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Chapter Rome: The Rise to Empire ca. 1000 B.C.E.–476 C.E. “. remember, Roman, 6 To rule the people under law, to establish The way of peace, to battle down the haughty, To spare the meek. Our fine arts, these forever.” Virgil Figure 6.1 Detail from Trajan’s Victory Column, Rome, 113 C.E. Marble. The 625-foot-long continuous frieze that documents the two Balkan campaigns of the Roman emperor Trajan resembles a documentary war film. The pictorial narrative, in which Trajan appears fifty-nine times, features realistic depictions of the military activities for which the Romans were famous, but it also includes scenes of comradery and suffering (see Figure 6.20). LK049_P0137ED137-166_BK1_CH06.indd 137 27/11/2014 18:29 LOOKING AHEAD “In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome The rise and fall of the Roman Empire is too long a story to be comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized told in these pages. Rather, this chapter explores Rome’s imperial portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were presence in Classical antiquity and its enduring contributions in guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle, but architecture, the visual arts, literature, and law. Along with these powerful, influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented achievements, the Romans would transmit to the West the legacy the union of the provinces.” So wrote the eighteenth-century of Classical Greece and the fundamentals of a young religious faith historian Edward Gibbon, who voiced universal and abiding respect called Christianity. for the longest-lasting and most complex empire in Western history. The Roman Rise to Empire were experts in the arts of metallurgy, town building, and city planning. The Greeks, who colonized the tip of the Rome’s Early History Italian peninsula and Sicily, were masters of philosophy Rome’s origins are to be found among tribes of Iron Age and the arts. The Phoenicians, who settled on the northern folk called Latins, who invaded the Italian peninsula just coast of Africa, brought westward their alphabet and their after the beginning of the first millennium b.c.e. By the commercial and maritime skills. From all these people, but mid-eighth century b.c.e., these people had founded the especially from the first two groups, the Latins borrowed city of Rome in the lower valley of the Tiber River, a spot elements that would enhance their own history. strategically located for control of the Italian peninsula From the Etruscans, the Romans absorbed the fun- and for convenient access to the Mediterranean Sea (Map damentals of urban planning, chariot racing, the toga, 6.1). While central Italy became the domain of the Latins, bronze- and gold-crafting, and the most ingenious struc- the rest of the peninsula received a continuous infusion tural principle of Mesopotamian architecture—the arch. of eastern Mediterranean people—Etruscans, Greeks, and Roman numerals were based on an Etruscan system that Phoenicians—who brought with them cultures richer and was borrowed in turn from the Greeks. And from Etruscan more complex than that of the Latins. The Etruscans, tradition came one of Rome’s founding myths by which whose origins are unknown, established themselves in the twin sons of Mars, Romulus and Remus—abandoned northwest Italy. A sophisticated, Hellenized people with on the Tiber River but suckled by a she-wolf—established commercial contacts throughout the Mediterranean, they the city of Rome in 753 b.c.e. The Etruscans provided their Wall of Antoninus M CU Hadrian's Wall BI ) Key UE A MARE S SE HIBERNIA E IC GERMANICUM AR LT Roman Republic in 44 B.C.E. (Ireland) M BA (NORTH SEA) ( BRITANNIA Frontiers extended under the R h Roman Empire by 180 C.E. (Britain) (R e h n u GERMANIA in e s ) (Germany) N OCEANUS Da nuvius ATLANTICUS (Da W E (ATLANTIC OCEAN) GALLIA nube) (France) DACIA S IL be Nîmes LY Danu PONTUS EUXINUS ITALIA ADRI RICU (BLACK SEA) (Italy) AT M IA IC SEA THR Byzantium HYN HISPANIA CORSICA Rome AC BIT OC IA APPAD IA (Spain) MACEDONIA G C MARE AL Pompeii (AEGEAN A SARDINIA TI Zeugma A ASIANA A Athens EG AEUM (Asia) SEA) Antioch ACHAEA Carthage Syracusae SYRIA RHODUS NE MAURETANIA I NUMIDIA (Rhodes) CYPRUS MARE NOSTRUM CRETA ST (MEDITERRANEAN SEA) (Crete) LE Jerusalem PA 0 500 miles CYRENAICA Alexandria AFRICA Map 6.1 The Roman Empire in 180 C.E. 138 CHAPTER 6 Rome: The Rise to Empire LK049_P0137ED137-166_BK1_CH06.indd 138 27/11/2014 18:29 Figure 6.2 Sarcophagus from Cerveteri, to hold executive office, and, finally, in 287 b.c.e., ca. 520 B.C.E. Painted terracotta, length the privilege of making laws. The stern and 6 ft. 7 in. The hands of the couple are independent population of Roman farm- positioned in a manner that suggests they are enjoying lively conversation. ers had arrived