HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE

Over the two millennia that followed the establishment of

empires in Mesopotamia, various attempts at empire building took
place across the region and in the area to the west and east of it.
By the sixth century BCE, Iranians had established
control over major parts of the Assyrian empire. Networks of
trade developed overland, along coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
In the eastern Mediterranean, Greek cities and their
colonies benefited from improvements in trade with nomadic
people to the north of the Black Sea.
From among the Greek states, in the late fourth century
BCE, the ruler of the kingdom of Macedon, Alexander, undertook
a series of military campaigns and conquered parts of North Africa,
West Asia and Iran, reaching up to the Beas (India).
HELLENISTIC PERIOD
Throughout the area under Alexander’s control, ideals and
cultural traditions were shared amongst the Greeks and the local
population.
The region on the whole became ‘Hellenised’ (the Greeks were
called Hellenes), and Greek became a well-known language throughout.
The political unity of Alexander’s empire disintegrated quickly
after his death, but for almost three centuries after, Hellenistic culture
remained important in the area. The period is often referred to as the
‘Hellenistic period’ in the history of the region
Other cultures (especially Iranian culture )was also important –
They became more important than – Hellenistic notions and ideas in the
later years.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THIS ???

 Small, well-organised military forces of the
central Italian city state of Rome took advantage of
the political conflicts that followed the disintegration
of Alexander’s empire and established control over
North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean from the
second century BCE.

At the time, Rome was a republic. …..Own rule…..

 Government was based on complex system of election
 Political institutions gave importance to birth & wealth
 Roman society benefited from slavery.
The military forces of Rome established a network for
trade between the states that had once been part of
Alexander’s empire.
The ancient Roman Empire was spread across the
three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa.

Sources
Texts- Histories written by contemporaries

Documents- Inscriptions, documents on

papyrus scrolls.

Material remains- Buildings, monuments,

pottery, coins
THE TWO MOST POWERFUL
EMPIRES
The two empires that ruled between the
birth of Christ and 630 CE were
ROME AND IRAN.
The Romans and Iranians were neighbors,
separated by narrow strip of land that ran
along the river Euphrates.
They were rivals and fought against each
The Phases of Roman Empire
The Roman Empire can broadly divide into two phases-
 Early Roman Empire and
 Late Roman Empire

3RD
EARLY ROMAN
EMPIRE C LATE ROMAN
E EMPIRE
The whole period
down to the main N The period after
part of the T 3rdCentury can be
3rdcentury can be U called the 'late
called the 'early empire‘.
empire'. R
Y
 The Roman Empire stretched from
Spain in Europe to Syria in the East along
the Mediterranean Sea in to Africa's
desert. In the north its boundaries were
marked by the river Rhine and Danube. In
the South by the Sahara desert

Iran controlled the entire area south of

Caspian Sea to eastern Arabia and at
times large parts of Afghanistan.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
AND IRANIAN EMPIRE
•Roman Empire had a diverse population as compared to
that of Iran.
•The Parthians and Sasanians dynasties, that ruled Iran in
this period, ruled largely over the Iranian population.
•Whereas the Roman Empire was a variety of territories and
cultures bound by the common system of govt.
•Many languages were spoken in the Roman Empire, but for
the administrative purposes only Greek and Latin were
used. The upper class of east spoke Greek and those in the
western part spoke Latin.
•All the people in the Roman Empire were subjects of single
ruler, the emperor, irrespective of where they lived and
what language they spoke.
 THREE MAIN PLAYERS IN THE
POLITICAL HISTORY OF ROMAN EMPIRE

