The Rise of Rome
"Who is so thoughtless and lazy that does not want to know in what way and with what kind of government the Romans in less than 53 years conquered nearly the entire inhabited world and brought it under their rule - an achievement previously unheard of?" This question was asked by Polybius, a Greek historian who lived in the second century B.C.
-the achievement Polybius was speaking off was Romans ability to not only conquer peoples but to incorporate them into the Roman system.
-Romes greatest achievements were their llaws.
The Land and the Sea
-Italy occupies the center of the Mediterranean basin. The distance between southwestern Sicily and the northern African coast is at one point only about a hundred miles. 
-Italy enjoys a subtropical climate.
-Italy’s rivers were unsuitable foor regular large scale shipping so they were encouraged to the Mediterranean.
-The Apennines hindered but did not preveent peoples from penetrating Italy from the north.
-Geography proved kinder to Italy than too Greece. Latium and Campania were two broad and fertile plains that attracted settlers. Among these peoples were the Romans, who established their city on the Tiber River in Latium.
-The famous seven hills of Rome were defeensible and safe from the floods of the Tiber.
The Etruscans and Rome (750-509 B.C.)
-The Etruscans were one of the most mysterious peoples of antiquity. They formed the towns and villages in Italy.
-Our alphabet today came from the Etruscaans.
-The Etruscans exported their rich mineraal resources to pay for luxury goods imported from the eastern Mediterranean. They also created an export market in olive oil and wine. 
-They formed a loosely organized league oof cities whose domination extended as far north as the Po Valley and as far south as Latium and Campania. 
-By the seventh century B.C. they had fullly entered the cosmopolitan life of the Mediterranean world.
The Romans
-Archaeology places the Romans on the site of modern Rome in the eighth century B.C. The Etruscans found them settled on three of Rome’s seven hills.
-According to Roman legend, Romulus and RRemus founded Rome in 753 B.C. Romulus built his settlement on the Palatine Hill, while Remus chose the Aventine. Jealous of his brother’s work, Remus ridiculed it by jumping over Romulus’s unfinished wall. In a rage Romulus killed his brother and vowed, "So will die whoever else shall leap over my wall’s."
Pomerium- a sacred boundary intended to keep out anything evil or unclean. This was an Eturscan concept.
-The Romans adopted the toga, the vault,  and the arch from the Etruscans.
-Under the Etruscans, Rome enjoyed contaccts with the larger Mediterranean world, and the city began to grow. Capitoline Hill became the religious center of the city when the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was built there. The Forum ceased to be a cemetery and began its history as a public meeting place.
-The Etruscans had found Rome a collectioon of villages and made it a city.
The Roman Conquest of Italy (509-290 B.C.)
-According to Roman tradition, the Romans expelled the Etruscan king Tarquin the Proud from Rome in 509 B.C. and founded the republic. They than form alliances with the Latin towns around them which provided them with a large reservoir of manpower.
-Not until roughly a century after the foounding of the republic did the Romans drive the Etruscans entirely out of Latium. 
-Around 390 B.C. the Romans suffered a maajor setback when a new people, the Celts- or Gauls, as the Romans called them- swept aside a Roman army and sacked Rome. 
-From 390 to 290 B.C. the Romans rebuilt  their city and also reorganized their army to create the mobile legion.
-In 343 B.C they grappled with the Samnittes in a series of bitter wars for the possession of Campania and southern Italy.
-The Romans spread their culture through  religious cults, mythology, and drama. They shared their religious beliefs with others, which in turn furthered the Romanization of Italy. The Italians thus learned of particular Roman deities and their religious traditions. The Romans and Italians grew closer together by the mutual understanding of and participation in the religious rites of Roman cults.
-Drama gave the Italian an entertaining,  pleasant, and practical understanding of Roman law and ethics.
-Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not siimply conquer and dominate. Instead, they shared with other Italians both political power and degrees of Roman citizenship. With many of their oldest allies, such as the Latin cities, they shared full Roman citizenship. 
Civitas sine suffragio- this gave Roman allies all the rights of Roman citizen except that they could not vote or hold office.
-Rome proved itself superior to the Greekk polis because it both conquered and shared the fruits of conquest with the conquered. Rome could consolidate where Greece could only dominate. 
-Roman citizenship strengthened the statee, gave it additional man-power and wealth, and laid the foundation of the Roman Empire.
The Roman State
-The real genius of the Romans lay in the fields of politics and law. They did not often speculate on the ideal state or on political forms but met actual challenges and created institutions, magistracies, and legal concepts to deal with practical problems. Change was consequently commonplace. 
-In the early republic, Political power wwas in the hands of the aristocracy- the patricians, who were wealthy land-owners. 
-The Plebeians- common people of RRome, had few of the Patricians advantages. Most Plebeians were poor but yet free citizens with a voice in politics.
-The Senate- originated under the  Etruscans as a council of noble elders who advised the king, who sat year after year while the magistrates changed annually. This provided stability and continuity. The senate could not pass legislation, it could only offer its advice. 
-The Romans created several assemblies thhrough which the people elected magistrates and passed legislation. These assemblies were:
the Comitia Curiata- which had religious, political, and military functions
the comitia centuriata- a military group who would help decide policy
the Concilium plebes- an assembly made up of plebeians to pass ordinances
-The chief magistrates of the republic weere the two consuls, elected for one-year terms. They and the senate ran the state. Consuls appointed quaestors to assist them. In 421 B.C. the quaestorship became an elective office open to plebeians.
-The Praetor primarily dealt with  the administration of justice. 
