Section 2: Essential Questions

1
Section 2 Essential Questions

• How did Rome win an empire?
• Why did the Roman republic decline?
• How did Roman emperors promote peace and
  stability in the empire?

2
Section 2 From Republic to Empire

• Carthage
• City-state on the northern coast of Africa
• Settled by North Africans and Phoenician traders
• Ruled over an empire that stretched across North
  Africa and the western Mediterranean

3
Wars with Carthage

• First Punic War
• Rome defeated Carthage and won Sicily, Corsica,
  and Sardinia
• Second Punic War
• Hannibal, Carthaginian general, led his army
  including dozens of war elephants, on an epic
  march across the Pyrenees, through France, and
  over the Alps into Italy.
• Carthage gave up all its lands except those in
  Africa.

4
Wars with Carthage, contd

• Third Punic War
• Rome completely destroyed Carthage.
• Survivors killed or sold into slavery.
• Romans poured salt over the earth so nothing
  would grow there again.

5
Other Conquests

• Imperialism
• Establishing control over foreign lands and
  peoples
• Romans confronted the Hellenistic rulers who
  divided up the empire of Alexander the Great.
• Provinces
• Lands under Roman rule
• 133 B.C. Roman power extended from Spain to Egypt.

6
Social and Economic Effects

• Conquests and control of busy trade routes
  brought incredible riches into Rome.
• Generals, officials, and traders amassed fortunes
  from loot, taxes, and commerce.
• Latifundia? huge estates bought up by newly
  wealthy Roman citizens.
• Forced people captured in war to work as slaves
• Widespread use of slave labor hurt small farmers.
• Many farmers fell into debt and had to sell their
  land.

7
Social and Economic Effects, contd

• Landless farmers flocked to Rome and other cities
  looking for jobs.
• Gap between poor and rich widened
• New wealth increased corruption

8
Attempts at Reform

• Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
• Young patrician brothers
• Among the first to attempt reform
• Tiberius, tribune, called on the state to
  distribute land to poor farmers
• Gaius, tribune 10 years later, sought a wider
  range of reforms
• Use of public funds to buy grain to feed the poor
• Killed in waves of street violence set off by
  senators and their hired thugs.

9
Decline of the Republic

• Rome was plunged into a series of civil wars
• Senate
• Wanted to govern as it had in the past
• Popular political leaders
• Wanted to weaken the senate and enact reforms
• Turmoil sparked slave uprisings and revolts among
  Romes allies

10
Julius Caesars Rise to Power

• Ambitious military commander
• Completed the conquest of Gaul now France
• Veni, vidi, vici
• Forced the senate to make him dictator
• Absolute ruler of Rome

11
Caesars Reforms

• Public works to employ the jobless
• Gave public land to the poor
• Reorganized the government of the provinces
• Granted Roman citizenship to more people
• Julian calendar? Introduction of a new calendar
  based on Egyptian knowledge still our calendar
  today (with minor changes).

12
Assassination

• Caesars enemies worried that he planned to make
  himself king of Rome
• Plotted against him to save the republic
• March 44 B.C. enemies stabbed him to death in the
  senate

13
Civil Wars

• Caesars death plunged Rome into a new round of
  civil wars
• Mark Antony
• Caesars chief general
• Octavian, Caesars grandnephew
• Joined forces to track down the murderers
• Quarreled, Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra

14
Roman Empire and Roman Peace

• Octavian received the title of Augustus, or
  Exalted One
• Declared him princeps, or first citizen
• Exercised absolute power and named his successor
• Created an efficient well-trained civil service
  to enforce the laws
• High level jobs open to talented men, regardless
  of class
• Cemented the allegiance of cities and provinces
  to Rome by allowing them a large measure of
  self-government.

15
Augustus

• Ordered a census, population count, to make the
  tax system fair
• Set up a postal service
• Issued new coins to make trade easier
• Jobless worked on building roads and temples and
  farmed the land

16
Bad Emperors and Good Emperors

• Caligula
• Appointed his favorite horse as consul
• Nero
• Viciously persecuted Christians and wan even
  blamed for setting a great fire that destroyed
  much of Rome
• Hadrian
• Codified Roman law built a wall across Britain
  to hold back attackers
• Marcus Aurelius
• Philosopher-king stoic philosophy and commitment
  to duty

17
The Pax Romana

• Roman Peace
• 200 year span that began with Augustus and ended
  with Marcus Aurelius
• Roman rule brought peace, order, unity, and
  prosperity to lands stretching from the Euphrates
  River in the east to Britain in the west.

18
Bread and Circuses

• Circus Maximus
• Romes largest racecourse
• Chariot races
• Gladiator contests
• Slaves trained to fight
• Good fighter could win his freedom
• Government provided free grain to feed the poor