THE EMPEROR THE SENATE THE ARMY

PRINCIPATE ARISTOCRACY CONSCRIPTED

SOURCE OF BODY OF WEALTHY PAID AND

AUTHORITY FAMILIES PROFESSIONAL
THE EMPEROR
Army- largest single organised
body in the empire – had the
power to determine the fate of
Emperors
SENATE
 THE ARMY
The Army which was a paid and professional army
where
soldiers had to put up twenty five years of service.
The existence of paid army was a distinctive feature of
the Roman Empire.
The army was the largest single organised body of the
Empire
 It had the power to decide the fate of the emperors
Thus, it can be said that the emperor, the aristocracy,
and
the army were the three players in the political history
of
Constant agitation of soldiers for better wages and
service conditions.
 Agitations often took form of mutinies.
 The Senate hated and feared the army, because it
was a source often unpredictable violence, especially in
the tense conditions of the third century when
government was forced to tax more heavily to pay for
its mounting military expenditure
 Success of Emperor depended on their control of the
army
 Succession to throne- based on family descent either
natural or adoptive
DEPENDENT KINGDOMS INTO ROMAN TERRITORY
EMERGENCE OF URBAN CENTERS IN ROMAN EMPIRE
EMPEROR GALLIENUS
UPGRADATION OF ROMAN CITIES AND VILLAGES
There were changes in the political structure of
the empire from the late first century BCE, and it
was substantially Christianised after the emperor
Constantine became a Christian in the fourth
century CE.
 To make government easier, the Roman Empire
was divided into eastern and western halves in
the fourth century CE.
 But in the west, there was a breakdown of the
agreements that existed between Rome and the
tribes in frontier areas (Goths, Visigoths, Vandals
and others).
These agreements dealt with trade, military recruitment
settlement.
The tribes increasingly attacked Roman administration.
 Conflicts increased in scale, and coincided with
internal dissensions in the empire
This lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the
west by the fifth century CE
 Between the seventh century and the fifteenth century,
almost all the lands of the eastern Roman Empire ruled
by Constantinople came to be taken over by the Arab
empire ---- created by the followers of the Prophet
FALL OF GREAT ROMAN EMPIRE
 GENDER, LITERACY, CULTURE
FEATURES OF ROMAN SOCIETY
Nuclear Family
Slaves were included in the family
Typical form of marriage- wife did not transfer to her husband’s
authority but retained as primary heir and owner of independent
property after her father’s death
Roman women enjoyed legal rights in owning & managing property
Married couple was not one financial entity but were independent
Divorce was easy & needed a notice of intent to dissolve marriage.
Males married in late twenties or early thirties,
Females married in late teens or early twenties
Age-Gap encouraged certain inequality
Marriage was generally arranged.
Women –subject to domination of husband-
Domestic Violence, Substantial legal control of fathers over children
 GENDER, LITERACY, CULTURE
STATE OF LITERACY IN EMPIRE
Strong evidences of casual literacy
Rates of casual literacy varied between different parts of the empire
Walls on the streets often carried advertisements
Graffiti was found all over the cities
Egypt- hundreds of papyri survive, formal documents of contracts
usually written by professional scribes
Literacy was more widespread among certain categories such as-
Soldiers, Army officers and Estate Managers.

POMPEII- A wine –merchant’s dining room, its walls were decorated

with scenes depicting mythical animals.
 GENDER, LITERACY, CULTURE
CULTURAL DIVERSITY OF THE EMPIRE

Vast variety of religious cults and local deities

Plurality of languages were spoken
Styles of dress, costume, food, patterns of settlement
Forms of social organisation – Tribal / Non-Tribal
Aramaic – dominant language,
Spoken languages- Coptic in Egypt, Punic & Berber in North Africa,
Celtic in Spain- Many linguistic culture was purely ORAL………
Scripts written -– Celtic in 1st century, Spread of Coptic and Latin

rd
Sources of Entertainment
Colosseum – Huge place where gladiators
fought with beast. It could accommodate 60,000
people.
Amphitheatre – It was used for military drill and
for staging entertainments for the soldiers.
Urban populations also enjoyed a much higher
level of entertainment, for example, one calendar
tells us that spectacula (shows) filled no less than
176 days of the year!
 ECONOMIC EXPANSION
SUBSTANTIAL ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Harbours, mines, quarries, brickyards, olive oil factories

