Ancient Rome: Geography, Myth, and Reality

• “The best way to know yourself is to study history”

Geography and Myth vs. Reality

• Rome is located south of the alps called the Apennine Peninsula.
• The city was built on seven hills, hence its reference as the City of Seven Hills, and sits on the Tiber River.
• Origin Story: Legend states twin princes of Alba Longa, sons of Mars and great grandsons of Aeneas, were left for dead along the Tiber.
• The twins, Romulus and Remus, survived against the odds, were saved by a wolf and raised by a local farmer.
• The twins set off to found a city and on April 21, 753 BC, on Palatine Hill, Romulus killed Remus, and the city was subsequently named.
• Origin Reality: Rome was founded around 800 BC by the Latin people in central Italy, arriving around 1000 BC.
• Rome consisted of farms and small tribal organizations, founded by outcasts from the Alba Longa kingdom, until the Age of Kings.

The Age of Kings (~800-509 BC)

• Rome is remembered for seven legendary kings, contributing one major innovation to the growing city, known as the Age of Kings.
• The kings were not hereditary, rather chosen by some people.
• Romulus, the first king, established the first Roman Senate to serve under him.
• The descendants of these first 100 senators would make up the Roman Patrician class.
• All other citizens are part of the Plebeian class.
• Patricians inherited social status, but could be wealthy or in poverty, while Plebs were every other free-born man.
• Tarquan the Proud, the final Roman king, was overthrown in 509 BC. In that same year, the Romans established the consul system and the Republic.

The Early Republican Period (509-390 BC)

• In 509 Rome established Res Publica, or the Republic, meaning public affairs.
• A republic is a government system in which representatives are elected to represent the interests of the citizens.
• Two consuls were in charge of the Republic, holding power of a king, elected for one year, and ineligible for reelection for 10 years.
• A dictator could rule with absolute power for 6 months during military crisis.
• The Republican government representatives together made up the Roman Senate responsible for issuing decrees had with no legal force, but were typical followed.
• SPQR: Senatus Populus que Romanus translates to The Senate and the Roman People Equal in Rights.
• Cincinnatus: The legacy of giving up power is found in Cincinnatus, the Roman George Washington, that served as consul in 460 BC, and dictator twice, in 458 and 439 BC.
• Each time Cincinnatus fulfilled his duty and gave up his power, without issue.
• In 451 BC, Roman laws were written down in the Twelve Tablets, located in the Roman public space.
• Women, immigrants, and non-free born men had no rights in the Roman republic.
• All free-men were subject to the same codes of conduct and behavior, therefore Rome will follow the objectivity of a written law.

The Middle Republican Period (390-146 BC)

• Plebeian class: The Plebs made up the majority of the Roman army, and the Plebs used this class power as a bargaining chip to win political and social rights.
• The tribunes were established in the 490s, a political body to represent the plebs in front of the senate, with veto power.
• The first Pleb was elected consul in 366 BC. By the 3rd century, wealthy plebs, referred to as members of the Equestrian Class, had all the rights of the patricians.
• The Plebs wanted Land triggering the Romans set out to conquer more.
• The Battle of Allia (390 BC): In 390 BC, at the Battle of Allia, the Gauls sacked Rome.
• All of the prior Roman records before the Battle of Allia were lost in the sack of Rome.
• At the time of the Battle of Allia, Roman territory barely surpassed the city walls, then in the 4th C., Rome began its long march towards massive expansion.
• Roman Legions: Rome had a standing army, of full time soldiers, a legion consisted of 5,000 infantry, organized into centuries of 80 men, with 120 supporting calvary.
• All land-owning citizens were required to serve in the army, where Romans asked little of their conquered peoples: Act as Roman allies, and supply troops for the legions.
• After Allia the Roman legions fought in maniples, which is more flexible where the maniple can move forward and backwards without compromising the battle line.

The Punic Wars

• The Carthaginians took the western half of Sicily, who were the economic power of the Mediterranean.
• Carthage was founded by Phoenician traders around 800 BC as an autonomous colony, thus the Phoenicians are referred to as Punic people.
• Carthage was the leading economic power in the Western Mediterranean at the inception of war, and had been through the 4th century.
• Difference from Rome Warriors vs Businessmen, Inherited social rights vs social rights as a consequence of economic power.

