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