Traded and consumed in heavy quantities- Wheat, wine and olive oil
Trade with- Spain, Gallic provinces, N.Africa, Egypt, Italy.
Amphorae- Containers- Liquids like Wine and olive oil – transported
Precise shaped containers – found at mediterranean region in large
quantities, fragments and shreds found in huge number
Spanish Olive oil trade mainly by container Drussel-20
Spanish succeeded in capturing Olive oil markets from Italian trade
Big Landowners competed with each other to control markets
 ECONOMIC EXPANSION

SUBSTANTIAL ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Spanish growers followed by N.African producers succeeded

Olive Estates dominated in 3 and 4th centuries
Later dominated by Turkey, Syria and Palestine in 5 and 6th century
Quality, Organisation trade, Movement of goods, Markets, availabilty

& supply of goods, Production all fell towards the end of the empire
Large expanses of territory were in less advanced state- occupied by
the pastoral and semi-nomadic communities.
Due to Roman expansion in N. Africa- Pastures declined, movements
 ECONOMIC EXPANSION
SUBSTANTIAL ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE
The empire included many regions that had a reputation for
exceptional fertility. Italy, Sicily, Egypt and southern Spain were all
among the most densely settled or wealthiest parts of the empire. The
best kinds of wine, wheat and olive oil came mainly from numerous
estates of these territories.
Diversified applications of waterpower around the Mediterranean as
well as advances in water-powered milling technology, the use of
hydraulic mining techniques in the Spanish gold and silver mines and
the gigantic industrial scale on which those mines were worked.
The existence of well-organized commercial and banking networks
and the widespread use of money are all indications of Roman
economy.A strong tradition of Roman law had emerged by the fourth
century, this acted as a brake on even the most fearsome emperors.
Continued in next PPT

CONTROLLING WORKERS AND SLAVES

IN ROMAN EMPIRE
SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
(A) Presbyterian: (i) The Aristocratic class (ii) Second Class
(B) Plebeian: (i) The lower Class (ii) Slaves
The social structures of the empire as follows:
Senators, Equites (horse men and knights),
the respectable section of the people (middle class),
lower class and finally
the slaves.

In the early third century when the Senate numbered roughly 1,000,
approximately half of all senators still came from Italian families. By
the late empire,the senators and the Equites had merged into a unified
and expanded aristocracy.
.
The ‘middle’ class now consisted of the considerable mass of
persons connected with imperial service in the bureaucracy.

Below them were the vast mass of the lower classes known
collectively ashumiliores (literally- ‘Lower’).
They comprised a rural labour force

The late Roman bureaucracy, both the higher and middle echelons,
was a comparatively affluent group because it drew the bulk of its
salary in gold and invested much of this in buying up assets like
land.

There was a great deal of corruption, especially in the judicial

system and in the administration of military supplies.
ROMAN GOVERNMENT
It intervened repeatedly to curb these forms of corruption:
Roman Laws – which was denounced by many historians
Criticism became the remarkable feature of Classical world
Roman State was an authoritative Regime-
Dissent was rarely tolerated
Govt. usually responded to protest with violence
Strong tradition of Roman law emerged in 4th century
acted as a brake on even the most fearsome emperors
Emperors were not free to do whatever they liked….
The Roman law ---protected
Civil rights , Laws against exploitation
LATE ANTIQUITY
‘Late antiquity’ is the term now used to
describe the final, fascinating period in
the evolution and break-up of the Roman
Empire and refers broadly to the fourth to
seventh centuries. The fourth century
itself was one of considerable ferment,
both cultural and economic.
Cultural features of Roman world from 4th to 7th Centuries
Emperors and their Achievements

Diocletian’s Achievements
* Abandons territories of little economic and strategic
importance: Overexpansion had led Diocletian to ‘cut back’
by abandoning territories with little strategic or economic
value.

