Roman Civilization and Empire

● Roman civilization refers to the period from the founding of the city of
Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in
the 5th century AD.
● The Roman state evolved from an elective monarchy to a democratic
classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic semi-elective
military dictatorship during the Empire.
● Through conquest, cultural, and linguistic assimilation, at its height it
controlled the North African coast, Egypt, Southern Europe, and most of
Western Europe, the Balkans, Crimea and much of the Middle East,
including Anatolia, Levant and parts of Mesopotamia and Arabia.
● In the course of centuries Rome grew from a small town on the Tiber River
in central Italy into a vast empire that ultimately embraced England, all of
continental Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Danube, most of Asia
west of the Euphrates, northern Africa, and the islands of the Mediterranean.
● Unlike the Greeks, who excelled in intellectual and artistic endeavours, the
Romans achieved greatness in their military, political, and social institutions.
● The Regal period (753–509 BC) and the early republic (509–280 BC) are
the most poorly documented periods of Roman history
 Geography of Rome
● Several key geographical features in the Italian
peninsula provided opportunities for the Roman
civilization to thrive.
● Rome began as a small village near the Tiber River in
Italy on a peninsula close to the Mediterranean Sea.
● The city was also far enough inland to provide some
protection from the sea.
● The Tiber River was a source of freshwater and rich
soil needed to support the development of people,
animals, and crops of Rome.
● Rome is located East of the river.
● It begins in the Apennine mountains and flows to the Tyrrhenian Sea.
● The river provided easy transportation and the river’s valley had vast land for farming.
The river also served as a defense system against attacks from the other side of the river.
● The Alps and Apennine mountain ranges were natural barriers that helped protect Rome
from invasions and provided strategic locations during war time.
● Being close to the Mediterranean Sea allowed Rome to trade with cities in Greece,
northern Europe, and North Africa. It also helped them in conquering new lands.
 ● Historical writing at Rome did not begin until after Rome had completed its conquest of Italy, had
emerged as a major power of the ancient world.
● Few important Historians of Rome include the following.
Polybius (c. 208–126 BC)
● Polybius in his work Histories wrote the story of the expansion of Rome to a world power.
● He conceived his work on a grand scale and proposed to tell the story of the whole Mediterranean
world from 221 to 146 BC.
Cato the Elder (234–149 BC)
● In his The Origines revolutionized Roman historiography. His work contained a
vast amount of information of an ethnographic, topographic and economic nature
Livy (59 BC–AD 17)
● The History of Rome was penned and completed on a majestic scale. But of the 142
books only thirty-five survive
● The first 10 books of Livy, one of Rome’s greatest historians, are extant and cover
Roman affairs from earliest times to the year 293 BC
Tacitus (c. AD 53—120)
● The Histories, which was the first to appear, is an account of the Roman emperors from
Galba to the death of Domitian (AD 68 to 96). It is a history of the Flavian dynasty
Plutarch (AD 46–126)
● Plutarch resided in Rome during the Flavian rule and devoted himself to research in the
libraries and archives of the imperial city.
● he compared great Romans with great Greeks, as a stimulus to virtue and heroism in his
readers.
 Political History of Roman Civilisation
● According to the Etruscan legend, Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus,
twin sons of Mars, the god of war on 21 April 753 BC
● They were suckled by a she-wolf after being abandoned, decided to build a
city. After an argument, Romulus killed Remus and named the city Rome,
after himself.
● After founding and naming Rome, he permitted men of all classes to come to
Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction
● To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighbouring tribes to
a festival in Rome where he abducted the young women from amongst them
(known as The Rape of the Sabine Women).
● After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared the kingship with the
Sabine king Titus Tatius.
● However, the political development of Rome encompasses

1. Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC)

2. Roman Republic (509–27 BC)
3. Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD)
Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC)
● The tale of Romulus and Remus is almost certainly purely mythical, but from this point of the story onward, some
historical facts may start to be mixed in with the fiction.
● Little is certain about the kingdom's history, as no records and few inscriptions from the time of the kings survive,

● The accounts of this

period written during the
Republic and the Empire
are thought to be based
on oral tradition.
● After the disappearance
of Romulus, Numa
Pompilius was elected
king by the senate (a
council of wise men).
● He was a priestly king
who established many of
the Roman religious
institutions.
Roman Republic (509–27 BC)
● The word 'Republic' itself comes from the Latin (the language of the Romans) words 'res
publica' which mean 'public matters' or 'matters of state'.
● According to tradition and later writers such as Livy, the Roman Republic was established
around 509 BC
● a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was
established
● A constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The most
important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive authority
such as imperium, or military command.
● The consuls had to work with the Senate, which was initially an advisory council of the
ranking nobility, or patricians, but grew in size and power
● The senate under the kings had only been there to advise the king.
● Now the senate appointed a consul, who ruled Rome like a king, but only for one year. -
This was a wise idea, as like that, the consul ruled carefully and not as a tyrant, for he knew
that otherwise he could be punished by the next consul, once his year was up.
● The magistracies were originally restricted to patricians, but were later opened to common people, or plebeians.
● Republican voting assemblies included the comitia centuriata (centuriate assembly), which voted on matters of war
and peace and elected men to the most important offices, and the comitia tributa (tribal assembly), which elected less
important offices
● In 450 B.C., the first Roman law code was inscribed on 12 bronze tablets–known
as the Twelve Tables–and publicly displayed in the Roman Forum.
● These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights and property rights and
provided the basis for all future Roman civil law.
● By around 300 B.C., real political power in Rome was centered in the Senate,
which at the time included only members of patrician and wealthy plebeian
families.
● In the 4th century BC, Rome had come under attack by the Gauls,
● The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula,
including the Etruscans.
● The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came from Tarentum, a major Greek
colony,
● The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman colonies in strategic
areas
● In the 3rd century BC Rome faced a new and formidable opponent: Carthage
● The Punic Wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests (Sicily, Hispania and
Africa) and the rise of Rome as a significant imperial power and began the end of
democracy
 Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD)
● Rome was an "empire" long before it had an emperor. It was ruled by annually elected
magistrates (Roman Consuls above all) in conjunction with the Senate.

