ANCIENT ROME

From its foundation to Empire

https://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/LatiumEtruria-wells-1712
The Italian Peninsula was, by the 8th century, inhabited by various peoples who differed
in “origin, language, traditions, stage of development, and territorial extension” They
were heavily influenced by neighboring Greece, with its well-defined national
characteristics, expansive vigor, and aesthetic and intellectual maturity. Italy attained a
unified ethnolinguistic, political, and cultural physiognomy only after the Roman
conquest, yet its most ancient peoples remain anchored in the names of the regions of
Roman Italy – Latium , Campania, Apulia, Bruttium, Lucania, Samnium, Picenum,
Umbria, Etruria, Venetia and Liguria. (Encyclopedia Britannica).
Three Periods:

Kingdom, 8th-6th centuries BCE.

Republic, late 6th to 1st centuries BCE.

Empire, 1st century BCE to 5th century CE.

 • Livy: Roman historian, 1st century BCE. History of Rome, Bk. 1, 4-13.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.
02.0151%3Abook%3D1

Founding of Rome OR http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/livy/Livy01.html

• Rome’s formative period is obscure, there are colorful stories, but

historians have difficulty evaluating them.
“It is clear nevertheless that the legends
• Lack of documentary sources for the early monarchic period.
about that [8 th century BCE] monarchy
• Romans referred to their government as a Republic, even after monarchy
reveal important ideas that later Romans
was restored under the Empire.
held about their origins. These ideas in
• Roman Constitution: how historians name the structure and powers of
turn explain how Romans structured
government; there was no written Constitution in ancient Rome, as we
society and politics under the Republic,
know nowadays.
the system that emerged after the
• Populus romanus, or ‘Roman people’: Roman technical term for their
monarchy was overthrown at the end of
political community.
the sixth century B.C.”
• Two defined social groups: patricians and plebeians.

• According to the legends, why was the Republic established in the 6th
century?
 Origins • https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/04/eust.html

• Romulus and Remus: legendary foundation of the city of Rome. What

did the story teach the Romans?

“Modern archeology, as we saw, • Latium: area where the city was located. “Most of the peoples in Latium
spoke the same language as the Romans, an early form of Latin, but this
shows that the Villanovans,
linguistic kinship did not mean that these neighboring communities saw
Greeks, and Etruscans influenced themselves as ethnically united.” (44)
the Romans as they developed • The early city had a small and poor population compared to their

their own cultural identity as part
of a wider Mediterranean world”
(43)
neighbors; under the ‘seven kings’, Rome became a larger settlement.
Their main strategies for population growth was absorbing others into it
[policy of inclusion of others] and military alliances.
• “…early Roman history was a story of successful expansion and inclusion
of others, through both war and negotiation.”
 “Romans, like other ancient peoples, believed that social inequality was a
fact of nature. Consequently, they divided citizens by law into two groups
(…). This division lasted throughout Roman history. (…) It is unknown how
families originally gained patrician status, but it probably happened in a

Social Organization gradual process at the beginning of Rome’s history in which the richest
Romans designated themselves as an exclusive group with special privileges
to conduct religious ceremonies for the safety and prosperity of the
community. Eventually, patricians leveraged their originally self-created
elite status into almost a monopoly on the secular and religious offices of
the early government of the Republic.” (50)

“Conflict between members of the patrician order and well-off members of

the plebeian order filled the two centuries following the creation of the
Republic, deeply influencing the ultimate structure of the “Roman
constitution”” (52)
 The 12 Tables • How could plebeians force patricians to give
in to their demands?
• First Roman written laws.
“Importantly for plebeians, however, • The two orders had to agree on a code
having a written code of laws which could protect the plebeians while
prevented the patricians magistrates maintaining the status of patricians.
who judged most legal cases from • The code was enacted between 451 and 449
arbitrarily and unjustly deciding
B.C.
disputes merely according to their • Trials before juries became common only in
the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.
own personal interests or those of
their order.”