-Censors were responsible for the  supervision of public morals, the power to determine who lawfully could sit in the senate, and for the registration of citizens. 
-Romans divided the Mediterranean area innto provinces governed by ex-consuls and ex-praetors.
-One of the most splendid achievements off the Romans was their development of law. 
-The civil law, or ius Civile, connsisted of statutes, customs, and forms of procedure. Assemblies added to the body of law, and praetors interpreted it. 
-The spirit of the law aimed at protectinng the property, lives, and reputations of citizens, redressing wrongs, and giving satisfaction to victims of injustice.
-ius gentium- "the law of peoples,," that applied to Romans and foreigners and that laid the foundation for a universal conception of law.
-ius naturale- "natural law, a universal law that can be applied to all societies. 
Social Conflict in Rome
-The Struggle of Orders- social conflict that developed between patricians and plebeians. The plebeians wanted real political representation and safeguards against patrician domination. 
-In 494 B.C., the plebeians literally wallked out of Rome and refused to serve in the army. The patricians than passed a law, the lex Canuleia, which allowed patricians and plebeians to marry and gave plebeians the right to elect their own officials. 
-The tribunes were plebeian officiials that brought plebeian grievances to the senate for resolution.
-Only the patricians knew want the law waas. The plebeians wanted the law codified and published. The result of this was the Law of the Twelve Tables- civil and criminal law that were inscribed on large bronze plaques. They forced the patricians to publish legal procedures as well.
-In 287 B.C., the passage of a law, the \b lex Hortensia gave the resolutions of the concilium plebes the force of law for patricians and plebeians alike. Plebeians could now hold the consulship and wear the purple toga, the symbol of aristocracy. This new compromise also established a new nobility shared by the plebeians and the patricians.
Roman Expansion
-In 282 B.C. Rome expanded even farther in Italy and extended its power across the sea to Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia.
Italy Becomes Roman
-The Romans established a string of colonies throughout Italy, some of them populated by Romans and others by Latins. 
-The Genius of the Romans lay in bringingg these various peoples into one political system. They divided the Italians into two broad classes. Those living closest to Rome were incorporated into the Roman state. The other class comprised those Italians who lived farther afield. They were bound by treaty with the Romans and were considered allies.
Overseas Conquest (282-146 B.C.)
-In the barbarian West, the home of fiercce tribes, Rome resorted to bald aggression to conquer new territory. 
-The East was already heavily populated,  and those people would have become Rome’s responsibility. 
-The Greek city of Tarentum in southern IItaly called for help from Pyrrhus, king of Epirus in western Greece, a relative of Alexander the Great and an excellent general. Pyrrhus won two furious battles but suffered heavy casualties.
-In 275 B.C. the Romans drove Pyrrhus froom Italy and extended their sway over southern Italy.
The Punic Wars and Beyond (264-133 B.C.)
-By 264 B.C. Carthage was the unrivaled ppower of the western Mediterranean. Their expansion led to war with the Etruscans and Greeks, but the Carthaginians won control of parts of Sardinia, Spain, and Sicily.
-The First Punic War between Rome  and Carthage lasted 23 years(264-241 B.C.). The Romans built a navy and fought seven major battles with the Carthaginians, won six, and finally wore them down. 
-In 241 B.C. the Romans took possession oof Sicily.
-The peace treaty between the two powers  brought no peace. In 238 B.C. the Romans took advantage of Carthaginian weakness to seize Sardinia and Corsica. 
-In 237 B.C. a Carthaginian commander nammed Hamilcar led an army to Spain. With him he took his nineteen-year old son, Hannibal, but not before he had led Hannibal to an altar and made him swear ever to be an enemy to Rome.
-In 221 B.C. the young Hannibal became Caarthaginian commander in Spain. He laid siege to Saguntum. The Romans declared war, claiming that Carthage had attacked a friendly city. So began the Second Punic War.
-The Second Punic War- Hannibal struck first by marching more than a thousand miles over the Alps into Italy. He defeated one Roman army at the Battle of Trebia, another at the Battle of Lake Trasimenne in 217 B.C., and got his greatest victory at the Battle of Cannae.
-A number of cities in central and southeern Italy rebelled against Rome.
-Scipio, later better known as Scipio Afrricanus copied Hannibal’s methods of mobile warfare, streamlining the legions and introduced new weapons.
-With Hannibal bottled up in southern Itaaly, Scipio in 204 B.C. struck directly at Carthage itself. The prompted the Carthaginians to recall Hannibal from Italy to defend the homeland.
-In 202 B.C. Scipio defeated Hannibal in  one of the world’s truly decisive battles.
-The Third Punic War was a needlesss, unjust, and savage conflict that ended in 146 B.C. when Scipio Aemilianus, grandson of Scipio Africanus, destroyed the old hated rival.
Rome Turns East (211-133 B.C.)
-During the Second Punic War Philip V of  Macedonia made an alliance with Hannibal against Rome.
-The Romans headed east and found their ffirst victory came over the Macedonians in 197 B.C. After that the Roman general Titus Flamininus defeated the Spartans.
-In 189 B.C. the Seleucid kingdom fell too the Romans.
-The decisive victory came in 146 B.C. whhen the Romans conquered the Achaean League, sacked Corinth, and finally defeated Macedonia.
-Attalus III, the last king of Pergamum,  bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. The Ptolemies of Egypt meekly obeyed Roman wishes.
Old Values and Greek Cultue
"Acquisition of an empire was the beginning of Rome’s troubles:"