CLAS 101 Flashcards Set

Numen – divine power (the force)  

Direct numen for benefit, conforms to different gods 


One Pontifex Maximus (chief priest) chosen for life 

-oversees religious orthodoxy and rituals 

-chooses priests, Vestal Virgins (cult of hearth goddess Vestia), sworn to chastity and guardians of the numen of the home. 


Augurs and Haruspex are priests who originated in Etruscan culture 

• Augur 

-priests who examine movements of stars, flights of birds, and other natural phenomena to see the will of the gods 

-reading these signs called “taking the auspices” 

• Haruspex 

-priests who examine entrails of sacrificial animals (the “liver-lookers”) to see the will of the gods 

-ie each part of a sheep’s liver means something 

-Reading omens


Family religion: Lares, Penates (household gods) 

-Lares are gods of the field and property 

-Penates are gods of closets and cupboards 


Temple of Portunus 

• Dedicated to Portunus, god of harbours and ports 

• Combines Greek, Etruscan and Roman practices 

• Small rectangular temple built on a raised platform/podium


Thermea (baths) very from small to palatial 

Include hot, warm, cold pools; heating system; mineral baths; exercise court; refreshments; locker room; toilets; gardens; massage and barbers; libraries; concert halls 

Pennies to enter (upgrades cost more)


Circus Maximus in Rome is the largest  track

The track is 550 meters long and seating holds 150,000 spectators


Gladiators enter the arena, salute the emperor and cheer ""Ave, imperator, morituri te salutant“ / "Hail, emperor, we who are about to die salute you!"


The Murmillo (Fish man) 

  • Heavy helmet with a sea fish crest 

  • Usually paired against the retiarius 

Retiarius (fisher man) 

Hunt animals - animals vs Bestiarius (“animal fighters”) 


Dining  

1 main meal (cena) in the evening  

Garum (black fish sauce) 

  • Extremely popular and put on everything to add flavour 

Cookbook of "Apicius" 

  • 450 recipes ( including Numidian Chicken & Anchovy Delight, without anchovies) 

  • Trimalchio's dinner (in satire by Petronius) reflects this extreme menu 



Appian Way (Rome to capua)  

  • First major military highway built in 312 BCE 

  • 132 miles long 

  • Designed for speed and to move soldier 

  • 2.4-7.5 meters wide 


Most roads built by "Marius' Mules" 

  • Soldiers build roads as part of their conquest of the area 


Trivium, an intersection of three roads, tri, meaning three, plus vium, meaning road. 

  • People met at a trivium, they tended to share news gossip and discuss gosip (trivialis) or trivia! 

Cursus Publicus (Imperial Postal Service) use to deliver messages quickly by Cavalry 

  • Check points and rest station along the way for food, lodgings and fresh horses. 

Diploma "to fold double" (a permit to use imperial post system). 


Alexandria (chief port of Egypt) 

  • Was the source of the Annona (grain supply) of Rome (food = power) 

  • Grain freighters carry 200-3,000 tons each 

  • Commercial fleet called naves onerariae 

  • Amphoras (clay shipping containers) 

Romans also traded with Han China  

Chinese historians report Roman trades embassies in the years 166 CE, 266 CE, and 284 CE 

  • Landed at Rinan (Jiaozhi) in nothern Vietnam  

  • Most trade is indirect through either india or persia 

Romans sent five major military and commercial expeditions to gather information, gold, spices and exotic animal  

  • 19 BCE Cornelius Balbus expedtion to the land of lions 


most Emperors were short-lived and died violently (26 Emperors in 50 years!)



Maximinus the Thracian (235-238

CE)

(First of the “Barracks Emperors”)

• Maximinus proclaimed Emperor by the Pannonian legions

• Murdered the Emperor Alexander Severus and his mother to become Emperor


Diocletian (284-305 CE)

• 293 CE he establishes the Tetrarchy (“Rulership by Four”):

-Empire divided into East and West officially

-joint rule of 2 Augusti (Diocletian in the East and Maximian in the West)

-Each Augusti ruled half of their “half” of the Roman Empire

-Each Augusti had a “Caesar” as a second in command, who ruled the other half of their territory

-each Caesar would succeed their Augustus one day (hopefully in an orderly manner)


Constantine I, The Great

• 324 BCE creates his “New Rome" (capital city) at Byzantium

-city renamed Constantinopolis

-also a base to protect the East and Danube

frontiers

• Occupations continue to be hereditary to make

sure you have a stable workforce (in theory!)