● The 1st century BC was a time of political and military upheaval, which ultimately led to
rule by emperors

● Rome suffered a long series of internal conflicts, conspiracies and civil wars from the late
second century BC onward, while greatly extending its power beyond Italy. This was the
period of the Crisis of the Roman Republic.

● In 27 BC the Senate and People of Rome made Octavian princeps ("first citizen") with
proconsular imperium, thus beginning the Principate (the first epoch of Roman imperial
history, usually dated from 27 BC to 284 AD), and gave him the name "Augustus" ("the
venerated").

● Though the old constitutional machinery remained in place, Augustus came to predominate
it.

● The Roman Empire was one of the largest in history, with contiguous territories throughout
Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Latin phrase imperium sine fine ("empire
without end") expressed the ideology that neither time nor space limited the Empire
 Pax Romana (27 BCE-180 CE)
● The 200 years that began with Augustus's rule is traditionally regarded as the Pax
Romana ("Roman Peace"). During this period, the cohesion of the empire was furthered
by a degree of social stability and economic prosperity that Rome had never before
experienced.
● Uprisings in the provinces were infrequent but put down "mercilessly and swiftly" when
they occurred.
● During the reign of Augustus, a "global map of the known world" was displayed for the
first time in public at Rome
● The Julio-Claudian dynasty lasted for four more emperors Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius,
and Nero
● It then yielded to the strife-torn Year of Four Emperors, from which Vespasian emerged
as victor in 69 AD.
● Vespasian became the founder of the brief Flavian dynasty, to be followed by the
Nerva–Antonine dynasty which produced the "Five Good Emperors": Nerva, Trajan,
Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and the philosophically inclined Marcus Aurelius.
● The Empire reached its largest expanse under Trajan (reigned 98–117),encompassing an
area of 5 million square kilometres. The traditional population estimate of 55–60 million
inhabitants
 MODULE III
Society and Economy of Roman Civilization
1. Growth of Social Groups
a. Warrior Elites,
b. Priestly Classes,
c. Noble Aristocracies
d. Lower Social Groups
2. Economy
3. Agriculture
4. Arts & Craft
5. Metallurgy
6. Trade
7. Development of Professional Groups
 Growth of Social and Professional Groups
Warrior Elites, Priestly Classes, Noble Aristocracies and Lower Social Groups
● The Roman Empire was remarkably multicultural, with "a rather
astonishing cohesive capacity" to create a sense of shared identity.
● Roman society under the Republic was primarily a cultural mix of Latin
and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural
elements, which is especially visible in the Roman Pantheon.
● Rome knew four classes of people. This division was very important to the
Romans.
1. The lowest class were the slaves. They were owned by other people.
They had no rights at all.
2. The next class were the plebeians. They were free people. But they
had little say at all.
3. The second highest class were the Equestrians (sometimes they are
called the 'knights'). Their name means the 'riders', as they were
given a horse to ride if they were called to fight for Rome. To be an
equestrian you had to be rich.
4. The highest class were the nobles of Rome. They were called
'Patricians'. All the real power in Rome lay with them.
● Romulus selected 100 of the noblest men to form the Roman senate as an advisory council to the king. These men he
called Patres, and their descendants became the Patricians.
● He created three centuries of Equites named,
○ Ramnes (meaning Romans),
○ Tities (after the Sabine king) and
○ a third called Luceres (Etruscans).
○ He also divided the general populace into thirty Curiae, named after thirty of the Sabine women who had
intervened to end the war between Romulus and Tatius. The curiae formed the voting units in the Comitia
Curiata.
● After 650 BC, the Etruscans became dominant in Italy and expanded into north-central Italy. The Etruscans left a
lasting influence on Rome. The Romans learned to build temples from them, and the Etruscans may have introduced
the worship of a triad of gods — Juno, Minerva, and Jupiter — from the Etruscan gods: Uni, Menrva, and Tinia.
● By the late Republic plebeians actually started getting elected to the consulship. This was the only way in which a
plebeian could enter the Senate since a Consul was automatically made a senator.
● Towards the end of the Republic some privileged plebeians become members of the Senate.
Patricians Plebeians
● Originally the only ones with political rights, ● The others were free Romans, the plebes (the
● The patricians comprised the populus (people), from which masses, or).
the army was originally drawn. ● The plebeians were generally peasants and had
● The king called out the populus as needed and then led the little political power.
army himself, preceded by his guards (called lictors) bearing ● This class distinction probably originated during
the fasces. the time of the monarchy, but it gained far greater
● The fasces symbolized the king’s regal and later magisterial political significance after the last king was
authority and consisted of cylindrical bundles of wooden deposed.
rods wrapped around an ax and tied tightly together.
● The fasces symbolized unity as well as power.
● The patricians were the economically, politically and
socially dominant group in Roman society.
● Being born a patrician meant automatic access to
wealth, political power and a high social and ritual
● status.
Patricians had extensive control over Roman religion.
● Many of the important priesthoods remained closed to the
plebeians almost till the end of the Republic.
● Servius Tullius is usually credited with a major reform that
permitted plebeians, who by that time could hold property
and wealth, to serve in the army.
Class struggle
● The class struggle that characterized the patrician–plebeian relationship was
central to Roman social history and the development of government
organizations.
● As Rome began to expand, the need to have the support of the peasant
soldiers increased.
● Initially the peasantry derived some minor benefits from this expansion, but
it was the patrician aristocracy that was the main beneficiary of the empire.
● The growth of the empire made the aristocracy fabulously wealthy and
widened the gap between the rich and the poor.
● As the patricians tried to concentrate all political power in their hands, and
the plebeians began to assert themselves and demanded that they should also
have a say in the political process.
● Roman military organization was heavily dependent on the peasants who
constituted the main fighting force.
● The army comprised unpaid soldiers who were primarily recruited from the
peasantry. The soldiers had to supply their own fighting equipment. All
able-bodied male adults had to render military service.
● In the early phase of Roman expansion the peasantry was able to extract
major political concessions.
● Through these concessions a small section of the plebeians (the peasants were invariably plebeians) got some share in
political power.
● Gradually, the social and political barriers against the plebeians were eroded, but for a long time, the plebeian
