A summary of the chapter The Empire Of The Roma People from the book Peoples and E,pires by Anthony Pagden

1. Shai Borwick-Cooper
The Roman Empire

2.  Rome began sometime in the seventh century BC as a
small city state of farmers and tradesmen.
 There was nothing that would mark Rome as different
from its neighbors.
 Rome was ruled by kings until the late sixth century
BC
 Rome became a republic, but was not a democracy.

3.  With the fall of Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Empire, the
Roman republic started to expand and by 272 BC they had control of
the Italian peninsular.
 By the first Century BC most of the empire of Alexander the Great was
in Roman hands.
 By the time Julius Cesar came to power, Roman expansion had stopped.
The only addition that Julius Cesar made was that he declared himself a
god.
 One of the greatest contributions that the Romans made to the world
was the law. Codified into the twelve tables and later expanded by
jurists, the most enduring of which was done under the eastern
emperor Justinian.
 Roman law dealt mostly with civil law, but it also gave us the basis for
International Law today.
 At its height in the second century AD the Roman Empire covered five
million square miles and had a population of 55 million.

4.  In the end the sheer size and disparate peoples making up
the empire proved to be too much.
 The empire could not keep ahead of the competition and
keep it’s subjects satisfied. Previously loyal subjects
revolted and seized the opportunity to carve out
independent states for themselves.
 Roman legions suffered defeats from Persians, Goths and
other Germanic tribes.
 Rome was split into the eastern and western halves.
 The western half with Rome as its capital fell in August 41o
to the Visigoth Alaric.
 The eastern half with Constantinople as the capital that
held on 1261 when the Crusaders took over and the city was
finally destroyed by the Turks under Sultan Mehmet II