3 An Empire Across Three Continents

The Roman Empire

➢Capital -Rome
➢Eastern capital -Antioch
➢Capital of Eastern Roman empire -Constantinople
➢The Roman Empire covered most of Europe, a large part of the Fertile
Crescent and North Africa.
➢The Mediterranean Sea is called the heart of Roman empire.

Boundaries of Roman Empire

North - Rivers the Rhine and the Danube.(Europe)

South - Desert Sahara(Africa)
East - River Euphrates and Iranian empire (Asia)
West - Atlantic Ocean

Iranian empire
✔ Whole area south of the Caspian Sea down to eastern Arabia, parts of
Afghanistan

Ta Ch’in (‘greater Ch’in’)

✔ Chinese word means ‘west’(Rome and Iran)

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 Sources for Roman History

(a) Textual sources (Annals letters, speeches, sermons, laws)

(b) Documents (Inscriptions and papyri)
(c) Material remains. (Buildings, monuments ,structures, pottery, coins)

Papyrus and Papyrologist

✔ The ‘papyrus’ was a reed-like plant that grew along the banks of
the Nile in Egypt

✔ ‘Papyrus very widely used for writing in Roman empire

✔ Thousands of contracts, accounts, letters and official documents

survive ‘on papyrus’ and have been published by scholars who are
called ‘papyrologist'

Division of Roman Empire

1 Early empire :up to 3rd century CE

2 Late empire(late antiquity) :4 to 7th century CE

Roman republic (509-27 BCE)

• Monarchy existed in Rome in the beginning

• In 509 BCE the people abolished monarchy and

established a Republic

• The Republic was the name for a regime in which the

reality of power lay with the Senate

• Senate was a small body in Roman government dominated

by a small group of wealthy families who formed the
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 ‘nobility’.

• In 27 BC republic was overthrown by Octavian the adopted

son and heir of Julius Caesar

Roman Emperors

Augustus Caesar (27 BCE-14CE)

➔ Original name was Octavian

➔ Adopted son of Julius Caesar

➔ Augustus Caesar was the first Roman emperor

➔ He was also called the ‘Principate’.

➔ He used the title 'princeps' means ‘leading citizen’

➔ Augustan age is remembered for peace

Tiberius(14-37 CE)

➔ Second Roman emperor

➔ Adopted son of Augustus Caesar

Gallienus (253-268)

➔ He forbade senators from serving army

Diocletian(284-305)
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 ➔ Introduced political reforms

➔ Cut down the length of empire for administrative

convenience

➔ Reorganized empire in to provinces

➔ Divided empire as Western Roman empire and Eastern

Roman Empire

➔ Fortified the frontiers

➔ Reorganized provincial boundaries

➔ Separated civilian from military functions

Constantine(306-334)
➔Declared Christianity as official religion of Roman empire

➔Created a second capital at Constantinople(old Byzantium)

➔Introduced a new denomination, the solidus, a gold coin of 4½ gm

of pure gold

➔Introduced economic reforms

Differences between Roman empire and Iranian empire

1. Roman empire was a mosaic of territories and cultures

but the population of Iran was mainly Iranian

2. Roman empire had more linguistic diversity than Iran

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 (in Rome many languages spoken like Greek and Latin, In Iranian
empire only Aramaic language spoken)

3. Unlike Iran All in the Roman empire was subjects of a single ruler

The three main ‘players’ or institutions in the political history of the empire

1)The emperor,
2)The aristocracy (senate)
3)The army

Two types of Roman territories.

1) ‘Dependent’ kingdoms in the near east

2) provincial territory

Near east:-All the territory east of the Mediterranean

(Roman provinces of Syria,Palestine,and
Mesopotamia)

Features of A city in the Roman Empire

• City was an urban center with its own magistrates, city

council and‘ territory’containing villages

• Villages could be upgraded to the status of cities, and vice

versa

• Public baths were a striking feature of Roman city life

• City people enjoyed a much higher level of entertainment

(spectacula (shows) filled no less than 176 days of the

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• The Colosseum, built in 79 CE, where gladiators fought

wild beasts, could accommodate 60,000 people

The Third-Century Crisis in Rome

1. In Iran an aggressive dynasty emerged in 225 they were called as the

‘Sasanians’ and within just 15 years it expanded rapidly in the
direction of the Euphrates.
( Shapur I, the Iranian ruler, claimed he had annihilated a Roman
army of 60,000 and captured the eastern capital of Antioch).