continued to exist as a separate and subordinate class.
● Marriages between patricians and plebeians were not recognized by law, and the children of such marriages lost their
patrician status.
● The patricians formed only a small minority of the free population, however. The fact that they managed to keep power
in their own hands for as long as they did was largely due to an important social institution called the clientela (client
system).
● Under this system, it was customary for free but powerless citizens to bind themselves to a powerful man of the
patrician class.
● These people were called clientes and may originally have been tenants of the patrician, but as time went on, this was
not always the case.
● The patrones (patron) could demand obedience and service
from the clientes, but the bond of the clientela had mutual
benefits. It was the patron’s duty to help the clientes in time
of need, if they were involved in a lawsuit, for example.
● Till 367 BC only patricians could become Consuls. there was
struggle by the plebeians for having accesses for the post of
consuls
● In 367 BC, one of the consulships was thrown open to the
plebeians.
 Roman Economy
● During the early centuries of the Roman Republic, it is conjectured that the economy was largely agrarian and centered
on the trading of commodities such as grain and wine.
● Financial markets were established through such trade, and financial institutions, which extended credit for personal
use and public infrastructure, were established primarily by inter family wealth.
● In times of agricultural and cash shortfall, Roman officials and moneyers tended to respond by coining money
● The economy became more monetized and a more sophisticated financial system emerged during the Roman Empire.
● Emperors issued coinage stamped with their portraits to disseminate propaganda, to create public goodwill, and to
symbolize their wealth and power.
● With no central bank, a professional deposit banker (argentarius, coactor
argentarius, or later nummularius) received and held deposits for a fixed or
indefinite term and lent money to third parties
● Conditions during the Crisis of the Third Century, such as
1. reductions in long-distance trade,
2. the disruption of mining operations, and
3. the physical transfer of gold coinage outside the empire by invading
enemies,
● It greatly diminished the money supply and the banking sector by the year 300
1. Agriculture
● In the 5th century BC, farms in Rome were small and family-owned. The Greeks of this period, however, had started
using crop rotation and had large estates.
● Rome's contact with Carthage, Greece, and the Hellenistic East in the 3rd and 2nd centuries improved Rome's
agricultural methods.
● Roman agriculture reached its height in productivity and efficiency during the late Republic and early Empire
● Agriculture in ancient rome comprised many agricultural environments of which the Mediterranean climate of dry, hot
summers and cool, rainy winter was the most common. Within the Mediterranean area, a triad of crops were most
important: grains, olives, and grapes.
● The great majority of the people ruled by Rome were engaged in agriculture. From a beginning of small, largely
self-sufficient landowners, rural society became dominated by latifundium, large estates owned by the wealthy and
utilizing mostly slave labor.
● Roman agricultural tradition are mostly from the Roman agronomists: Cato the Elder's De agri cultura, Columella's De
re rustica, Marcus Terentius Varro and Palladius.
● Farm sizes in Rome can be divided into three categories.
1. Small farms were from 18–108 iugera. (One iugerum was equal to about 0.65
acres or a quarter of a hectare).
2. Medium-sized farms were from 80–500 iugera.
3. Large estates (called latifundia) were over 500 iugera.
● In the late Republican era, the number of latifundia increased. Wealthy Romans bought
land from peasant farmers who could no longer make a living.
● The Romans had four systems of farm management
1. direct work by owner and his family;
2. tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner and a tenant divide up a
farm's produce;
3. forced labour by slaves owned by aristocrats and supervised by slave managers;
4. a farm was leased to a tenant.
● Staple crops in early Rome were millet, and emmer and spelt which are species of wheat.
● Barley was also grown extensively, dominating grain production in Greece and on poorer soils where it was more
productive than wheat
● Of legumes, Columella lists some that are preferred for cultivation: lentils, peas, lupinus, beans, cowpeas, and
chickpeas
● The Romans grew olive trees in poor, rocky soils, and often in areas with sparse precipitation. The tree is sensitive to
freezing temperatures and intolerant of the colder weather of northern Europe and high, cooler elevations
● The cultivation of grapes on large estates using slave labor was common in Italy and wine was becoming a universal
drink in the Roman empire by 160 BCE
 2. Roman Arts & Crafts
● Roman art includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work.
● Sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by Romans, but
figure painting was also very highly regarded.
● While the traditional view of the ancient Roman artists is that they often
borrowed from, and copied Greek precedents, more recent analysis has
indicated that Roman art is a highly creative pastiche relying heavily on Greek
models but also encompassing Etruscan, native Italic, and even Egyptian
visual culture.
● It appears that Roman artists had much Ancient Greek art to copy from, as
trade in art was brisk throughout the empire, and much of the Greek artistic
heritage found its way into Roman art through books and teaching.
● Many Roman artists came from Greek colonies and provinces. The high
number of Roman copies of Greek art also speaks of the esteem Roman artists
had for Greek art, and perhaps of its rarer and higher quality.
● The traditional head-and-shoulders bust may have been an Etruscan or early
Roman form.
● Where Greek artists were highly revered in their society, most Roman artists
were anonymous and considered tradesmen.
● Greeks worshipped the aesthetic qualities of great art and wrote extensively
on artistic theory, Roman art was more decorative and indicative of status and
wealth, and apparently not the subject of scholars or philosophers.
 ● Owing in part to the fact that the Roman cities were far larger than the
Greek city-states in power and population, and generally less provincial,
art in Ancient Rome took on a wider, and sometimes more utilitarian,
purpose.
● Roman culture assimilated many cultures and was for the most part
tolerant of the ways of conquered peoples.
● Roman art was commissioned, displayed, and owned in far greater
quantities, and adapted to more uses than in Greek times.
● Wealthy Romans were more materialistic; they decorated their walls with
art, their home with decorative objects, and themselves with fine
jewellery.
● In the Christian era of the late Empire, from 350 to 500 CE, wall painting,
mosaic ceiling and floor work, and funerary sculpture thrived, while
full-sized sculpture in the round and panel painting died out, most likely
for religious reasons.
● When Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Byzantium
(renamed Constantinople), Roman art incorporated Eastern influences to
produce the Byzantine style of the late empire.

