Ancient Rome

Rome, one of the secretive and sacred countries back then.

Ancient Rome History.
Ancient Rome  was a   Italic  civilization  that began growing on the   Italian Peninsula  as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the   Mediterranean Sea  and centered on the city of   Rome, it expanded to become one of the   largest empires  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">in the <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">  ancient world<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants (roughly 20% of the world's population <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">) and covering 6.5 million square kilometers (2.5 million sq mi) during its height between the first and second centuries AD.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In its approximately 12 centuries of existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy to an aristocratic republicto an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate Southern Europe,Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa, parts of Northern Europe, and parts of Eastern Europe. Rome was preponderant throughout the Mediterranean region and was one of the most powerful entities of the ancient world. It is often grouped into "Classical Antiquity" together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;"> The Romans are still remembered today, including names such as Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Augustus. Ancient Roman society contributed greatly to government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language, society and more in the Western world. A civilization highly developed for its time, Rome professionalized and greatly expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics   such as the  United States  and  France. It achieved impressive  technological and  architectural  feats, such as the construction of an extensive system of  aqueducts  and  roads, as well as large monuments, palaces, and public facilities.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond: its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia and from the mouth of the Rhine to North Africa. The Roman Empire emerged under the leadership of Augustus Caesar. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak. Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a common ritual for a new emperor's rise. States, such as Palmyra, temporarily divided the Empire in a third century crisis. Soldier emperors reunified it, by dividing the empire between Western and Eastern halves.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the western part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of universal history from the pre-mediaeval "Dark Ages" of Europe.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The Eastern Roman Empire survived this crisis and was governed from Constantinople after the division of the Empire. It comprised Greece, the Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. Despite the later loss of Syria and Egypt to the Arab-Islamic Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire continued for another millennium, until its remnants were finally annexed by the emergingTurkish Ottoman Empire. This eastern, Christian, medieval stage of the Empire is usually called the Byzantine Empire by historians.

The Kingdom, Republic, and the Punic Wars
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;"> The city of Rome grew from settlements around a ford on the river Tiber, a crossroads of traffic and trade. According to  archaeological  evidence, the village of Rome was probably founded sometime in the 8th century BC, though it may go back as far as the 10th century BC, by members of the  Latin tribe  of Italy, on the top of the  Palatine Hill.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The Etruscans, who had previously settled to the north in Etruria, seem to have established political control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic and monarchical elite. The Etruscans apparently lost power in the area by the late 6th century BC, and at this point, the original Latin and Sabine tribes reinvented their government by creating a republic, with much greater restraints on the ability of rulers to exercise power.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Roman tradition and archaeological evidence point to a complex within the Forum Romanum as the seat of power for the king and the beginnings of the religious center there as well. Numa Pompilius was the second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus. He began Rome's great building projects with his royal palace the Regia and the complex of the Vestal virgins.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">According to tradition and later writers such as Livy, the Roman Republic was established around 509 BC, when the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed by Lucius Junius Brutus, and a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established. A constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive authority as imperium, or military command.The consuls had to work with the senate, which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or patricians, but grew in size and power.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Other magistracies in the Republic include tribunes, quaestors, aediles, praetors and censors. The magistracies were originally restricted to patricians, but were later opened to common people, or plebeians. Republican voting assemblies included the comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly), which voted on matters of war and peace and elected men to the most important offices, and the comitia tributa (tribal assembly), which elected less important offices.

Itlay in 400 B.C.<p style="line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In the 4th century BC Rome had come under attack by the Gauls, now extending their power in the Italian peninsula beyond the Po Valley and through Etruria. On 16 July 390 BC, a Gallic army under the leadership of a tribal chieftain named Brennus, met the Romans on the Banks of the small Allia River just ten miles north of Rome. Brennus defeated the Romans, and the Gauls marched directly to Rome. Most Romans had fled the city, but some barricaded themselves upon the Capitoline Hill for a last stand. The Gauls looted and burned the city, then laid siege to the Capitoline Hill. The siege lasted seven months, the Gauls then agreed to give the Romans peace in exchange for 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of gold.(According to later legend, the Roman supervising the weighing noticed that the Gauls were using false scales. The Romans then took up arms and defeated the Gauls; their victorious general Camillus remarked "With iron, not with gold, Rome buys her freedom.")

