We can’t just skip over the Roman Empire when we’re discussing world history, right? With midterms or finals coming up, I wish you the best of luck and hope this blog will help you with your revision.
A noticeable piece of information that is skipped is in fact, one of the most famous stories. You’ve heard of a guy named Julius Caesar, yes? That’s the name that makes everyone wonder if the guy was named after the salad or the salad was named after him. In world history, though, he has no significance at all. So we shall move on.
Roman Religion
I’ll bring back this reference again, but I’m sure most, if not all of you have heard of the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan right? The latest released book being The Blood of Olympus in which Percy and his Greek demigod friends join Jason and his Roman demigod friends to save the world. The gods are in chaos; their Greek and Roman forms are fighting each other to choose one dominant figure. Etcetera. Etcetera.
The truth of the matter is, the Romans appreciated the Greek culture including its religion. When Rome conquered Greece, the Romans didn’t have official gods and myths and the Greeks did. So, the Romans took the Greek culture and pasted their own words into the stories. Zeus became Jupiter, Poseidon became Neptune, and more. This merging of culture is called syncretism.
Roman Republic (507 – 31 BCE)
Everyone always thinks of the Roman Empire first when talking about its history. But before Augustus was even part of the picture, Brutus deposed of the 7th king, the last of his period, and established the Republic. It’s hard to actually explain what the Republic is because it refers to a period of history in the Roman history rather than an actual concept. The changes included a new membership requirement of the Senate and the shifting power in the Assembly.
Rome had a Senate, in which each of the approximately 300 members was the head of elite families and an Assembly, where the rest of the people were included. This was much like the Greeks, and it was in fact, derived from the Greek democracy. When the Roman kingdom became the Roman Republic, the Assembly embraced sovereign power. The votes of the wealthy were worth more than those of the poor. Additionally, certain positions were elected annually.
The Greek city-states had a tendency to not extend citizenship to foreign people. Compared to that, the Romans allowed others to take up the Roman citizenship as a way to assimilate the conquered people.
Military was made compulsory. Every male citizens with specified amounts of land had to be in the military. The equipment was similar to that of the Greek hoplites, but the lines were more flexible and were divided into units. This allowed efficient conquering of Italy and the Mediterranean.
There was an emergence of latifundia, literally “broad estates”, because while the peasants were away from their land for military duties, wealthier men unified land to create a single estate. This slowed the economy until the failure of the empire because the peasants were forced to work for lords but the lords kept the wealth to themselves.
The Roman Principate (31 BCE – 330 CE)
Octavian, Julius Caesar’s grandnephew and heir, created the Roman Principate. He never called himself a king or emperor, rather, he called himself the princeps, or “first among equals”. But he did receive the honorific title of “Augustus” from the Senate. In reality, he was a military dictator, but the title justified the unjust seizure of rule. Augustus Octavian allied himself with the equites. They were generally well-to-do Italian merchants, or landowners, 2nd in wealth and social status. When he died, 4 of his family members succeeded him, but by Augustus’s definition, the position was not hereditary.
During the periods of the Republic, there was a body of laws: the decrees of the Senate, and bills by the Assembly. In contrast, the Emperor in the Principate was the only source of law.
The Last Emperors
Diocletian
- Diocletian divided the Roman Empire by 2, each with 2 subordinates. Although he meant to create a diarchy (having 2 rulers), it is still technically a tetrarchy (having 4 rulers).
- Augustus Diocletian, and his subordinate, Caesar Galerius, ruled the Eastern Empire.
- Augustus Maximian and Caesar Constantius ruled the Western Empire.
Constantine
- Constantine converted to Christianity and made it the state religion of Rome, causing a great increase in Christians. He also created the Council of Nicea, made up of Christian teachers, and ordered them to organize the official book for Christians, now known as the Holy Bible. The first 5 books of the Bible are actually the Jewish Torah, known in Christendom as the Pentateuchs.
- He unified the divided Roman Empire into one. However, he enjoyed spoiling himself with wealth and goods, so he moved the capital to Byzantium, the capital of the former Eastern Empire. By this time, the east was a rising star while the west was a failing glory.
Theodosius
- He divided the Roman Empire between his 2 sons again, creating a diarchy.
End of the Roman Empire
In the 5th century, Ostrogoths and Visigoths sacked Rome and installed a puppet emperor, Romulus. (Not the guy who got raised by a wolf and killed his twin brother to become the first emperor of Rome). However, the barbarians were unaware that there was a power shift in the Roman Empire, from west to east. They left the Eastern Empire unscathed. There, the Romans flourished, but in the Western Empire, the barbarians were unable to control the urbanized empire.
Source:
Bulliet, Richard W., Pamela K. Crossley, Daniel R. Headrick, Steven W. Hirsch, Lyman L. Johnson, and David Northrup. “An Age of Empires: Rome and Han China, 753 B.C.E. – 600 C.E.” The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. 5th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 148-77. Print.
