Class 11 NCERT History Chapter 3

An Empire Across Three Continents

• Caliphate: Islamic state led by a supreme religion
• Annals: Record of events year by year.
• Papyrus: A reed-like plant that grew along the banks of the river
Nile from which paper is made.
• Mediterranean: A sea connected to the Atlantic ocean.
• Aristocracy: A form of government in which power lies in the
hands of a small ruling group who are bom in a highest social
class.
• Conscription: The compulsory enlistment of people in some sort
of national service.
• The Euphrates:The longest and one of the most historically
important rivers of Western Asia.
• Denarius: A small silver coin fi rst minted about 211 BC.
• Barbarians: Person who is perceived to be uncivilized.
• Aramaic: The language spoken by a large group of the north-east.
Transhumance: Herdsman’s regular annual movement between higher
mountain regions and low lying ground in search of Pasture.. Instagram
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• Coptic: The language spoken in Egypt.
• Punic: The language spoken in North Africa
• Berber: The language spoken in North Africa
• Celtic: The language spoken in Spain and the
north-west.
• Dressel 20: A container carried the Spanish olive
oil.
• Amphorae: The large storage container capacities
between one-half and two and one half tons
• Draconian: Severity
• Frankincense: An aromatic resin obtained from
trees of the genus Boswellia
• Echelon: A rank/position of an authority in an
organisation.
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• Intelligentsia: A social class of people engaged in
complex mental labour aimed to spread culture and
are interested in politics, literature, etc.
• Authoritarian: The authoritarian believes that
people should obey his authority and rules even if
he is wrong.
• Antiquity: Any period before the Middle Ages
(476-1453) or ancient past.
• Archaeological: The study of cultures of the past,
and the periods of history by examining the
remains of buildings and objects.
• Polytheist: The worship of or belief in many Gods.
• Principate: The fi rst period of the Roman Empire
from 27 BCE – 284 CE.
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Sources: There is a rich collection of sources to study Roman history,
like – texts, documents and material remains. 
1. Archaeological : a) Amphitheater, b) Amphorae, c) Colosseum, d)
Statues, e) Aqueducts
2. (Literary) Written : (A) Texts –  Histories written by Contemporary
Historians (B) Documents
3. Aerial Photographs
Documentary sources include mainly inscriptions and papyri.
Inscriptions were usually cuton stone, so a large number survive, in both
Greek and Latin.
The ‘papyrus’ was a reed-like plant that grew along the banks of the
Nile in Egypt and was processed to produce a writing material that was
very widely used in everyday life.
Thousands of contracts, accounts, letters and official documents survive
‘on papyrus’ and have been published by scholars who are called
‘papyrologists.

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Boundaries of Roman Empire
• The ancient Roman empire which was spread across
the three continents namely – Europe, Asia and
Africa.
• To the North, the boundaries of the empire were
formed by two great rivers – the Rhine and the
Danube.
• To the South, by the huge expanse of desert called
the Sahara.
• To the East river Euphrates and to the West Atlantic
Ocean.
• This vast stretch of territory was the Roman Empire.
That is why Roman Empire is called an Empire
across Three Continents.
• The Mediterranean Sea is called the heart of Rome’s
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Division of Roman Empire: 
• The Roman Empire can broadly be
divided into two phases, ‘early’ and‘late’,
divided by the third century as a sort of
historical watershed between them.
• In other words, the whole period from the
beginning of Roman Empire to the main
part of the third century can be called the
‘early empire’, and the period from the
third century to the end called the ‘late
empire’ or ‘late antiquity’.
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THE EARLY EMPIRE

