Test Bank for Making of the West Peoples and

Cultures 5th Edition Hunt Martin Rosenwein Smith

1457681439 9781457681431
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Choose the letter of the best answer.

1. Why did Vibia Perpetua refuse to offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods in an act of
defiance that led to her execution?
A) She was an adherent of a Greek mystery cult that sought mystical unity with the
god Bacchus and had no respect for the Roman divinities that served as the
emperor's patrons.
B) She believed that her Christian faith required her to place loyalty to God ahead of
her obligations to her family and the state.
C) She was outraged that the emperor, Septimius Severus, had dispensed with the
institution of the Senate and so she refused to sacrifice to the gods in protest.
D) She harbored resentment about the Roman destruction of Carthage at the close of
the Third Punic War.

2. What fundamental change took place in the army during the Pax Romana?
A) The army was put under the direct command of the Senate, which significantly
reduced the army's total number of legions.
B) The army shifted from a reliance on mercenaries to dependence on a civilian
militia.
C) The army largely took on a defensive function, protecting the frontier regions
rather than embarking on further conquests.
D) The army retreated from politics, as no further emperors were drawn from its
ranks.

3. Who formed the Second Triumvirate?

A) Brutus, Cassius, and Cato the Younger
B) Septimius Severus and his sons Caracalla and Geta
C) Antony, Octavian, and Agrippa
D) Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus

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4. How did Octavian win the Roman people's support against Antony?
A) Octavian asserted that Antony had been the mastermind behind the plot to kill
Julius Caesar and that Brutus had acted only as Antony's henchman.
B) Octavian turned many Romans against Antony by playing on their fear of
foreigners and asserting that Antony intended to make Cleopatra their ruler.
C) Octavian persuaded his sister, who was Antony's wife, to beg the Senate and
people of Rome for justice against Antony and his lover, Cleopatra.
D) Octavian promised the masses in Rome abundant grain from Egypt and promised
to award official positions and lands to the elite as soon as Antony and Cleopatra
were defeated.

5. What was the Roman political system devised by Augustus as a disguised monarchy
with the “first man” as emperor?
A) The primarium
B) The imperium
C) The regnum
D) The principate

6. How did the praetorian guard, a creation of Augustus, come to exert a critical role in
imperial politics?
A) Its defense of Rome proved critical in staving off foreign invasions.
B) It played a role in selecting (and assassinating) emperors.
C) It destroyed the remaining institutions of the republic.
D) It helped communicate Augustus's image to the public through its massive public
works projects.

7. Which of the following helped Augustus's transformation of Roman government

become permanent?
A) His reign of forty-one years was so long that by his death very few Romans had a
firsthand memory of the old republic.
B) His extensive military conquests later in life allowed him to distribute the spoils of
war to his army and to the citizens of Rome, thereby ensuring acceptance of his
new system.
C) He abolished the hallmark institutions of the republic, including the assemblies, the
consulships, the tribunes, and the Senate.
D) His heavy reliance on brute military force and his extravagant demeanor allowed
him to terrify not only his political opponents but also the entire population into
submission.

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 8. During the reign of Augustus, Rome reached a population of nearly
A) 250,000.
B) 500,000.
C) 1,000,000.
D) 2,000,000.

9. What was one of the ways that Augustus fulfilled his role as Rome's patron?
A) He created the first public fire department in Western history.
B) He established free public baths for the poor.
C) He instituted free medical care for all children.
D) He developed a mail system for Rome and the Italian peninsula.

10. Why did the birthrates of wealthy Romans decline by the first century?
A) Wealthy Romans increasingly spent money on luxuries and political careers instead
of raising families.
B) Birth-control methods were beginning to take root in patrician circles.
C) Wealthy Romans increasingly converted to Christianity, which emphasized poverty
and celibacy.
D) Too many died while fighting in the army or in the civil wars that had racked the
republic.

11. What was a fundamental difference between slavery in Rome and slavery in Greece?
A) Roman men could raise their children by female slaves as their legitimate children
and heirs.
B) Greeks tended not to enslave other Greeks, but Romans preferred Italian-born
slaves.
C) Roman slaves gained citizenship with their freedom, but Greek slaves did not.
D) Greek slaves had some legal protections against abuse, but Roman slaves did not.

