Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that started in the city of Rome on the Italian Peninsula. Roman civilization was the most important civilization in the Mediterranean region, Europe and the Near East from the late 3rd century BC. Roman civilization existed throughout Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and the Middle Ages. However, "Ancient Rome" means the ancient history of Roman civilization before the Middle Ages. Traditionally, the fall of the western Roman Empire during the 5th century AD is the start of the Middle Ages in Western Europe.

Animated map of the ancient Roman lands from the rise Rome to the fall of the western Roman Empire (6th century BC – 480 AD)

In Classical Antiquity, the Roman Empire controlled a large area of land. It stretched from Great Britain to the Arabian Peninsula. Ancient Rome has been important to the history of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, where the Romans controlled many lands. Ancient Rome's culture took ideas from other civilizations, especially Ancient Greece and the Greek kingdoms of the Hellenistic period. Ancient Roman ideas have been very influential for later civilizations.

The Romans' Latin language became the most common language in the western Mediterranean and Western Europe and is the ancestor of Romance languages. The Roman emperors were responsible for making Christianity Rome's state religion, and the Romans spread Christianity across the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity. Roman Christianity replaced the Roman religion and other traditional religions.

The Romans made many improvements to warfare, writing, engineering, architecture, irrigation and transport.

History

Rome began as a small farming community in the 8th century BC. The city of Rome was founded, according to legend, on 21 April 753 BC. It became a city and a state and had the Latin name: Roma, which Roman mythology said came from the first king, Romulus. Rome was first a kingdom, but its last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was sent away in a revolution started by Lucius Junius Brutus. Rome became a republic. The city-state grew to control the Italian Peninsula during the Hellenistic period, and it fought the Punic Wars against the Carthaginian Republic. After overcoming Carthage, the Roman Republic became the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean.

The Romans became the most powerful state in the eastern Mediterranean after wars against Macedonia, and the Mithridatic Wars against the Kingdom of Pontus. The Hellenistic period and the Roman Republic ended after Julius Caesar was assassinated. The Romans fought long civil wars.

At the end of the wars, Augustus overcame his Roman enemies and the Ptolemaic dynasty, which controlled the Kingdom of Egypt. Augustus became the first Roman emperor, and Roman civilization controlled all lands around the Mediterranean Sea.

The Roman Empire at its greatest extent under Trajan in AD 117

German and Hun tribes invaded the Roman Empire, 100–500 AD. The invasions eventually caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.

Almost three centuries later, in 293 AD, Diocletian split the government of the empire into two parts, East and West. From Diocletian's time there was usually more than one emperor at a time, each of whom controlled part of the empire.

In the 5th century AD, the lands of the Western Roman Empire split up into different kingdoms. After Romulus Augustulus, there were no more emperors in the Western Roman Empire, whose government ended in 476 AD. In Western Europe, that is the end of Antiquity and the start of the Early Middle Ages.

The Romans lost control of Rome and most of the Italian Peninsula. The later Roman Empire during the Middle Ages is sometimes named the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire. Historians now use the latter name because the Romans' capital city was Constantinople (once called Byzantium), and its emperors controlled the eastern half of the Mediterranean Basin. The Eastern Roman Empire existed until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when it was defeated by the Ottoman Empire.

Culture

See the main article: Culture of ancient Rome

Roman culture spread to Western Europe and the area around the Mediterranean Sea. Its history still has a big influence on the world today. For example, Roman ideas about laws, government, art, literature, and language are important to European culture. The Romans' language, Latin, slowly evolved to become modern French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian and many other languages. Latin also indirectly influenced many other languages such as English.

Religion

Graeco-Roman polytheism

"Jupiter, king of the Roman gods, bringing lightning and accompanied by an eagle - Roman marble work"

The most common religion of ancient Rome in its first centuries was Graeco-Roman polytheism (many gods). The traditional religion of the city of Rome was polytheist. The most important gods were the Capitoline triad, three gods that were worshipped on the Capitoline Hill, Jupiter (the father and king of the gods), Juno (the queen of the gods) and Minerva (the goddess of wisdom). The goddess Minerva was born without a mother from the body of Jupiter. Roman mythology said that among the Romans' ancestors were Venus (the goddess of love) and Mars (the god of war and the son of Jupiter and Juno). The gods Apollo and Bacchus were taken by the Romans from Greek mythology, and many of the Romans' religious practices were the same as those of the ancient Greeks. The Romans also worshipped the goddesses Cybele and Isis, whose cults they took from Hellenistic Anatolia and Egypt.

Roman worship often took the form of sacrifices. Romans tried to please the gods by giving food or other gifts to the gods and to other deities, including the souls of dead people. With such sacrifices, the Romans hoped to avoid bad luck and bring good luck, such as fertility and a successful harvest, or victory in war. The Romans built temples to house the images of their gods. The images were usually statues, and the Romans would offer sacrifices by burning food or frankincense. Precious objects would be given to the gods in rituals and stored in the temples. The Romans believed that pleased the gods. The Romans also practiced ritual purification to avoid bad luck or offending the gods and the spirits.

Judaeo-Christian monotheism

Judaism was common in the ancient Roman world, and there was a Jewish diaspora in many cities like Rome from the Hellenistic period. Christianity started in the east in Hellenistic Judaea. In Classical Antiquity, the Roman government did not like Christianity. Sometimes, Roman governors or emperors ordered the persecution of Christians. Under Emperor Diocletian, the persecution became the strongest. Christianity became an officially-supported religion in the Roman Empire under Constantine I. With the signing of the Edict of Milan by Licinius and Constantine in 313, it became the most powerful religion, and the Christian Church began the persecution of Christians with whom the official ("orthodox" and "catholic") disagreed. Then, in 391 AD, an edict of Theodosius I made Christianity Rome's official religion. The state church of the Roman Empire became the state religion in the empire. (The state church later split into the modern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.)

People practising traditional non-Christian religions were common in Late Antiquity. The Christians called those people "pagans". There was persecution of Graeco-Roman polytheism by the Roman emperors. In the 5th century, non-Christian religions' property began to be taken away, and many Roman temples started to be made into churches.

Eastern Roman Empire

See the main article: Byzantine Empire

The Byzantines were threatened by the rise of Islam, whose followers took over the territories of Syria, Armenia and Egypt and soon threatened to take over Constantinople. In the next century, the Arabs also captured southern Italy and Sicily.

The Byzantines survived during the 8th century and in the 9th century began to take back parts of the conquered lands. In 1000 AD, the Byzantine Empire was at its largest point, and culture and trade flourished. However, the expansion was suddenly stopped in 1071 at the Battle of Manzikert, which finally made the empire start becoming obviously weaker. After centuries of fighting and Turkic invasions, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos called for help from the West in 1095.

The West responded with the Crusades, which eventually resulted in the Fourth Crusade, which conquered Constantinople in 1204. Several Roman states took pieces of the now-smaller empire. After the recapture of Constantinople by the Romans, the empire was little more than a Greek-speaking state confined to the coast of the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara. The empire came to an end by Mehmed II conquering Constantinople on 29 May 1453.

Archaeology

Remains of Roman work and architecture have been found in the late empire's furthest corners.

• Frontiers of the Roman Empire
• Roman houses
• Roman roads in Britain

Related pages

• Roman Kingdom
• Roman Republic
• Roman Empire
• Western Roman Empire
• Byzantine Empire
• Culture of ancient Rome

Other websites

• The Roman Law Library Archived 2012-08-31 at the Wayback Machine By Yves Lassard and Alexandr Koptev
• Links for Middle School students from the Courtenay Middle School Library Collection