Themes in Roman Society and Culture Book Notes

Chapter 2: A Summary of Roman History

- Lucius Junius Brutus – founder of the Roman Republic. Brought freedom and established
consulship.
- Tacitus – Roma historian and senator. Wrote books such as ‘Annals’ and ‘Germania’
- Rome had its fair share of ignorant kings in the past. Tarquinius Superbus, last king of
Rome, was exiled due to his son violating a wife of another Roman citizen.
- Brutus eradicated monarchy and established a Republic, a place ruled under
magistrates, who were elected by the citizens and advised by the senate.
- Anyone who were in favour of monarchy were warned to be killed by Brutus.
- Rome founded in the year 753 BCE under Romulus, first king of Rome. Monarchy ended
in the year 509 BCE.
- Empire was split into western and eastern and was brought back together under one
emperor, Constantine the Great.
- Augustan Period (31 BCE)

EARLY ROME: LEGENDS AND KINGS

- Rome came to existence in 753 BCE, for US. The romans use 1 AUC (“from the
foundation of the city”) as the date.
- Rome was named after ROMULUS, descendent of Trojan hero AENEAS.
o Romulus accepted slaves and thieves into the country and snatched women from
neighbouring Sabine population for wives of his people.
- Rome were influenced by the Etruscan culture, who were neighbors. Things like Rome’s
architecture and several deities were similar to that of Etruscan’s.
- Power was shared among the citizens in 509 BCE when the last king was expelled in which
the Republic was formed.
THE EARLY REPUBLIC (508-287 BCE)
- Republic was split into 2 magistrates:
o Consuls – Elected annually by adult male citizens votes and had the senate as the
advisory board.
o Other major Roman magistracies: Praetor, Quaestor, Aedile, Tribune and
Censor were also established.
- The Republic system were often regarded as a combination of Monarchic, Aristocratic
and Democratic elements represented by consuls, senate (and elected magistrates)
and popular voting assemblies.
 - Patricians – Members of privileged “clans” or “families” (gentes) that had special status
given by the Monarchy.
- Plebeians – The rest of the citizens. Annoyed during Early Republic due to their lack of
status compared to the Patricians. Due to this the Early Republic was seen to have many
struggles among its orders.
- 494 BCE, plebeians established their own voting assembly where they voted their own
officers whose sole order was to protect plebeians from patricians poor treatment.
- 367 BCE, the Lex Licinia Sextia allowed wealthy plebeians to be elected to the
consulship.
- 287 BCE, final blow in the struggles, was delivered by the Lex Hortensia, which invested
the plebeian assembly’s decisions (plebiscita) by the force of law.
THE MIDDLE REPUBLIC (287-133 BCE)
- Not so recognized by political tensions but by foreign wars and territorial expansion
beyond the Italian peninsula.
- By 270 BCE, Rome was most powerful amongst its Italian neighbors such as the Latin,
Etruscan and Samnites in the southeastern Italy.
- The defeated were either granted the right to intermarry with the Romans, while others
were made military allies or ‘socii’.
- CARTHAGE (Punic City of North Africa) – Wars against Carthage was also very
dominant in this time period.
o 1st Punic War (264-241 BCE), fought over the control of Sicily. Rome victorious.
o 2nd Punic War (218-201 BCE), the so-called Hannibalic War, broke in Spain. War
broke when Carthage general Hannibal, captured Saguntum, Spanish town under
Roman protection.
 Rome declared war and Hannibal crossed the Alps and invaded Italy.
 Rome and its allies eventually win and Hannibal was finally defeated in
the BATTLE OF ZAMA (202 BCE) by Roman general Scipio Africanus in
North Africa.
- Rome then focused on its interest over the eastern Mediterranean after the 2nd Punic
wars and Rome’s power steadily increased.
- During the Isthmian Games in Corinth, 196 BCE, Roman general, Titus Quinctius
Flamininus, announced the withdrawal of the Roman forces and declared that the Greeks
were ‘free, ungarrisoned, not subject to tribute’ and were able to use their own laws.
However, this wasn’t exactly what he meant since the freedom he mentioned did not last
long.
- Battle of Pydna (168 BCE), Macedonian defeat, another step towards Roman annexation
of Greece.
- 3rd Punic War (149-146 BCE), following 3rd war, Romans razed cities of Carthage and
Corinth.
 - Other than the wars, Italian political elite were also gaining more power therefore small
landholders were experiencing more difficulties, thus social tensions were still imminent at
home.

THE LATE REPUBLIC (133-31 BCE)