at a res publica by peaceful means. But no sooner had Rome become a Republic than it adopted an expansionist course that would erode these democratic achievements. Obedience to the Roman state and service in its powerful army were essential to the life of the early Republic. Both contributed to the rise of Roman imperialism, which proceeded by means of long wars of conquest similar to those that had marked the history of earlier empires. After expelling the last of the Etruscan kings, Rome extended its power over all parts of the Italian peninsula. By the middle of the third century b.c.e., hav- ing united all of Italy by force or negotiation, Rome stood poised to rule the Mediterranean. A long-standing distrust of the Phoenicians dead with tombs designed to resemble the lavish dwelling and rivalry with the city of Carthage, Phoenicia’s commer- places of the deceased. On the lids of the sarcophagi (stone cial stronghold in northeastern Africa, led Rome into the coffins) that held the remains, Etruscan artists carved por- Punic (Latin for “Phoenician”) Wars—a 150-year period traits of the dead, depicting husbands and wives relaxing of intermittent violence that ended with the destruction of and socializing on their dining couch, as if still enjoying a Carthage in 146 b.c.e. With the defeat of that city, Rome family banquet (Figure 6.2). assumed naval and commercial leadership in the western From the Greeks, the Romans borrowed a pantheon Mediterranean, the sea they would come to call mare of gods and goddesses, linguistic and literary principles, nostrum (“our sea”). But the ambitions of army generals and the aesthetics of the Classical style. A passion for and the impetus of a century of warfare fueled the fire of Greek art made the Romans collectors and imitators of Roman imperialism. Rome seized every opportunity for Hellenic sculpture; Roman copies of Greek art would fill conquest, and by the end of the first century b.c.e., the palaces and public places. As the Latins absorbed Etruscan Empire included most of North Africa, the Iberian penin- and Greek culture, so they drew these and other peoples sula, Greece, Egypt, much of Southwest Asia, and the ter- into what would become the most powerful world-state in ritories constituting present-day Europe as far as the Rhine ancient history. River (see Map 6.1). Despite the difficulties presented by the task of govern- The Roman Republic (509–133 B.C.E.) ing such far-flung territories, the Romans proved to be For three centuries, Etruscan kings ruled the Latin popula- efficient administrators. They demanded from their for- tion, but in 509 b.c.e. the Latins overthrew the Etruscans. eign provinces taxes, soldiers to serve in the Roman army, Over the next 200 years, monarchy slowly gave way to a tribute, and slaves. Roman governors, appointed by the government “of the people” (res publica). The agricultural Senate from among the higher ranks of the military, ruled population of ancient Rome consisted of a powerful class within the conquered provinces. Usually, local customs of large landowners, the patricians, and a more populous and even local governments were permitted to continue class of farmers and small landowners called plebeians. unmodified, for the Romans considered tolerance of pro- The plebeians constituted the membership of a Popular vincial customs politically practical. The Romans brought Assembly. Although this body conferred civil and military the Latin language and Roman law to the provinces. They authority (the imperium) upon two elected magistrates built paved roads, freshwater aqueducts, and bridges, and (called consuls), its lower-class members had little voice eventually granted the people of their conquered territo- in government. The wealthy patricians—life members of ries Roman citizenship. the Roman Senate—controlled the lawmaking process. Rome’s highly disciplined army was the backbone of But step by step, the plebeians gained increasing politi- the Empire. During the Republic, the army consisted of cal influence. Using as leverage their service as soldiers citizens who served two-year terms, but by the first cen- in the Roman army and their power to veto laws initiated tury c.e., the military had become a profession to which by the Senate, the plebeians—through their leaders, the all free men might devote twenty-five years (or more) of tribunes—made themselves heard. Eventually, they won their lives. Since serving for this length of time allowed a the freedom to intermarry with the patricians, the right non-Roman to gain Roman citizenship for himself and his CHAPTER 6 Rome: The Rise to Empire 139 LK049_P0137ED137-166_BK1_CH06.indd 139 27/11/2014 18:29 children, military service acted as a means of Romanizing laid out; in the middle are the tents of the officers, and foreigners.

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