2. Germanic tribes moved against the Rhine and Danube frontiers, and
from 233 to 280 saw repeated invasions. The Romans were forced to
abandon much of the territory beyond the Danube.

3. The rapid succession of emperors in the third century (25 emperors in

47 years!)is an obvious symptom of the strains faced by the empire in
this period.

Gender Roles in Roman Empire

1. The nuclear family prevailed

2. Adult sons did not live with their families

3. slaves were included in the family.

4. wife retained full rights in the property of her father’s family.

5. woman’s dowry went to the husband

6. The woman remained a primary heir of her father and became an

independent property owner on her father’s death.

7. Marriages were generally arranged

8. Women were often subject to domination by their husbands.

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 9. Males married in their late twenties or early thirties, women were
married off in the late teens or early twenties.

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

11. Augustine, the great Catholic bishop, tells us that his mother
was regularly beaten by his father

12. Fathers had substantial legal control over their children –

sometimes to a shocking degree, for example, a legal power of
life and death in exposing unwanted children, by leaving them
out in the cold to die.

Saint Augustine (354-430)

• St.Augustine was bishop of the North African city of Hippo

• Author of the work 'city of God'

Literacy in Roman Empire

1. Casual literacy varied across empire.

2. Walls on the main streets of Pompeii often carried advertisements,

and graffiti were found all over the city.
(Pompeii, was buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 CE)

3. In Egypt where hundreds of papyri survive, most formal documents

4. literacy was certainly more widespread among soldiers, army

officers and estate managers.

5. languages were spoken in Roman Empire were Latin,

Greek,Armenian, Aramaic,(near east) Coptic(Egypt),Punic(N
Africa), Berber (N Africa)and Celtic(Spain).

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 6. Many of these linguistic cultures were purely oral

7. Armenian began to be written as late as the fifth century.

Economy of the Roman Empire

1. The empire had a substantial economic infrastructure of

harbors,mines, quarries, brick yards, olive oil factories, etc.

2. Wheat, wine and olive-oil were traded and they came mainly from
Spain.

3. Liquids like wine and olive oil were transported in containers called
‘amphorae’.

4. The Spanish olive oil of this period was mainly carried in a container
called ‘Dressel 20’(after the archaeologist who first established its
form)

5. Italy, Sicily, Egypt and southern Spain were all among the most
densely settled or wealthiest parts of the empire.

6. On the other hand, large Roman territories were in a much less

advanced state.

7. Trans humance was widespread in the countryside of Numidia

(modern Algeria).

8. The pastoral and semi-nomadic communities were often on the move,

carrying their oven-shaped huts(mapalia) with them.

9. Diversified applications of water power around the Mediterranean

10. Advances in water-powered milling technology

11. The use of hydraulic mining techniques in the Spanish gold and
silver mines

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 12. Gigantic industrial scale on which mines were worked.

13. Well-organized commercial and banking networks

14. Widespread use of money

Transhumance

The herdsman’s regular annual movement between the higher mountain

regions and low- lying ground in search of pasture for sheep and other
flocks

Controlling of slaves and Workers

1. Slavery was an institution deeply rooted in the ancient world

2. Romans kept prisoners of war as slaves

3. Slavery was not challenged by even Christianity

4. Under Augustus there were still 3 million slaves in a total Italian

population of 7.5 million.

5. Slaves were an investment

6. One Roman agricultural writer advised landowners against using them

because their health could be damaged by malaria.

7. On the other hand, if the Roman upper classes were often brutal
towards their slaves

8. Wage labor was extensively used on public works at Rome because an

extensive use of slave labor would have been too expensive.

