarged two institutions— the army and civil service—which drained most of the public funds.
  • Diocletian and Constantine devised new economic and social policies to deal with these financial burdens.
  • To fight inflation—a rapid increase in prices— Diocletian issued a price edict in 301 that set wage and price controls for the entire empire.
  • Despite severe penalties, it failed to work.
  • To ensure the tax base and keep the empire going despite the shortage of labor, the emperors issued edicts that forced people to remain in their designated vocations.
  • Constantine began his reign in 306, and by 324 he had emerged as the sole ruler of the empire.
  • Constantine’s biggest project was the construction of a new capital city in the east, on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium on the shores of the Bosporus.
• In general, the economic and social policies of Diocletian and Constantine were based on control and coercion.

\

The Fall

• The restored empire of Diocletian and Constantine limped along for more than a century.
• After Constantine, the empire continued to be divided into western and eastern parts.
• The Huns, who came from Asia, moved into eastern Europe and put pressure on the Germanic Visigoths.
  • The Visigoths, in turn, moved south and west, crossed the Danube River into Roman territory, and settled down as Roman allies.
  • Increasing numbers of Germans now crossed the frontiers. In 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome.
• Another group, the Vandals, poured into southern Spain and Africa.
• In 476, the western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by the Germanic head of the army.
• Many theories have been proposed to explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. They include the following:
  • Christianity’s emphasis on a spiritual kingdom weakened Roman military virtues.
  • Traditional Roman values declined as non-Italians gained prominence in the empire.
  • Lead poisoning through lead water pipes and cups caused a mental decline in the population.
  • Plague wiped out one-tenth of the population.
  • Rome failed to advance technologically because of slavery.
  • Rome was unable to put together a workable political system.
• There may be an element of truth in each of these theories, but each has also been challenged.

\