Name: Date: Evaluating the Effects of the Geography of Italy
Warm up writing space: Review: What are some geographical features that made settlement in ancient Greece difficult? Write as many as you can. Be able to explain why you picked them. ______
Give One / Get One Directions: • You will get 1 card with important information about Rome’s or Italy’s geography. Read and understand your card. • Record what you learned as a pro or a con on your T chart. • With your card and your T chart, stand up and move around to other students. • Trade information with other students. Explain your card to them (“Give One”), and then hear what they have to say (“Get One.”) Record their new information to your T chart. • Repeat! Geography of Italy Pros J Cons L
Give one / Get one cards (Teachers, preprint and cut a set of these cards for each class. If there are more than 15 students in a class, print out a few doubles. It’s okay for some children to get the same card.)
The hills of Rome Fertile volcanic soil 40% Mountainous The city-state of Rome was originally Active volcanoes in Italy (ex: Mt. About 40% of the Italian peninsula is built on seven hills. Fortifications and Etna, Mt. Vesuvius) that create lava covered by mountains. important buildings were placed at and ash help to make some of the the tops of the hills. Eventually, a land on the peninsula more fertile. city-wall was built around the hills.
Peninsula Mediterranean climate Tiber River Italy is a narrow peninsula—land Italy, especially the southern part of The Tiber River links Rome, which is surrounded by water on 3 sides. the peninsula, has a moderate, slightly inland, to its port in the Mediterranean climate. Summers Mediterranean Sea, and to cities are hot and can be dry. Winters can further north. In order to expand the be a little mild with more city of Rome to both sides of the precipitation. river, the Romans had to build several bridges. Other Rivers Alps Mountains Apennine Mountains Italy includes many other rivers The Alps Mountains cut across the The Apennine Mountains are a group besides the Tiber, including the Arno, top of Italy. Due to their height, the of smaller mountain chains running the Po and the Rubicon. tops of some Alps can have snow and down the length of Italy. They are glacier coverage even in the summer. mostly green and grass covered. There are some passes through the Alps, but even the lowest is at about 3,200 ft. Many Italian neighbors The Etruscans The Greeks The Romans were not the only The Etruscans were an ancient The Greeks settled colonies in the ancient group to be living on the civilization settled in the northern southern part of the Italian peninsula, Italian Peninsula. There were many part of the Italian Peninsula. They bringing with them Greek culture. other Italian city-states around it, and excelled at architecture and art. many of them in the beginning were larger than Rome.
Carthage Mediterranean Sea The Latium Plain Carthage was a city-state on the Italy is located near the center of the The Latium Plain was where Rome north coast of Africa. It was settled Mediterranean Sea. Other was settled. It had flat, fertile land. there by the Phoenicians, who civilizations with access to this sea excelled at trade. Carthage expanded include the Egyptians, the Greeks, its empire and grew to dominate and the Mesopotamians. much of the western Mediterranean area.
T chart – Teacher exemplar of possible model answers
Geography of Italy Pros J Cons L • Building on multiple hills can create multiple • 40% mountains suggests that there is farmland fortresses, multiple lines of defense to be had on Italy, but as population grows, • Fertile land can help the Romans acquire a more farmland may be needed outside the surplus of food peninsula. It may take effort to find, travel to, • Peninsula offers plentiful sea access for fishing, and hold this additional territory. trade, and travel. • The Peninsula is narrow – overall, not much • Multiple rivers means multiple sources of fresh land, and therefore not much land to create and water and fertile land in the river valleys. maintain a surplus of food. • Mild climate can support farming. • Getting out of Italy through the Alps is more • Tiber River can be used for fresh water and difficult. transport of goods and people. • Many neighbors on a narrow peninsula can • Alps Mountains provide a natural defense create competition for land. against enemies attempting to enter Italy by • A powerful nearby neighbor like Carthage can land. claim important resources and possible expand • Apennines create some more defense but are into Rome’s territory. not impossible to farm on. • Neighbors can create opportunity for trade and resources. • Nearby Etruscans and Greeks can teach the Romans some of what they know / share cultures. • Central position in the Mediterranean Sea gives Rome many other nearby civilizations to trade with. • Flat land is the easiest to farm on.
Name: Date: Practice – Think like a conqueror
Now that you know more about the geography of Italy…
1) How did the land and water of Italy help the ancient Romans to expand their territory? ______
2.) What about the land and water did they have to overcome to expand? ______
Name: Date: Ticket to Leave – Put your name on this!
