The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire
Rome was founded by an agrarian Italic peoples living south of the Tiber river. They were a tribal people and the social logic of tribal organization dominated Roman society in both its early and late histories. The date of the founding of Rome is uncertain, but archaeologists date its founding to around 753 BC, although it probably existed as a small village long before then. As the Romans steadily developed their city, its government, and its culture, they imitated the neighboring civilization to the north, the Etruscans. The Etruscans, though, as they saw the power and influence of the Latin city to their south grow, would take over the government from these new, threatening people.
The early Roman government was a monarchy, but it was founded on a tribal logic. The monarch was given absolute power over the people; the Romans called this power imperium . However, the monarch's relationship to the people was seen as similar or identical to the power a father had over his household; in other words, the Roman monarchy was strictly patriarchal. The relationship between a patriarch and his family is a relationship of mutual obligations, and this is how the Romans understood the monarchy. In early Roman society, however, the father exercised incredible authority over the family. The father could sell his children into slavery (or could kill them if he could justify it). This arbitrary power was limited: before a father sold or killed his children, he was required to consult with the family and with the public. While the father was not allowed to kill or sell his wife, he was allowed to divorce her; this was allowed, however, only in the most extreme circumstances. In addition, the father served as the priest of the family. In many ways, the Roman monarch followed this model of power: absolute but limited by the people, their welfare, and tradition. The monarch served as a legislator, as the head of the military, as the head of the judiciary, and as a chief priest to the people. His authority, however, was limited and controlled by a constitution which he was powerless to change.
The monarch ruled alongside a Senate and an assembly. The Senate was a council of elders, a weak oligarchy, that was composed of the heads of various clan groups. These elders were originally clan leaders (and this function probably didn't change), so the Senate in its earliest form was a kind of clan confederacy. The Senate had the power to approve or veto the appointment of the king, so no individual could ascend the throne without the approval of the clan leaders. The Senate also judged the legislation and actions of the king to make sure that they accorded both with the constitution and with traditional custom; while the Senate seems to have ratified just about everything the king decided, they still exercised an important check on monarchical power. In this respect, the early Roman Senate served largely the same function that the Supreme Court serves in the United States.
The assembly consisted of all male citizens of Rome; citizenship was granted only to individuals who could demonstrate that both parents were native Romans. The assembly's principle function was to grant imperium to the monarch ratified by the Senate; there was, therefore, a limited democracy in the Roman kingdom: the clan leaders approved the candidate for king and the entire male population of Rome handed the king absolute rule. The assembly was organized into thirty groups based on kinship lines; each group got a single vote, so there were a grand total of thirty votes in the assembly. Each group would base its vote on the majority decision of the group. So while the citizens had a certain amount of say in the government in the assembly, that influence was greatly diminished by its diffusion in the group vote.
During the monarchy, Rome greatly expanded its control over surrounding territories. The monarchy itself had been established with the express purpose of providing stability and security; the conquest of surrounding territories were undertaken with the same goals in mind. It doesn't seem that the Romans were particularly greedy for land or wealth; their conquests seem largely motivated by anxieties over the threat to their security posed by the surrounding populations. As their territorial power grew, however, they attracted the notice of the powerful Etruscans to the north who, in the middle of the sixth century BC, took over the government of Rome. From the middle of the sixth century, the Roman monarchs became Etruscan, and the Romans bitterly resented it. Finally, when an Etruscan prince of the Etruscan family that ruled Rome, the Tarquins, raped the wife of a patrician, the Romans rose up in revolt and threw the Tarquins out of power in 509 BC. While the rape of Lucretia and the overthrow of the Tarquins by Junius Brutus may be fictional (then again, it may not), the expulsion of the Etruscan monarchs began the decline in Etruscan power and civilization.
At the time, Rome was divided into two social class groups. They were the rich and powerful patricians and the poor, hardworking plebeians. The patricians were the only ones allowed to hold office and made up laws to cheat the plebeians of their hard earned money. This was changed by consuls who wrote down all the laws on twelve tablets, so no one could cheat the poor plebeians.
Plebeians were farmers or storekeepers. They lived in tiny apartments in small square five story apartment buildings called insulae. They spent most of their time working and their children did not go to school. Patricians had large beautiful houses with skylights to collect rainwater. Patrician girls and boys went to school, but boys went on with more schooling called a rhetoric education. They needed this education to get successful careers such becoming a as politicians.
When you were in a patrician house, you ate while lying on your side. The people who had a higher social level were served better food. For entertainment, people went to the coliseum. Gladiators (usually criminals) fought against animals such as lions. Sometimes they fought against each other. When an opponent was down, the crowd gave a thumbs up sign if they wanted him to live and a thumbs down sign if they wished for him to die. Also, they had chariot races with hairpin turns at the Circus. Slaves had to stand all during the whole performance the way at the top, plebeians sat in the middle section, and patricians sat down on the bottom near the front. The emperor sat in a balcony seat. The way they could tell if you were a patrician, or not, is if you had a royal purple hem at the bottom of your toga.
Rome had a government that was ever-changing to meet the needs of the people. At first it was kings, then emperors. Rome had to consuls, the senators and the assembly called the comita centuriata. There was one man who claimed himself as leader, Julius Caeser. There were some who opposed his rule during the time of Pax Romana, a great period of peace and wealth in Rome. One of the leaders of the rebel groups was Brutus, Caeser's so-called trusted friend. A fortune-teller told Caeser to beware the Ides of March (March 15), but he took no heed. On March 15, Brutus and his rebels stabbed him 23 times. As he lay dying, he asked, "Et tu Brute?" which means, "You too, Brutus?" in Latin. Brutus thought he had saved the republic by preventing Ceaser from claiming himself as king. No way, José! It caused 13 years of civil war! Finally, a man named Octavian stepped forward. He changed his name to Augustus and was proclaimed emperor. The people had been waiting for a strong leader to bring them out of the toils of war.
A man named Jesus, a Jew, changed some of the ways of the Jewish religion. Christianity did not begin until after his death. His apostles belived he was the messiah. While Jews were treated unfairly, Christians were killed and persecuted. Christianity was outlawed until an emperor named Constantine became interested in it. He helped Christianity grow but wasn't baptized until shortly before his death.
Rome, then, was starting to decline. The armies had grown so used to being pampered, that now they were weak. Taxes were out of control. One emperor tried to rearrange everything, but it still did not succeed. The empire was split in two. The Western Empire's capital was Rome while the Eastern Empire's was Constantinople, founded by Constantine. The two rulers worked side by side to help rebuild Rome but to no avail. Barbarians, attracted by the wealthy cities and rich farmland, they attacked leaving Rome in ruins. The greatest empire of all time had fallen.