-occupations tattooed on people!

-growth of guilds


Julian the Apostate Tried to re-introduce “Patriotic Paganism” and Ares (the God of War) into Roman worship in opposition to Christianity (failed)


On Theodosius I, The Greats death, the Empire is permanently split into east and west.


410 CE Goths sack Rome

-Rome taken for the first time in 800 years

-a huge psychological blow

• 455 CE Vandals seize north Africa and sack Rome with such ferocity that it gave birth to the term “Vandalism” 


The Last Caesar

• 476 CE Romulus Augustulus (last emperor)

-ruled for eleven months

-only 14 years old

-captured by a mutinous Roman (German!) army

-given the choice of death, or to abdicate and go into comfortable retirement on the Bay of Naples, with an annual pension of six thousand gold pieces (he wisely chose retirement!).

• Replaced by Odoacer, a German “barbarian” king, who declared himself King of Italy

-marks the “Fall of Rome” in the West and the beginning of the “Dark Ages” in the West


The Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, based at Constantinople, survives

-still called themselves “Romans”

-tried to re-take the West several times (failed)

-in decline from the 7th century onwards

-lasts until 1453 CE (falls to the Ottoman Turks)


The Greco-Roman Legacy

4th – 7th centuries

• Results:

-De-urbanization (i.e. rural village life replaces sprawling urban city life)

“Barbarians” settle and become “civilized” by copying Greco-Roman styles & institutions

-become local “Dukes” & “Counts” (often replacing the old Roman Dukes and Counts)

Churchmen provide literate scribes to illiterate

Kings (Latin preserved the Germanic laws and history for the Kings)



Medieval scholarship based on Latin texts and Greco-Roman classical literature

-Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric) & Quadrivium (Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy)

-texts copied by monks, thus survives the Dark Ages

-monasteries foster Latin as the universal language of the Church, Court and educated society

Carolingian Franks copy Roman styles in clothing, architecture

-800 CE Charlemagne (Charles the Great) is crowned the Holy Roman Emperor of the West by the Pope Leo III, on Christmas Day

-Church & State alliance

-revives Latin learning at his court

-beginning of the “Carolingian Renaissance” in education


1070 Justinian’s Code (Corpus Juris Civilis) rediscovered in the West (Bologna) and becomes the basis of Western law


This is also reflected in some of ideals of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man

• The concept of the authority of a Caesar is reflected in the title and role of the German Kaiser and the Russian Cza


LIVIUS - “Father of Latin literature“

ENNIUS - “father of Latin poetry”

TERENCE - comedic playwright wrote the following; “Fortune favors the brave”, “Where there is life there is hope”, “Each man to his own opinion”

POLYBIUS (203-120 BCE) - Greek Historian, soldier, general, statesman, and political hostage of Rome Wrote a prose History of Rome, The Histories, covering the period 220-146 BCE 

Plautus - Roman comedic playwright

GAIUS LUCILIUS (160’s-103/2 BCE) -one of the earliest Roman satirists -the only literary form invented by the Romans

CATO - “Father of Latin Prose”

Cicero - Roman Equestrian, statesman, Consul, philosopher, lawyer, orator & constitutionalist Brilliant orator and prose writer, with a very polished style De Re Publica (“On The Republic”) and De Legibus (“On The Laws”)

Caesar - historical writings include commentaries on the Gallic Wars and Civil Wars

Sallust - historian - The Jugurthine War, The Catiline Conspiracy & The Histories (fragments) tried to show the connection and meaning of events, not just record them - try to educate, not just inform

Catullus - A rich Equestrian from Cisalpine Gaul, Studied in the Alexandrian school of lyric Poetry, “Lesbia” poetry (he had a passionate affair with a married woman named Clodia, who