What 3 geographic features do you think helped the ancient Romans the most? List them AND explain why you picked them. ______
Name: Date: Ticket to Leave – Put your name on this!
What 3 geographic features do you think helped the ancient Romans the most? List them AND explain why you picked them. ______
Name: Date: Ticket to Leave – Put your name on this!
What 3 geographic features do you think helped the ancient Romans the most? List them AND explain why you picked them. ______
Name: Date: Rome Geography Challenge
Directions: What is Strabo’s attitude towards Rome? How does he get this across in a text that’s supposed to be about geography? Annotate textual evidence of Strabo’s opinion in the white space as you read. Then summarize at the end.
Excerpt from Strabo’s Geography, Book V Chapter 3
All Latium is blest with fertility and produces everything, except for a few districts that are on the seaboard — I mean all those districts that are marshy and sickly… or any districts that are perhaps mountainous and rocky; and yet even these are not wholly untilled or useless, but afford rich pasture grounds, or timber, or certain fruits that grow in marshy or rocky ground…
In the interior, the first city above Ostia is Rome, and it is the only city that is situated on the Tiber… The first founders walled the Capitolium and the Palatium and the Quirinal Hill… Ancus Marcius took in Mt. Caelium and Mt. Aventine, and the plain between them, which were separated both from one another and from the parts that were already walled, but he did so only from necessity; for, in the first place, it was not a good thing to leave hills that were so well fortified by nature outside the walls for any who wished strongholds against the city, and, secondly, he was unable to fill out the whole circuit of hills as far as the Quirinal. Servius, however, detected the gap, for he filled it out by adding both the Esquiline Hill and the Viminal Hill. But these too are easy for outsiders to attack; and for this reason they dug a deep trench and took the earth to the inner side of the trench, and extended a mound about six stadia on the inner brow of the trench, and built thereon a wall with towers from the Colline Gate to the Esquiline. Below the centre of the mound is a third gate, bearing the same name as the Viminal Hill. Such, then, are the fortifications of the city, though they need a second set of fortifications.
And, in my opinion, the first founders took the same course of reasoning both for themselves and for their successors, namely, that it was appropriate for the Romans to depend for their safety and general welfare, not on their fortifications, but on their arms and their own valour, in the belief that it is not walls that protect men but men that protect walls. At the outset, then, since the fertile and extensive country round about them belonged to others, and since the terrain of the city was so easy to attack, there was nothing fortunate in their position to call for congratulation, but when by their valour and their toil they had made the country their own property, there was obviously a concourse, so to speak, of blessings that surpassed all natural advantages…
And it is because of this concourse of blessings that the city, although it has grown to such an extent, holds out in the way it does, not only in respect to food, but also in respect to timber and stones for the building of houses, which goes on unceasingly in consequence of the collapses and fires and repeated sales (these last, too, going on unceasingly)… To meet these requirements, then, the Romans are afforded a wonderful supply of materials by the large number of mines, by the timber, and by the rivers which bring these down: first, the Anio… and then the Nar and the Teneas, the rivers which run through Ombrica down to the same river, the Tiber; and also the Clanis…
So much, then, for the blessings with which nature supplies the city; but the Romans have added still others, which are the result of their foresight; for if the Greeks had the repute of aiming most happily in the founding of cities, in that they aimed at beauty, strength of position, harbours, and productive soil, the Romans had the best foresight in those matters which the Greeks made but little account of, such as the construction of roads and aqueducts, and of sewers that could wash out the filth of the city into the Tiber.
Moreover, they have so constructed also the roads which run throughout the country, by adding both cuts through hills and embankments across valleys, that their wagons can carry boat-loads; and the sewers, vaulted with close-fitting stones, have in some places left room enough for wagons loaded with hay to pass through them. And water is brought into the city through the aqueducts in such quantities that veritable rivers flow through the city and the sewers; and almost every house has cisterns, and service-pipes, and copious fountains… In a word, the early Romans made but little account of the beauty of Rome, because they were occupied with other, greater and more necessary, matters; whereas the later Romans, and particularly those of today and in my time, have not fallen short in this respect either — indeed, they have filled the city with many beautiful structures.
Summarize:
1) In your own words, what is Strabo’s opinion of Rome? Use evidence from the text to support your answer. ______
2) What do you think was Strabo’s purpose(s) for writing this text? Use evidence from the text to support your answer. ______
(Text adapted from LacusCurtius, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/5C*.html. This webpage reproduces a section of The Geography of Strabo published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1923. The text is in the public domain.)