Administration: i. The Army – ii. The Senate – iii. the Aristocracy – iv. The
Emperor – v. Republic – vi. Provincial Territory – vii. Taxation
• Many languages were spoken in the empire, but for the officially Latin and
Greek were the most widely used.
• The regime established by Augustus, the first emperor, in 27 BCE was called
the ‘Principate’ (which means he was ‘leading citizen’, ‘Princeps‘ in Latin, not
the absolute ruler). He ruled till 14 BCE and brought to an end the chaotic
condition prevailing in Roman empire.
• The Principate was advised by the Senate, which had existed in Rome for
centuries. This body which had controlled Rome earlier, in the days when it was
a Republic, and remained a body representing the aristocracy, that is, the
wealthiest families of Roman and, later, Italian descent, mainly landowners.
• Next to the emperor and the Senate, the other key institution of imperial rule
was the army. Rome had professional conscripted army, which was forcibly
recruited. Military service was compulsory for certain groups or categories of the
population for a minimum of 25 years.
• The emperor, the aristocracy and the army were the three main ‘players’ in the
political history of the empire. The success of individual emperors depended on
their control of the army, and when the armies were divided, the result usually
was civil war. Except for one notorious year (69 CE), when four emperors
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Emperors:  a) Nero, b) Julius Caesar, c) Octavian Augustus, d)
Tiberius, e) Trajan
• Roman empire made unprecedented growth in the field of
literature during Augustan age. Augustus played a significant
role in expansion of Roman empire.
• The ‘Augustan age’ is remembered for the peace it ushered in
after decades of internal strife and centuries of military
conquest.
• Augustus appointed Tiberius, his adopted son, as his
successor who ruled from 14-37 CE. The empire he was
already so vast that further expansion was felt to be
unnecessary.
• Trajan was a famous Roman emperor who ruled from 98-117
CE. He made an immense contribution in expanding Roman
empire. The only major campaign of expansion in the early
empire was Trajan’s fruitless occupation of territory across the
Euphrates, in the years 113-17 CE abandoned by his
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Territories: The Roman Empire had two types of territories –
 dependent kingdoms and provincial territory.

The Near East was full of dependent kingdoms but they

disappeared and were swallowed up by Rome.

These kingdoms were exceedingly wealthy, for example Herod’s

kingdom yielded 5.4million denarii per year, equal to over
125,000 kg of gold per year.

A city in the Roman Empire was an urban centre with its own
magistrates, city council and a ‘territory’ containing villages
which were under its jurisdiction.

Thus, one city could not be in the territory of another city, but
villages almost always were included.

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THE THIRD CENTURY CRISIS:  The fi rst two centuries were free
from civil war, therefore, it was known as period of peace, prosperity and
economic expansion. External warfare was also much less common in
the fi rst two centuries. But the third century brought in the fi rst sign of
internal confl ict.
• From the 230s, the Roman Empire found itself fighting on several
fronts simultaneously. An aggressive dynasty called the ‘Sasanians’, 
emerged in 225 which expanded rapidly just within 15 years in the
direction of the Euphrates. Shapur I, the Iranian ruler, claimed he had
crushed Roman army of 60,000 and even captured the eastern
capital of Antioch.
•  Simultaneously, a whole series of Germanic tribes or rather tribal
confederacies began to move against the Rhine and Danube
frontiers, and the  entire period from 233 to 280 saw repeated
invasions of a whole lone of provinces that stretched from the Black
Sea to the Alps and Southern Germany. The Romans were forced to
abandon much of the territory beyond the Danube.
• There was a rapid succession of emperors in this century (25
emperors in 47 years!) is an obvious symptom of the strains faced by
the empire in this period.
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Gender, Literacy, Culture
• The system of nuclear family in the Roman society was
one of its modern feature. The family used to be
patriarchal in nature. Slaves were included in the family.
•  Marriages were generally arranged, and there is no
doubt that women were often subject to domination by
their husbands.
• The literacy rate was casual and varied greatly between
different parts of the empire.
• The cultural diversity of the empire was reflected in many
ways. Numerous languages that were spoken in Roman
Empire were – Aramaic, Coptic,Punic, Berber and Celtic.
But many of these linguistic cultures were purely oral, at
least until a script was invented for them.  Among the
above mentioned languages Armenian began to be
written as late as the fifth century.
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A. Sources of Entertainment
• Colosseum – Huge place where gladiators
fought with beast. It could accommodate
60,000 people.
• Amphitheatre – It was used for military drill
and for staging entertainments for the
soldiers.
• Urban populations also enjoyed a much
higher level of entertainment, for example,
one calendar tells us that spectacula
(shows) filled no less than 176 days of the
year!
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B. CRAFT & INDUSTRY
• Minting
• Mining
• Amphorae
• Making Papyrus scrolls
• Public baths were a striking feature of
Roman urban life