● The best known and most important pocket is the wall paintings from Pompeii, Herculaneum and other sites nearby,
which show how residents of a wealthy seaside resort decorated their walls in the century or so before the fatal eruption
of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD
● Starting in the 3rd century AD and finishing by about 400 there
were a large body of paintings from the Catacombs of Rome, by no
means all Christian, showing the later continuation of the domestic
decorative tradition in a version adapted probably not greatly
adapted for use in burial chambers, in what was probably a rather
humbler social milieu than the largest houses in Pompeii.
● Most of this wall painting was done using the secco (“dry”) method,
but some fresco paintings also existed in Roman times.
● There is evidence from mosaics and a few inscriptions that some
Roman paintings were adaptations or copies of earlier Greek works.

● The Romans
entirely lacked a
tradition of
figurative
vase-painting
comparable to that
of the Ancient
Greeks, which the
Etruscans had
emulated.
a. Roman Pottery
● The Romans inherited a tradition of art which flourished
most impressively at the luxury level, but large numbers of
terracotta figurines, both religious and secular, continued to
be produced cheaply, as well as some larger Campana
reliefs in terracotta.
● Roman art did not use vase-painting in the way of the ancient
Greeks, but vessels in Ancient Roman pottery were often
stylishly decorated in moulded relief

b. Roman Glass
○ Luxury arts included fancy Roman glass in a great range of
techniques, many smaller types of which were probably
affordable to a good proportion of the Roman public.
○ The most extravagant types of glass, such as the cage cups or
diatreta, of which the Lycurgus Cup in the British Museum
is a near-unique figurative example in glass that changes
colour when seen with light passing through it.

c. Roman Mosaic
● Roman art mosaic was mainly used for floors, curved
ceilings, and inside and outside walls that were going to get
wet.
 ● The famous copy of a Hellenistic painting in the Alexander
Mosaic in Naples was originally placed in a floor in Pompeii;
this is much higher quality work than most Roman mosaic,
though very fine panels, often of still life subjects in small or
micro-mosaic tesserae have also survived.
d. Roman Coins and Medals
● Few Roman coins reach the artistic peaks of the best Greek
coins, but they survive in vast numbers and their iconography
and inscriptions form a crucial source for the study of Roman
history
● In the Empire medallions in precious metals began to be
produced in small editions as imperial gifts, which are similar
to coins, though larger and usually finer in execution