9. Slaves had to be fed and maintained throughout the year, which

increased the cost of holding this kind of labor.

10. Columella, a first-century writer recommended that Land owners

should keep a reserve stock of implements and tools, twice as

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 many as they needed,so that production could be continuous, ‘for
the loss in slave labour time exceeds the cost of such items’

11. To make supervision easier, workers were sometimes grouped

into gangs or smaller teams. Columella recommended squads of
ten.

12. Pliny the Elder, the author of a very famous ‘Natural History’,
condemned the use of slave gangs as the worst method of
organizing production, mainly because slaves who worked in
gangs were usually chained together by their feet

13. Pliny described conditions in the frankincense factories (officinae)

of Alexandria, where, he tells us, no amount of supervision
seemed to suffice. ‘A seal is put upon the workmen’s aprons,they
have to wear a mask or a net with a close mesh on their heads,
and before they are allowed to leave the premises, they have to
take off all their clothes.’

14. A law of 398 referred to workers being branded so they could be

recognized if and when they run away and try to hide

15. The great Jewish revolt of 66 CE the revolutionaries destroyed the

moneylenders’ bonds to win popular support

16. Parents sometimes sold their children into servitude for periods
of 25 years

17. The late-fifth-century emperor Anastasius built the eastern

frontier city of Dara in less than three weeks by attracting labour
from all over the East by offering high wages

The great Jewish revolt of 66 CE

A rebellion in Judaea against Roman domination, which was ruthlessly

suppressed by the Romans.

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Draconian law

Harsh law
(so-called because of an early sixth- century BCE Greek lawmaker called
Draco, who prescribed death as the penalty for most crimes!).

Frankincense
• The European name for an aromatic resin used in incense and
perfumes.
• It is tapped from Boswellia trees by slashing the bark and allowing
the exuded resins to harden.
• The best- quality frankincense came from the Arabian peninsula.

Social Hierarchies

1 Senators

2 Knights or equites or horsemen (land lords,shipowners, traders,and

bankers)

3 Middle class (bureaucracy,army)

4 Humiliors (lower class addicted to circus and theatrical displayes)

5 Slaves

Olympiodorus of Thebes

• The early fifth century historian Olympiodorus

• Was also an ambassador

• He tells us that the aristocracy based in the City of Rome drew annual
incomes of up to 4,000 lbs of gold from their estates, not counting the

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Cultural transformation of the Roman world from the fourth to

seventh centuries

1. The traditional religious culture of the classical world, both Greek and
Roman, had been polytheist.

2. It involved a multiplicity of cults that included both Roman/Italian

gods like Jupiter, Juno, Minerva and Mars

3. Numerous Greek and eastern deities worshiped in thousands of

temples, shrines and sanctuaries throughout the empire

4. Judaism was another great tradition

5. The emperor Constantine made Christianity as the official religion.

(4thcentury) and Christianizing process started.

Western Roman empire and Eastern Roman Empire

• By 4th century Roman empire was divided as Western Roman empire
and Eastern Roman Empire

• Divided by emperor Diocletian

End of Western Roman empire

• Western Roman empire disintegrated by 5th century by invasion of

Germanic groups(Goths,Vandals,Lombards)

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 • Visigoths established kingdom in Spain,Franks in Gaul,Lombards
in Italy
(known as post Roman kingdoms)

• 711 CE Arab invasion of Spain

• These kingdoms foreshadowed the beginnings of a different kind

of world that is usually called ‘medieval’

End of Eastern Roman empire

➢ In the East, the empire remained united.

➢ The Eastern Roman empire became prosperous under emperor

Justinian(527-566)

➢ Justinian recaptured Africa from vandals

➢ Ostragoths establishes kingdom in Italy

➢ Lombards invasions on Italy

➢ War between Rome and Iran revived in 7th century

➢ By 642, large parts of both the eastern Roman and Sasanian empires
had fallen to the Arabs

➢ The Eastern Roman empire(Byzantine empire) lasted up to 1453

(in 1453 Turks conquered Constantinople capital of the Eastern
Roman empire)

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