The First Punic War (264-241 BC), or the War for Sicily: Began on Sicily at the Battle of Agrigentum

• In 262, with eight legions, Rome sieges Agrigentum, eventually Carthage takes arms against Rome, and Rome wins.
• The victorious army plundered the defeated city, inspiring resistance.
• The Carthaginian cities had strong walls and ports so they could not be sieged.
• Standstill on Sicily triggered the Battle of Mylae
• Carthage had a great navy, Rome a great land army. So Rome built a navy, modeled after the Carthaginian fleet, 120 ships in two months.
• They developed the corvus, a makeshift bridge allowing boarding to make a sea battle an infantry battle.
• At the Battle of Mylae: 145 Carthaginian ships, 130 Roman ships, and the corvus worked!, but it never worked again.
• Still perhaps the largest sea battle in history: The Battle of Economus.
• In 256 Rome attempts to invade North Africa, with the Battle of Economus, between 600 ships and 300,000 soldiers.
• Rome won due to the bumbling of Ecnomus, Rome lands in North Africa in winter then general Regulus is told to wait when he led Rome into a hill battle against the Punic forces at Aspis.
• Regulus demands such absurd terms, that the surrender fails.
• Carthage hires the general Xanthippus of Sparta to take over.
• In 255, Xanthippus challenged Regulus at the Battle of Tunis, deploying the Numidian Cavalry, which does not wear armor nor hold heavy weaponry, then deploy the war elephants.
• Rome lost over 10,000 men when Regulus was taken prisoner during the war.
• The war will ends in Sicily then in 244, Hamilcar drove the Romans off of Sicily where in 241.
• Rome blockaded Sicily to starve out the garrison and so Hamilcar must surrender.
• Hamilcar makes his 9 year old son swear an oath of eternal hatred against the city that took everything away from him.

The Second Punic War (218-201 BC), or the War with Hannibal

• Hannibal is 25 when he takes control over the Punic army, and grew up in the military camps.
• In 219 BC, Hannibal sieges Saguntum, a Roman ally beginning the Second Punic War.
• In October 218, Hannibal led infantry, cavalry, elephants, OVER THE ALPS in 15 days shocking the Romans.
• Hannibal lost half his men and half his elephants, and many deserted
• The Battle at the river Trebia was the first major battle on Italian soil when Hannibal sent the Numidian Cavalry to assault the Roman camp where thousands of Romans were killed.
• In 217, to avoid the secured Italian concrete roads, Hannibal marched his army through neck-high swamp when Hannibal lost one of his eyes, then he killed 30,000 of the 40,000 Roman soldiers at Trasimene.
• Subsequently Fabius elected dictator and employed his now famous Fabii Tactics, meaning stall.
• In 216, the Romans elected Varro consul, and during Fabius' term, he promised to raise a massive army and wipe out Hannibal where he raised 16 legions composing of 80,000 soldiers.
• At the time, Hannibal had 40,000 infantry and 10,000 calvary.
• At the Battle of Cannae, Varro chose without space between them, Hannibal easily outflanked and surrounded.
• The worst loss in Roman history: 70,000 legionnaires died when Hannibal was taking hundreds of years and dismantling it one by one.
• At Cannae the new Roman elite will now be made up of who show the greatest merit.
• Social mobility is the ability for an individual to move from a class with fewer rights and privileges to one with more.
• After Cannae, Hannibal chooses not to attack Rome, where he marauded around central Italy for 17 more years with a war of attrition.
• In 211, Hannibal fought his way to two miles out of the Roman city walls, but never attempted to take the city.
• In 211 BC, Scipio Africanus willingly flouted, meaning willing disobeyed tradition.
• He was super charismatic when at 25, Scipio said let me take Spain, then in 206, Rome ruled Spain.
• In 205, the senate let Scipio attack Carthage itself where After Utica, the Numidian Cavalry defects to align with Rome.
• Hannibal is forced to rush back to defend his city when Hannibal, recalled to North Africa, meets Scipio at the Battle of Zama.
• Apparently, before the Battle of Zama, which ended the Second Punic War, the legendary generals Hannibal and Scipio met upon the battlefield.
• Hannibal lost one battle in his career, at Zama, and subsequently Hannibal himself forced the senate to agree to terms of surrender so Carthage agreed to pay a massive sum to Rome.