3. Roman Metallurgy
● Central Italy itself was not rich in metal ores, leading to necessary trade networks in order to meet the demand for
metal.
● At the height of the Empire, Rome exploited mineral resources from Tingitana in north western Africa to Egypt,
Arabia to North Armenia, Galatia to Germania, and Britannia to Iberia, encompassing all of the Mediterranean coast.
● One of the most important Roman sources of information is the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder.
● The main mining regions of the Empire were the
1. Iberian Peninsula (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead); Gaul (gold, silver, iron);
2. Britain (mainly iron, lead, tin), the Danubian provinces (gold, iron);
 3. Macedonia and Thrace (gold, silver);
4. Asia Minor (gold, silver, iron, tin)
● Intensive large-scale mining of alluvial deposits, and by means of
open-cast mining and underground mining took place from the reign of
Augustus up to the early 3rd century AD
● At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, the Roman silver stock is
estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver
mass of medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD
● When the cost of producing slaves became too high to justify slave
labourers for the many mines throughout the empire around the second
century, a system of indentured servitude was introduced for convicts
● From the formation of the Roman Empire, Rome was an almost
completely closed economy, not reliant on imports although exotic
goods from India and China (such as gems, silk and spices) were highly
prized (Shepard 1993).
● Through the recovery of Roman coins and ingots throughout the ancient
world (Hughes 1980), metallurgy has supplied the archaeologist with
material culture through which to see the expanse of the Roman world.
4. Roman Trade
● The commerce of the Roman Empire was a major sector of the economy
during the early Republic and throughout most of the imperial period.
● Romans were businessmen and the longevity of their empire was due to
their commercial trade.
● Whereas in theory members of the Roman Senate and their sons were
restricted when engaging in trade, the members of the Equestrian order
were involved in businesses, despite their upper class values that laid the
emphasis on military pursuits and leisure activities.
● Plebeians and freedmen held shop or manned stalls at markets while vast
quantities of slaves did most of the hard work.
● The slaves were themselves also the subject of commercial transactions.
Their high proportion in society and the reality of runaways, the Servile
Wars and minor uprisings, they gave a distinct flavor to Roman
commerce
● The intricate, complex, and extensive accounting of Roman trade was
conducted with counting boards and the Roman abacus.
● The abacus, using Roman numerals, was ideally suited to the counting of
Roman currency and tallying of Roman measures
● There is some information on the economy of Roman Palestine from Jewish
sources of around the 3rd century AD.
● Itinerant pedlars (rochel) took spices and perfumes to the rural population.
● This suggests that the economic benefits of the Empire did reach, at least, the
upper levels of the peasantry.
● The Forum Cuppedinis in ancient Rome was a market which offered general
goods.
● At least four other large markets specialized in specific goods such as cattle,
wine, fish and herbs and vegetables, but the Roman forum drew the bulk of the
traffic.
● All new cities, like Timgad, were laid out according to an orthogonal grid plan
which facilitated transportation and commerce. The cities were connected by
goods.
● Navigable rivers were extensively used and some canals were dug but neither
leave such clear archaeology as roads and consequently they tend to be
underestimated.
● A major mechanism for the expansion of trade was peace. All settlements,
especially the smaller ones, could be located in economically rational positions.
● By the 1st century, the provinces of the Roman Empire were trading huge
volumes of commodities to one another by sea routes.
● There was an increasing tendency for specialization, particularly in
manufacturing, agriculture and mining.
● Some provinces specialized in producing certain types of goods, such as grain in Egypt and
North Africa and wine and olive oil in Italy, Hispania and Greece.
● Knowledge of the Roman economy is extremely patchy. The vast bulk of traded goods,
being agricultural, normally leave no direct archaeology.
● Very exceptionally, as at Berenice, there is evidence of long distance trade in pepper,
almonds, hazelnuts, stone pine cones, walnuts, coconuts, apricots and peaches besides the
more expected figs, raisins and dates (Cappers).
● The wine, olive oil and garum (fermented fish sauce) trades were exceptional in leaving
amphorae behind. There is a single reference of the Syrian export of kipi stiff quince jam or
marmalade to Rome.
● Even before the republic, the Roman Kingdom was engaged in regular commerce using the
river Tiber.
● Before the Punic Wars, the Roman republic had
important commercial exchanges with Carthage.
● It entered into several commercial and political
agreements with its rival city in addition to
engaging in simple retail trading.
● The Roman Empire traded with the Chinese over
the Silk Road.
 MODULE IV
Development in Culture of Roman Civilization
1. Religion
2. Literature
3. Architecture
4. Emergence of Writing Systems
 Roman Religion
● The gods and goddesses of Greek culture significantly influenced the
development of Roman deities and mythology.
● The Roman gods also assumed the attributes and mythologies of these Greek
gods.
● Under the Empire, the Romans absorbed the mythologies of their conquered
subjects, often leading to situations in which the temples and priests of
traditional Italian deities existed side by side with those of foreign gods
● Due to Rome’s geographic position, its citizens experienced frequent contact
with the Greek peoples
● As the Roman Republic was rising to prominence, it acquired these Greek
territories, bringing them under the administration of the Roman state.
● Romans adopted many aspects of Greek culture, adapting them slightly to
suit their own needs. For example, many of the gods and goddesses of Greek
and Roman culture share similar characteristics.
● However, these deities were renamed and effectively re-branded for a Roman
context, possessing names that are different from their Greek counterparts.
● The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their
success as a world power to their collective piety (pietas) in maintaining good
relations with the gods. The Romans are known for the great number of
deities they honored
● Unlike in Greek mythology, the gods were not personified, but were vaguely
defined sacred spirits called numina. Romans also believed that every person,
place or thing had its own genius, or divine soul.
● During the Roman Republic, Roman religion was organized under a strict
system of priestly offices, which were held by men of senatorial rank.
● The College of Pontifices was uppermost body in this hierarchy, and its chief
priest, the Pontifex Maximus, was the head of the state religion
● The main god and goddesses in Roman culture were Jupiter, Juno, and
Minerva. Jupiter was a sky-god who Romans believed oversaw all aspects of
life; he is thought to have originated from the Greek god Zeus.
● Jupiter also concentrated on protecting the Roman state. Military
commanders would pay homage to Jupiter at his temple after winning in
battle.
● Rome did have some of its own gods and goddesses who did not trace their
origins back to Greek culture.
 ● For example, Janus was a god with two faces that
represented the spirit of passages such as doorways
and gates. Believed to preside over beginnings, it is
fitting that the month of January is named after
Janus
● According to Roman mythology, the gods had a
hand in the founding of the city of Rome itself.
● Mars, god of war, and a Vestal Virgin named Rhea
Silvia were the parents of twin boys, Romulus and
Remus.
● The presence and influence of gods and goddesses
were integral parts of life in the Roman state.

● The people of Rome built temples to their gods and observed rituals and festivals to honor and celebrate them.
● Any favorable or unfavorable circumstances in Roman life could be attributed to the mood of certain gods, so people
would likewise make offerings to the gods in thanks, or in an attempt to appease their tempers.
● Unlike many monotheistic religious or spiritual traditions, the Romans gods were seen as caring little about the morality
of the Roman people.
● Rather, their chief concern was being paid tribute through very specific rituals.
Ancient Roman Gods and Goddesses
Jupiter
● Jupiter is the sky and thunder god in ancient Roman religion, who rules as
king of the gods of Mount Olympus.
● Jupiter is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be
born
● Jupiter symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak.
● In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical
"cloud-gatherer"

Neptune
● Neptune was the god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.
● In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at
Pylos and Thebes.
● He also had the cult title "earth shaker"
● Neptune was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies

Pluto
● Pluto is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld.
● Pluto was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea,
● Pluto is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed
guard dog of the underworld, standing to his side.
 Apollo or Phoebus
● Apollo has been recognized as a god
of archery, music and dance, truth and
prophecy, healing and diseases, the
Sun and light, poetry, and more.
● One of the most important and
complex of the Roman gods, he is the
son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin
brother of Artemis, goddess of the
hunt
● the patron deity of Delphi
● Apollo delivered people from
epidemics, yet he is also a god who
could bring ill-health and deadly
plague with his arrows.
Diana
● Diana is the Roman goddess of the
hunt, the wilderness, wild animals,
the Moon, and chastity.
● Diana is the daughter of Zeus and
Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo.
● She was the patron and protector of
young children and women,
● Diana preferred to remain a maiden
and was sworn never to marry.
● Diana symbols included a bow and
arrow, a quiver, and hunting knives,
and the deer and the cypress were
sacred to her.
Venus
● Venus is an ancient Roman goddess
associated with love, lust, beauty,
pleasure, passion and procreation.
● Venus’s major symbols include
myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows,
and swans.
● Venus’s main cult centers were
Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and
Athens.
● Her main festival was the
Veneralia, which was celebrated
annually in midsummer.
 Bacchus
● Bacchus or Dionysus is the god of
the grape-harvest, winemaking,
orchards and fruit, vegetation,
fertility, insanity, ritual madness,
religious ecstasy, festivity and theatre
in ancient Greek religion and myth
● Bacchus was believed to have been
born from the union of Zeus and
Persephone,
● Wine played an important role in
Greek culture, and the cult of
Bacchus was the main religious
focus surrounding its consumption
Vulcan
● Vulcan is the Roman god of blacksmiths,
metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen,
artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire
(compare, however, with Hestia), and
volcanoes
Mars
● Vulcan made all the weapons of the gods ● Mars is the Roman god of
in Olympus.
courage and war.
● He served as the blacksmith of the gods, ● He is one of the Twelve
and was worshipped in the manufacturing
Olympians,
and industrial centres of Greece, ● He is the son of Zeus and
particularly Athens. The cult of Vulcan
Hera.
was based in Lemnos. ● The Romans were
● Vulcan’s symbols are a smith's hammer, ambivalent toward him.
anvil, and a pair of tongs.
 Minerva
● Minerva, is an ancient Roman
goddess associated with wisdom,
handicraft, and warfare
● Minerva was regarded as the patron
and protectress of various cities
across Rome,
● The Parthenon on the Acropolis of
Athens is dedicated to her. Her
major symbols include owls, olive
trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion.
In art, she is generally depicted
wearing a helmet and holding a
spear.
Mercury
● Mercury is considered the herald of the
Vesta
gods.
● Vesta is the virgin goddess of the
● He is also considered the protector of
hearth, the right ordering of
human heralds, travellers, thieves,
domesticity, the family, the home,
merchants, and orators.
and the state.
● He is able to move quickly and freely
● In Roman mythology, she is the
between the worlds of the mortal and the
firstborn child of the Titans Cronus
divine, aided by his winged sandals.
and Rhea
● In myth,
● Vesta received the first offering at
● Mercury functioned as the emissary and
every sacrifice in the household.
messenger of the gods,
● Often presented as the son of Zeus and
Maia, the Pleiad. He is regarded as "the
divine trickster,"
 Juno
● Juno is the goddess of women, marriage,
family and childbirth
● the sister and wife of Jupiter.
● She is the daughter of the Titans Cronus and
Rhea.
● Juno rules over Mount Olympus as queen of
the gods.
● Juno is commonly seen with the animals she
considers sacred, including the cow, lion and
the peacock.
● Juno may hold a pomegranate in her hand,
emblem of fertile blood and death
Ceres
● In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Ceres is
the Dii Consentes goddess of the harvest and
agriculture, presiding over grains and the fertility of
the earth.
● She is also called Deo
● Her cult titles include Sito as the giver of food or
grain, and Thesmophoros ( "giver of customs" or
"legislator", in association with the secret
female-only festival called the Cerealia.
● She presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle
of life and death
 Roman Literature
● Roman literature, written in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the
culture of ancient Rome.
● Some of the earliest extant works are historical epics telling of the early military
history of Rome, followed (as the Republic expanded) by poetry, comedies,
histories and tragedies.
● Latin literature drew heavily on the traditions of other cultures, particularly the
more matured literary tradition of Greece, and the strong influence of earlier
Greek authors is readily apparent.

● Few works remain of Early and Old Latin, although a few of the plays of Plautus
and Terence have come down to us.
● The “Golden Age of Roman Literature” is usually considered to cover the period from about
the start of the 1st Century BCE up to the mid-1st Century CE (81 BC to AD 17)

● Catullus pioneered the naturalization of Greek lyric verse forms into Latin in his very personal
poetry.

● The Hellenizing tendencies of Golden Age Latin reached their apex in the epic poetry of
Vergil, the odes and satires of Horace and the elegiac couplets of Ovid.
● The “Silver Age of Roman Literature” extends into the 2nd Century CE, a period during
which the eloquent, sometimes bombastic, poetry of Seneca the Younger and Lucan gave
way to the more restrained, classicized style of Pliny the Younger’s letters and the
powerful satires of Juvenal.
● However, long after the Roman Empire had fallen, the Latin language continued to play a
central role in Western European civilization.
● Roman literature is a greatly varied subject matter, nonetheless because it is such a broad
and varied theme which forces us into making a vast number of simplistic generalizations.
● The emperor Augustus took a personal interest in the literary works produced during his
years of power from 27 BC to AD 14.
● This period is sometimes called the Augustan Age of Latin Literature.
● Virgil published his pastoral Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, an epic poem describing the events
that led to the creation of Rome.
● The Latin elegy reached its highest development in the works of Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid. Most of
this poetry is concerned with love.
● Cicero, A new man - made a great political career and was recognized as "father of the nation" for his
role against the Catiline conspiracy.
● He wrote a great body of work, and given the generally positive view of him taken by the later Christians good
volumes of his work have made it down to us.
 Roman Architecture
● Roman architecture developed different aspects of Ancient Greek
architecture and newer technologies such as the arch and the dome to
create a new architectural style.
● Roman architecture flourished throughout the Empire during the Pax
Romana. Its use of new materials, particularly concrete, was an
important feature.
● Roman Architecture covers the period from the establishment of the
Roman Republic in 509 BC to about the 4th century AD, after which it
becomes reclassified as Late Antique or Byzantine architecture. Most
of the many surviving examples are from the later imperial period.
● Roman architectural style continued to influence building in the
former empire for many centuries, and the style used in Western
Europe beginning about 1000 is called Romanesque architecture to
reflect this dependence on basic Roman forms.
● The Ancient Romans were responsible for significant developments in
housing and public hygiene, for example their public and private baths
and latrines, under-floor heating in the form of the hypocaust, mica
glazing and piped hot and cold water.
● Factors such as wealth and high population densities in cities forced the ancient Romans to discover new architectural
solutions of their own.
● The use of vaults and arches, together with a sound knowledge of building materials, enabled them to achieve
unprecedented successes in the construction of imposing structures for public use.
● Examples include the aqueducts of Rome, the Baths of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla, the basilicas and
Colosseum. These were reproduced at smaller scale in most important towns and cities in the Empire.