- Characterized by the plebeian tribunate of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 133 BCE.
Foreshadows themes of the century to come: civil unrest bloodshed and conflict
between senate and individuals courting people’s desires for their own political ends.
- Depicted as an all-out struggle between the senatorial order who sought leadership of
state (the optimates) and other ambitious men (the populares).
- After being elected tribune, Gracchus sought to stabilize the social climate.
o Gracchus’s Law proposed a radical redistribution of land in Italy to the farmers
facing difficulties.
 Under this law, individuals were permitted to hold onto more than 500
iugera (or iugerium), a Roman unit to measure land. Surplus land were
found and redistributed to poorer Roman citizens by a board of
commissioners established solely for this purpose.
o Many obviously, especially those from the senatorial elite opposed this law, and
after Gracchus refused them, he was murdered alongside 300 followers in 138
BCE led by Publius Scipio Nasica, an ex-consul and the pontifex maximus (chief
high priest).
- Following Tiberius’s death, his younger brother Gaius proposed even more daring reforms
from 123-121 BCE. He to ended up dead, supposedly by his own hands and 3000 of his
followers were executed without trial.
o New political tool was introduced due to this called senatus consultum ultimum
(“final decreed of the senate”), posed as a warning to the consuls that the state
was at risk and that the senate would do whatever actions necessary to save the
Republic.
- Decade following Gaius death was calm
- Series of problems however eventually rose. War with King Jugurtha in Numidia (111-
104 BCE), slave uprising (103-101 BCE), and an invasion of northern Italy by German
tribes all caused anxiety.
o Gaius Marius was elected as consul numerous times by the Roman people due to
the way he handled the situations mentioned.
 He allowed men who lacked property to enrol in army. Landless soldiers
looked to generals for booty, land and retirement. A soldier’s loyalty no
longer belonged to the state, but to the commander.
- Social War (91-88 BCE)- armed rebellion where Italian allies demanded Roman citizenship
and attempted to establish a state to rival Rome. Began at Asculum.
o Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the
Great, had most success in this war.
o Concluded due to the result of Lex Julia, political concession passed in 90 BCE.
 Lex Julia – Law that allowed Roman citizenship for Italian neighbors and
those willing to lay arms from the revolt. Citizenship eventually allowed for
all Italians south of river Po.
- Mithridatic War (88-63 BCE)
o Marius and Sulla fought for command, since this conflict promised to be glorious
and rich in spoils.
o Sulla took the step and once in control of Rome, proscribed the wealthy citizens
and publishing their names as the enemy of the state. Their lives and property were
rendered forfeit.
o Sulla’s murders and terror eventually came to an end when he died a year later as
his ways to re-establish the old ways were soon undercut by one of his supporters,
Gnaeus Pompeius, later known as Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great).
 Pompey gained popularity in the 70s BCE in his involvement with
subduing piracy, dealing w/ problems with Mithridates and the East,
and crushing a series of revolts.
 The senate were against Pompey, however the people and young
ambitious men (among them Gaius Julius Caesar) supported him.
o Pompey, Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus soon formed an unofficial private
coalition to work for each member’s political benefit. This group is commonly known
as the First Triumvirate (60 BCE).
o A single member of the Triumvirate was known as the ‘triumvir’.
o 52 BCE, Pompey was appointed sole consul, quickly passed retroactive laws
concerning corruption and gang violence. By this point the Triumvirate was
already dissolved (in 53 BCE), as Crassus had been killed during an unsuccessful
invasion of Parthia.
o Eventually, Pompey worked with the senate to neutralize Caesar, who had been
gaining extraordinary military influence due to his activities in Gaul and was seeking
a 2nd consulship.
o The senate soon passed a senatus consultum ultimum on January 7, 49 BCE.
Within days Caesar led his soldiers across the Rubicon River to invade Italy,
initiating another civil war. Caesar soon gained control of the Roman world in the
years following and Pompey died in Egypt fleeing his defeat at Pharsalus in
Northern Greece. Remaining Pompeian army was defeated in 45 BCE at the
Battle of Munda in Spain.
-
 - Caesar exercised his power by implementing a variety of administrative reforms:
o Increased the size of the senate (some were his supporters)
o Founded colonies (both citizens and veterans)
o Instituted the Julian calendar.
- In his will, he adopted his great-nephew Octavian (Augustus) as his son. Caesar was
suspected to be made king and worshipped long after his death and to create a Julian
Dynasty.
- 44 BCE, March 15 – Caesar was stabbed to death by senatorial conspirators led by
Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus.
o Anger spread and the tyrannicides were soon ushered out of Rome.
- The 2nd Triumvirate was formed by Octavian, Marc Anthony and Marcus Aemilius
Lepidus in 43 BCE.
o Unlike the first, this was official, and its sole purpose was to pursue Caesar’s
assassins.
o Brutus and Cassius would die in 42 BCE after their defeat at Philippi in Greece.
After their defeat the triumvirate decided to divide control of Rome amongst its
members.
o In mid-30s BCE, Lepidus became insignificant and the Marc and Octavian
were in conflict. Since both had the same amount of legitimacy of Rome, it was
not clear that one had more right to supremacy than the other.
o Marcus soon married Cleopatra (332-30 BCE), and Octavian made this to his
advantage making himself as the defender of Roman culture while labelling Marc
under an Egyptian’s Queen’s spells.
o 31 BCE Battle of Actium, Marc’s and Cleopatra’s forces were defeated an they
soon fled to Egypt where they soon commit suicide, and Egypt were added to
Rome’s Empire.
o Octavian, now named himself Augustus (27 BCE), was no in complete control,
with the Republic gone, the Principate had begun.
AUGUSTUS
- Augustus led political shift from combination of aristocratic and democratic systems
during the Republic to autocracy of the Empire.
- Augustus was the princeps (“the leading man”) and primus inter pares (“first among
equals”)
- By 12 BCE, Augustus had become pontifex maximus, a position that he and all
successive emperors would hold and that would focus religious authority in the person of
the emperor.
- Also reconstructed Roman state’s economic foundation, establishing a provincial census
upon which a system of direct taxation could be built.