A Third Punic "War."

• The population of Rome declined by 17% over the war, and the treasury was empty, but Romans think the Carthaginians are trying to flex.
• The Third Punic War (149-146 BC): Romans burn the city down and spread salt across the ground so nothing can grow on the land ever again, and 50,000 Punic people were sold into slavery.

The Late Republican Period (146 BC-27 BC)

• Senators utilize the Roman state to enrich themselves with huge farms, along with hire massive mobs of people to support them including the services that would later be understood as human rights.

The emergence of the Populares and Optimates:

• In 133 BC, there was a crop shortage and economic downturn where those who fought for political change and for the masses were called the Populares, and those who fought to keep things the same were the Optimates.
• The Gracchi Brothers, fought against the Optimates and for land redistribution, referred to as agrarian reforms.
• The Gracchi introduced mob violence into Roman politics, when then they were murdered.

Gaius Marius and Sulla

• Gaius Marius: a novus homo, means new man, not born a big shot who was consul introduces the Marian Reforms to the Legions.
• To be a soldier in the legions meant no property qualifications, anyone can join and Marius will go on to be elected consul seven times, including five straight times from 104-100 BC stating that Marius was reshaping the legions.
• In 88 BC, Marius' former lieutenant, Sulla, became consul, a bonafide conservative.
• Marius marshaled his followers and forced Sulla to flee Rome when Sulla marched a legion into Rome, evicted Marius and declared the old man an enemy of the state creating Sulla's Civil War.
• Those on Sulla's side summarily dominate the Marian partisans and win the civil war in 82 BC.
• At the very beginning of 81 BC, Sulla was named Dictator for Life, where As Dictator, Sulla started the proscription list: A literal list of political enemies.
• Sulla restored the power of the Senate, removed any vestiges of power for the Tribune, and stepped down from his position as Dictator.

Gaius Julius Caesar

• Gaius Julius Caesar was born on Quintilis 13, 100 BC, from an ancient Patrician family which had fallen on hard times, and fled Sulla.
• In 69 BC, at the age of 30, Caesar was elected governor of a Roman region in Spain where Caesar stated "Do you think I have not just cause to weep when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable?”
• Caesar embarked on a highly ambitious political career promoting populare issues where he teamed up with Crassus and Pompey to form the First Triumvirate.
• In 59 BC, Caesar was elected consul and passed a major land distribution act triggering him to flee to the North.
• In January 10, 49 BC, Caesar took one legion, The Thirteenth and crossed the Rubicon River and marched his army towards Rome by declaring “the die is cast”.
• Caesar eventually wins the upper hand at the Battle of Pharsalus while Pompey flees to Egypt and then assassinated.
• In 47 BC, Caesar wrote veni, vidi, vici as then in Summer 46 BC, Caesar returns to Rome where he changed the calendar to account for leap years, the Julian calendar.
• In 44 BC, Caesar was named Dictator for Life, then rival senators planned to kill Caesar on The Ides of March, March 15, 44 BC and stabbed 23 times on the senate floor.

From Republic to Empire

• This triggered to more years of civil war where Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian defeated Cassius and Brutus to win the civil war.
• After a long siege, on September 2, 31 BC, at the naval Battle of Actium, Octavian defeats Antony, became the undisputed leader of Rome, and in 27 BC, accepted the title of Augustus, establishing himself being the Roman emperor.
• Octavian called himself Princeps, or first citizen after the Roman Republic ending.

Imperial Rome (27 BC-476 AD)

• Pax Romana means Roman Peace, along with massive expansion and power.
• The Roman Emperors of Pax Romana come from the dynasties, The Julio-Claudian Dynasty, the Flavian Dynasty, and the Nerva-Antonine Dynasty.

The Fall of Rome

• The Crisis of the Third Century: Between 235-284 AD, there were somewhere between 25-30 emperors.
• Borders of the Empire were harassed by barbarian tribes, notably by the Germanic Tribes and Economic downturn due to hyperinflation and widespread economic hardship.
• In late summer in 410 AD, Alaric the Visigoth took Rome where he met no resistance, and for three days the Goths pillaged.
• In 455, the Vandals take their turn and sack Rome again followed by In 476 AD, Odoacer marched on the young Emperor Romulus Augustulus at his seat in Ravenna with that, the Western Roman Empire was over.