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Economic expansion
•  The empire had a substantial economic infrastructure of harbours, mines, quarries,
brickyards, olive oil factories, etc. Wheat, wine and olive-oil were traded and
consumed in huge quantities, and they came mainly from Spain, the Gallic
provinces, North Africa, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Italy, where conditions were
best for these crops.
• Liquids like wine and olive oil were transported in containers called
‘amphorae’.Spanish producers succeeded in capturing markets for olive oil from
their Italian counterparts. This would only have happened if Spanish producers
supplied better quality oil at lower prices.
• The Spanish olive oil of this period was mainly carried in a container called ‘Dressel
20’.
• The empire included many regions that had a reputation for exceptional fertility. Italy,
Sicily, Egypt and southern Spain were all among the most densely settled or
wealthiest parts of the empire. The best kinds of wine, wheat and olive oil came
mainly from numerous estates of these territories.
• Diversified applications of waterpower around the Mediterranean as well as
advances in water-powered milling technology, the use of hydraulic mining
techniques in the Spanish gold and silver mines and the gigantic industrial scale on
which those mines were worked.
• The existence of well-organized commercial and banking networks and the
widespread use of money are all indications of Roman economy.
• A strong tradition of Roman law had emerged by the fourth century, and this acted
as a brake on even the most fearsome emperors.
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WORKERS:
• Slavery was an institution deeply rooted in the ancient world,
both in the Mediterranean and in the Near East, and and not
even Christianity when it emerged and triumphed as the state
religion (in the fourth century) seriously challenged this institution.
Under Augustus there were still 3 million slaves in a total Italian
population of 7.5 million.
• With establishment of peace in the first century, the supply of
slaves tended to decline and the users of slave labour had to turn
either to slave breeding or to cheaper substitutes.
• The Roman agricultural writers paid a great deal of attention to
the management of labour. Columella, a first-century writer who
came from the south of Spain, recommended that landowners
should keep a reserve stock of implements and tools, twice as
many as they needed, so that production could be continuous,
‘for the loss in slave labour time exceeds the cost of such items’.
• The position of slave in Roman Empire was miserable as they
were forced to work on the estate for 10 to 18 hours.
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SOCIAL DIVISION
(A) Presbyterian: (i) The Aristocratic class (ii) Second Class
(B) Plebeian: (i) The lower Class (ii) Slaves
• The social structures of the empire as follows: Senators, Equites (horse
men and knights), the respectable section of the people (middle class),
lower class and finally the slaves.
• In the early third century when the Senate numbered roughly 1,000,
approximately half of all senators still came from Italian families. By
the late empire,the senators and the Equites had merged into a unified
and expanded aristocracy.
• The ‘middle’ class now consisted of the considerable mass of persons
connected with imperial service in the bureaucracy. Below them were the
vast mass of the lower classes known collectively ashumiliores (literally-
‘Lower’).They comprised a rural labour force.
• The late Roman bureaucracy, both the higher and middle echelons, was
a comparatively affluent group because it drew the bulk of its salary in
gold and invested much of this in buying up assets like land.  There was
a great deal of corruption, especially in the judicial system and in the
administration of military supplies.
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JEWISH WAR 
• Roman people were polytheists and used to worship several gods and
goddesses. Their popular deities were Jupiter, Mars, Juno, Minerva and
Isis.
• One of the most important religious sects practiced in the Roman Empire
from about the first to the fourth century was Mithraism.
• The other great religious tradition in the empire was Judaism. It
considered Jehova as the creator of the universe.
• But Judaism was not a monolith either, and there was a great deal of
diversity within the Jewish communities of late antiquity. Thus, the
‘Christianisation’ of the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries was a
gradual and complex process.
• Polytheism did not disappear overnight, especially in the western
provinces, where the Christian bishops waged a running battle against
beliefs and practices they condemned more than the Christian laity (the
ordinary members of a religious community as opposed to the priests or
clergy who have official positions within the community) did.
• The boundaries between religious communities were much more fluid in
the fourth century than they would become thanks to the repeated efforts
of religious leaders, the powerful bishops who now led the Church, to rein
in their followers and enforce a more rigid set of beliefs and practices.
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LATE ANTIQUITY 
‘Late antiquity’ is the term now used to describe the final, fascinating
period in the evolution and break-up of the Roman Empire and
refers broadly to the fourth to seventh centuries. The fourth century
itself was one of considerable ferment, both cultural and economic.
Cultural features of the Roman world from the Fourth
to Seventh Centuries: 