12. What public function did gladiatorial combats provide in the Roman Empire?
A) They provided communication between ruler and ruled, as ordinary citizens staged
protests at events at which the emperor was present.
B) They provided a chance for emperors to enter the arena themselves and display
their courage and bravery in front of their subjects.
C) They overturned social and political hierarchies, insofar as women and the poor
were allowed to sit in the same section as the emperor and wealthy patricians.
D) They provided a chance for slaves and criminals to win their freedom.

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13. Why did the art of rhetoric enter into decline under the rule of Augustus?
A) Rhetorical skills no longer played a crucial role in politics, since the emperor's
supremacy ruled out political debate in the public sphere.
B) Augustus altered the educational system so that rhetoric was no longer taught in
schools.
C) Illiteracy rates rose drastically, as Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean
caused the number of slaves to swell.
D) Rome became so cosmopolitan and multicultural that many Roman subjects in the
Augustan period could no longer understand Latin.

14. Why did Roman education in the Augustan period remain limited?
A) Roman elites did not value education; even many of the emperors were illiterate.
B) Roman elites valued only practical subjects like mathematics and sciences and not
the humanities.
C) Most of the instruction was provided by Greek slaves.
D) There were no free public schools, so the poor received no formal education.

15. Why did the poet Ovid (43 B.C.E.–17 C.E.) fall out of favor with Augustus in 8 B.C.E.?
A) He published the irreverent and bawdy Art of Love.
B) He refused to write a poem praising the first ten years of Augustus's reign.
C) He became entangled in a scandal involving Augustus's granddaughter.
D) In his work Metamorphoses, Ovid criticized Augustus's transformation of
government.

16. Which landmark poem by Virgil told the story of one of Rome's founders and expressed
praise for Roman civilization while also indirectly alluding to problems in it?
A) Metamorphoses
B) The Odyssey
C) The Aeneid
D) The Art of Love

17. Why did Augustus not create and codify in law a formal mechanism by which all future
emperors could be chosen?
A) Augustus died before he could designate a successor.
B) Since the Roman Empire was not formally a monarchy, no successor could
automatically inherit the previous emperor's power without the Senate's approval.
C) He feared that establishing a hereditary monarchy would incur divine wrath.
D) He did not wish to limit the powers of the institutions from the republic that were
still functioning, including the assemblies and the Senate.

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18. What factor allowed Augustus's successor Tiberius to rule for twenty-three years?
A) His position as Augustus's oldest son
B) The army's loyalty to him
C) His many years of service as praetor, tribune, and consul
D) His decision to disband the Senate and rule with an iron fist

19. Which Roman emperor was assassinated by the praetorian guard in 41 C.E. after a short
but brutal reign marked by decadence and corruption?
A) Tiberius
B) Caligula
C) Nero
D) Galba

20. Claudius (r. 41–54 C.E.) set a crucial precedent when he

A) allowed foreign-born men to serve as praetors or censors.
B) banned ex-slaves from holding positions in government.
C) bribed the praetorian guard to back him as the new emperor.
D) declared that the emperor should be worshipped as a god.

21. Which Roman emperor scandalized the Roman elite when he appeared in public as a
musician and caused outrage when he faked treason charges against senators?
A) Nero
B) Titus
C) Vespasian
D) Caligula

22. Why did Vespasian allow the imperial cult to emerge only in the provinces beyond Italy
and not in Italy itself?
A) The imperial cult would have upset traditional Roman sensibilities.
B) Vespasian sought to use the imperial cult to suppress the new religion of
Christianity that was spreading in the Near East.
C) The Hellenistic regions of the Roman Empire in North Africa and the Near East
were more open to emperor worship than Italy or Greece.
D) He recognized that imposing an imperial cult predicated on submission to the
emperor would help put down rebellions outside of Italy.

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23. How did the construction of the Colosseum demonstrate the Flavian dynasty's
commitment to the well-being of the people?
A) It was deliberately built on the former site of Nero's extravagant private fishpond.
B) Titus paid for the Colosseum out of his own pocket instead of using public funds.
C) Titus paid free workers a decent wage to build it instead of using slave labor.
D) Titus used it to symbolize his promise to rebuild areas damaged by the fire of 64
C.E.

24. Which noteworthy Roman emperor originally wanted to become a philosopher but
instead became an effective defender of Roman borders on the northern frontiers?
A) Vespasian
B) Tacitus
C) Marcus Aurelius
D) Hadrian

25. The reign of the five “good emperors” (96 C.E.–180 C.E.)
A) represented the longest period without a civil war in over one hundred years.
B) brought close to one hundred years of relative peace throughout the Roman empire.
C) was the only period in which imperial cults emerged spontaneously throughout the
empire.
D) was a period of intense spiritual and philosophical exploration among the elite
classes.