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, including the Etruscans. The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum, a major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in 281 BC, but this effort failed as well. The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman colonies in strategic areas, thereby establishing stable control over the region of Italy.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">In the 3rd century BC Rome had to face a new and formidable opponent: Carthage. Carthage was a rich, flourishing Phoenician city-state that intended to dominate the Mediterranean area. The two cities were allies in the times of Pyrrhus, who was a menace to both, but with Rome's hegemony in mainland Italy and the Carthaginianthalassocracy, these cities became the two major powers in the Western Mediterranean – a signal of the imminent war.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The First Punic War war begun in 264 BC, when the city of Messana asked for Carthage's help in dealing with Hiero II of Syracuse. After the Carthaginian intercession, Messana asked Rome to expel the Carthaginians. Rome entered this war because Syracuse and Messana were too close of the newly conquered Greek cities of Southern Italy and Carthage was now able to make an offensive through Roman territory; along with this, Rome could extend its domain over Sicily.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Although the Romans had experience in land battles, to defeat this new enemy, naval battles were necessary. Carthage was a maritime power, and the Roman lack of ships and naval experience would make the path to the victory harsh for the Roman Republic. Despite this, after more than 20 years of war, Rome finally defeated Carthage and a peace treaty was signed. Among the reasons for the Second Punic War was the subsequent war reparations Carthage acquiesced to at the end of the First Punic War.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The Second Punic War is famous for its brilliant generals: on the Punic side Hannibal and Hasdrubal, and the Romans Marcellus, Fabius Maximus and Scipio Africanus. Rome faced this war simultaneously with the First Macedonian War.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">The outbreak of the war was the audacious invasion of Italy led by Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca the Carthaginian general who was in charge of Sicily the First Punic War. Hannibal rapidly marched through Hispania and the Alps. This invasion caused panic in the cities and the only way to deflect Hannibal's intentions was to delay him in small battles. This strategy was led by Fabius Maximus, who would be nicknamed Cunctator ("delayer" in Latin), and until this day is called Fabian strategy. Due to this, Hannibal's goal was unachieved: he couldn't bring Italian cities to revolt against Rome and as his army diminished after every battle, he lacked machines and manpower to besiege Rome.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">Hannibal's invasion lasted over 16 years, by ravaging the supplies of the Italian cities and fields. When the Romans perceived that his supplies were running out, they invaded the unprotected Carthage and forced Hannibal to return to it. On his return he faced Scipio, who had defeated his brother Hasdrubal. The result of this confrontation was the end of the Second Punic War in the famous Battle of Zama in October 202 BC, which gave to Scipio his agnomen Africanus. Rome's final debt was of many deaths, but also of resounding gains: the conquest of Hispania by Scipio and of Syracuse, the last Greek realm in Sicily, by Marcellus.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">More than a half century after these events, Carthage was humiliated and Rome was no more concerned about the African menace. The Republic's focus now was only to the Hellenistic kingdoms of Greece and revolts in Hispania. However, Carthage after having paid the war indemnity, felt that its commitments and submission to Rome had ceased – a vision not shared by the Roman Senate. In 151 BC Numidia invaded Carthage, and after asking for Roman help, ambassadors were sent to Carthage, among them was Marcus Porcius Cato, who after seeing that Carthage could make a comeback and regain its importance, ended all his speeches, no matter what the subject was, by saying: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" ("Furthermore, I think that Carthage must be destroyed").

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">As Carthage fought with Numidia without Roman consent, Rome declared war against Carthage in 149 BC. Carthage resisted well at the first strike, with the participation of all the inhabitants of the city. However, Carthage could not withstand the attack of Scipio Aemilianus, who entirely destroyed the city and its walls, enslaved and sold all the citizens and gained control of that region, which became the province of Africa. Thus ended the Punic War period.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;">All these wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests, of Sicily, Hispania and Africa and the rise of Rome as a significant imperial power.

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