● Some surviving structures are almost complete, such as the town walls of Lugo in Hispania Tarraconensis, now
northern Spain.

● The Ancient Romans intended that public buildings should be made to impress, as well as perform a public function.
The Romans did not feel restricted by Greek aesthetic axioms alone in achieving these objectives.

● The Pantheon is an example of this, particularly in the version rebuilt by Hadrian, which remains perfectly preserved,
and which were over the centuries that has served, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, as the inspiration for
countless public buildings.

● The same emperor left his mark on the landscape of northern Britain when he built a wall to mark the limits of the
empire, and after further conquests in Scotland, the Antonine Wall was built to replace Hadrian's Wall.

● The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge
essential for future architectural solutions, such as the use of hydraulics and the construction of arches.

● The Romans absorbed Greek Architectural influence both directly and indirectly. The influence is evident in many
ways; for example, in the introduction and use of the Triclinium in Roman villas as a place and manner of dining.
● The Romans were also known to employ Greek craftsmen and engineers to construct Roman buildings.
Architectural features
● The Roman use of the arch and their improvements in the use of concrete and bricks facilitated the building of the
many aqueducts throughout the empire, such as the Aqueduct of Segovia and the eleven aqueducts in Rome itself,
including the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus.
● The same concepts produced numerous bridges, some of which are still in daily use, for example the Puente Romano
at Mérida in Spain, and the Pont Julien and the bridge at Vaison-la-Romaine, both in Provence, France.
● The dome permitted construction of vaulted ceilings without cross beams and made possible large covered public space
such as public baths and basilicas.
● The Romans based much of their architecture on the dome, such as Hadrian's Pantheon in the city of Rome, the Baths
of Diocletian and the Baths of Caracalla.
● The use of arches that spring directly from the tops of columns was a Roman development, seen from the 1st century
AD, that was very widely adopted in medieval Western, Byzantine and Islamic architecture.
● The Romans first adopted the arch from the Etruscans, and implemented it in their own building.
● An arch transmits load evenly and is still commonly used in architecture today. Although concrete had been used on a
minor scale in Mesopotamia, Roman architects perfected Roman concrete and used it in buildings where it could stand
on its own and support a great deal of weight.
● Though most would consider concrete the Roman contribution most relevant to the modern world, the Empire's style of
architecture can still be seen throughout Europe and North America in the arches and domes of many governmental and
religious buildings.
 Emergence of Writing Systems
● The Romans used a variety of tools for writing. Everyday writing could
be done on wax tablets or thin leaves of wood. Documents, like legal
contracts, were usually written in pen and ink on papyrus. Books were
also written in pen and ink on papyrus or sometimes on parchment.
Inscriptions were sometimes carved in stone on buildings and other
monuments, like triumphal arches.
● Most people in Rome didn't go to school and didn't learn to read and
write. Children from wealthy families, however, began school at about
age 6 or 7. Students learned to write on boards spread with wax They
scratched letters in the wax with a pointed stick (called a stylus) and then
rubbed them out with the flat end of the stick.
● Examples of writing from the Italian peninsula before the Greeks set up
colonies there in the 8th century BC. The Greek alphabet was adopted
by the Etruscans and spread throughout peninsula. Also, people living
near the Greek colonies in the south may have borrowed the alphabet
directly from the Greeks.
● The Latin alphabet that developed gradually was adopted from the Greek
and spread throughout the Roman Empire - to northern and western
Europe.
● These texts are found on scrolls as well as on objects as large as buildings
or as small as coins
● Most of the Roman Empire probably spoke Greek or one of its
variants rather than Latin, the language traditionally associated with
the Romans.
● Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe. The
most widespread descendant of Greek is the Latin script, named for
the Latins, a central Italian people who came to dominate Europe
with the rise of Rome.
● The Romans learned writing in about the 5th century BC from the
Etruscan civilization, who used one of a number of Italic scripts
derived from the western Greeks.
● Due to the cultural dominance of the Roman state, the other Italic
scripts have not survived in any great quantity, and the Etruscan
language is mostly lost.
● The native language of the Romans was Latin, an Italic language the
grammar of which relies little on word order, conveying meaning
through a system of affixes attached to word stems.
● Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around
present-day Rome (then known as Latium), and through the power
of the Roman Republic, became the dominant language in Italia and
subsequently throughout the realms of Roman Empire
● Although surviving Latin literature consists almost entirely of Classical Latin, an
artificial and highly stylized and polished literary language from the 1st century BC,
the spoken language of the Roman Empire was Vulgar Latin, which significantly
differed from Classical Latin in grammar and vocabulary, and eventually in
pronunciation.
● Speakers of Latin could understand both until the 7th century when spoken Latin
began to diverge so much that 'Classical' or 'Good Latin' had to be learned as a
second language.
● While Latin remained the main written language of the Roman Empire, Greek came
to be the language spoken by the well-educated elite, as most of the literature studied
by Romans was written in Greek.
● In the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Latin was never able to replace Greek, and
after the death of Justinian, Greek became the official language of the Eastern
government.
● The expansion of the Roman Empire spread Latin throughout Europe, and Vulgar
Latin evolved into dialects in different locations, gradually shifting into many
distinct Romance languages.
● A number of historical phases of the language have been recognized, each
distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, morphology, and
syntax
 MODULE V

