SUMMARY HISTORICAL OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION 753510 B.C. THE MONARCHY OF ROME. Rome was founded when several villages of mud huts were united to form a new town at a strategic point on the Tiber River in central Italy. The earliest inhabitants were originally Latins, although other Italic and Etruscan people were soon incorporated into the settlement. The community was initially governed by an elected king, who was assisted by a council of elders from the leading families, which was called a Senate. First stone temples built by Etruscans; forum drained and Cloaca Maxima built. THE EARLY REPUBLIC: After the expulsion of the kings, the Roman Republic, which was a broad oligarchy in which the kings were replaced by two annually elected magistrates called consuls, was established. The Senate continued as an advisory body, and the assembly of soldiers became and elective body, which also gained basic legislative rights. Rome expanded her power throughout Italy and extended her citizenship to Italian communities which she conquered, and she helped Romanize the peninsula by building roads and establishing colonies at strategic points. Italy became a united commonwealth whose collective manpower and resources prepared her to become one of the major powers in the Mediterranean World. THE MIDDLE REPUBLIC: In the Punic Wars against Carthage, Rome began to expand overseas, conquering Sicily and other islands in the western Mediterranean. new territories were organized into provinces that were supervised by a Roman governor. Rome also began to slowly expand into the eastern Mediterranean by conquering Macedonia and Greece, after which she started to absorb the various Hellenistic Kingdoms. First marble temples built in Rome; Circus Maximus expanded; Early Funerary style of sculpture (e.g. Head of Brutus). First comedies written in Latin by Plautus and Terence; poetry and annals of Ennius; Polybius, a Greek historian, writes on the rise of Rome. THE LATE REPUBLIC: In this period, during which Rome controlled most of the Mediterranean World, the effects of empire proved disastrous for the Roman Republic. As an oligarchy in which the most important senatorial families effectively controlled the state and benefitted from its empire, the government collapsed as continued wars of expansion and the occupation of prosperous overseas provinces brought poverty and hardship to the Roman lower and middle classes while opportunity and increased wealth to the upper classes. A period of civil wars begins with the Gracchi and continues through Marius, Sulla, Csar and Pompey, and finally Octavian (the later Augustus). In the midst of this upheaval, Rome nonetheless experienced the first phase of her Golden Age in cultural matters. This period saw a flowering of Roman literature and culture. Ciceronian Age of Latin literature; the poetry of Catullus and Lucretius; history of Sallust; Late Republican sculpture (e.g. Republican Portrait of a Man); brick, mortar, concrete; arches and vaulting; Roman engineering. Humanism. THE AUGUSTAN AGE: The Principate of Augustus transforms the republic into empire; Roman power expands throughout the whole of the Mediterranean world; the poetry and epic of Vergil, poetry of Horace, history the of Livy, the
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Metamorphoses of Ovid. Augustan Sculpture (e.g., Prima Porta, reliefs on Ara Pacis). 14235 A.D. THE EMPIRE: Final conquests lead the Roman empire to its greatest extent. JulioClaudian, Flavian, Adoptive, and Severan dynasties. Silver Age of Latin literature including Seneca, Lucan, Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and the Greek Plutarch. Imperial fora and baths; Flavian Amphitheater; Pantheon.
Julio-Claudian (A.D. 1468) Year of Four Emperors (A.D. 69) Flavians (A.D. 6996) High Empire (Adoptive or Good EmperorsA.D. 96180) Severans (A.D. 193235)
EARLY CHRISTIANITY: The establishment and spread of the early Christian church was coincident with the Roman imperial period above. Jesus Christ performed his active ministry and was crucified and resurrected during the reign of the emperor Tiberius. The apostles spread the gospel throughout much of the Roman Empire during the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties, and under the High Empire the church grew in strength and came to the real notice of the Roman government. After the apostles, the classical tradition continued to be important to the growth of Christianity and particularly to its development in the post-apostolic period. Church leaders in the second century were often well-versed in Greek philosophy, which they used to express Christian theology in a way acceptable and attractive to Greek and Roman audiences. New Testament and the writings of the apostolic Fathers. 235476 A.D. THE LATE EMPIRE: Later Severan emperors were weak young men who were dominated by the women of the family, and the last Severan and his mother were killed in A.D. 235, initiating a fifty year period of anarchy in the Roman Empire which almost witnessed its fall. After this near collapse of the Roman Empire in the third century, Roman fortunes recovered under the strong emperor Diocletian. After treating ec...