1. Rome and the Barbarians The Rise and Dismemberment of Empire6
Rome and the Barbarians
The Rise and Dismemberment of Empire

2. Rome and the Barbarians
At height, 2nd century C.E., Roman Empire contained million people in an empire reaching 2,700 miles east to west and 2,500 miles north to south
Rome enforced Pax Romana across empire
Contemporaries praised it for promoting peace and prosperity while critics claimed Pax Romana was brute military conquest

3. Rome and the Barbarians
A Brief Introduction: Roman Empire #V

4. From Hill Town to Republic
The Founding of the Roman Republic
Founded in 753 B.C.E. [in legend]
Ruled for 250 years by Etrurians [Etruscans]
Republic created in 509 B.C.E. when upper-class Romans drove Etruscans out of city
New republican government had two consuls and a Senate using a system of checks and balances

5. Romulus and Remus…so that happened.

6. From Hill Town to Republic
Struggle of the Orders 494–440 B.C.E.
Patrician v. plebeian
To settle the dispute, in 451 BCE the Patricians codified the law: The Law of the Twelve Tables
At first the Plebians were pleased, but later realized that they had been fooled.
Twelve tables favored rich.
Reforms came later – Tribunes.

7. From Hill Town to Republic
Roman Government:
Senate – elected legislative body
Magistrates to administer government, nominated by Senate, elected by Comitia Centuriata:
2 Consuls elected to yearly terms
Dictator – 6 month emergency position

10. From Hill Town to Republic
Conquest of Italy 396–264 B.C.E.
Punic Wars
Rivalry of Carthage
First Punic War 264–241 B.C.E.; Roman conquest of Sicily
Second Punic War 219–202 B.C.E - Hannibal (247–183 B.C.E.)
Third Punic War 149–146 B.C.E.; destruction of Carthage – “The New Wisdom”
Conquests in Europe and Near East
Gaul, Spain, Macedonia, Syria, Greece, Asia Minor

11. From Hill Town to Republic
Elephants Gone Wild

12. The Roman Empire. Rome built its empire on military expansion, first within Italy by overthrowing its neighbors, then across the Mediterranean by defeating the Carthaginians, then northwest to Gaul and Britain and north to the Danube. Rome offered many benefits to the peoples it conquered, but finally its power rested in its armies.

13. Social World of the Late Republic
Social War (Assassination of Drusus) and extension of Roman citizenship to Italians
Patron/client relationship
Protection/dependence as social glue
Family
Power of paterfamilias
Position of women in Roman society-subordinate

14. Social World of the Late Republic
The late Republican struggle between nobles and the poor (cont.)
Extremes of wealth and poverty in Rome
Great reform effort: the Gracchi (130s and 120s B.C.E.)
New violence of Roman politics
Support of poor as political strategy
Noble/poor conflict paved way for end of Republic

15. Latifundia and land redistribution

16. Social World of the Late Republic
“Bread and circuses”
Gladiators
Ancient NASCAR
Slaves
Very widespread slavery
Three great slave revolts

17. Military Might A. Militarism = central to Roman ideology
Generals as politicians
Marian reform of army: recruitment of propertyless soldiers
New dependence of soldiers on their generals

18. Military Might First Triumvirate
Rise of G. Julius Caesar
Conquest of Gaul
Caesar as dictator
Caesar assassinated – Et To Brute?
Octavian - Antony civil war for sole control of Roman state

19. From Republic to Empire
Establishment of the Principate
Octavian (Augustus Caesar) as sole ruler 30 B.C.E.–14 C.E.
Rule of Augustus as “golden age”
Augustus as imperator
Further conquests

20. Augustus – leave some room for later!

23. From Republic to Empire
Economic life in the Empire
Exploitation of subject peoples
The problem of decadence
Flourishing of trade and administrative cities
Luxury trade and its profits

24. Eurasian trade. The commercial links that bound the ancient world were both extensive and sophisticated. Self-sustaining individual networks—the Saharan caravans, the Arab dhows plying the Indian Ocean, the fleets of Chinese junks coasting east Asia, and most famously the Silk Routes traversing central Asia—linked at key entrepots such as Alexandria and Oc Eo by sea, and Ctesiphon and Kashgar by land, to form a truly intercontinental trading system.

25. Roman Culture The deep influence of Greece
Virgil and the rhetoric of greatness
Stoicism

26. Roman Culture Roman religion Greco-Roman polytheism
Addition of a cult of deified emperors
Addition of mystery religions
Mithraism
Cybele, Isis
Tolerance of all religions that weren’t harmful to the state

30. Roman Culture Roman religion (cont.) Triumph of Christianity
Persecution
Constantine and the Peace of the Church
Outlawing of polytheism 394 C.E. – Edict of Milan

31. Transformation of the Roman Empire
The problem of “barbarians”
Celts
Arrival in Europe c B.C.E.
Expansion/threat to Mediterranean c. 400 B.C.E. on
Defeats by Romans
Germans
Many conflicts along long frontier
Gradual settlement of Germanic tribes within western Empire

32. Romans vs. Germans – Who is the barbarian?

33. Transformation of the Roman Empire
The problem of “barbarians”
Steppe peoples, especially Huns
Huns upset balance of borders c. 370 C.E.
Move of Goths into imperial territory to escape Huns

34. The coming of the Barbarians
The coming of the Barbarians. Rome's control of northern and western Europe declined in the fourth century c.e. as successive waves of Germanic peoples began to migrate and colonize the outer reaches of the empire. When the Huns began to advance westward from central Asia they pushed before them additional Gothic peoples who increased the pressures on Rome. Other Huns were meanwhile pushing south into India and east into China.

35. Transformation of the Roman Empire
Dismemberment of Empire
Plague
Third-century crisis: series of invasions
Division into eastern and western empires
Settlement of Germans within Empire as “federates”
410 sack of Rome
476 CE abdication of last western emperor

36. Transformation of the Roman Empire
Causes for the “fall”
Military = too expensive for its economic base
No fixed system of imperial succession
Germans
Land Reform/Latifundia
Failure of Leadership
Christianity
Over-extension
Climate Change

37. Rome’s successors. Following the sack of Rome by the Ostrogoths in 455 c.e., a new map of Europe emerged. The Roman power base had shifted east to Constantinople, forming the Byzantine Empire. The steppe invaders, keen to emulate the Romans, had created new kingdoms in Italy, Africa, and Iberia, while Germanic peoples were struggling to create a new power balance in the north.

38. Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire)
Survival of eastern empire until 1453 CE
Resurgence under Justinian I (r. 527–565 C.E.)
Justinian Code
Hagia Sophia
Reconquest of much of the West

39. Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire)
Religious Disputes (632 CE)
Monophysites
Iconoclasm
Build-up of strong Byzantine bureaucracy

40. The Byzantine Empire. Despite the erosion of Roman power in western Europe by 457 c.e., the East Roman or Byzantine Empire survived with varying fortunes for another thousand years—albeit Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian—until Centered on Constantinople, its heartland straddled the crossroads between Europe and Asia. Only briefly, under Justinian (483–565), did it recover control of the western Mediterranean.

41. Legacy of the Roman Empire
Linguistic
Legal
Urban
Transformation of Roman administration by Christian church