ROME

• MEMBERS:Isabella FloresJohan Sierra• CLASS:

Social Studies

Rome´s Geography and Early Settlement

• The first settlers on Rome´s seven hills were not thinking about building a great empire.

• They chose there because it seemed to be a good place to live, hills helped to defend, soil was fertile, and it had a river.

THE ETRUSCANS• 600 B.C. this people appeared and held power in

Rome.

• They didn´t want to have more kings, so they wanted a government that did not rely on one ruler. In a republic, citizens who have the right to vote select their leaders.

THE ROMAN SENATE

• The most powerful part of the government was the senate, this was the branch that proposes and votes on new laws. At first, the senate was made up of only of 300 upper-class men called patricians. A patrician was a member of a wealthy family.

• Ordinary citizens were known as plebeians. They couldn´t hold office or be senators.

• Two chief officials called consuls led the government. The consuls were elected by the assembly of citizens. They ruled for one year only. If only one consul said “veto”(“I Forbid”), the matter was dropped. A Veto is the rejection of any planned action by a person in power.

OTHER IMPORTANT OFFICIALS

Praetors(PREE turz) were other important officials. They functioned as junior consuls, and judges in civil-law trials.

Dictators were roman official who had all the powers of a king but could hold office for only six months.

DECLINE OF THE REPUBLIC

• Rome was in trouble by 120 B.C. some leaders tried to break up estates and give land to the plebeians, the patricians fought back and plebeian leaders were murdered.

• Julius Caesar rise, he was a smart leader he eager for power from 58 to 51 B.C., He became dictator in 48 B.C. 4 years later war continued.

• On march 15, 44 B.C., caesar had plans to attend a meeting of the senate, his wife telled not to go because she sensed danger, he didn´t obey, at the meeting a group of senators gathered around caesar, they pulled out some knives and killed him.

ROMAN EMPIRE

RULING AN EMPIRE

• Augustus was an intelligent ruler. When he wasstruggling for power, he often ignored the senateans its laws. After he own control, he changed hismanner, he showed respect and he was careful to avoid acting like a king, he didn´t wanted to suffer the same as Julius Caesar.

The five “Good Emperors”

• Two of the worst were Caligula and Nero, both may have been insane.

• Caligula proclaimed himself a god and was cruel, unfair ruler.

• Nero murdered his half-brother, his mother, and his wife.

• In fact, Caligula and Nero were so despised the Romans later tried to forget them by removing mention of their reigns from official records.

• The greatest of the five was Hadrian, he worked hard to build a good government, his laws protected women, children, and slaves. He issued a code of laws so that all laws were the same throughout the empire.

• The last of the “Good Emperors”, Marcus Aurelius, chose his son Commodus to follow him. Commodus was a terrible leader who ruled with great brutality.

The Greek Influence on Rome

• The Romans admired Greek achievements.RELIGION• Greek religion influenced Roman religion. Like the

Greeks, Romans practiced polytheism-the belief in more than one god-and offered prayers and sacrifices to their gods.

BUILDING ON IDEAS• The greeks were interested in ideas, they sought to learn

truths about the world throughreason. They developed studies such as mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy, or the study of the stars and planets.

Architecture and Technology• Roman statues and buildings

were heavier and stronger in style than those of the Greeks. Romans made advances in the use of the arch-a curved structure used as a support over an open space, as in a doorway.

The colosseum. Possibly the greatest Roman building was the Colosseum, the site of contests and combats between people and between people and animals.

Roads an Aqueducts. They built roads from Rome to every part of the empire. They were famous for their aqueducts, structures that carried water over long distances.

Roman Law

• The laws spread throughout the empire.

• The great Roman Cicero expressed Roman feeling about law when he said, “What sort of thing is the law? It is the kind the cannot be bent by influence, or broken by power, or spoiled by money.”

• The ruler Justinian created a code of justice from Roman law. It included this laws:

“No one suffers a penalty for what he thinks. No one may be forcibly removed from his own house. The burden of proof is upon the person who accuses. In inflicting penalties, the age and inexperience of the guilty party must be taken into account.”

Roman Citizens• Citizenship in ancient Rome was a privileged political and legal status afforded to freeborn individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance. Every five years Roman men registered for the census, or official count of people living in Rome.

SOCIAL CLASSES• A male Roman citizen enjoyed a wide

range of privileges and protections defined in detail by the Roman state.

• Roman women had a limited form of citizenship. Though held in high regard they were not allowed to vote or stand for civil or public office.

• Client state citizens and allies (socii) of Rome could receive a limited form of Roman citizenship such as the Latin Right. While such citizens could vote in Roman elections, it was impractical.

• Slaves were considered property and lacked legal personhood. Some slaves were freed by manumission for services rendered, or through a testamentary provision when their master died. Once free, they faced few barriers.

• Freedmen were former slaves who had gained their freedom.

ROMAN FAMILY LIFE

• Life for women in Roman times was often hard. Mother was less important than father in the family.

• Father had the power of life or death over everyone. When a new baby was born it would be laid at its father's feet - if the father picked the baby up it would live, but if he ignored the baby it would be taken away to die.

• Women were expected to run the home, cook meals, and raise children. If they were wealthy, women were lucky; they had slaves to do the work.

• Many girls were married at the age of 14. Marriages were often arranged between families. A man could divorce his wife if she did not give birth to a son. Many women died young (in their 30s), because childbirth could be dangerous, and diseases were common.

CHRISTIANITY• Religion was very

important to the Romans. Within the Roman Empire, Christianity was banned and Christians were punished for many years. Feeding Christians to the lions was seen as entertainment in Ancient Rome.

• The message of Christianity was spread around the Roman Empire by St. Paul who founded Christian churches in Asia Minor and Greece. Eventually, he took his teachings to Rome itself.

THE FALL OF ROME

The invading army reached the outskirts of Rome, which had been left totally undefended. In 410 C.E., the Visigoths, led by Alaric, breached the walls of Rome and sacked the capital of the Roman Empire.

The Visigoths looted, burned, and pillaged their way through the city, leaving a wake of destruction wherever they went. The plundering continued for three days. For the first time in nearly a millennium, the city of Rome was in the hands of someone other than the Romans. This was the first time that the city of Rome was sacked, but by no means the last.