 Emperors and their Achievements

I. Constantine’s Achievements
a. Overexpansion of the Empire: 
b. Capital at Constantinople:  The other area of innovation was
division of Roman Empire into east and west and the creation of a
second capital at Constantinople (at the site of modern Istanbul in
Turkey, and previously called Byzantium), surrounded on three
sides by the sea.
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c. Christianity was made official religion:  At the cultural
level, the period saw momentous developments in
religious life, with the emperor Constantine deciding to
make Christianity the official religion, and with the rise of
Islam in the seventh century.

d. Monetary sphere: Constantine founded the new

monetary system on gold and there were vast amounts of
this in circulation. Constantine’s chief innovations were in
the monetary sphere, where he introduced a new
denomination, the solidus, a coin of 4½ gm of pure gold
that would in fact outlast the Roman Empire
itself. Solidi were minted on a very large scale and their
circulation ran into millions.
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II. Diocletian’s Achievements
a. Abandons territories of little economic and
strategic importance: Overexpansion had led
Diocletian to ‘cut back’ by abandoning
territories with little strategic or economic
value.

b. Duces: Diocletian also fortified the frontiers,

reorganised provincial boundaries, and separated
civilian from military functions, granting greater
autonomy to the military commanders (duces),
who now became a more powerful group.
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III. Justinian’s Achievements: 
a. Justinian Code
b. Expansion of Empire: The reign of Justinian is the highwater
mark of prosperity and imperial ambition. Justinian recaptured
Africa from the Vandals (in 533) but his recovery of Italy (from
the Ostrogoths) left that country devastated and paved the way
for the Lombard invasion.

c. Monetary Sphere:  Monetary stability and an expanding

population stimulated economic growth. Egypt contributed taxes
of over 2½ million solidi a year (roughly 35,000 lbs of gold) in the
reign of Justinian in the sixth century.
i. Glass factories established
ii. Introduction of Solidus
iii. Urban Prosperity

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DOWNFALL OF THE EMPIRE
• The general prosperity was especially marked in the East where
population was still expanding till the sixth century, despite the impact of
the plague which affected the Mediterranean in the 540s.
• In the West, by contrast, the empire fragmented politically as Germanic
groups from the North (Goths, Vandals, Lombards, etc.) took over all
the major provinces and established kingdoms that are best described
as ‘post-Roman’
• The Visigoths in Spain was destroyed by the Arabs between 711 and
720, that of the Franks in Gaul (c.511-687) and that of the Lombards in
Italy (568-774). These kingdoms foreshadowed the beginnings of a
different kind of world that is usually called ‘medieval’
• By the early seventh century, the war between Eastern Rome and Iran
had flared up again, and the Sasanians who had ruled Iran since the
third century launched a wholesale invasion of all the major eastern
provinces (including Egypt).
• Roman and Sasanian empires had fallen to the Arabs in a series of
stunning confrontations.
• Those conquests, extended up to Spain, Sind and Central Asia, began,
in fact, with the subjection of the Arab tribes by the emerging Islam
state.
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Q.1) If you had lived in the Roman Empire, where would you rather
have lived – in the towns or in the countryside? Explain why.

