world cultures

Introduction

After the death of Alexander in 323 B.C.E, his empire was divided among his generals. For the next few hundred years the Greek culture settled in the customs of the people it had invaded through Alexander. However, while this was happening the Roman people were starting to create their own landmark in history. Eventually, Rome conquered everything Alexander had taken before and more. The Romans were not so interested in culture itself, but in managing their business in effective ways. Rome started as a tribe and ended up being the empire that gave us law, engineering, and a will to always move forward toward their goals. Romans never gave up even when they were defeated. But there is no such thing as a Roman Empire in the present. Let us see what happened to the Romans from republic to empire, to vanishing. Some people might argue that the Romans did not vanish. They are in our architecture, in our aqueducts, in our government. They are in the fact what the Christian religion was able to use to spread its message, later conquering the empire itself.

The village called Rome in central Italy was settled by an Iron Age tribe called the Latins. From them, the Romans inherited the Latin language which does not survive today as a common language but is used in science. The rest of Italy was settled by Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians. All these cultures came at different moments through time to establish colonies in today’s Italy. The Latins absorbed the culture of other peoples. From the Etruscans, they inherited urban planning, the use of the arch and sarcophagi art (Fiero, 2020). From the Greeks: gods and goddesses, and the Classical style.

Zucker, S. – Smarthistory. (2014). 

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Around 509 B.C.E., the Latins overthrew Etruscan rule. There is a legend that up to this day we do not know if it is true, that a Roman woman called Lucretia was raped by the son of an Etruscan king and this made the Romans mad, and they dethroned the Etruscan king. but part of being Roman was telling these types of stories to create a sense of belonging and pride. We will see that the Romans kept using this type of heroic and honor-related stories to spread a sense of pride about being Roman. 

Butko. (2017). 

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After getting rid of the Etruscan king the Romans decided to form a Res publica, a “public thing”. From now on the Romans were going to take care of their own business and they started developing a cautious approach when any of the members of the community would develop too much power. We will see later how this manifested in the assassination of Julius Caesar. But the government the Romans put together was constituted by members of the patrician families. The patricians were the rich in the Roman republic. They thought that by being patrician by birth gave them the right to rule. 

The popular assembly was made up of plebeians, or members of the plebs. These were the majority. The plebeians had no power and were victim to the decisions dictated by the ruling class of patricians. It took hundreds of years but eventually the plebeians gained two elected magistrates that, although they could not be members of the senate, had the power to overturn any law proposed by the patricians. By 287 B.C.E. the plebeians gained the privilege of making laws. Eventually some of the plebeians became wealthy through their businesses but aligned with the interests of the patricians. 

Rome was in constant conflict with its immediate neighbors, either because they wanted to expand or because they were being invaded. As Rome expanded within Italy, it adopted different approaches toward the people they conquered. Eventually they realized that it was more effective to turn them to their side by including them in their army, giving them special participation in Rome’s interests, or by giving them citizenship. Rome basically united all Italy by either negotiation or force. We could say that at this moment in history Italy was Rome, or at least it was ruled by the government settled in Rome. We must remember that even at this moment Rome still considered itself a republic. 

Kagan, et al. (2004).

As Rome took over all of Italy it dominated commerce and trade in the Mediterranean. However, there was a country named Carthage that had settled in the north of Africa, across from Rome, that was very successful in business and had established colonies in key points around the Mediterranean Sea to trade freely with them. The Phoenicians were originally from the east coast of the Mediterranean and had fled to the north of Africa. They were very successful in trading, so they became a direct competition to Rome. A series of conflict involving colonies in the south of Italy got the Romans and the Carthaginians involved in what has been called the Punic Wars. After many years the conflict ended with destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C.E.

Now Rome did not have any more competition. From then on, Rome was the only power around the Mediterranean so they called it Mare Nostrum, our sea.  By the end of the first century B.C.E., the Roman Empire included much of present-day Europe, North Africa, and southwest Asia. To run an empire, the Romans needed to be efficient administrators. To rule by force, they needed an army that was disciplined and which became the backbone of the Empire.

The Republic Collapses (133 – 30 B.C.E.)

As Rome expanded, the meaning of 
republic changed. Although Romans still thought they had a republic, it was starting to feel more like an empire. The army was composed of patricians and people who were wealthy enough to have their own war equipment. When the Roman army invaded a country, the soldiers got richer. So, the rich got richer and the poor, poorer. The senate members grew richer as the lands they acquired through conquering gave them also slaves which were very cheap labor. The army grew more powerful, and Rome was obliged to keep expanding continuously. The farms owned by the patricians and worked by slaves drove small farmers out of business.

All attempts to reform the government failed. The power of making final decisions was in the hands of a corrupted senate that was not willing to give up their place. The first century B.C.E. became the age of military dictators (Fiero, 2020).  

Enters Gaius Julius Caesar

mmarftrejo. (2010). 

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Caesar was a patrician. But his heart, or his wit, was with the plebeians. He knew that the plebs had the numbers to get things done. Caesar was very popular among the people. He was being extremely successful in his military campaigns in Gaul (modern France), Asia Minor, and Egypt (with Cleopatra). The level of corruption in the senate was extremely influential in what Rome could achieve. Caesar was becoming too popular, big, and strong for the senate. They asked him to return to Rome, disbanding his army in the process. Caesar knew that if he returned to Rome as a common civilian he would be put on trial and his enemies would find a way to put him away, or worse.

Caesar then paid no attention to the senate’s orders and marched on Rome crossing the Rubicon River, which was a symbolic move, but also a very dangerous one. The moment Caesar entered Roman limits with his army he became an outlaw.

But there was no one to stop him. Pompey, who had been a friend before, and now had been assigned by the senate to fight Caesar, had left Rome with his own army because he knew he did not stand a chance against Caesar fighting inside Rome. Eventually Caesar conquered all his enemies and ended up dictator of Rome. He put together many populist reforms that won him the support of the people, but not so much of the ones in power, the senate, who were afraid of Caesar acquiring too much power. In 44 B.C.E. he was assassinated when he entered the senate by a conspiracy put together by some of the senators. The death of Caesar was a major shift in the history of ancient Rome. His grandnephew, Octavian, inherited Caesar’s empire. Octavian is the first emperor of Rome that openly controlled everything being done in the empire with a subtle, almost invisible hand that forced everyone around him to obey or else.