*Senate
*Patricians
*Consuls
Assemblies
*Plebeian citizens
*Tribunes
Italian peninsula, 338-272 BCE
Citizens
Mediterranean Basin, 264-146 BCE
*Carthage (Phoenicians)
Punic Wars
First (264-241 BCE)
Second (218-201 BCE)
Third (149-146 BCE)
Eastern Mediterranean, 215-64 BCE
Hardware
Agriculture
Bronze and Iron
Wheel
Horse domestication
Naval technology
Software
Writing
Latin alphabet
On Tiber river
7 hills
Centralized location in Italy and Mediterranean Sea
Navy
Professional army
Mandatory service
16 years (20 years)
Rewards and discipline
Plunder
Example of treatment of deserters (Hansen, p. 184)
Organization
*Legions 6000 soldiers
Military camp on campaign
Senate
Provinces
Governors
*"Tax farmers"
Slavery
Plebeian poverty
*latifundia “broad estates”
Personal armies
Crossed Rubicon River, 49 BCE
Dictator, 49-44 BCE
Assassinated, 44 BCE
Great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar
Raised army, 44 BCE
Octavian
Marcus Lepidus
Retired 36 BCE
*Marcus Antony
Married to Octavia
*Cleopatra
Octavian's invasion of Egypt, 30 BCE
Antony and Cleopatra killed
1. What explains the success of the Roman conquests? How does this compare with the Qin Kingdom's reasons for success in defeating rival Warring States in China?
2. Under the Roman Republic, how did the Senate administer the empire? How does this compare with administration of the early Han Empire in China?
3. How did the creation of the empire change Roman government, society and military during the Late Republic (146-27 BCE)? Why did this cause social, economic, and political instability?
1. What was the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE)? What form of government is a republic?
2. What technologies and practices did the Roman Republic learn from its neighbors that allowed its city-state to to conquer and control the Italian Peninsula by 272 BCE, and then the entire Mediterranean world of Europe, western Asia, and North Africa by 27 BCE?
3. How was the Roman army organized in the early centuries of the Republic? Why did the historian Polybius (ca. 200-ca. 118 BCE) believe that the Roman armies were successful? What do the Carthaginian shipwrecks and history of Polybius teach us about naval warfare and Roman borrowing of naval technology from the Carthaginians during the First Punic War (264-241 BCE)? How did military organization change in the Late Republic (146-27 BCE)?
1.Why did Carthage and Rome fight the First (264-241 BCE) and Second (218-201 BCE) Punic Wars? What were the sources of their political and economic rivalry?
2. How did the Roman Army treat the city and populace of Carthage after Rome's victory in the Third Punic War (149-146 BCE)? What does this conquest reveal about the reasons why the Romans sought to build a large empire?