* Duces: Diocletian also fortified the frontiers, reorganised

provincial boundaries, and separated civilian from military
functions, granting greater autonomy to the military
commanders (duces), who now became a more powerful
group.
Constantine’s Achievements
a. Overexpansion of the Empire:
b. Capital at Constantinople: Division of Roman Empire into east and
west and the creation of a second capital at Constantinople (at the site
of modern Istanbul in Turkey, and previously called Byzantium),
surrounded on three sides by the sea.
c. Christianity was made official religion: At the cultural level, the
period saw momentous developments in religious life, with the
emperor Constantine deciding to make Christianity the official religion,
and with the rise of Islam in the seventh century.
d. Monetary sphere: Constantine founded the new monetary system on
gold and there were vast amounts of this in circulation. His chief
innovations were in the monetary sphere, where he introduced a new
denomination, the solidus, a coin of 4½ gm of pure gold that would in
fact outlast the Roman Empire itself.
Solidi were minted on a very large scale and their circulation ran into
millions.
Other Achievements
Expansion of Governing classes for new capital –new senate
Monetary stability and expanding population stimulated
Economic growth
Investments in the establishments – Industrial installations
Oil presses, glass factories, newer technologies,
screw presses, water-mills
Revival of long distance trade with the East.
Strong Urban prosperity- new forms of architecture,
An Exaggerated sense of luxury
The ruling elites were wealthier and grew more powerful
than before
Justinian’s Achievements:
a. Justinian Code/Law
b. Expansion of Empire: The reign of Justinian is the
highwater mark of prosperity and imperial ambition.
Justinian recaptured Africa from the Vandals (in 533) but his
recovery of Italy (from the Ostrogoths) left that country
devastated and paved the way for the Lombard invasion.
c. Monetary Sphere: Monetary stability and an expanding
population stimulated economic growth. Egypt contributed
taxes of over 2½ million solidi a year (roughly 35,000 lbs of
gold) in the reign of Justinian in the sixth century.
i. Glass factories established
ii. Introduction of Solidus
iii. Urban Prosperity
TRADITIONAL RELIGIOUS CULTURE
•Roman people were polytheists - worshipped several
gods and goddesses. Popular deities were Jupiter, Mars,
Juno, Minerva and Isis.
•Important religious sects practiced in the Roman Empire
from 1st to 4th century was Mithraism.

•The other great religious tradition in the empire was

Judaism. It considered Jehova as the creator of the
universe.
•But Judaism was not a monolith either, and there was a
great deal of diversity within the Jewish communities of
late antiquity. Thus, the ‘Christianisation’ of the empire in
the 4th & 5th centuries was a gradual & complex process.
•Polytheism did not disappear overnight, especially in
the western provinces, where the Christian bishops
waged a running battle against beliefs and practices
they condemned more than the Christian laity (the
ordinary members of a religious community as opposed
to the priests or clergy who have official positions within
the community) did.

•The boundaries between religious communities were

much more fluid in the fourth century than they would
become thanks to the repeated efforts of religious
leaders, the powerful bishops who now led the Church,
to rein in their followers and enforce a more rigid set of
beliefs and practices
DOWNFALL OF THE EMPIRE
The general prosperity was especially marked in the East
where population was still expanding till the 6th century,
despite the impact of the plague which affected the
Mediterranean in the 540s.
In the West, by contrast, the empire fragmented
politically as Germanic groups from the North (Goths,
Vandals, Lombards, etc.) took over all the major provinces
and established kingdoms that are best described as ‘post-
Roman’
The Visigoths in Spain was destroyed by the Arabs between
711 and 720, that of the Franks in Gaul (c.511-687) and that
of the Lombards in Italy (568-774). These kingdoms
foreshadowed the beginnings of a different kind of world
that is usually called ‘medieval’
•By the early seventh century, the war between Eastern
Rome and Iran had flared up again, and the Sasanians
who had ruled Iran since the third century launched a
wholesale invasion of all the major eastern provinces
(including Egypt).

•Roman and Sasanian empires had fallen to the Arabs in

a series of stunning confrontations.

•Those conquests, extended up to Spain, Sind and

Central Asia, began, in fact, with the subjection of the
Arab tribes by the emerging Islam state