26. One stabilizing factor in the reigns of the Golden Age emperors was that the first four
emperors
A) had no surviving sons and were therefore able to use adoption to find the best
possible successor.
B) engaged in shrewd public relations by stamping their images on coins, establishing
their imperial cults, and inscribing their names on public buildings.
C) generously paid an enormous number of soldiers who collected taxes and
maintained peace at all costs.
D) offered to all their loyal subjects the possibility and attendant rewards of
citizenship, regardless of gender, nationality, or ethnicity.

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27. What advantage did serving in the army confer on noncitizens from the provinces?
A) It granted them citizenship upon joining and all of the rights and privileges that
being a citizen entailed.
B) It granted them the opportunity to learn Latin, live by Roman customs, and receive
Roman citizenship upon discharge.
C) It exempted them and their extended families from taxation.
D) It earned them an audience with the emperor, who frequently granted their
extended families citizenship as well.

28. In the decentralized Roman tax system, if provincial officials (decurions) failed to
collect enough funds, they were
A) executed unless they had been victims of drought or other natural catastrophic
events.
B) replaced by officials sent directly from Rome, who did not shrink from using
Roman troops to extract the taxes.
C) expected to make up the shortfall from their own personal resources.
D) removed from office and exiled to another province.

29. Why did Romanization have less effect in the eastern provinces than in the western
provinces?
A) The religious beliefs of the peoples in the eastern provinces condemned those who
succumbed to Roman influence.
B) The peoples of western Europe were more impressed by Roman culture than were
peoples in the more advanced east and were therefore more open to adopting
Roman customs.
C) Hellenistic–Near Eastern culture had long been firmly entrenched, thus making it
difficult for Romanization to have much sway.
D) Unlike the peoples of the western provinces, who all spoke Latin, the multilingual
east found it difficult to understand and relate to Roman law, literature, and
customs.

30. What Roman writer and philosopher wrote biographies that eventually provided
inspiration for some of the plays of William Shakespeare?
A) Suetonius
B) Plutarch
C) Tacitus
D) Antoninus Pius

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31. Who wrote The Golden Ass, which tells the story of a man who is turned into a donkey
before being restored—body and soul—by the goddess Isis?
A) Virgil during the Golden Age of Latin literature
B) Ovid, hoping to please Augustus and avoid exile
C) Seneca, as a political satire
D) Apuleius during the Silver Age of Latin literature

32. Although Roman law was founded on the principle of equity, it nevertheless
A) sanctioned criminal punishments harsher than those of any other ancient culture.
B) did not judge all Roman citizens as equal before the law.
C) failed to affect the conduct of business and private agreements.
D) never recognized intention or permitted any deviation from the letter of the law.

33. What generally determined whom wealthier Romans would marry?

A) Their marriages were arranged by their families.
B) They married those persons with whom they had fallen in love.
C) They married only within their immediate families so that their families could hold
on to their wealth and property.
D) Their marriages were arranged in such a way as to encourage the favor of Jupiter.

34. According to apocalypticism, the world was ruled by

A) evil powers that would one day be crushed by the Messiah, God's chosen agent,
after which the righteous would be rewarded and the evil punished.
B) corrupt human beings whose crimes would one day incur God's wrath and cause
the destruction of earth by fire.
C) a positive divine force who secured a blessed afterlife for believers.
D) the Messiah, who was gathering the souls of the righteous into an army that would
destroy evil people throughout the world.

35. Jesus began his career as a teacher and healer during the reign of
A) Augustus.
B) Tiberius.
C) Nero.
D) Caligula.

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36. Which early Christian facilitated the spread of Christianity by opening the new religion
to non-Jews and by not requiring male converts to undergo circumcision?
A) Peter
B) Judas Iscariot
C) Titus
D) Paul of Tarsus

37. Why did the Roman governor Pontius Pilate execute Jesus of Nazareth in 30 C.E.?
A) He was offended by Jesus's teachings, which criticized deeply held notions of
social hierarchy.
B) He feared that Jesus might incite and lead a Jewish revolt against the Romans.
C) Jesus had argued that the Roman Empire was fundamentally corrupt and that Jews
should refuse to pay taxes.
D) Jesus called for an immediate revolt against the Romans.