Answer

In the roman empire one would have preferred to live in the towns
due to:

(i) Availability of better facilities as compared to countryside.

(ii) Towns apart from governance were centres of art, learning and
various intellectual activities.

(iii) During the time of famine, town people would not suffer food
scarcity.

(iv) Cities provided the populations a much higher level of

entertainment.

(v) Unlike the countryside which was subject to exploitation by the

aristocracy and other wealthy persons, towns were centres of
affluence, and culture.
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2. Compile a list of some of the towns, cities, rivers, seas and provinces mentioned in
this chapter, and then try and find them on the maps. Can you say something about any
three of the items in the list you have compiled?

Answer

Towns: Alexandria, Carthage, Pompeii, Cairo, Mecca

Rivers: Rhine, Danube, Euphrates

Seas: Black Sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Caspian Sea

Provinces: Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, Gallic

Alexandria: It was the port city and its ports were handled by Jewish merchants. They
traded directly with which can be seen from the letters preserved in the Geniza
collection. The merchants of Alexandria also exported to Europe.

Black Sea: It is between Southeastern Europe and Western Asia. It was one of the busy
waterway at that time. The trades were held among Central Asia to the east,
Mesopotamia to the south and Greece to the south-west by this route.

Mediterranean Sea: In 6th century, Iranians had established control over major parts of
the Assyrian empire which leads to the development of trade networks along the coasts
of the Mediterranean Sea. Greek cities and their colonies benefited from improvements
in trade. It is enclosed by three sides of lands.
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3) Imagine that you are a Roman housewife
preparing a shopping list for household
requirements. What would be on the list?

Answer

Being a roman housewife, i would like to

include bread, butter, milk, eggs, meat,
spices, oil, pulse etc. in while preparing a
list of household requirements.

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4. Why do you think the Roman government
stopped coining in silver? And which metal did it
begin to use for the production of coinage?

Answer

Roman government stooped the coining in silver

and began to use gold for coinage because silver
was limited and the mines of silver were
exhausted due to over excavation.

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5. Suppose the emperor Trajan had actually managed to conquer India and the
Romans had held on to the country for several centuries. In what ways do you
think India might be different today?

Answer

If roman emperor Trajan had actually managed to conquer India, India would
be different today on following aspects:

(i) Changes in art, architecture, literature and law as was evident even in the
case of Indo Greek.

(ii) Exchange of ideas , roman law would have helped growth of Indian law.

(iii) Conversion and Christianization.

(iv) Concept of public baths and entertainment.

(v) Slavery would probably have become more rampant as roman society was
known to use slave labour in every sector- agriculture, mining ,handicrafts etc.

(vi) Indian agriculture would have benefitted from roman diversified application
of water.

(vii) The hitherto caste and class differences would have been further stratified.

(viii) The pattern of Indian trade ,would probably have under grown vast
changes.
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6. Go through the chapter carefully and pick out some basic features of
Roman society and economy which you think make it look quite modern.

Answer

Basic features of the Roman society:

(i) The concept of amusement.

(ii) Prevalence of vast diversity in religious cults.

(iii) The considerable legal rights women enjoyed in owning and

managing property.

(iv) Divorce was relatively easy and needed no more than a notice of
intent to dissolve the marriage by either husband or wife.

Basic features of the Roman economy:

(i) Preference to live in urban centres.

(ii) Cities as bedrock of the imperial system.

(iii) Disputes between the rich and poor.

(iv) Widespread use of money , such as silver denarius, and gold solidi.

(v) Competition amongst regions for control of the markets in olive oil.
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