Achievements of Roman Civilization

 Roman Science
● Ancient Rome boasted impressive technological feats, using
many advancements that were lost in the Middle Ages and not
rivaled again until the 19th and 20th centuries. An example of
this is Insulated glazing, which wasn't invented again until
the 1930s.
● Many practical Roman innovations were adopted from
earlier Greek designs. Advancements were often divided
and based on craft. Artisans guarded technologies as
trade secrets.
● Roman civil engineering and military engineering
constituted a large part of Rome's technological
superiority and legacy, and contributed to the
construction of hundreds of roads, bridges, aqueducts,
baths, theaters and arenas.
● Many monuments, such as the Colosseum, Pont du Gard, and Pantheon, remain as testaments to Roman engineering
and culture. The Romans were renowned for their architecture, which is grouped with Greek traditions into "Classical
architecture".
● Although there were many differences from Greek architecture, Rome borrowed heavily from Greece in adhering to
strict, formulaic building designs and proportions.
● Aside from two new orders of columns, composite and Tuscan, and from the dome, which was derived from the
Etruscan arch, Rome had relatively few architectural innovations until the end of the Republic.
● In the 1st century BC, Romans started to use concrete, widely.
Concrete was invented in the late 3rd century BC. It was
powerful cement derived from pozzolana, and soon
supplanted marble as the chief Roman building material and
allowed many daring architectural schemata.
● Also in the 1st century BC, Vitruvius wrote De architectura,
possibly the first complete treatise on architecture in history. In
late 1st century BC, Rome also began to use glassblowing
soon after its invention in Syria about 50 BC. Mosaics took the
Empire by storm after samples were retrieved during Lucius
Cornelius Sulla's campaigns in Greece.

● Concrete made possible the paved, durable Roman roads, many of which were still in use a thousand years after the fall
of Rome.
● The construction of a vast and efficient travel network throughout the Empire dramatically increased Rome's power
and influence. It was originally constructed to allow Roman legions to be rapidly deployed.
● But these highways also had enormous economic significance, solidifying Rome's role as a trading crossroads - the
origin of the saying "all roads lead to Rome".
● The Roman government maintained way stations that provided refreshments to travelers at regular intervals along the
roads, constructed bridges where necessary, and established a system of horse relays for couriers that allowed a
dispatch to travel up to 800 kilometers (500 mi) in 24 hours.
● The Romans constructed numerous aqueducts to supply water to
cities and industrial sites and to aid in their agriculture.
● The city of Rome was supplied by 11 aqueducts with a combined
length of 350 kilometres (220 mi). Most aqueducts were constructed
below the surface, with only small portions above ground supported
by arches.
● Sometimes, where valleys deeper than 50 metres (165 ft) had to be
crossed, inverted siphons were used to convey water across a valley.
● The Romans also made major advancements in sanitation. Romans
were particularly famous for their public baths, called thermae,
which were used for both hygienic and social purposes.

● Many Roman houses came to have flush toilets and indoor plumbing, and a complex sewer system, the Cloaca
Maxima, was used to drain the local marshes and carry waste into the Tiber River.
● Some historians have speculated that lead pipes in the sewer and plumbing systems led to widespread lead poisoning,
which contributed to the decline in birth rate and general decay of Roman society leading up to the fall of Rome.
● However, lead content would have been minimized because the flow of water from aqueducts could not be shut off; it
ran continuously through public and private outlets into the drains, and only a few taps were in use.
● Other authors have raised similar objections to this theory, also pointing out that Roman water pipes were thickly
coated with deposits that would have prevented lead from leaching into the water.
 Roman Philosophy
● A final level of education was philosophical study. The study of philosophy is distinctly Greek, but was undertaken by
many Roman students.
● To study philosophy, a student would have to go to a center of philosophy where philosophers taught, usually abroad in
Greece.
● An understanding of a philosophical school of thought could have done much to add to Cicero's vaunted knowledge of
'that which is great', but could only be pursued by the very wealthiest of Rome's elite.
● Romans regarded philosophical education as distinctly Greek, and instead focused their efforts on building schools of
law and rhetoric. The single most important philosophy in Rome was Stoicism, which originated in Hellenistic Greece.
● The contents of the philosophy were particularly amenable to the Roman world view, especially since the Stoic
insistence on acceptance of all situations, including adverse ones, seemed to reproduce what the Romans considered
their crowning achievement: virtues, or "manliness," or "toughness."
● The centerpiece of Stoic philosophy was the concept of the logos.
● The universe is ordered by God and this order is the logos, which means "rational order" or "meaning" of the universe.
● After the death of Zeno, the Stoic school was headed by Cleanthes and Chrysippus, and its teachings were carried to
Rome in 155 by Diogenes of Babylon.
● Stoic ideas appear in the greatest work of Roman literature, Vergil's Aeneid, and later the philosophy was adopted by
Seneca (c. 1-65 A.D.), Lucan, Epictetus, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
● Stoicism is perhaps the most significant philosophical school in the Roman Empire, and much of our contemporary
views and popular mythologies about Romans are derived from Stoic principles.
● This is actually not a philosophical school, but one could generally group a number of Hellenistic schools under this
rubric, including the Second Academy, the Second Sophistic, the Cynics, the Skeptics, and so on, and, for the most
part, the Stoics as well.
● What are important for our purposes are that all these schools to some degree or another espoused the idea that human
beings cannot arrive at certain truth about anything.
● Basically, life became this great guessing game: the lot of humanity is to be cast into a twilight world in which all that
we know and think is either false or occupies some middle position between the false and the true.
● This comes to dominate thought in late antiquity; the first philosophical attacks Christianity levels against the thought
of antiquity are refutations of skeptical principles.
● Of all the philosophies of antiquity, this is perhaps the most familiar: the skeptic principle of doubting everything
became, in the modern era, the fundamental basis of the scientific method.
● For the Roman, this larger good came to mean the spread of law across the face of the planet; this law was to be spread
through Roman imperial conquest and was called the Law of Nations.
● The grand design for history, then, was the spread of the Roman
Empire and her laws.
● Therefore, each and every function a Roman undertook for the
state, whether as a farmer or foot-soldier, a philosopher or
emperor, partook of this larger purpose or meaning of world
history.
● The central values of this complex are officious, or "duty,"
which is the responsibility to perform the functions into which
you have been born to the best of your abilities, and pietas, or
"respect for authority."
● Each station in life has its duties; every situation in life has
duties or obligations incumbent on it.
● The primary duty one owes is to the state; since God is using the
Roman state to further law and civilization, performing one's
duty is a religious act.
● The principal being to which one owes respect is, of course,
God; since God is working out his will in history by using the
Roman state and Roman officials, the respect one shows for
Roman authorities is also a respect shown for God and the logos.