38. Although the Romans wanted to eradicate Christianity, they stopped short of
A) imprisoning its followers.
B) executing Christian women.
C) making it illegal.
D) demanding that Christians recant their beliefs and vow allegiance to the imperial
cult.

39. Whom did the emperor Nero publicly blame for the fire that burned much of Rome in
64 C.E.?
A) Disloyal senators
B) The Roman mob
C) Christians
D) Angry gods

40. To resolve disputes over doctrine and practice in the latter first and second centuries, the
early Christians
A) established the office of bishop, which carried decisive authority.
B) held periodic councils of priests who were given the authority to settle doctrinal
disputes.
C) collected core Christian writings into the New Testament.
D) consulted the Christians of Jerusalem.

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41. A woman in the early Christian church could attain a measure of independence and
authority if she
A) received an education and taught her children reading, writing, and the scriptures.
B) served the bishops in the church by handling their domestic arrangements and
money.
C) followed traditional Jewish laws and rituals.
D) gave up the roles of wife and mother to pursue a celibate, spiritual life.

42. Which of the following was a polytheistic religion that urged its followers to live moral,
ethical lives and to expect salvation to be their reward?
A) Christianity
B) The cult of Isis
C) The Eleusinian Mysteries
D) Stoicism

43. What was the most popular of the philosophies espoused by upper-class Romans?
A) Epicureanism, based on the philosophy of Epicurus
B) Stoicism, which required self-discipline
C) Cynicism, as taught by Diogenes
D) Cicero's doctrine of humanitas

44. What was the basic belief of Neoplatonists?

A) The empire should be modeled more closely on Plato's Republic.
B) People can reach God only by turning away from the physical world and the life of
the body.
C) God can only be understood through the type of self-examination encouraged by
Socrates.
D) God created the spiritual and the physical world, so both must be loved and
respected.

45. Debasing imperial coinage had the effect of

A) creating inflation, because merchants raised prices to make up for the coins' lower
value.
B) stabilizing the economic situation, because there was more money to go around.
C) lowering prices, because people could now afford to buy more goods.
D) reassuring people that the government had sufficient money to maintain peace.

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46. Septimius Severus's son Caracalla murdered
A) Marcus Aurelius and set fire to Rome.
B) Caligula and assumed the role of emperor.
C) his father and sacked Rome.
D) his brother to become emperor.

47. How did the emperor Caracalla attempt to solve the budget crisis?
A) He bestowed citizenship on every subject—man or woman—in the Roman Empire
except slaves, thereby increasing inheritance tax receipts.
B) He attempted to expand his empire still further into the Germanic lands north of the
Danube, thereby securing yet another source of war plunder.
C) He passed a law whereby Italians, for the first time, would be taxed much like
other citizens of the empire.
D) He promised the soldiers land in the provinces in exchange for their acceptance of
reduced pay.

48. During the civil wars of the third century, qualifications for becoming emperor had been
reduced to
A) merely holding Roman citizenship.
B) demonstrating rhetorical abilities and winning the support of the population of the
city of Rome.
C) the ability to forge alliances with neighboring powers.
D) commanding a frontier army and paying off the troops.

49. The difficulties facing Rome in the third century C.E. convinced the emperor Decius of
the need to appease the gods, so between 249 and 251 he
A) rebuilt forums and adjacent temples throughout the empire.
B) ordered all temples to foreign gods in Rome destroyed and had them replaced with
temples to Roman gods, including the deified Augustus.
C) ordered all citizens to sacrifice to the gods for the welfare of the state and executed
all Christians who refused to do so.
D) expanded and lavishly decorated and furnished the temple of Vesta and the quarters
of the Vestal Virgins.

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50. In addition to persecuting Christians, what did the emperor Septimius Severus gain
notoriety for?
A) Allocating a disproportionate share of the empire's resources to the army
B) Embarking on massive public works projects in the city of Rome
C) Having led a disastrous military campaign in Scotland that led to the destruction of
two legions
D) Granting Roman citizenship to all men and women in imperial territory except
slaves

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Answer Key
1. B
2. C
3. D
4. B
5. D
6. B
7. A
8. C
9. A
10. A
11. C
12. A
13. A
14. D
15. C
16. C
17. B
18. B
19. B
20. C
21. A
22. A
23. A
24. C
25. A
26. A
27. B
28. C
29. C
30. B
31. D
32. B
33. A
34. A
35. B
36. D
37. B
38. C
39. C
40. A
41. D
42. B
43. B
44. B

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45. A
46. D
47. A
48. D
49. C
50. A

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